Joe Burrow and the mistakes made by Nebraska football coaches are again a topic of conversation thanks to his dad opening some old wounds.
Of course, if anyone is entitled to keep talking about the failures of more than one Nebraska football head coach when it comes to the talent evaluation of Joe Burrow, it would be former Husker Jimmy Burrow. While it’s true that most people have grown tired of the debate over whether Scott Frost and Bo Pelini before him should have recruited the Nebraska football legacy, it’s still interesting to hear a point of view from the inside.
There has been long talk about just what happened and why Burrow first went to Ohio State and then LSU. There’s also been some who have questioned the narrative that the now Cincinnati Bengals quarterback ever really wanted to come here. According to Jimmy, he absolutely did. And he made it clear that was the case during a recent appearance on 93.7 The Ticket.
"“We certainly had reached out to Nebraska during the Bo Pelini era, I knew just about everybody on the staff and some of them really pushed hard for Joe and some maybe didn’t, but it never really became an offer to play at Nebraska so we had to move on.”"
For Nebraska football fans, those kind of comments have to sting a little bit. Even if one wants to argue that Joe Burrow wouldn’t have been Joe Burrow as we know him if he was a member of the Nebraska football program.
Jimmy then poured salt on the wound, making it clear that Scott Frost did, in no uncertain terms, turn down the chance to bring the eventual Heisman winner to Lincoln.,
"“Once again, we were reaching out to Nebraska. I understand as a coach, you have to trust what you believe and the opportunity again didn’t present itself. I always respect itself, but that was something our family wanted to happen for a long, long time.”"
We all know the arguments as to why Frost didn’t bring the former Buckeye in. Some of the excuses even make some sense. But knowing that the Nebraska football team definitely did turn Joe Burrow down not once but twice, for certain, still hurts more than a little bit. And also underlines just how bad some of the decision making of previous regimes really was.