There is a Big Ten football program that was once a national
power. It was built on the backs of strong, corn-fed Midwestern farm boys
wearing iconic uniforms that practically became their own mascot. When football
changed they changed with it, finding speedy athletes in other parts of the
country to bring into the fold, adopting new styles, and embracing innovation.
Over thirty years they won over two-thirds of their games, boatloads of
conference championships, nearly half a dozen National Championships, some of
the biggest bowls in the game, and never finished lower than 5th in
their conference.
After years of success, their long-tenured coach departed,
taking an assistant role in the athletic department. Most assumed the successor
would pick up where he left off. The decline started almost imperceptibly and
took nearly a decade to pick up steam. Frustration from administration and
alumni, tough questions from what used to be an obedient local media, increasing
surliness by coaches, and suddenly what used to be considered “fluke”
performances became something closer to the norm. After a decade or so, the
fans looked around, realized that it was more trend than phase and started to
wonder aloud what the hell happened.
If you think that sounds a lot like Minnesota football from
the 30s to the 80s, well, you’re close but not quite.
After watching Purdue defeat Nebraska a few weeks ago, I
facetiously tweeted something about writing a dissertation comparing Scott
Frost to Joe Salem.
I was joking at the time, a nagging feeling caused me to actually
look at the data. By my count I’d be at about 8 tweets right now. I’ll try to
keep it below 100 but no promises.
A brief refresher on Minnesota’s glory years is in order for
the handful of Gopher fans who haven’t fallen back on them as a desperate form
of self-defense. When he stepped down after the 1921 season, Coach Henry L.
Williams was followed by a series of moderately successful coaches. Two years
after Bernie Bierman was hired in 1932 the Gophers were National Champions 3
times in a row and 5 times between 1934 and 1941. Bernie went off to war and
when he returned in 1945 the game had changed and the magic dulled. The 50s
were up-and-down, but Coach Murray Warmath brought the Gophers back in 1960
with another National Championship and two consecutive Rose Bowls. After a
3-way tie with Purdue and Indiana for the Big Ten title in 1967 the team’s
performance slipped again and Warmath was replaced in 1972 by Cal Stoll and
then in 1979 by “Smokey” Joe Salem. The bottom came in 1983 with a 1-10 season
that cost Salem his job and set the stage for another 30 years of occasional small
peaks and earth-swallowing valleys.
But what does that have to do with Nebraska?
Much has been said about Scott Frost’s comments following
several weeks of disappointing performance and losses by the Cornhuskers. The
first of these were his comments following the 34-7 loss to Minnesota.
Specifically:
“I told them ‘just OK
never existed in the locker room that I was in when I was at Nebraska’…I don’t
want guys that go out in Minnesota with hoodies on everything for warmups. That
just says to me that ‘just OK is enough’. You got ridiculed or beat up when I
was playing if you did that.”
Frost was of course wearing a hoodie, indoors, when the
comment was made but presumably his assistant coaches decided to lay off that
Code Red that particular day. After a bye week, Nebraska was plagued with
defensive miscues and sloppy play overall in a home loss against a backup QB
which I was told was impossible in Big Ten play. After a firey halftime
interview where he complained about his team’s “dumbass mistakes” Frost made it
clear where he felt the blame should be placed:
“We’ve got a lot of
guys on this team that really care, we’ve got some guys on this team that are
tough and dedicated enough. We don’t have enough of them yet.”
“When there’s not
enough attention to detail, not enough guys that care enough to do things
perfect, then those mistakes show up on the field.”
The following week, fellow hoodie-enthusiast Jeff Brohm
declined to hunt his counterpart down in the locker room, preferring to
administer his beating on the field in a 31-27 loss to Purdue in the fictional
hamlet of West Lafeyette. Post-game, Frost struck a more conciliatory tone,
conceding that some of the fault lay with the coaches and even himself. Perhaps
it’s a sign of growth towards building the culture he desires. If so it would
be quite the turnaround from 2018 when his explanation for allowing a 99-yard
scoring drive to Northwestern was:
“For one, I don’t call
the defense.”
Frost has referenced learning his coaching from such NFL
luminaries as Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, neither men known for waxing
philosophic. Comments like these are not unusual from coaches, and there are
plenty of folks and players unphased by them. There are lots of motivational
styles and just because they are different doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Yet Coach
Frost’s persona and public style seem to broadcast a desire or perhaps even a
conscious effort to transport his team to a mythical past age where players
were all tough-as-nails and could figure it all out on their own, and coaches
existed primarily to put together game plans, yell, and project an air of
toughness for their team to emulate. Frost was perhaps alluding to this in his
introductory press conference in 2017 when he said:
“There was a formula
that worked here for a long time and times have changed a little but some of
those same things are what is going to make this work again.”
The tacit implication is that only a Nebraska Man could
achieve this, a “one of us” level that surely causes Minnesotans to flush with
unspoken envy. With his Jesse Plemons good-looks and wry smile, the
stereotypical Cornhusker hero appears several years younger than his
still-young 43. A Lincoln native and former Stanford transfer, Frost led
Nebraska to its last (or if you’re a Nebraska fan, “most recent”) National Title
in 1997 as a red-shirt senior. Frost had spent 7 seasons at Oregon as a
successful wide receivers coach, quarterbacks coach, and offensive coordinator
before taking over a struggling UCF squad in 2016, leading them to a 6-7
season, and then a 13-0 self-declared National Championship* in 2017. One
wonders what his former Nebraska teammates would think of someone naming
themselves national champions, but I digress.
The mind tends to seek patterns and find comfort in the
familiar, so perhaps it was that which led my mind to Joe Salem.
Like Frost, Salem was a former National Champion quarterback
for the team that hired him (though in this case, a backup on the 1960 squad
behind All-American Sandy Stephens). When he was hired by the Gophers in 1979 he
seemed like a fresh up-and-comer with experience beyond his 41 years. His
resume showed 12 years as head coach at Division II South Dakota and Northern
Arizona with a combined 77-56-2 record, 4 conference championships, and one
appearance in the Division II playoffs. So confident was Paul Giel’s Athletics
Department that they even put up billboards around the Twin Cities prominently
featuring Coach Salem with a rose in his mouth. http://www.startribune.com/tuesday-rose-bowl-irony-edition-wha-happened/279919952/
But it was not to be. Salem took a team that had finished
5-6 under Cal Stoll in 1978 and finished 4-6-1 in 1979, 5-6 in 1980, and 6-5 in
1981. The injury-riddled 1982 season started with promise at 3-0 but quickly degenerated
to 6 straight losses. The Gopher’s last home game of the season was against
similarly-hapless 1-8 Michigan State on the evening of November 13, 1982.
One of the treasures (or curses, depending on your
perspective) of Smokey Joe’s time with the Gophers is the online conversion of
some episodes of “The Joe Salem Show” on KSTP, featuring interviews with the
coach and players, rapid-fire game recaps, and previews of upcoming opponents. The
November 13, 1982 edition of the Joe Salem Show aired prior to the MSU game at
the Metrodome. The episode begins with a familiar theme for Gopher fans:
pointed questions from interviewer Larry Burnett regarding Coach Salem’s future
with the team. Salem handles the questions well but his facial expressions and
body language betray his irritation at being in this position. https://tcmedianow.com/kstp-tv-the-joe-salem-show/
Tape review of the previous week’s loss to Ohio State at
Columbus follows, dominated by porous O-line and D-line play, disorganized pass
defense, sloppy tackling, and inspired but frantic play by quarterback Mike
Hohensee and running back Alan Reid as they try to carry the team behind their
overmatched, battered linemen, but it’s not to be and Minnesota loses 35-10. Salem
talks at length about injuries and how badly Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler
feel for his poor luck.
Things get interesting as Coach Salem previews MSU using
footage from MSU’s 28-24 loss to Northwestern the previous week (bonus footage
of Northwestern coach Denny Green). Around the 17:30 mark, Northwestern runs a
halfback pass to the weak side but it’s read by the MSU safety who launches himself
at the essentially defenseless NU halfback. Today, the play would almost
certainly be called for Targeting. The safety lowers the crown of his helmet
and strikes the NU player square in the side of his helmet near the ear, dropping
him instantly. Of screen, Larry Burnett gasps and groans at the violence of the
hit, but Coach Salem’s reaction is different. Experiencing what appears to be
his only real joy during the entire gloomy show, he chuckles and exclaims:
“That’s what college
football is all about!”
Considering the sloppy defensive play from the Gopher’s
replays earlier in the show, one can’t help but think conditioning, tackling
fundamentals, and scheme execution might take precedence over spectacular hits.
Coach Salem seems to have disagreed; in the footage from the Ohio State game,
several Minnesota defenders launch themselves at the ball carrier rather than
executing fundamental tackling, with the almost universal result of big gains
for the Buckeyes running backs and wide receivers.
The parallels to Coach Frost are obvious, but interview
comments aren’t data. Is my mind seeing patterns where it wants to see them? Let’s
look at the numbers. If MVofDT’s ghost-bot is reading, he might want to look
away lest he experience a second, more painful demise at my amateur data
reduction.
The “glory years” for the Gophers were the 1930s and 40s,
with a second peak in the 1960s. The sun shown brightly on Nebraska from late
1960s into the early 2000s, and clouds started to descend after their 2001 BCS
Championship loss to Miami. It’s not possible to do a direct comparison for
these periods since football seasons were 3-5 games shorter in the Depression
and war years and there were very few bowls, so we’ll look at National
Championships, win percentage, bowl eligibility, and relative conference
standings instead of total wins or bowl appearances.
The timeframe needs to cover both program peaks but can’t be
selected to support the narrative, so we’ll use the arbitrary timeline of 10
years prior to the first consensus National Champion for each school (1934 for
Minnesota, 1970 for Nebraska). For Minnesota that’s 1924, which puts Joe
Salem’s last season (1983) at the 60 year mark. Applying the same 60 year
period to Nebraska, we have 1960 as a starting point and 60 years later
is…well, will you look at that. It’s 2019. How. Interesting.
Classifying 1924/1960 as Year 1, we can now compare the peak
periods. Let’s start with National Championships. The pattern is similar for
both teams: early peak of success starting at Year 11-20, a relative down
period (more down for Minnesota than Nebraska), and then a second peak of
success around Year 35-40. It’s a fascinating pattern and not something I was
expecting to see, aside from the obvious fact that Year 11 would match.
Moving on to winning percentage, Minnesota’s winning
percentage is 54.1%, compared to 74.2% for Nebraska, who benefits from a streak
of 9-3 and 10-2 finishes in the 70s and 80s that fell just short of National
Champion-worthy. The averages along don’t tell the story though; the chart
below does a better job. I’ve added some statistically-dubious trendlines for
more easy visualization.
Another way to compare would be bowl eligibility. From Year
10 to Year 43 Nebraska didn’t miss a bowl game whereas Minnesota went to only 3,
but much of the comparison period for Minnesota was during a time with very few
bowls, and only 1 or less assigned to the Western Conference/Big Ten. So
instead, let’s apply the current standard of a 50% or greater winning
percentage (currently that means 6 wins, but in 1934 when it would mean 4).
Using this standard, Nebraska was bowl-eligible 52 times in 60 years (53
counting their 5-7 trip to the Foster Farms Bowl in 2015). Minnesota was
bowl-eligible 34 times in their 60 year period. Not quite as good, but still
not too shabby.
Another way to view the data is to look at conference
finish. This again gets tricky once Nebraska gets into the Big XII and Big Ten
where there are divisions, so for this comparison I took the divisions out and
counted the finish based on overall conference record the old-fashioned way. Note
that on the Y-axis in this chart, higher means a better conference finish.
Notice any similarities? The thing that sticks out to me is
that for both teams, the first decade following the last National Championship
certainly shows a dip in performance, but it’s not precipitous and there are
still signs of life (Nebraska’s 2001 BCS appearance, Minnesota’s 1967 3-way Big
Ten title split). But once you get past Year 50 (1973 for the Gophers, 2009 for
the Cornhuskers) the trend is clearly down, and they track fairly closely as
they approach Year 60. Note that while Year 60 is complete for Minnesota
(1983), it’s still ongoing for the Cornhuskers…at the time of this writing
their record is 4-5. Given their remaining schedule it’s unlikely to break this
trend.
With apologies to Dan Carlin, Nebraska is like Minnesota,
only more so.
So what’s the conclusion? It’s a big stretch to say that
these programs are the same, and it would be extremely challenging to control
for all the variables that this simplistic review doesn’t account for. But
while all models are wrong, some are useful. This is retrospective. It isn’t a
predictive guarantee that Nebraska is in for 30 years of suck. They’ve got
resources, they’ve got energy, they’ve got a different media and competitive
landscape.
If this is anything, it’s a warning. This is what can happen
after a long enough waning period, and it’s not pretty. By the time you realize
you’re deep into it, it’s already be getting to the point where it’ll take a
lot more time to dig out. Think it can’t happen in Lincoln? Find a University
of Chicago fan from the Roosevelt Administration (the first one) and see what
they think. How’ve things been holding up in Knoxville? I know you don’t want
to talk about them but Texas might have some perspectives too. The bottoms
haven’t completely fallen out with any of those programs like they did for
Minnesota, but given enough time, enough administrative dysfunction, and enough
misaligned fan expectations and before you know it you’re losing 84-13 to
Oklahoma.
The story of Paul Giel’s extensive and rarely-discussed
mismanagement of Minnesota athletics during his 18 year tenure as University of
Minnesota Athletic Director is another post, but it holds clues for what NOT to
do if you’re a team on the decline. Be realistic about the limitations you face
in terms of media, facilities, and recruiting. Accept that doing things the
old-fashioned way, except harder, isn’t a strategy. That “back in MY day” isn’t
a motivational approach for Gen Z recruits, and if you’re being honest it
wasn’t for you as a Gen Xer either. Toughness alone isn’t going to get it done,
and the “one of us” approach can be a bridle or a spur. Joe Salem was plenty
tough, and so were a lot of his players. Toughness doesn’t see coverage gaps,
pick up a blitz from a linebacker’s body language, or glimpse a momentary seam
to the open receiver. Above all else, take responsibility if you’re a leader,
whether a captain, a coach, or an athletics director. “That’s not my job” isn’t
an answer, and “How was I supposed to know?” isn’t either.
Will Nebraska avoid these pitfalls? Looking back we can see
it didn’t start off promising. In 2017, new Nebraska AD Bill Moos said:
“You’ve got Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh
thinking ‘We better put a little more into that Nebraska game coming up.’ And
that’s the way we want it. They’re running a little bit scared right now.”
In fairness, he later told the AP that was a
“tongue-in-cheek” comment but given Nebraska’s then-status as a 4-8 team it’s
not a statement that leaves one to conclude solid grounding in reality. He
appears to have since tempered expectations. As the Cornhusker hype train was
running full-speed this summer, Bill Moos said at Big Ten Media Days that he
considered six wins to be an immediate goal.
If there’s one thing Minnesota fans know from experience,
it’s that the longer the drought lasts, the tougher it is to find water. Scott
Frost’s public demeanor following his recent losses has seemed a lot more Salem
or, dare I say, Tubby Smith than anything else. It’s important to hold players
accountable; tough conversations and hard truths are part of that, but it’s
fair to question the true motivational value of doing that in such a public
fashion, especially when it keeps getting the same results. I’d like to think that the public insinuation
that players aren’t sufficiently tough or don’t care to try is probably a motivational
technique rather than something Scott Frost actually believes. But it’s an
approach every leadership course I’ve ever taken and all of my personal and
professional experience tells me is doomed to fail or at least have a very limited
ceiling.
If I’m a Nebraska fan, I’m hoping to death there’s a
personal touch I’m not seeing and that there’s more to this coaching approach
than doing things like “when I played for Nebraska”. Nebraska’s highly
successful strength program was one of the contributing factors to their
success in the 1970s. At the time it was an innovation that few, if any, other
programs had adopted because they were afraid it would slow players down. It’s
going to take innovation like that, beyond doing things the old-fashioned way
only more so, to bring Nebraska to where it wants to be and where the fans
expect it. If Nebraska wants a quick recovery it could do worse than looking at
everything Minnesota did from 1984 to 2016 and just do the opposite. The Joe
Salem approach isn’t going to cut it.
“That’s what college football is all about!”
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