How long does a College Football head coach have “immunity”? What I mean by immunity is the capability to coach without criticize of the fanbase. A better question could be: how long does a coach have to build a team before results need to be shown? For a team like Alabama, which can get 5-star recruits and has the funding to bring in anything necessary to win a title, the time frame might be shorter. For a team like the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which… doesn’t have that, the time frame might be a little bit longer to start seeing results. Nebraska is an interesting case for how long you should give a coach. For Nebraska, they can get in the big-name recruit, as we can currently see with Dylan Raiola, Trae Taylor, and Danny Odem III, but the result on the field has been so bad for so long that people don’t know how much time to give them. At any other school, most coaches would be fired for the kind of performances we have seen in recent times with this much talent and money. The goal with a 5-star QB should be making the CFP, not contending for a bowl game. This poses another interesting question, which I will be covering today: what do you do with a good head coach, but not taking your program to the next level? Who is getting you on the right track, but isn’t quite there? Re-enter my favorite hot-headed head coach and now leader of the new Big 10 conference member Nebraska Cornhuskers, Bo Pelini.

 

2011

Coming off a pretty good final season in the Big 12, the Nebraska Cornhuskers were looking to keep momentum. Many in the Husker fanbase knew that there might be some growing pains in the new conference, but were excited to see what was to come. The Huskers would open the season with 4 non-conference games, including a good win over Washington in the newly formed Pac-12. For our first conference game, we would face #7-ranked Wisconsin as the #8 team in the country. For the first time in this series, I get to say this: Nebraska got smoked by Wisconsin, 17-48, at Camp Randall, their first loss in the Big Ten. As always, Wisconsin's RB in the game went absolutely nuclear, with Montee Ball having 30 carries for 151 yards and 4 touchdowns in a game which Danger-Russ didn’t even have to do much.

Nebraska would go on to face 4 more ranked opponents this season in Michigan State, Penn State, Michigan, and South Carolina in their bowl game. They would win the first 2 versus Michigan State and at Penn State, but with a confusing loss to Northwestern in the middle, it left Nebraska with 2 losses going to Ann Arbor to face #20 Michigan, where they would again get blown out. In the first edition of the new Big Ten rivalry against Iowa, Nebraska would actually win (I will not get this often, so let me soak this first one in). The game would, as always, not feature a lot of offense, but a Rex Burkhead and Kyler Reed touchdown along with 2 field goals by Brett Maher would put the Huskers up 20-0, and they would win 20-7.

In the Bowl Game, Nebraska would draw the Capital One Bowl versus a really good South Carolina team. It was fun looking back at this one to see South Carolina had Jadeveon Clowney, Stephon Gilmore, and Alshon Jeffery all on the same team. Nebraska would lose this one 30-13 in a game that kinda got away from them in the end. For the first season in the Big 10, many saw this season as a success, and moving forward we could begin to contend for more things in the conference and hopefully national titles soon enough.

2012

I am going to try to be impartial to this season, but this season is by far my favorite season I am going to be writing about during this series. The drama, the players, and the games are all absolutely wild. To start this season, the Huskers would start again with 4 non-conference games, including a matchup against UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Unlike last year, they would lose this Pac-12 matchup, putting them at 3-1 going into Big 10 play.

The first game they would play would be a rematch against Wisconsin after the beatdown of last season, and they would get a win at Memorial Stadium on the back of 3 Brett Maher Field Goals. Wisconsin still had an insane game on the ground with Montee Ball scoring another 3 touchdowns against us, but good RB play by Ameer and Burkhead alongside Taylor Martinez propelled them ahead to a big game in The Shoe versus Ohio State. Ohio State QB Braxton Miller destroyed Nebraska with a 38-63 win against the Cornhuskers. Most of the damage by Ohio State was done by the running of Carlos Hyde, who had 140 yards and 4 touchdowns, and Braxton Miller with 186 yards and 1 touchdown. Nebraska would fall out of the rankings the following week and look to find their footing. From there, Nebraska would win out in the regular season… yeah, they turned it around. On the back of a crazy run game with Ameer Abdullah, Rex Burkhead (When healthy), and Taylor Martinez, this team absolutely destroyed anyone in their way. This included a big win over Iowa to lock up the win for the Legends Division on the back of Rex Burkhead's touchdown in a 13-7 game. This Nebraska team, in its second year in the Big 10, would advance to the Big 10 title game against… who would have guessed it, the Wisconsin Badgers.

This Big 10 title game, I would argue, is one of the most infamous ones in the conference's history, not for it being a good game but instead for it being one of the biggest beatdowns in a title game ever. The game would start with 2 quick scores for Wisconsin, putting them up 14 to zero, and then one of the most infamous plays in Husker history happened when Martinez, running out of time, scrambled and found a crease and took it to the house for a 76-yard touchdown run, evading all of Wisconsin’s tackles in the process. 5 minutes later Maher would take in a 32 yard field goal and put the game within 4 points…

Wisconsin would then score 5 touchdowns unanswered…

In total for this game, Wisconsin would win 70-31. In this game, James White, Montee Ball, and Melvin Gordon (One name to remember) would put up 539 rushing yards and 8 of those touchdowns. With Nebraska scoring another 4 on the ground, this put the total rushing touchdowns at 12 in the game. The only other thing of note for this game would be Kenny Bell, who, while in the game, would only catch 2 balls for 14 yards, but would make his impact on special teams during a punt return, absolutely lighting up a Wisconsin runner. This play has a special place in anyone's heart who watched the “Biggest Football Hits to Here Comes the Boom Highlights” as a kid!

Nebraska would go on to play a really fun Bowl Game in the Capital One Bowl against Georgia in a 31-45 loss, but be close for most of the game. Aaron Murray, QB for Georgia, would have 5 touchdowns in this game, and in the final game of Rex Burkhead's career for Nebraska, he would have 179 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns. A legend of Nebraska Football would go on to have a great career for a variety of NFL teams, but forever be remembered as a Husker Legend.

2013:

I will once again start this season before the first game. I am starting at the spring game. In Nebraska, the Spring Game is a lot bigger than I would say for a lot of other schools. In Nebraska, we do not have a lot other than the football team. This year was special, though; during the 2012 Nebraska season, a young fan grew a special connection to Rex Burkhead and admired him fondly. Jack Hoffman was a 6-year-old boy who grew up in Nebraska and was a fan of the team. During the 2013 Spring Game, the Nebraska Football team let him live out his dream, sending him out on the field in the 4th quarter and handing him the ball off to him in his favorite player's jersey. The players had great blocking and opened a massive hole for him to run the ball into the end zone for a 69-yard touchdown. As Jack rushed to the end zone, the team followed him, cheering him on, and hoisted him in the end zone to a huge cheer by the Memorial Stadium crowd. The moment would end up winning the ESPY that year and helped the Team Jack Foundation raise millions for pediatric Brain Cancer Research. Jack sadly passed away at 19 in 2025; may he rest in peace.

As much as this first part of the season was about Rex Burkhead, it was a new era for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, an era in which you should fear a man named Ameer. Ameer Abdullah would be the leader of this team, which would go through 3 starting QBs, with him rushing for Big 10-leading 1,690 yards and 9 touchdowns along with 2 touchdowns in the air.

It was pretty similar to most of the Bo Pelini season, with him going 8-4 in the regular season and winning a bowl game, which just so happened to be a rematch against Georgia, who we would beat this year in the Gator Bowl. Nebraska would not have a ranked win other than the ranked win in the bowl game versus Georgia, which was only 23rd. I don’t wanna cover any of the rest of this season because I would be repeating myself; instead, I am gonna cover 1 game. The game, which just so happens to take place on my birthday against Northwestern.

In this game, Nebraska would come in at 5-2 and Northwestern at 4-4. Trevor Siemian, leading the charge for the Wildcats, would jump out to a huge lead by halftime after a quick Tommy Armstrong rushing touchdown. With 3 Treyvon Green touchdowns. In this game, Nebraska would be using a 2 QB system, with Armstrong being the main QB and the veteran Kellogg would come in for critical moments. The rest of the game, Nebraska scratched and crawled their way back from down 14, and it looked to all be for naught with Northwestern kicking a field goal with 1:20 left in the 4th. Kellogg would come out and lead the Huskers to the Northwestern 49. With 49 yards to go, Nebraska knew Kellogg had the arm to get it to the end zone. Kellogg would drop back and roll to the right. He launched, and the ball flew through the air into a big crowd. Everyone jumped with the ball shooting back up into the air… Someone didn’t jump, though, and that was freshman wide receiver Jordan Westerkamp. He jumped into the tipped ball, grabbing it in the end zone and falling to the ground. To this day, Kellogg running down the field is one of my favorite memories of Nebraska Football, with the Memorial Stadium crowd going crazy to give Nebraska the 27-24 win over Northwestern.

2014:

To begin this year, Nebraska would have a slight division switch with Legends and Leaders to just an East and West. This is another really fun season of Nebraska Football. To begin, we had the cat moment: Bo Pelini bringing his cat during the tunnel walk made him one of the most memed men in America for a short time. 2 start the season, Nebraska would play 4 Non-conference games, and the closest game they had was against… McNeese State. Yes, the McNeese State you know for playing well in March Madness as a 12 seed almost beat Big 10 contenders Nebraska Football. The sloppy game just didn’t have a lot of chances for Nebraska to pull away, and it led to them being tied with the ball with less than a minute left. That was when Tommy Armstrong would dump the ball to Ameer Abdullah in the backfield and let him cook, having him take on the whole defense, carving them up to run into the end zone and all but seal the upset bid. Nebraska would win all 4 of the Non-conference games, including one against Miami FL. in a fun one in Memorial Stadium with a lot of bad blood mainly encouraged by future NFL player Randy Gregory. Nebraska would then win its first conference game against Illinois and then lose its first game of the season in a blowout against Michigan State.

Nebraska would then string together 3 conference wins, getting ranked all the way up to 11th in the country when they would go to play Wisconsin. This game, I truly believe, was the game that got Bo fired, with Nebraska going to Madison and getting blown out again 59-24. This game was truly bad as Nebraska kept it close the first quarter before losing the plot and getting demolished again on the ground… This time by 1 player, Melvin Gordon. Melvin Gordon would have 4 touchdowns and 408 yards on the ground, which for 1 week was the record by 1 player in a game. They would have another 3 RBs score on the ground, tacking on another 150 yards. This Nebraska team, yet again, got demolished on the ground and did not gain their footing against Minnesota with another loss going into their matchup against Iowa. In the Iowa Rivalry, they would get another win at the buzzer with a Kenny Bell touchdown in OT to have the team go 9-3 and miss the Big 10 title game. With that win, Shawn Eichorst called it enough and fired Pelini after “we didn’t meet expectations on or off the field.” When the AP asked for a comment from Pelini, Bo Pelini, being my favorite coach of all time, messaged them back, “I’m good. Thanks for asking!” Barney Cotton would serve as the interim for the bowl game in which Cody Kessler and Tommy Armstrong would battle for a win, resulting in a 45-42 slugfest.

Pelini would later go back to LSU to help be defensive coordinator after the 2019 title run, where he would run a defense that would allow 35 points a game and be fired after just one season. Pelini has been very open with the media since his firing, going on many podcasts and interviews saying Nebraska firing him was one of the worst decisions they have ever made. I don’t completely disagree with this take. A coach being able to take you to a bowl game every year is better than what we are about to see next.