Per SI: Nebraska candidates Matt Campbell, Lance Leipold, Bill O'Brien

I've always thought Leipold should be the next coach at Iowa whenever Ferentz retires. Since that's not the case right now, if I'm a Nebraska fan I want Leipold.

I think BOB would be a good coach, but Bama fans hate the guy. Maybe, he more of a CEO than an X/O guy?

Bo Pelini won 9 or 10 games a year, but that was not enough to keep him from getting fired.

Bo was 67-27 (.713) in 7 seasons (2008-2014). Nebraska has been 35-50 (.412) since then. They get what they deserve.

Leipold has had a pretty amazing career.  He went 109-6 over eight years in D3, then 5-7 at Buffalo in his first year.  Imagine having more losses in one year than you did at eight in your previous job.  Must have been a culture shock.

He was an assistant at Nebraska, FWIW.  He's from Wisconsin, and I think his name will continue to appear in Big Ten coaching searches.  And it should.

Bill O'Brien is the best candidate for many reasons.  Working for Saban for two seasons and going through a couple off seasons in Saban's program definitely puts him in the range of what the top programs are doing including recruiting.  What he did at PSU was miraculous considering the fact that the scholarship limitations and other penalties were a near death penalty and he kept them not only bowl eligible but competitive.  

His run in houston he had some awesome talent but he also had some blunders by himself and the franchise ownership and gm.  

Matt Campbell the yearly he's leaving isu for .... job has arrived.  Why move from Ames Iowa to Lincoln Nebraska other than greater pay, greater resources and much more.  Not to mention he is a cultural fit to the university. 

Nebraska has a downside since they fired Solich nobody can live up to the legend of Tom Osbourne there and that shadow still looms.  Nebraska still believes they are entitled to 10 win seasons and should be a top 10 program every year in CF without much effort.  They messed up a ton of recruiting relationships, messed up the in state walk on program which was the best in the country and it wasn't close.  Frost tried to revive some of what happened but not sure it will ever work to what it once was.  

No Brian Ferentz? Weird.

I'll say it again, BoB will be very entertaining in Nebraska :-D

Leipold would be the best choice for Nebraska but I have my doubts they'll get him.  But what he's doing at Kansas even going back into the second half of last year - win over Texas and close loses to TCU and WVU - points to a guy who can take over an absolute bottom-feeder and turn it around.  He's not going to get Nebraska back to national title contender status but he'd likely get them back to competing in the West.

I remain unsold on Campbell as anything more than a pretty good coach who wins about 50% of his close games.  Some years you get 2020 where he goes 4-2 and looks gangbusters, other times he goes 2-5 in close games and winds up 7-6.  He also didn't cover himself in glory last year when asked about his team underperforming preseason expectations and he said that his goal was never to win a Big 12 title, which is a super-weird answer to a softball question.  If Nebraska fans are tired of losing close games then by all means get Campbell but I feel like his ceiling is lower than whatever people thought 2020 told them.

Bill O'Brien would be the ultimate surrender choice, admitting you just don't want to be punched in the face as much anymore but have no designs on being good.

Is Seth going to be ok if Matt Campbell takes the Nebraska job?

If LSU can pry Brian Kelly away from ND, Nebraska can get the Lane Train from Ole Miss.

Think about how great of a fit that would be (for the memes)

Leipold seems like the hot name right now after only 3 weeks in the season. If he wins 3 more games I bet he’ll have options. And he should just at them because he’s already getting up there at 58. 

I feel like some people got so off on talking down on Campbell to defend Harbaugh when that was 'up in the air' that they're totally sleeping on a coach who's done a great job everywhere he's been.

I think if Nebraska hired him, they'd probably be contending for the B1G West within a couple of years and do that pretty reliably.

I don't want to go on a tangent - but, one thought going through my mind is - "how exactly did Nebraska get here?"

Yes - there are expectations to be managed - and, some of those might not be realistic.  

When Frost was named as Head Coach, my initial thought was - this could be a good hire - for several reasons.   First - favorite son.  Second - experience and results as a creative OC.  Third - aware of the history and tradition of Nebraska football.  Fourth - his prior position was as a head coach in a talent rich state and should have been able to leverage that time - relationships with high school coaches / prospects / etc.- to bring some of that Florida talent to Lincoln.

Where - and how - did Frost / Nebraska get so far off track?   

"Once in a Lifetime" from Talking Heads goes through my mind.

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"

Lance Leipold is unproven. He's also unlikely to leave Kansas after only two seasons to take over a massive, high-pressure rebuilding project.

Matt Campbell is probably about ready to leave Iowa State, especially with the impending downgrade of the Big XII. Whether or not he finds the Nebraska job appealing is another question.

I don't think Bill O'Brien wants to be a college coach. He hated every second of his brief stint at Penn State, and not just because of the Paterno cult. I think he wants another NFL job.

Leipold would also boost the music program...

I think Matt Campbell will turn Nebraska into another Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa….they will be another slog in the undertalented BiG10 west that will win between 6 and 11 games any given season. He posssssibly becomes a Fleck type who adjusts and flexes to the talent on the team (Fleck had a great passing offense in 2019 with great receivers, rebuilt in 2020, and has had a power run game a la Wisconsin the last 2 years because of how good Ibrahim is). I do think Campbell had good passing offenses at Toledo if I’m not mistaken. But I have a hard time seeing him get them to the dominance the fan base craves so much, and recruiting probably won’t be much better given the disadvantages Nebraska has, but they should be good. I however don’t see him passing Pelini level good.  
 

Not familiar with Leipold except that he has made Kansas very competitive in the Big12, and I’m guessing with a high flying offense, this sounds like the biggest High Risk/High Reward factor. They could be an outlier team kind of like Purdue with a high flying offense, and that could go very well or very poorly. 
 

Bill O’Brien would also have a good passing offense, but like the OP said probably 6-9 wins a year kind of coach in that recruiting area, and a continually frustrated fan base with relatively competitive teams. 
 

Basically, I just don’t think any of the top guys with great proven track records want to try and resurrect Nebraska, the recruiting base is just too sparse, and the BiG10 won’t get easier when divisions are dropped and USC/UCLA step in. 
 

It seems Nebraska either needs to roll the dice on a promising up and comer (Campbell, Leipold) or on a sort of has been trying to resurrect his own image (Bill O Brien). I honestly don’t feel that sorry for Nebraska fans, they ran a couple solid guys out of town the last 20 years 

Leipold is intriguing, but while he was a huge winner at lower levels of football, he's not proven at this level (he went 2-10 last year) and is 58.  How long does he plan to coach?  

+1 for "controlled study in a remote facility", both for being hilarious and for perfectly summing up why I want Nebraska to hire him.

Matt Entz

Nebraska must return to the Wishbone or Option or whatever it was called. That is what they are and it's what they should be.

Solich and Pelini were both .700+ coaches over their time in Lincoln.  No reason someone can't some in and replicate that (or a bit better), but Cornhusker fans should realize that the Osborne years likely ain't going to repeat.

The idea of Bill O'Brien coaching Nebraska and Scott Frost being the OC at Alabama is pretty funny to think about, but I am not sold at all on BOB. He just seems to underachieve relative to talent nearly everywhere outside one or two mediocre years at Penn State

Big Game Bob?.....

All solid coaches.

However, I think they need someone with established recruiting ties to a talent-rich state. Because of that, I think going after Tom Herman would be the best choice. He had success everywhere (even if his Texas tenure was underwhelming though he got a fairly raw deal at the end), has worked with great coaching minds, and can recruit at a high level at even lower-level schools like Houston.

Hiring him would be a smart choice.

Real wild coach search candidate list there. "Great coach who maybe can't recruit, great coach who maybe can't recruit and dumbshit who sucks but we have to include in these lists because Nick Saban's agent has us by the balls and Nick wants this dumb fuck out of his coaching room."

Nebrasker - "COME HERE TO RUIN YOUR CAREER!"

Lions can relate.

BoB had ONE decent stint in college, where he simply sucked less than anticipated. He's so overrated by college fans. He's a grade A moron. And Leipold has already turned Kansas from the biggest joke in the P5.