Nebraska Football: Three Takeaways from the Firing of Shawn Eichorst
After Nebraska’s 21–17 loss to Northern Illinois last Saturday, a smart and particularly handsome analyst said that the loss was what the beginning of the end might look like. Well, it looks a lot more like the end after Nebraska’s chancellor Ronnie Green announced that the university had immediately terminated Eichorst’s employment on Thursday.
There’s plenty to digest, but here’s three quick reactions to Eichorst’s ouster.
Riley is coaching for his job
It kinda felt like it even before Thursday’s news broke, but now there’s no question that head coach Mike Riley is fighting to stay in the big chair in Lincoln. An interim athletic director — meaning one who didn’t hire Riley — will be named in the next few days, and it’s almost certain he and Riley will meet and discuss what Riley’s target must be to keep his job.
Is it 7–5, meaning Nebraska wins out except against Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Penn State? Is it 6–6, enough to go to a bowl game? Is it higher? Does it depend on how the record happens as much as what the record is?
That will be up to the interim athletic director, with guidance from the higher powers at the school. But make no mistake, firing Eichorst now was done because Green and university president Hank Bounds saw that there was at least a good chance Riley would have to be fired at the end of 2017.
And if that firing was going to happen, then it makes far more sense to fire Eichorst now. That way, Nebraska isn’t left at the end of 2017 having to hire a new AD, then wait for that AD to come online before initiating a coaching search.
But he’s got a shot to keep it
Green was as emphatic as you could expect with regards to Riley’s status (according to Land of 10).
“Mike Riley is our football coach. We expect him to compete. This is not about Mike Riley,” Green said.
Assuming Riley wants to keep his job, those words — and the swiftness which Nebraska’s higher-ups moved on Eichorst — should sharpen his vision quickly. Riley has nine games left, and will (according to SB Nation’s five-year recruiting averages) have better talent than seven of the nine teams Nebraska will face.
Admittedly, it’s hard to see Nebraska winning one of those games, much less seven, after Saturday’s performance against Northern Illinois. But don’t forget, in 2015 it was hard to imagine Nebraska winning another game after a horrific 55–45 loss to Purdue. Nebraska turned around the next week and knocked off no. 6 Michigan State.
Nebraska doesn’t have to beat the no. 6 team in the country this weekend. It just needs to beat Rutgers, at home, to stop the rot and give itself a chance to salvage the 2017 season — and Riley’s career in Lincoln.
Pelini’s shadow looms over Eichorst
Take a look at what former quarterback Tommy Armstrong had to say on Twitter about Eichorst as news of his firing broke.
https://twitter.com/Tommy_Gun4/status/910948235224678402
https://twitter.com/Tommy_Gun4/status/910948686431178754
https://twitter.com/Tommy_Gun4/status/910949080548958209
https://twitter.com/Tommy_Gun4/status/910949383054733312
And one from former cornerback Josh Mitchell.
https://twitter.com/J_Mitch05/status/910981415587610624
That’s quite a bit of venom from two of the strongest leaders from former head coach Bo Pelini’s era. Those guys were there, lived through the whole thing, and we can learn a lot about the team’s mindset listening to them now.
But let’s not forget that their coach, the adult these college kids followed and respected, told them this about Eichorst just after his dismissal (according to the Omaha World-Herald).
“I didn’t really have any relationship with the A.D.,” Pelini said. “The guy, you guys saw him (Sunday), the guy is a total p — -. I mean, he is. He’s a total c — .”
Again, I’m not in any way discounting what Armstrong, Mitchell, or any of the other former Huskers have said about Eichorst and how he handled himself. But I am suggesting that their perceptions of Eichorst may have been colored by the way Pelini chose to handle himself after his dismissal.
And it’s hard not to raise the question about how much lingering bitterness from the team about Pelini’s firing — amplified by Pelini’s own childish and selfish rant — affected the remaining players being able to fully embrace Riley and his new staff.
Look, Nebraska isn’t sitting at 1–2 with a loss to a MAC school because of Bo Pelini. Shawn Eichorst isn’t out of a job because of Bo Pelini. Eichorst’s own ham-fisted handling of the Black Friday scheduling debacle, as noted by a smart and particularly handsome analyst, may very well have been the nail in the coffin of his career in Lincoln.
But the seeds of Eichorst’s dismissal were planted in the way he handled Pelini’s dismissal, and watered by Riley’s underwhelming record over the course of 28 games.
