Nebraska fans have never come to grips with the reality of their program.
From Pearl Harbor until Devaney, UN never had a coach with a that won 50% of their games. Devaney and Osborne both won 80+ % of their games so they expected every coach to do the same. They forget or blissfully ignore that furing the Devaney/Osborne years they were in the Big 8 not the Big 12. They also ignore that the Big 8 was really the Big Two and The Six Dwarfs. Generally whoever won the UN/OU game won the Conference Championship and went to the Orange Bowl to compete for the NC.
The 85/25 Scholarship Rules put some parity in college football and then UN went to the BIG 12 and had half a dozen competitors. Then they moved to the Big 10 and the competition got tougher again.
Frank Solich won 75% of his games at UN but that wasn't good enough. AND he dared to scrap the Denavey/Osbourne Smash Mouth Offense so they ran him off. The next couple of coaches were more in the mold of those less than mediocre coaches of the 40's ans 50's. Pelini is the best by far since Solich and they gripe because he only wins 9 or 10 games while losing 3or 4.
Nope he's not Devaney but the football world Devaney played in doesn't exist. Devaney would not win 80+ % of his games today. Nor would Osborne.
Yep. And perhaps Osborne's most genius coaching move was getting out when he did. He saw the writing on the wall of how the game was evolving and would become damn near impossible to win with option/power running football. Speed everywhere and passing became necessary to win. He, of course, never liked the idea of Nebraska in the Big XII because he (correctly) believed the South would be at a much better advantage due to recruiting ability in Texas. The irony in all of this, though, is perhaps if he stuck around a few more years, he might have been able to recruit high school kids from Texas that were running this thing called a Spread Offense...and then the Zone Read-- thus being able to employ his beloved option-based offense.
Nebraska in the big 10 is probably great for the school in virtually all aspects of the university...except football. I'm not sure there aren't literally more than just a handful of guys on the planet that could come to Lincoln and make them a perennial 10-win/BCS game challenger. Their geography, proximity to population and recruiting hotbeds, outsider status within their own conference, historical tie-in to a sort of singular style of play, and insular state pride make them, for the time being, a perennial 8-9 win team...best case scenario.
ND faced (faces) some of those challenges too. Gotta give Chuck a lot of credit for modernizing the offense and getting some big time recruits to come to ND. While Weis will never be in any sort of head coaching Hall of Fame, those several years at ND did help out a lot. Without him, ND could be hoping, wishing, and praying to be at Nebraska's current level of success.