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(Haven't written a long post in a while. The Spirit finally moved me, I guess. There's a tl;dr at the bottom for people who didn't miss my girth.)
My preference is still the traditional, proper, God-fearing one, namely, to see the football team win as many games as possible and finally put together enough momentum to mount a sustained turnaround. This would both feel great as a fan and be extremely beneficial to a lot of program stakeholders.
However, another outcome has closed the gap in my rank order beyond what I usually view as comfortable, that is, to see the team just crater colossally and have a house-cleaning. I have a couple reasons for this.
First, there's the feeling that something has to break one way or the other. It's clear there's an element of the fanbase, including many important boosters, who would want to make Frost coach-for-life if he cobbles together seven wins against this shit schedule. That's a problem. This is somewhat reminiscent of those late Pelini days where I contend there was a truly justifiable case to root for the team to either turn the corner or lose significantly. Pelini had seemingly shown that he could string together nine-win seasons indefinitely but would also suffer humiliating defeats two or three times each go-around, as well. That meant we were stuck in purgatory unless something broke one way or another. By at least 2013 and certainly by 2014, I and many others became convinced that there was basically no likelihood that Pelini was ever getting over the hump. Thus, the rooting interest perversely turned towards losing enough to justify a firing. I still stand by that.
The 2022 edition of the Husker football team isn't quite directly analogous, however. First of all, despite losing much of the luster that accompanied him in the halcyon days of late-2017 and 2018, Frost is still more likeable than Pelini and a better ambassador for the program. While he's probably pretty frustrated with a lot of things being the Nebraska head coach entails, including having to put up with segments of the fanbase, he does a much better job hiding it than Pelini could (or would). And he still clearly cares about this place. Pelini couldn't give a fuck towards the end beyond just his personal relationships with players and staff. The other difference is that Pelini showed he could get his team to win certain games but was likely hopeless in others. Frost's problems apply across basically all games. He's close with bad teams, average teams, and very good teams. If he turns the corner, the ceiling seems much higher; of course, it's a very dubious notion whether he ever actually does turn the corner.
As for the second reason, even though their numbers have dwindled somewhat, there are still entirely too many fools out there vocally expressing how confident they are in Frost, that he's clearly the right man for the job, if he can't do it then no one can, etc. Many have obnoxiously responded to anything even approaching criticism or concern about the program. I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be fun to watch their golden boy finally fail in spectacular fashion. Perhaps most enticing would be watching Callahan have to start out in Baghdad Bob-mode, especially if there's a loss to Northwestern in that stupid Ireland game he's hawking, and then witness the transformation into "We all actually saw this coming..."-mode. I think RSS might actually have to shutdown for a bit, because there would be so much shit-slinging. It would all be glorious.
So, there it is. The tl;dr is simple: If I had my druthers, the team would have a very successful season. However, increasingly close is a desire to see the wheels finally well-and-truly come off so that Alberts can do what should have been done at the end of this last season and Callahan will have to eat so much message board shit that he winds up like the gluttony murder victim in Se7en.
My preference is still the traditional, proper, God-fearing one, namely, to see the football team win as many games as possible and finally put together enough momentum to mount a sustained turnaround. This would both feel great as a fan and be extremely beneficial to a lot of program stakeholders.
However, another outcome has closed the gap in my rank order beyond what I usually view as comfortable, that is, to see the team just crater colossally and have a house-cleaning. I have a couple reasons for this.
First, there's the feeling that something has to break one way or the other. It's clear there's an element of the fanbase, including many important boosters, who would want to make Frost coach-for-life if he cobbles together seven wins against this shit schedule. That's a problem. This is somewhat reminiscent of those late Pelini days where I contend there was a truly justifiable case to root for the team to either turn the corner or lose significantly. Pelini had seemingly shown that he could string together nine-win seasons indefinitely but would also suffer humiliating defeats two or three times each go-around, as well. That meant we were stuck in purgatory unless something broke one way or another. By at least 2013 and certainly by 2014, I and many others became convinced that there was basically no likelihood that Pelini was ever getting over the hump. Thus, the rooting interest perversely turned towards losing enough to justify a firing. I still stand by that.
The 2022 edition of the Husker football team isn't quite directly analogous, however. First of all, despite losing much of the luster that accompanied him in the halcyon days of late-2017 and 2018, Frost is still more likeable than Pelini and a better ambassador for the program. While he's probably pretty frustrated with a lot of things being the Nebraska head coach entails, including having to put up with segments of the fanbase, he does a much better job hiding it than Pelini could (or would). And he still clearly cares about this place. Pelini couldn't give a fuck towards the end beyond just his personal relationships with players and staff. The other difference is that Pelini showed he could get his team to win certain games but was likely hopeless in others. Frost's problems apply across basically all games. He's close with bad teams, average teams, and very good teams. If he turns the corner, the ceiling seems much higher; of course, it's a very dubious notion whether he ever actually does turn the corner.
As for the second reason, even though their numbers have dwindled somewhat, there are still entirely too many fools out there vocally expressing how confident they are in Frost, that he's clearly the right man for the job, if he can't do it then no one can, etc. Many have obnoxiously responded to anything even approaching criticism or concern about the program. I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be fun to watch their golden boy finally fail in spectacular fashion. Perhaps most enticing would be watching Callahan have to start out in Baghdad Bob-mode, especially if there's a loss to Northwestern in that stupid Ireland game he's hawking, and then witness the transformation into "We all actually saw this coming..."-mode. I think RSS might actually have to shutdown for a bit, because there would be so much shit-slinging. It would all be glorious.
So, there it is. The tl;dr is simple: If I had my druthers, the team would have a very successful season. However, increasingly close is a desire to see the wheels finally well-and-truly come off so that Alberts can do what should have been done at the end of this last season and Callahan will have to eat so much message board shit that he winds up like the gluttony murder victim in Se7en.
