I know Pelini is hated among most Husker fans, however, his players respected him and would do anything for him to this day. A lot of the players I've talked to about him say they same thing, on the field he was hard and yelled a lot (I saw a lot of that at practices), however, when it was said and done he'd usually follow up with a calm approach and teach the lesson behind it. He created a family and anyone who spoke negative or attacked him or his players he took it personally and would lash out at them.
I'm pretty sure he's biopolar or can't control his impulse anger.
my Father in Law is Bi-polar and I have always felt Pelini is also Bi-polar, he has all of the signs.
Manic: I'm invincible, I can work 20 hours a day 7 days a week without any caffeine and be totally fine, I'm 100% right on literally everything, I'm a subject matter expert on literally everything, if you question me you're an idiot and your point is mere jealousy of my success/power --> Manics also don't even consider or think about somebody else when they make decisions --> it isn't that they are being selfish or intending to be mean/rude.... their brain honestly never even thought about another person being there let alone how that person might feel about it. Other people might as well be invisible unless the Manic person has a need of them, then any action not in 100% conformity with what the Manic person wants them to do is an insult of the highest order and they are personally being attacked.
Depressed: everybody is out to get me, nothing is going right and it is all because of *never ending list of random excuses that are so minor most people have never even noticed*, nobody appreciates me so I don't care about my responsibilities anymore, everybody knows how I am feeling right now without me telling them and they are all acting in concert to spite me by ignoring how I feel despite me telling nobody.
Many of the most successful people in business are Bi-polar. It makes them work insanely hard, pay attention to details nobody else notices, take risks that others won't and come up with original/different ideas for how to do things. My FIL (and 1 BIL) are the same way. They can think of an idea for changing something or a new business that I had never thought of or would ever think of. Minor example: FIL in a manic stage once made us change all of the lights in a hotel, I was so against it but after it was done the property looked completely different and it was a huge success.
Bigger example: BIL made us all start saving money in 2017/18 because he noticed that so many people were over leveraged on commercial real estate and we should have dry powder ready to fire when a dip in the market caused guys to lose their shirt. (= we were buyers in 2020)
PS: Honestly surprised Pelini never abused alcohol given his high stress job and likely Bi-polar disorder.