--Private Pinelli, in a lesson of irony, called his boss a pencil-pushing cunt, then whined to his former players for 30-minutes about how tough he had it at NU. Too much pressure at my $3 million-a-year job, in a state where the average salary is $42,000. Too much pressure to not get destroyed by any better-than-terrible team when something was on the line. And we use the term 'something' very loosely, as it means staying in the running for winning half of the worst conference in major college football.It wasn't my fault, he said. It wasn't YOUR fault he told the players, for allowing 408 yards to a back who gained fewer than 50 yards against Western Illinois. It was a pussy lawyer's fault because he didn't come to see you at practice enough and was too busy running a $75-million-dollar business to consistently tell the coach how great he was for winning nine games a year when any coach in America (and probably many bus drivers) could get seven wins with the combination of NU's facilities and pathetic list of opponents. Don't believe us? Then rely on this complex mathematical formula for proof: FAU + McNeese + Fresno + Illinois + Purdue + Rutgers = 6.
Don't blame Pinelli, dear readers. This was his destiny in just another fatalistic meathead saga. The same one we all saw when Back to the Future came out in 1985. Meathead in charge at the beginning, when brute force worked. At the end, when brains, tact and savvy were required. meathead waxed the car. Obviously, our friends at Cardinal Mooney didn't teach evolution. Adapt or die.....or run home to the only place where high school bullies are relevant 28 years after graduation.
It wasn't Private Mark's fault for a litany of other reasons, as you listen to him fake concern for his players' well being. Let me tell you motherfuckers that I care about you, but nobody else does. At the same time, let me provide you all a life lesson that will serve you well after graduation -- fuck authority and fuck anyone with more education than you. Considering Pelini put fewer and fewer players into the NFL as Bill Callahan's pipeline dried up, that's a bad lesson.
These kids will need to know how to thrive using intelligence and soft skills, at a real workplace and not a locker room. Excuses don't work. Instead, they're the battered spouses who somehow convince themselves they still love their husband and that he's a good man. The 40-point losses are the bruises that tell the rest of the world otherwise. A drastic comparison, yes. But, manipulating 20-year-old college kids to serve a personal agenda is another form of abuse with serious consequences. Mindfucking them to think that one blowhard bully is more righteous and more important than a 135-year-old university with a long track record of class is pathetic.
Perhaps Pinelli did believe his smoke-and-mirrors, four-loss product was good enough for Nebraska.
After all, he learned it as a player at Ohio State. During his diatribe, he played the victim card once more and told NU players how he toughed it out and stayed in Columbus after Earl Bruce was fired following a 6-4-1 season. What a warrior, Mark was! Considering that he was a white safety for a bad team in a bad conference, his other Division I options were likely limited.
Pinelli's persistence paid off, as his final three seasons in Columbus went: 5-6-1, 8-4, and 7-4-1. Given the fact that these were considered successful seasons for the Buckeyes for 25 years, it's not Bo Mark's fault that he took that losing attitude with him.
As NU fans, it's time to take some blame ourselves. We didn't heed the warning signs in 2007. Private Pinelli accosting Bill Snyder for having the nerve to dismantle his shitty defense wasn't 'fire in the belly.' In fact, it's fitting that this 45-second clip shows his defense being blown off the ball, missing tackles and blowing coverages.
Pinelli melting down and berating an official against Michigan State wasn't competitiveness. These were both ineptitude surfacing like a rotten corpse in a stagnant pond. Nebraska, in the end, ignored those instances in a rush to fix a pathetic defensive team.
Tom Osborne misjudged the shifting college football landscape, and underestimated the need for a business leader as head coach. An executive who knew how to pull the right levers in hiring, motivation, and decision making. Considering the Frank Solich disaster, he made his second straight bad hire for his beloved football program. Seventeen years later, we're all stuck on this hamster wheel, scurrying away as the rest of college football goes on outside the cage.
Shawn Eichorst, it's now your turn. You made your play, the predictable 180-degree hire of Mike Riley -- whose aura strikes us somewhere between the teacher we read that he is and the overly friendly weirdo at church that nobody wants to talk to. It's your turn to prove that you're a silent-but-strong leader and not a recluse.
Your turn to fill the stands, to keep the faux riche coming to Lincoln in their North Face sweater vests to pump money through the program's veins -- one shitty toolshed (aka Champion's Club) beer at a time. It's not a football program, it's a brand. A product. A shitty product at this point. Starting next August, it's your motherfuckin' product....
And somewhere, in a dark Youngstown film room that is likely less-featured, but more comfortable to him than the one he had in Lincoln, Private Pinelli cues up one of his favorite movie scenes. He nods his head in agreement. Bo, it's not your fault. Bo it's not your fault. Bo, it's not your fault.......
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