Nebraska Football: What Pelini, Fans Can Learn From Iowa's Mistakes

Google "Iowa football."  Go ahead, I'll wait.

What did you find?  Likely a lot of articles about the 12 players hospitalized after an offseason workout.  Even more likely, you'll see blistering criticism of head coach Kirk Ferentz for staying on the recruiting trail instead of returning to Iowa City to make sure his players were OK.

If the articles weren't about the hospitalized players and the coach's response, the articles were likely about drug arrests, players being suspended, or drug tests being cheated.

It's been a rough month or so for Iowa's image.  Some Nebraska fans have been getting a jump start on the nascent rivalry with Iowa, piling on and questioning Ferentz's care for his players and control over his team.

As the great Lee Corso would say, not so fast, my friend.  Set your WayBack Machine for the end of the 2010 season and Google "Nebraska football."  What would you find?

A head coach going insane on the sideline.  A diva quarterback getting special treatment. A starting Blackshirt with an iconic last name arrested for DUI.  NU fans making death threats and turning "children of the corn" from an amusing nickname into a disturbingly-accurate description.

Nebraska fans, of course, protested the national perception being created of an out-of control coach and unhinged fanbase.  If everyone just knew the whole story, NU fans said ...

Sound familiar?  Sound a little like the Hawkeye fans lately?

From all accounts, Ferentz is an honorable man who cares for and takes care of his players (although the continued substance abuse surrounding his program is troubling). The implication that he doesn't care about his players is completely unfair.

Guess what, sunshine?  Life ain't fair. As the face of the Iowa program, it's Ferentz's job (among other things), to understand the massive, self-inflicted hit the Iowa program has taken to it's image due to his blunder by remaining on the recruiting trail while his kids were in the hospital. 

Particularly in the wake of the negative light Iowa has been placed in due to Derrell Johnson-Koulianos' drug related arrest and suspension of players for the Insight Bowl.  Ferentz had to know that any further bad press would be magnified even more.

Ferentz's motives may have been—heck, probably were—entirely noble.  But by making the decision to not return immediately, he gave grist to the national media's need for controversy and fantastic material for opposing coaches to recruit against Iowa.

If you don't think parents of potential recruits won't hear about Ferentz ignoring his players after they were put in the hospital by one of his coach's workouts, you're crazy.

Bo Pelini should take Iowa's travails as an object lesson.  Pelini is famously dismissive of the media, preferring to focus on the football and his team.  That's fine if you're a coordinator, but it's not a luxury you get to indulge in if you're the head coach.  Part of the head coach's job is to be the face of the program, to be the image that is portrayed nationally.

And image matters. 

Whether you like it or not, how a program is perceived (fairly or unfairly), has an effect on the program.  For people who know little about you—like many recruits from places other than Nebraska—a program's reputation will precede it.  It's much easier to convince a recruit to come to your school if your program's reputation is something that works for you as opposed to something you have to fight against.

Winning, of course, is the great disinfectant.  If Ferentz or Pelini go 12-0 next year, any negatives about their reputation will be irrelevant.  But if the winning slips, even a little bit, having to fight against a negative reputation makes life a whole lot more challenging.

During the game and on the recruiting trail, Pelini looks for every possible way to gain an advantage over the competition.  Perhaps if he views his interactions with the media and the perception of his program as something which will help to create a means to gain an advantage on the field, some of the 2010 off-the-field drama can be avoided in the future.

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