The Nebraska football team is one of the best jobs in college football. While that might still be true, it’s also true that national media believe the job has been tarnished a bit in recent years. CBS Sports has recently released a list of the best jobs in the Big Ten and the Huskers are near the top, but are beaten out by schools most Cornhusker fans might be a bit distressed to see.
The list has Nebraska football as the number five team in the conference, though the author makes it clear it almost got rated as the fourth best team. There was a time when the Huskers would have been rated among the top three or four best jobs in the country.
Laying off coaches and the program falling on hard times has diminished the luster over the last decade or so.
Nebraska football is hampered by more difficult recruiting
While firing coaches who were winning nine or 10 games a season is a factor in the Huskers being ranked where it is, there are other factors that mean more. Tom Fornelli with CBS believes the real reason the Nebraska football team is ranked fifth in the conference is because of how hard it is to recruit to the Cornhusker state.
While Mike Riley and company have had some success in the past few years getting kids to come here, it’s the fact that they have to convince kids to come here that is the problem. As Fornelli says, “it has excellent facilities.
Of course, it needs those facilities to convince recruits to come to Nebraska, as the school isn't located in the middle of a fertile recruiting area.”
So who’s better?
With the Nebraska football team ranked fifth, there are four jobs that are better than the Huskers’ job right now in the Big Ten. Ohio State and Michigan are two of the least surprising top jobs in the conference.
Both schools are among the best teams in the country and they are both located in top recruiting hotbeds.
Penn State is currently ranked as the number three school on the list. This too, is hardly a surprise as Pennsylvania is another great recruiting site. The fanbase is incredibly loyal and the program has turned the corner after a couple of years of struggling mightily.
The school that Nebraska football fans could and should have some problems being ranked ahead of them is Wisconsin. At this point, it appears as though the Huskers and the Badgers are a bit of a coin toss. Wisconsin likely takes the higher spot in this list because they have been beating the Huskers on a regular basis since both teams have been in the Big Ten.
