Former Nebraska football head coach Bo Pelini appears set to keep his job after some rather late drama that brought some doubt into the situation. The Youngstown State head coach's current contract is slated to run out next month. In a sport that generally has coaches under contract years into the future in order to avoid talk about someone potentially getting replaced, the fact that Pelini and the school went down to the wire stands out.

Youngstown State fans have mixed reaction

Area newspaper The Vindicator says that while there still aren't signatures on the bottom line, an agreement has been made in principle.

Youngstown State athletic director Ron Strollo said the two sides met for four hours on Friday to discuss the future of the program. On Saturday he made the statement that the school expects to keep Pelini on board. The wording was interesting if nothing else as he said "both sides expect the relationship to continue," meaning that there is at least a little room for movement should Youngstown State or Pelini decide to move on.

Bo Pelini's first four years coaching the Penguins has been rather up and down. He has a total record of 27-22 at the school he took over after being fired by Nebraska. In his second season, he managed to take his squad to the FCS championship game. In the two years since that appearance, the Penguins have gone 10-12 including 4-7 in 2018.

That could be why some fans aren't thrilled about the reports the head coach will return.

While there were some fans who are clearly supportive of the coach, others have commented on articles about the contract talks that are less than thrilled with the way the team has performed in the last two seasons. The talk that Bo Pelini's results have gotten worse as he has started to coach more of his own players isn't new.

The same complaints were heard by Nebraska football fans near the end of his tenure in Lincoln.

Former Nebraska football coach hoping to keep career alive

Some fans are still taking a wait and see attitude with statements that his fifth season will be the one that really shows whether the coach is an asset to the program or not.

The questions that fans have posed, as well as at the center of the discussions between the school and the coach is just how many more years the next contract will be for. The initial four-year deal is interesting when you think about what the Nebraska football program gave Scott Frost. He hit town with a seven-year deal in two and after a 4-8 season is bringing home a Top 25 recruiting class.

Of course, the resumes of the two coaches have some rather big differences. While Pelini was fired from the Nebraska football program, Frost came to town fresh off an undefeated season at Central Florida.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED