Bo Pelini has worn out his welcome with some Youngstown State fans. The former Nebraska football head coach is in the midst of his fifth season with the Penguins.
After a successful start to his FCS career, including an appearance in that level of football's championship game, his teams haven't won more than six games in any season since. This year, YSU is 5-4.
The problem, some fans have is that Pelini's defense isn't playing very well.
The team has also lost four of their last five, after starting the 2019 season 4-0.
In the team's latest loss, they were outscored 56-17. That's a follow up to 21-14, 38-28, and 35-10 losses. Their only win in their last five is against Western Illinois, a 59-14 victory.
The Penguins are just 1-4 in the Missouri Valley Conference, and that has fans on the team's message board talking about getting rid of the former Nebraska football head man.
Passing the hat
On one Youngstown State forum, a thread titled simply "Fire Pelini" has four pages worth of replies, and 3,566 reads. The opening post, from a user by the name of Peteonastick, posted, "I'm starting (sp) it.
This is "He got outcoached. Stuff him now. Get rid of the Mooney connection. Clean house. All his homeboys need to go." The user then followed up with his own reply saying, "I'll pitch in to buy him out."
Other users on the site made it known they, too, were looking for an end to the Bo Pelini era. Some expressed interest in him going but thought he was due too much money to fire. That particular topic is one Nebraska football fans know all about.
After the Cornhuskers fired him in 2014, the Huskers owed him so much money, and his contract was structured in a way that he was basically coaching for Youngstown State for free for a few seasons. He was recently given a contract extension by the Penguins' athletic department.
Now fans are attempting to get each other to donate money to fire him. One user posted a sentiment that was similar to some Nebraska football fans before he was shown the door in Lincoln. "I would venture to guess more 60% of the current roster isn't D1 talent. I would also guess 80% of the coaching staff isn't D1 either. The two combined is exactly why we are, where we are. He has one hell of an ego to think that he can make up for the lack of knowledge of his coaches and make us competitive."
Nebraska football all over again
Despite never winning less than nine football games in any given year for the Huskers, Pelini came under fire from fans for numerous reasons during his tenure. Among the complaints brought up most often was the lack of experience of his staff.
There was also quite a bit of talk that Pelini was hiring his buddies instead of the best coaches available. That complaint surfaced among Youngstown State fans in the past few days as well.
Whether Bo Pelini will be looking for a new job for the first time since he left Nebraska football isn't known yet as the university is not commenting.