Tad Stryker
Stryker Pregame Perspective: Here Comes Mickey
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With Election Day less than two weeks away, the most popular candidate is emerging. Mickey Joseph is gaining momentum; that much is sure.
Heading into Saturday’s game against 17th-rated Illinois, Joseph is 2-2 as interim head coach at Nebraska and seems on his way to building the sort of culture Scott Frost often talked about but never delivered. But is he really ready to run the program year-round?
I’ve heard that a lot of college students are already jumping onto the Mickey bandwagon, so I avoided the university campus for this survey to query what I thought might be a more skeptical section of the fan base.
On a bright and beautiful morning in the north parking lot at Haymarket Park, I asked 100 Husker fans — I estimate their median age at about 50 — to answer this timely question: “Should Mickey Joseph be elevated to full-time head coach for Nebraska?”
I gave four possible answers and asked each to choose the one that most closely aligns with his viewpoint. In order of support, here are the responses:
- “He’s definitely a serious candidate; he’s probably among Trev Alberts’ top two or three.” — 45 votes
- If he wins a few more games, he could become a serious candidate to keep the job full time, but I’m skeptical.” — 32 votes
- “He’s already done enough to convince me, and the players love him. Sign him up today! The search is over.” — 22 votes
- “No thanks; he’s OK as interim, but Nebraska needs someone with plenty of head coaching experience.” — 1 vote
This crowd is trending more strongly pro-Joseph than I expected. When you have more than one-fifth of the fan base ready to hand him the keys to the program less than halfway through his nine-game audition for the job, it sends a strong message. To be sure, one-third of Husker fans are skeptical that Joseph is ready for the responsibility, but I would have estimated that figure to be much higher.
One respondent asked if he could write in Urban Meyer, but the overwhelming sentiment was that Joseph should be retained and have a place on the 2023 staff, even if a different head coach is selected.
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