BLEEDING RED

Frank Solich has been a Husker all his life, but is the top job too much for him to handle?

On Friday nights before each home game, the Big Red faithful gather at Misty's, a restaurant in Lincoln. They arrive from points north of the Sand Hills and west of North Platte, diehards congregating in a room with lofty ceilings and a large circular bar. In the middle of the bar is a life-size gold statue of Husker great Jerry Tagge about to unleash, of all things,
a pass. Hung high on the walls, like modern-day scalps, are the helmets of every Big 12 rival.

The beer flows from iron taps cast in the shape of footballs.Ask any man, woman or child in Nebraska about football and you'll be told it's as big as religion here. Bigger, maybe. Everyone seems to have an opinion about the NU team-an informed one. You get the feeling these folks could work a Telestrator.Billy, Larry and Joan, all in their 60s, are three such folks. Sitting at the bar at Misty's, they give you the lowdown on second-year coach Frank Solich. "Ain't as good a play-caller as Osborne," says Billy. "But can't find a better one." Larry questions the offensive line. And Joan? Well, Joan has her own theory. She knew the Soliches when Frank was a high school coach in Omaha. Pamela, his wife, was always ordering him around, she says. As far as Joan knows, Pam Solich is running the Huskers.

In the season's first few weeks, Big Red fans might well have believed Joan. Nebraskans may criticize every last detail in the program, but they are quick to defend it when outsiders do the same. They are vocal in support of their coach, even as they struggle to figure him out. But you could feel their anguish when a rash of player defections suggested Solich might be losing control of his team. Those first two lopsided wins over Iowa and Cal looked good to the rest of the country. But in Lincoln, there was a sense things weren't right. Quarterbacks Bobby Newcombe and Eric Crouch clearly were unhappy sharing time. The Huskers' rushing attack was hardly imposing.

"I think a team in turmoil is exposed on Saturdays," the coach said in his weekly press conference, hoping to soothe an anxious public. "I don't see where that showed on either Saturday." But off camera, the vibes said otherwise. In choosing Newcombe over Crouch at quarterback, Solich tried to boldly put his stamp on the offense, only to reverse himself a short time later when Crouch's play and team sentiment worked against him. Then I-back DeAngelo Evans quit the team, and Solich was presented with a new challenge. Once again he wavered, standing behind team sentiment against Evans even though the player asked to rejoin the squad. As the Huskers' unease became public, Solich looked more and more like a coach reluctant to use the authority he inherited from the stoic Tom Osborne after 25 seasons. A year-and-a-half in, his players still test him, and the fans and media still find him wanting.

Solich is true-Red: He played for Bob Devaney and coached 19 years under Osborne. And players say he's more hands-on than Oz; willing, like Devaney, to get in a player's face when something goes wrong. "Coach Osborne could get vocal at times," says Newcombe, "but not very often. When you saw it, your mouth would drop." Solich is more intense and not afraid to show emotion, which most players appreciate.

From the very start, though, Nebraskans quibbled with his play-calling-a skill at which Dr. Tom had no peer. "When Coach Osborne called a play, he was playing chess," says Evans. "When Coach Solich calls plays, he's playing checkers." Evans' critique echoes throughout Huskerland. Not long ago, a booster phoned Solich's radio show to suggest that the coach let someone else pick the plays. Solich said he would be happy to if anyone knew them as well as he did. Another booster wrote the Omaha World-Herald to respond: "I don't think knowing the plays is the problem. It's knowing when to call them."

Criticism comes with the job, and Solich knows it. "You can't ask people to not have opinions," he says. "I know there's reasoning behind what I'm doing. But there's also a big old spotlight here."

If Nebraska's quarterback controversy seems odd, it's because many players felt Crouch, a sophomore, who was the starter for six games in '98 and again in the spring, should have been the permanent QB from day one. Crouch was so appalled by the setback, he left school and, according to some teammates, withdrew from classes, returning home to Omaha. Solich had to drive 47 miles to coax him back. The kid had a legitimate beef. Newcombe, a junior, who had knee surgery last December, looked timid in September, as if he had lost a step. In relief, Crouch thoroughly outplayed him.
Before the Cal game, third-string I-back Correll Buckhalter joined the fray. Upset by a lack of playing time, he skipped
three days of practice. With his backfield imploding, the coach needed to make a move. And he did, but only after Newcombe initiated it. After the 45-0 tune-up against the Golden Bears, Newcombe approached Solich and volunteered to move to wingback, where he'd played as a freshman. It made perfect sense. Newcombe and Crouch are two of the team's best athletes. Fielding both would solidify the offense and make everyone happy.

The move didn't pay off immediately. In a tight 20-13 home win over Southern Miss, the defense outscored the offense. Nebraska turned the ball over five times, escaping with only eight first downs-a 30-year low-and only 185 total yards. And for the fifth straight game, the Huskers failed to field a 100-yard rusher. Solich explained that Cal and Southern Miss had two of the best defenses his team would play all year. His own defense looked so good, he added, that the offense played not to lose. He also hinted at changes to come, maybe even a more wide-open attack. If Big Red fans blanched at the thought, they weren't alone. "Nebraska never changes for anybody," Evans said from exile in Kansas. "People change for us."

Evans called it quits after carrying the ball six times for five yards against Cal. His teammates were shocked. This was the guy who broke all of Barry Sanders' national high school records, the guy who could rekindle a once-dominating NU ground game. As a true freshman in '96, Evans had rushed for 776 yards and 14 touchdowns. But because of injuries, he sat out all of '97 and played in just three games in '98. He also angered his teammates by saying he was as good as Ricky Williams, and by declaring that he would have been the difference between last year's 9-4 (the Huskers' worst record in 30 years) and an undefeated run to the national championship. Some Huskers were openly critical of Evans for avoiding their summer workouts, even though his post-knee surgery rehab program was approved by Solich. The junior from Wichita acknowledges he was a bit rusty. But he is frustrated that he couldn't chip off that rust by carrying the ball more.

On Sept. 14, two days after quitting the team, Evans admitted he had made a mistake, apologized to Solich and asked for reinstatement. No big deal, right? Crouch and Buckhalter had been welcomed back with open arms. And besides, Lincoln is the land of second chances. Lawrence Phillips ring any bells? Christian Peter? But Solich remained noncommittal, saying he would have to talk to the team first. When faced with his most important decision as head coach, he didn't put his foot down. He asked for a show of hands. In a players-only meeting, Husker teammates debated their I-back's fate. A few stood up to say their piece. Defensive end Aaron Wills, who was suspended for drug use back in '97, feels Evans deserved a second chance, with stipulations perhaps-say, a depth-chart demotion. "We didn't want him to walk out, come back and say, 'I can do whatever I want,'" Wills says. But, he adds, no one spoke out on Evans' behalf. When the issue was put to a vote, only seven players (out of nearly 180) voted for reinstatement.

On Sept. 20, Evans and his parents met with Solich in the stately office he inherited from Osborne. According to Evans,
the first thing the coach said was that he couldn't understand why the vast majority of Evans' teammates didn't want him back. It was all bad news from there. When Evans walked out the door, he was no longer a Husker. These days, Evans blasts his former coach for being a coward. "I did nothing different than what Eric Crouch or Correll Buckhalter did," he says. "They quit too." Crouch maintains he never missed any meetings or practices. And a few teammates say that Evans' case was more severe because he had given an ultimatum to Solich, demanding more carries while saying he was "The Man." But many others disagree. "They weren't different at all," says senior wingback Frankie London, who was also rumored to have quit at one time. "They were all looking for answers." According to senior corner Ralph Brown, Evans was a victim of bad timing. "The coaches made an example out of him, because they didn't want anybody else quitting," Brown says. "That was a bad break for DeAngelo."

To this day, Evans questions why his future in Lincoln was put in the hands of his teammates. Buckhalter, Brown and London are troubled by that too. "We, as players, have no knowledge of what went on, and no understanding of how to conduct a football team," says London. "We shouldn't have voiced our opinions." Buckhalter, who sat out the Cal game after his return, adds, "A lot of people on the team think DeAngelo is selfish. Because he wants the ball don't mean he's selfish. I think everybody deserves a second chance. It should have been up to the coaches to make a decision like that."

Solich insists he's never had a problem making tough calls. And yet he seems to be cautious to a fault, unwilling to give a straight answer or take responsibility, whether he's addressing a team crisis, responding to reporters' questions or simply calling a play. The one Evans criticism that most seem to agree with is this: The coach is fickle.During the quarterback battle, he failed to gauge the feelings of his players. And, when Evans walked, he relied on them too much. After Evans went public with his story, Solich had to make it clear-again and again-that the final decision was Solich's.And so the soap opera continues. To his credit, the coach has yet to be embarrassed by any off-the-field transgressions, like those by Phillips and Peter during Osborne's last years. With Crouch at QB, Newcombe at wingback and Dan Alexander at I-back, his Huskers have waxed Missouri and Oklahoma State. Hey, even the great Oz stumbled out of the gate: It took him 21 years to win his first national championship.Solich will have to learn on the run how best to replace a legend. Asked after that narrow escape against Southern Miss if he could guarantee a season without further distractions he said, "In my 30-plus years of coaching, I don't know if I have ever guaranteed anything."

Despite all the noise, though, the folks at Misty's are sure Solich will be coaching in Lincoln for years to come. After all, this is the land of second chances. And Solich is a true Husker. He can take a lick or two. "Opinions fade, records remain," says Billy at the bar. "You know who holds the single-game record for most yards as a Nebraska fullback, right?" Frank Solich, 204 yards at Air Force, 1965.

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