The rich get richer in college football

Even though I'm a big sports fan, I don't write often about it because my duty as a columnist lies elsewhere. However, since national signing day was Wednesday, I decided to present the overall recruiting picture since the one thing that binds most Nebraskans together is Husker football.

Alabama, the perennial national championship team since Nick Saban has been there, scores another coup with the consensus 2013 top recruiting class in the nation. They recruited 4 five star players, 13 four star players and 8 three star players, so it appears they've reloaded properly for another run at the national championship next year.

The top ten schools in recruiting were Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, LSU, Texas A&M, UCLA, and Auburn.

Consensus-wise, Nebraska ended up 17th, although the different polls varied more on the Huskers than any other team in the top 25. They were ranked 26th by Rivals, 17th by Signees, 21st by 247, 11th by Scout, and 23rd by ESPN.

Bo Pelini's charges have lost four games each year of his five year tenure. He's two and three in bowls he has coached for the whole season and has lost the last three in a row. During that time, his teams have never been in a BCS bowl nor competed for the national championship, which is a must for most Husker fans.

When you put Bo Pelini's name in a search engine, many sites are titled 'Bo must go' or something along those lines and it's easy to understand why. Husker fans got spoiled by Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne and expect to contend for a national championship every year and they haven't done it under Pelini. I wrote in this column shortly after he was hired that I didn't think he was the right guy to lead the Huskers to a national championship because of his attitude and demeanor and I've seen nothing to change my mind. As long as he's there, you can expect about the same out of his teams in the future as you've gotten in the past.

To make matters worse, two of his Big 10 opponents, Ohio State and Michigan, ended up two and five in the national rankings, ranking well ahead of Nebraska. They each signed one or more five star players, Nebraska signed zero. Pelini always wins a game that he shouldn't, loses a couple of games that he should have won and does what he's supposed to do with the rest of the schedule.

The Blackshirt defense is obviously a thing of the past. In their four losses last year, they gave up 36 points to UCLA, 63 to Ohio State, 70 to Wisconsin (coached by the new Arkansas head coach, Bret Bilema) and 45 in their bowl game against Georgia.

Great teams win year after year with a punishing running game and an outstanding defense. Since the Pelini era began, Nebraska has had a mediocre running game and a defense that, on occasion, looks as bad as it can be.

I figured Tom Osborne couldn't fire Bo Pelini since he's the one that hired him but the new AD sings his praises too. I suspect those comments were more for public consumption than anything else and he's going to give Pelini one more year to improve, the same thing Husker fans have been doing for the past five.

If Nebraska is going to contend for the national championship again, a new coaching regime has to replace the current one.

And the sooner the better.