College Football: 10 toughest coaching careers to follow

4. Tom Osborne (Nebraska)

Tom Osborne himself had a tough act to follow, as he was promoted by Bob Devaney from coordinator to the head job after Devaney’s retirement from coaching in 1972. After failing to win a third straight national championship, Devaney opted to focus his attention on his athletic director duties, a post he held for most of Osborne’s career.

With the coaching legacy of his boss hanging over him, Osborne won at least nine games in every one of his 25 seasons leading Nebraska. The Big Eight stalwarts struggled to get to the top of the mountain, though, much as Devaney’s teams did for the first part of his tenure in Lincoln. Finishing in the top three of the polls on four occasions between 1982 and 1993, Nebraska fans loved his fearlessness even as they wondered whether he would match Devaney’s zeniths.

The breakthrough finally came in 1994, as Osborne won the first of what became three national championships in four years. Retiring after splitting the 1997 title with Michigan, Osborne left the sideline and went into politics just before the BCS era began.

That left a heavy cloud over his successors, as Frank Solich and four other head coaches have struggled in vain to get Nebraska back to the promised land ever since. Now more than two decades removed from their most recent national championship, following Osborne has proven a tough coaching act to follow.