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Morning in Nebraska
R. Alex Whitlock
Ivan Miesel penned a story up on newhire Coach Bill Callahan's attempts to
reinvigorate the University of Nebraska's football program. Now, just to put my biases out front, Nebraska is my least favorite schools in the Big XII and one of my least favorite in the NCAA, so an objective analysis is not what you're remarkably likely to find here. I'd love to say that I wish Callahan luck, but I don't.
[Nebraska AD] Pederson, a Nebraska native, a Nebraska alum, a former recruiting coordinator under Osborne and a former associate athletic director, returned to Lincoln as athletic director in December 2002. He hadn't been back a year when he cut down the Devaney family tree.
"I returned to a vastly different place," Pederson says. "We always had some strong leadership. We all knew what was expected, what the next day held. All of a sudden I felt like we were almost going through the motions and hoping everything was going to be fine. 'If we don't change anything, maybe we will wake up and the program will be fabulous.' I just didn't see it. I just didn't see that we were on a strong path. A lot of it was gut feel."
It's worth pointing out that the opposite of "good" [outgoing coach Frank Solich was 58-19] is not "great" and that the opposite of "improvement" [Solich went from 7-7 to 9-3 in his last two years] is not "more improvement."
Pederson hurt his case when he conducted a secretive job search that stretched to six weeks. One top candidate (Miami Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt) after another (Arkansas coach Houston Nutt) after another (Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer) said no. The Huskers have a streak of 42 consecutive winning regular seasons and 35 consecutive bowl games. Pederson decided that the path back to the elite is via the West Coast.
I'm a little hurt that they didn't mention
my offer, but I'll get over it. That being said, Pederson and company got lucky with Callahan, who took an inherited team to the Superbowl and almost came out of it with a tying record (15-17) before being
canned after his second season. On the other hand, anyone who makes an enemy out of Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis can't be
all bad, I suppose.
Callahan is already off to a booming start in Nebraska, though:
Callahan understands the parallel in installing the West Coast offense in the heartland. But he doesn't believe the on-field changes pose a big problem. The coach discovered early in his tenure, however, that he must be careful in how he makes them. When Callahan announced a few weeks after his hiring that there would no longer be an open-door policy for walk-ons, the state reacted as if he had forsworn eating meat.
Hold on, Callahan said. He is the father of a walk-on. The oldest of his four children, Brian, is a quarterback at UCLA.
"We're not trying to take away the identification of a young man and his hometown with Nebraska," he says. "All we're trying to do is be more select. We welcome walk-ons. We want them in our program. They add to our program. But I think things got misconstrued. We want the numbers to be more manageable."
Dealing with Nebraska's fans and its program is going to be Callahan's biggest problem. Nebraska has a storied history in football and they're used to winning. Lincoln isn't Austin or even Stillwater as far as attractiveness-to-recruits goes. That being said, recruitment is apparently one of Callahan's strong points. Callahan's 2004 pull ranks fifth of the Big Twelve according to
Rivals.com. However, they ranked second in the Big XII North, behind only Kansas State. That should be enough, right?
When the British balked at their secondary status to the United States in the Allied effort to win World War II, American troops teased that the Brits were underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.
In Lincoln, with the sun setting on four decades of dominance, it chafes Husker fans that their team is underpowered, undermanned and under Kansas State.
Bob Devaney built Nebraska into a national power in the 1960s, culminating in national championships in 1970 and '71. He handed the program to his top assistant, Tom Osborne, who strengthened the program and won three national championships in the 1990s. Osborne handed the program to his top assistant, Frank Solich.
His record of 58-19 (.753) was sixth among active Division I-A coaches, yet Solich won only one Big 12 championship. Still, Solich was family, and when athletic director Steve Pederson fired Solich after a 9-3 regular season, he set off a feud. Osborne, a U.S. Congressman, called a news conference to voice his displeasure, and a few weeks later relinquished his skybox at Memorial Stadium.
In any case, I wish Mr. Callahan luck.
Oh wait, no I don't...
Observations
the MElting pot re:the other sessionists
Pederson's a joke. He seems actually to believe that John Blake and some of the other assistants are going to make up for all the damage he's done to that program (and that Callahan has done by not embracing Nebraska traditions firmly). John Blake was an average recruiter at Oklahoma and a disaster as a coach there and at Dallas (where he would have been fired if Barry Switzer hadn't landed him the OU job). No way he outrecruits the elite programs in the Big 12 (among which Nebraska is not right now).
As for their recruiting haul -- K-State almost always lags in recruiting rankings because Snyder is good at recruiting talent for his system, but not necessarily talent that ranks that highly (i.e. most of the players he recruits wouldn't even make the two-deep chart at Miami). Lagging behind them in recruiting rankings means Nebraska's talent haul is way down -- in fact, they're recruiting with the Texas Techs and Oklahoma States of the world (about where John Blake's Oklahoma teams were).
Winning will fix that, of course, but I don't see that team being better than last year's. I see it being worse (but the North is weak right now with Colorado in disarray, so who knows what the record will be).
Crazy thing is, if Pederson had really wanted to be bold, he would have hired Bo Pelini. You know, the guy who grew up around those Stoops boys in football rich Ohio, who was a well regarded pro assistant, who was embraced by Nebraska faithful after taking that defense and making it the strength of the team last year and a very good unit despite its deficiencies in talent. Pelini is going to be a head coach somewhere, and probably not far in the future. In the meantime, what a coup for Bob Stoops that he'll be standing on the sidelines of Owen Field this fall instead of overseeing a major rebuilding program at Nebraska.
They get John Blake, my Sooners get Pelini (for a year or two). I'll take that deal!
Pederson loses.
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