Would Bill Callahan Have Worked with More Time? 

By T.J. Birkel

Common Fans of a certain age remember. Then-Athletic Director Steve Pederson fired Frank Solich – a Husker legend who gave most of his adult life to Nebraska football – after going 9-3 in 2003. Then Pederson stumbled through a 41 day coaching search and ultimately settled for his fifth choice, someone with no college head coaching experience who had just been fired by the Oakland Raiders after going 4-12 in 2002. 

What in the name of summer sweet corn was he thinking? If you’re going to fire a conference championship winning coach who is just two years removed from playing for a national title, you better have a home run, slam dunk, can’t miss head coach signed, sealed, and ready to go. You better have Nick Saban, Pete Carroll, or the ghost of Bob Devaney waiting in the wings, ready to take the program to new heights. 

Nebraska did the opposite of that with the hiring of Bill Callahan. Not only was he not a proven winner, he was simply not a good fit for Nebraska. Notice how Matt Rhule embraces the history, tradition, fan base, everything about Nebraska football? Even the fish bowl? Bill Callahan is probably on the furthest opposite end of that spectrum of any Nebraska coach ever. He didn’t get Nebraska. He commented that Nebraskans had an “unhealthy obsession” with Husker football (damn right we do). After failing to make a bowl game in 2004, marking the end of our then-nation leading streak of 35 consecutive bowl games, he shrugged it off, completely failing to grasp the importance to the fan base of losing the streak. This coincided with Pederson drastically de-emphasizing the walk-on program and, in Tom Osborne’s own words, casting aside much of the history of Nebraska’s greatness. Pederson was trying to take things in an entirely new direction. Callahan didn't have an interest in playing to Nebraska traditions. It was a bad combination. 

We launched Episode 2 of The Reckoning Series this week: Would Bill Callahan Have Worked with More Time? I hope you’ll watch it, Common Fans. Long time Nebraska and college football reporter Mitch Sherman joined the crew to share his memories of covering the Callahan coaching search and the Callahan era at Nebraska. It’s well worth your time. Without spoiling the episode for you, I can tell you my personal opinion is no, Bill Callahan was not going to work at Nebraska long term. 

Why So Focused on Hiring an NFL Coach?

As Mitch laid out for us, before hiring Callahan, Pederson interviewed Mike Sherman (Head Coach of the Packers at the time), Al Saunders (then-Offensive Coordinator for the Chiefs), Houston Nutt (then-Head Coach at Arkansas), and Mike Zimmer (then-Defensive Coordinator for the Cowboys). If you count Callahan, four out of the five major candidates were NFL coaches. Mitch told us Pederson was fixated on bringing in a coach who could modernize Nebraska’s offense. He also pointed out that Pete Carroll – a long time NFL coach who had taken the USC job in 2000 and was in the midst of leading the Trojans on a dominant run – was a factor in Pederson’s thinking. One could argue Carroll’s success was the exception for NFL coaches coming to the college ranks, not the rule, and hiring someone like Callahan came with plenty of risk. As special guest Brandon Vogel pointed out, “This was Steve Pederson’s big bet.” Note to Common Fans: don’t take betting advice from Steve Pederson. 

Was Bill Callahan One Good Defensive Coordinator Away from Putting it All Together?

After going 5-6 in his first season in 2004, Callahan went 8-4 in 2005 with a victory over Michigan in the Alamo Bowl, and actually won the Big 12 North in 2006, posting a 9-3 regular season record and losing to Oklahoma in the conference title game (and then losing to Auburn in the Cotton Bowl). There was a fair amount of hype around Nebraska going into the 2007 season, but after a 2-0 start, they lost to USC 49-31, barely beat Ball State (41-40) the following week, and then proceeded to lose five in a row. While the offense flourished at times, especially late in the year, the Huskers had one of the worst defenses since the German invasion of France in 1940. Pederson was fired in October of 2007 as the wheels were coming off. After the Huskers ended the season with a loss to Colorado to finish 5-7, Callahan was relieved of his duties by the new, interim Athletic Director...a guy by the name of Tom Osborne. 

When Callahan’s teams were clicking, the offense was pretty good. The Huskers were #17 in total offense under the leadership of quarterback Zac Taylor in 2006, and the 2007 team was #28 in total offense. Even as things were falling apart for the Huskers in ‘07, they scored 39 points in a loss to Kansas, and 51 points in a loss to Colorado. One has to wonder what might have been if the defense was better. 

We asked Mitch and Brandon if Callahan was one good defensive coordinator away from putting it all together at Nebraska. Is it that simple? Mitch was unequivocal: "I think he was destined to fail." Maybe from the beginning, he said; certainly by the 2007 USC game.

The Callahan Hire Looks Even More Ridiculous in Hindsight

Part of the idea behind The Reckoning series is about looking under the hood of the last 25 years of Nebraska football, to provide a place for fans to better understand the history of what has happened to our beloved program, and to air some grievances too. It never needed to get this bad. So much of it was avoidable. There has been so much hubris, so many mistakes.  

In looking back at the Callahan era, it struck me that this hire in particular represents a major, recurring theme with Nebraska football for the last 25 years. This was the first big misstep by a Nebraska Athletic Director, but it wouldn’t be the last. This is at the crux of why things got so bad. 

In the first episode of The Reckoning series focused on the Solich era (and in the accompanying article), we made the point that Husker Nation was not up in arms about firing Solich in 2003. Many of us believed the program was slipping and something needed to be done about it. But if you’re going to fire someone like Solich, you have to go get a proven winner. You can’t be guessing; hope is not a strategy. 

This isn’t even really about Callahan. This is about who we are as a program. It’s about acting like the conference championship winning, national championship winning, putting-a-brick-through-the-other-guy’s-windshield program we were for decades. Yeah that’s right, 9-3 isn’t good enough for us. This is a championship program with championship expectations. All Common Fans can get behind that. We should never lose that mindset. But then we go and hire an obscure coach who has never won anything at the college level! And it wouldn’t be the last time! It’s infuriating. It’s dumbfounding. It’s hard to believe. 

I believe we’ve got the right guy in Matt Rhule. We’re bullish on the Common Fan podcast that the future is bright for Nebraska football. But the fact that it took this long is mind boggling. 

What do you think, fellow Common Fan? We’d love to hear your contribution to this discussion. Send us an email at [email protected], comment on YouTube, or message us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

Stay tuned for Episode 3 of The Reckoning: Bo-liever or Bo-leaver?

And in the meantime, as always, GBR for life. 

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NOTE: Thanks so much to special guest Brandon Vogel from the Counter Read, who joined us for all of The Reckoning episodes. For each episode, we also had a featured guest: someone from the Nebraska sports media who covered the era being examined. Episodes will be released every Monday for six weeks, starting June 17.