<p>The lack of a bigger name at Nebraska (IMO) is in part due to a lot of the recent dynamics that have gone on within the state. Silly as it is, there are still a lot of people who remain angry at the firing of Frank Solich in 2003 and Callahan’s subsequent hiring. In all seriousness, Callahan was sunk from the beginning because he was an outsider and there was this feeling (however incorrect it might have been) that he didn’t care about the traditions at Nebraska. I personally think he did an acceptable job in that regard, and that most people in the state are simply ignorant about the realities of college football in this decade, but he drew a lot of ire for things like cutting the size of the walk-on program and getting rid of little things like taking the team to a movie on Friday night (like that really matters, I know, but it made people upset). </p>
<p>Since Callahan got such a negative reaction simply because of his outsider status, I think a lot of bigger names were reluctant to throw their hat in the ring and thus no discussion of guys like Tedford, Bill Cowher, Chris Peterson, Bud Foster, or a really big name like Mark Richt ever came about. </p>
<p>You only need to look at the fact that many, many fans wanted Turner Gill, a 7-17 MAC coach to take over to see how delusional many were in the depths they’d go to get a “Nebraska Guy”. Nothing against Turner, I love the guy as a Husker legend, but the only reason he was getting a look was because of his ties to the program, and not because of his coaching accomplishments. Maybe he’ll be ready for the job in 10 years, but I want to see him prove a little more.</p>
<p>As it stands Pelini is about as good of fit as Nebraska could have gotten - he’s repeatedly said he loved Lincoln, he’s defensive minded (and goodness knows we need that), and he gets his teams to play with fire and intensity. That was always the biggest knock I had on Callahan was that he was too NFL in his approach - keep it on an even keel works there when you don’t have to win every game, and you have professional athletes, but college football is built on emotion and each game, each play does matter. I still think Callahan could have been the guy at Nebraska, but what’s done is done and I’m happy to have Husker Nation united for the first time since I was a freshman (way back in 2001…god that was a great season!)</p>
<p>^ I’ve also heard that Callahan ****ed a lot of Husker fans off by not having regular luncheons with the Lincoln press and having a more closed door policy with football alumni, in addition to the other things you’ve mentioned. </p>
<p>There is something to be said for these traditions, no matter how quaint and insignificant they may seem. It was not a wise judgement call on Callahan’s part to do away with the things that help make a program great.</p>
<p>Callahan also wasn’t helped by having Steve Pederson as his athletic director, because a lot of things Steve did got heaped on Callahan as well. SP *<strong><em>ed off a lot of former players, many of whom did not feel the least bit welcome back on campus and around the stadium. Steve also *</em></strong>ed off a lot of the local press who were accustomed to having greater access (and to a certain extent got lazy because of it - Rivals always had a guy who was around practice and working his ass off, and so he always scooped the local newspaper guys).</p>
<p>A family friend of my parents is very good friends with Will Shields (future NFL Hall of Famer, I might add) and Will has told him numerous times about the way he’d been treated by the Athletic Dept under Pederson. Very much a policy of claiming to be open to former athletes but then when they (the athletes) called to get tickets or whatever, the response was always negative.</p>
<p>You know if Cal hadn’t dropped their last six of seven games, the Versus Curse might have seemed more credible. But “upset” or no, the Bears still lost to Stanford last Saturday, on the Versus channel. Note to PAC-10: do not allow Versus to broadcast your '08 season. It spells doom.</p>
<p>Missouri and Arizona State really got the shaft from the BCS, and the fact that 9-3 Illinois (that’s right, a 3 loss team from a maligned conference) is in the Rose Bowl is a mini-travesty. If not for the lame Big-10/Pac-10 tradition for the RB, and if not for the lame two team from each conference max rule, we’d be seeing something like Florida vs. USC in Pasadena, an absolutely amazing match-up.</p>
<p>What’s going to be fun: Georgia vs. Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Its either going to be really ugly and horrible for Hawaii, or really awesome like the Oklahoma-Boise State game last year (the later of which, by the way, Hawaii beat when Boise was ranked #19.) Also interestingly, the highest ranking team Ohio State played and beat all season was also ranked #19.</p>
<p>Regarding Cal’s collapse this season, I think the Bears were taken aback by Coach Tedford’s reaction to Kevin Riley’s mistake against Oregon State. They were demoralized and lost confidence. Nate Longshore was never really healthy after the Oregon win, and Tedford was too stubborn to let Riley play again. Hopefully, next season will be better…and hopefully no Cal games will be televised by Versus.</p>
<p>Kansas in a BCS bowl game over Missouri is the biggest BCS travesty yet. Orange Bowl officials said they selected Kansas because it had a better record (11-1) versus Missouri (11-2). Hello!??? Missouri played an extra game because it was rewarded for beating Kansas. Shame on the Orange Bowl officials and the Big 12 commissioner for letting that happen.</p>
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Haha! I think he and Charlie Weis shut down the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio in Vegas.</p>
<p>According to rumors in the Kansas City Star, the real reason KU got the nod was because KU’s AD gave the Orange Bowl a guarantee on the number of tickets sold. The KU Athletic Department is going to make up the difference for any tickets not sold below the minimum. Considering the Mizzou couldn’t sell out the Big XII championship game when they’re team was #1 in the country (surely a once in a lifetime event for Mizzou fans), the Orange Bowl had some concerns about how well Mizzou would travel.</p>
<p>That could explain why BC was chosen so low with respect to other ACC teams. It’s pretty clear that Clemson & Virginia draw better than BC does on the road. There were about 20k empty seats at the ACC championship game, mostly where our fans would’ve been sitting.</p>
<p>That’s another reason why Pac-10 needs more teams. The coaches are biased towards teams in their conferences but there are less coaches from Pac-10 than from, say, Big12. It probably doesn’t matter in most cases but when it’s a close race, you never know.</p>
<p>^ Good point. But, one thing to keep in mind though, there is only a limited number of coaches that vote in the Coaches Poll. I think they’ve thought through that to keep it fair.</p>
<p>I agree that Mizzou got shafted for losing in the B12 title game (bowls are reluctant to pick teams that lose their last game and filling seats tends to be the prime objective in picking teams).</p>
<p>Kansas only beat ONE team in its conference w/ a winning record (Texas A&M at 7-5).</p>
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<p>How was the Pac-10 any better than the B10?</p>
<p>Btw, the Illinois team would beat Mizzou in a rematch (they had the prior game won).</p>
<p>Hawaii is going to get lose by a couple of TDs.</p>
<p>Sure, but those one blowout games are what people base their opinions on, rightfully or wrongly.</p>
<p>Look at all the flak tOSU and Michigan got last year for the outcomes of their respective bowl games. We’ll see this year how the teams match up… that will be a better indication of conference strength.</p>
Uhh, that was the anomaly of this year’s schedule.</p>
<p>For instance, dOSU has played UT the past 2 seasons and has USC for the next two (plus it’s not the B10’s fault that ND was atrocious this year - btw, 3 B10 teams smacked ND this year while a Pac-10 team lost to ND).</p>
<p>And uhh, who did Arizona St. play? San Jose St., San Diego St. and Colorado.</p>
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<p>And that’s the flaw with public perception and the reason why the SEC is over-hyped and the B10 gets crapped on despite the fact that the B10 is 8-6 against SEC teams in bowl games the past 5 years (including 2-1 last season).</p>
<p>I guess we should all peg the Pac-10 to be better than the SEC since Cal (a middling Pac-10 team) handily beat the 2nd best SEC team, Tenn.</p>
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