...or, as my friend Zee called him, the Pope on a Tractor.
Nebraska wasted no time today in hiring an interim athletic director. It's none other than retired football coach and congressman Tom Osborne.
Osborne comes in to help clean up a massive mess. The football team is not up to par, and donors are threatening to withhold money from the program. Enter Dr. Tom. His job is to keep the donors happy and to fire coach Bill Callahan. Either that, or hire the new athletic director who will fire Callahan.
The parallels between the falls of the programs at Oklahoma and Nebraska are eerie. The only difference is that Osborne left the head coaching position on his own terms, while Barry Switzer left OU under a cloud of NCAA probation. After Switzer and Osborne, the schools have had the following coaches and athletic directors (OU followed by Nebraska):
Gary Gibbs=Frank Solich
Howard Schnellenberger=Bill Callahan
AD Steve Owens (OU Heisman Trophy winner)=AD Tom Osborne (national championship coach)
John Blake=The Huskers better hope their next hire is not another John Blake.
Bob Stoops=The Huskers would love to skip the Blake stage and get the new Bob Stoops, wherever he may be.
Nebraska has surrendered the Big 12 North to the likes of Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, and Colorado. It's a sad state of affairs.
4 comments:
WELCOME BACK TOM. I HAVE BEEN A FAN SINCE I WAS IN COLLEGE IN CHADRON IN 1964. YOU DID A GREAT JOB AND I'M SURE YOU WILL DO THE BEST FOR THE FUTURE OF "BIG RED"
Wellllllllllllllllllllll! Zee was right on the nose ... we'll sorta ... I didn't think it was going to be temporary. Good for Nebraska. They can only go up from here.
So now we have two pope sightings. One was your famous post and the other one is found here.
Both are very exciting.
Go Popes!
Interim is a relative term. The original T.O. may be there three months, or he may be there three years. He'll be there until he's comfortable turning it over to someone else.
This non-Catholic extols the greatness of Pope John Paul II. Tom Osborne will settle for being King of Nebraska. Who needs to be governor when you can be king?
Sure glad Tom's back. As far as Bill C, he needs to do what Solich did, replace the defensive coordinator. ASAP, and get some counseling from Tom on how to run a college football program.
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