Who's Going to Nebraska?

The guillotine is being prepared in Lincoln, as Bill Callahan's days are numbered as coach of the Huskers. Who will go into the land of Corn to restore the glory of Nebraska? Here are some names that keep popping up:

Turner Gill. Legendary ex-Nebraska quarterback, now head coach at Buffalo. Was an assistant at Nebraska. Took the worst head coaching job in Division I-A and has the Bulls headed for respectability in the MAC. Has won three games there this year already, which is about like winning 9 somewhere else. Close to the new boss, interim AD Tom Osborne.

Bo Pelini. Former NU defensive coordinator, now holding the same position at LSU. Was interim head coach for NU's appearance in the 2003 Alamo Bowl. Passed over for the head coaching job by former AD Steve Pederson in favor of Callahan. Still a fan favorite. From the same high school as the Stoops brothers, and coached under friend Bob Stoops at OU in 2004.

Gary Patterson. Current TCU head coach. Has been a consistent winner in Fort Worth. Was the brains behind Dennis Franchione's operation in Frogland, then won on a bigger level once he became the head coach. Believes in defense and power football. Native of Kansas and graduate of Kansas State.

Paul Johnson. Current Navy head coach. Has built Navy back to respectability using the option offense. Won I-AA national championships at Georgia Southern. Husker fans would love the option offense he would bring.

Other names will be thrown around. These four will rise to the top of the list.

The King of Nebraska

...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.

The Big Red Revolution Begins

Football is a big deal in Nebraska. It's a really big deal. It's such a big deal, that when the football team consistently fails to meet expectations, the coach is not immediately fired. His boss is.

Steve Pederson was fired today as athletic director at the University of Nebraska. He is the Nebraska native that came home after a successful tenure as AD at the University of Pittsburgh. Since coming to Nebraska, he led the athletic department to expand facilities, accumulating a large debt. He also fired a football coach after going 9-3 when he fired Frank Solich after the 2003 season. He then hired Bill Callahan, fresh off of being fired by Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders. Pederson's future immediately became tied to that of Callahan. Since the football team is stinking up the field, the donations are drying up. It is job numero uno for the athletic director to raise money. Nebraska needs someone else to do that.

The Callahan era has not been a good one for Nebraska. His teams have been above average. The scandal in Nebraska, though, is the way he has handled the program. He has closed the program off to former players. He has shut down the much-loved and acclaimed walk-on program, which gave Nebraska natives the chance to contribute to and suit up for the Huskers. The natives in Nebraska are restless. The final straw was the 45-14 thrashing delivered by Oklahoma State on Saturday.

Bill Callahan's days are numbered. He will land somewhere next year as an assistant in the NFL. Someone will be asked to go into Lincoln to heal the Husker Nation and to clean up the mess.

From AJ In Omaha: 50 Reasons to Hate the Huskers

This has been floating around the Internet on message boards of various Big 12 schools. This is the creation of a Missouri Tiger fan in Omaha, who is upset, mad, and bitter due to Husker overkill in the state of Nebraska. I can only imagine what it is like to be a non-Husker in Omaha. Still, I wouldn't get so bitter about it.

This posting does not reflect the editorial position or language preferences of this blog. This blog celebrates the greatness that was once the OU-Nebraska rivalry.

Here it is, from AJ in Omaha, Behind Enemy Lines:

The College World Series is over. Football is coming. To celebrate, I give to you 50 of my favorite 853,657 reasons to hate the Huskers. Remember kids, these are in no particular order and collected in a non-scientific manner.

Enjoy

==========================================

50 - Jim Rose. "The old Grey lady on 10th street is truly rocking now". Phrases like this and referring to football helmets as "Gleaming white bonnets of battle" makes me want to rip my ears off.

49 - Lil Red. He was stupid and lame before all puffy mascots were stupid and lame. 'Oh look at me, I'm upside down'. Who cares. He looks like the bastard step child of Matt Davison and Colonel Sanders

48 - If not for Penn State, the most visually unpleasing uniforms this side of Pop Warner. And no, calling it "Scarlett and Cream" instead of "Red and White" makes you sound like you flunked pre-school.

47 - Post 1997, Nebraska baseball sports a sold out stadium of 5,000 plus per game. Prior to that, average attendance during Darren Erstad's senior year? 48.

46 - "Greatest Fans in College Football"'s number one celebrity ambassador? Larry the Cable Guy.

45 - "Lawrence needs football in his life"

44 - Things like this:

43 - Lyle Bremser's ancient radio calls of "Man, woman and child did that put them in the aisles!" That's fine if it made any damn sense at all. How could they all fit in the isles? (Especially now with the weight problem in America) Whacked out old bastard.

42 - Lee Barfknecht travels to "neutral" Big 12 football games to show wide-ranging "conference coverage" from the Omaha World Herald. Lee uses that print space to bash the other 11 schools for not being as good as Nebraska. Same writer still gets death threats from Husker fans for voting Michigan #1 in the 1997 AP poll.

41- Fairbury Franks (Official hot dog of NU athletics for decades) is actually made with ground up puppies and kittens.

40- 1971 to 2004: Most important aspect of Husker football is world-class strength and conditioning program, as well as exemplary walk on program. 2004-present: Both are for losers, as Rivals stars outweigh everything short of having the ability stand upright.

39 - So much love for their team, they must share it with other teams when their own sucks. (ie - Creighton 12th in the country in basketball attendance in 2007)

38 - Johnny Rogers pimping Lil Smokies 742 times a day on Omaha television.

37 - Giant foam cornhead-hat...cool in any language.

36 - While 62 Husker athletes are heralded as Academic All-Americans on the side of Memorial Stadium, public completely unaware of mural below south stadium that celebrates the nearly 4 dozen individuals arrested from the Husker football team since 1993.

35 - Random and bizarre "rivalries" with out of conference teams (veiled with jealousy and contempt). Calling Florida State a football "rival" is stupid when you realize that Iowa State has beaten NU more times in the past 15 years.

34 - College volleyball. Not cool. Not exciting. Not ever....no matter how many people you have who claim to be "fans". 3 million Iowans love college wrestling more than breathing...that doesn't make it enjoyable to watch.

33 - 1992 to present, Husker fan mocks Kansas State's schedule by playing the likes of Western Kentucky and Illinois State. Ironically, in 2005, Maine is suddenly a 1AA power that "can surprise you by playing scrappy and hard-nosed".

32 - Naming your dog, "Osborne". (Don't laugh..I know two different people who did that)

31 - 2004 "John Blake is the greatest recruiter in college football." In 2007 "John Blake really didn't make that big of a difference"

30 - Bo Pelini..if even for only a couple of seasons. (a jackass is a jackass is a jackass)

29 - NU fans continuously calling players and RECRUITS by their first names. It's not "Marlon". It's not "Cally". it's not "Blaine". It's Lucky, Callahan and Gabbert, and if they were in any other line of work, they wouldn't' give you the time of day because you're a complete douchebag. Stop pretending your best buds by the language you use. Idiots.

28 - Listing National Title game date on all pocket schedules and posters.

27 - Film breakdown every Tuesday during the season at a small church in south Omaha is considered cool and the place to be. Updates and recaps are distributed like presidential mandates throughout Husker cyberspace.

26 - Steve Pederson (Yeah, like I can pick out ONE thing to list here)

25 - Only in Nebraska can somebody think this is cool.

YouTube: I Love Nebraska (hokey country song)

24 - Channel 6's Dave Weber actually CRIED on live television when the Huskers made their first College World Series.

23 - "Sal is dead..Go Big Red!" oozes class to this day.

22 - Husker fans claim the world is out to get them, yet somehow lose sight of this when a last second pass is kicked from 2 yards out, over the heads of two defenders and into the arms of a pasty-white wide-receiver, who was 12 yards away from where he was supposed to be.

21 - Stealing an elderly Husker fan's hat at a Penn State game: NOT COOL because the poor soul did absolutely nothing to deserve the inhumane treatment for doing nothing but attending a game with his favorite team. Punching a Missouri fan: COOL because the little bastard deserved it.

20 - Heisman trophy winners who sign and quit during their first pre-season game to live the life of a professional poster signer back home.

19 - Throat slash

18 - "F*ckin Hillbillies"

17 - Husker fans root for Tennis Player Andy Roddick because he's an admitted Husker fan. (Although born in Omaha and a resident for 4+ years, the family got the hell out of dodge and moved to Florida)

16 - Being charged with assaulting Miss Nebraska in a bar is fine and dandy if you can play the D-line.

15 - Steroid scandals with smoking gun-type evidence conveniently pushed under the rug by Lincoln authorities in 2005. Ironically, less than 10 articles appear in the Omaha World Herald, despite the fact that a convicted pusher lived with several Husker football players.

14 - Nebraska officials praise 55,000 attending NU spring game in April as "unprecedented". Meanwhile, nothing is mentioned of the Alabama spring game that drew nearly 40,000 more.

13 - Scott Frost whining his way to the 1997 (1/2) National Title.

12 - Kirk Herbstreit's comments in December that the 1995 Huskers were not the greatest college team of all time, nearly cause rioting in several eastern Nebraska communities.

11 - Tom Osborne's longstanding campaign against porn.

10 - Striped turf is not cool. Oregon can get away with it. You can't.

9 - Mascot, overalls, corn. Enough said. The only character on earth proven more frightening than the Burger King Mascot.

8 - "That was the most out of control situation I've ever seen in college athletics" - Steve Pederson describing the scene in Missouri as fans rushed the filed celebrating the first win over NU in 24 years. Ironically, only 6 months prior to saying, "This is what it's all about" when NU fans stormed the court in Lincoln in a win over Kansas.

7 - Stealing the Chicago Bulls' tradition of following the players out of the locker room to the beat of the Alan Parson's project, and bastardizing it as your own to the squeals of your own fans isn't cool.

6 - Traveling 50,000 strong to road games does not make you "great fans". It means driving 5 hours is more enjoyable than going to Oakview Mall...which is pretty much the only thing to do in Nebraska..other than go to the zoo for the 86,356th time.

5 - Two words: Trev Alberts

4 - Starting the wave while a visiting player lies temporarily paralyzed on the turf = Classiest fans in sports. Drawing a cartoon about it mocking the situation by poking fun at the opposing coach's weight? Priceless.

3 - Omaha World Herald columnist Tom Shatel's infamous "The Nebraska athletic department would be foolish to fire Frank Solich", just days before claiming "Sorry..I meant to say Frank has to go" the morning after his firing. Apparently the fear of covering Omaha Beef football while his NU press pass is suspended was a bit too much for Tom to keep his journalistic integrity.

2 - Calling Osborne's decision to go for two in 1984, "gutsy", when it fact it was quite possibly the stupidest decision on earth to throw a roll out pass when you average 15 yards per rush.

1 - "The Media is out to get us" (Not to be outdone by my new favorite, "The Lincoln police department is out to get us")
Let Husker bashing season begin.

A Good Story

A good friend of mine has recently become a newspaper editor in western Nebraska. I was scoping out his paper's website yesterday, and came across a great achievement.

I do not keep up with high school girls basketball. I know of a handful of good teams in Texas, mostly at the class 5A level. I do remember, though, from my days in Oklahoma, that the best show is at small school tournaments, especially the state tournament. The small school tournaments there are the best attended, and the passion for hoops is greatest in tiny communities where there is nothing else.

Sioux County High School is located in Harrison, Nebraska (population 279), in the far northwest corner of the state, near the borders of Wyoming and South Dakota. It is 48 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart. According to the Nebraska School Activities Association, Sioux County is the second-smallest school in the state, with an average attendance of 24. The school's website shows 30 students. There are 16 girls in the school, and 12 play basketball.

Last night, the Sioux County Warriors qualified for their first ever girls state tournament, defeating Maywood by a score of 43-32. They now advance to next week's state tournament in Lincoln. I know nothing about Nebraska girls basketball, but I wish them well.

The Warriors now get to ride a big yellow school bus 503 miles to Lincoln (according to Mapquest). I don't think they'll mind. If they're lucky, maybe someone could spring for a charter, or at least a nice minibus. Either way, it's a really, really big deal.

Finally, After 11 Years

Quick comment from the road, as I will have more hot sports opinions tomorrow on the BCS and the world of football...

After 11 years, there is finally a matchup between my beloved Oklahoma Sooners and the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Big XII Championship game. Nebraska has been in this game three times, OU has been in it four times, but never have the two played each other in the Big XII championship game. With due apologies to Texas, Kansas State, Colorado, and the rest of the conference, this matchup was in mind when the conference and the championship game were created 11 years ago.

Special thanks to the Fightin' Texas Aggies for making this possible with their upset win over Texas.

It's going to be a fun week. Boomer Sooner!