Oy. Fine, I'll waste a little more of my time.
Callahan took over a program on the downward slide. A program that was being left behind and needed to be modernized. There are a lot of people who point at the win/loss record Solich was putting up and scream, "He was doing well!" They're even somewhat knowledgeable about football. However, they are completely wrong. Solich was incapable of making the changes at Nebraska that needed to be made, not to mention he was a poor recruiter.
People are tired of hearing about Solich. Well, if you're going to talk about the first few years of Callahan's time at Nebraska, it's ignorant to ignore the effect the previous coach and his recruiting successes or failures had.
Callahan had to deal with players that were not recruited into Nebraska to play the system he was trying to implement. As an example of extremes, the main body of players you recruit to play in a spread offense are obviously not going to be the type you recruit to play in a run-based, power offense. Beyond this, Callahan had to deal with players that were, on average, not up to the usual caliber of player we expect at Nebraska. They were just not meant for the type of play Callahan wanted, were outright not as good as we needed, or did not pan out to be as good as expected. And this isn't ALL the players, but taking the average, this is what you find...not a good thing to find at all.
But this isn't a single season problem...you can't just cut all the players that don't fit, or you won't have a team at all. It takes time for your own recruits to come in, time for them to adjust to the college game and get to Div. I playing form. How long? Well, last year we started to see what they could do, and this year we'll see even more of it.
Let's not forget Callahan came in and changed probably one of the greatest legacy programs in college football. Nebraska in a West Coast offense, are you kidding me? This kind of change does not happen overnight and we are seeing that's the case now.
As for the big games, let's look at last year since that is really the first year where we start to see Callahan's efforts come into their own. USC on the road...are you kidding? Yeah right, anyone who honestly believed we had more than a fart's chance in the wind at winning is nuts. Texas at home. We nearly won that game, but in the end we didn't. We certainly showed we could play with them and give ourselves a chance at winning. Okie St...that was a smackdown, and we looked terrible. It does happen to every team, the difference is when you are solid all around, you can win such games even if you're off your game. Consistency like that is not something we had last year, but that aspect has been improving with this team each year since Callahan took over. A good sign. Oklahoma and Auburn...we were competitive, but again, just not consistent enough. Mistakes at key times also hurt us in places.
Is Callahan perfect? Of course not. He is still learning, too, just like the players. He makes some bad decisions and decisions do hurt us sometimes. No coach can claim otherwise.
Are there better coaches for the job out there? Probably. Can we get them? Questionable, at best. Is it wise to ditch a coach that is doing a hell of a job replacing a legacy like the one we had on a questionable snagging of a better coach? Absolutely not. Revolving coaches = program in the toilet.
The team needs to show improvement each year. I can live with an 8 win season IF we continue to show improvement in areas of the team that were sorely lacking last season. The win/loss record is not the end all be all of how to judge a college team in the middle of rebuilding.
