While everyone is in a hurry to send Callahan down the road, I'm not so sure he'll be going anywhere soon. I'm pretty sure at the end of the year we'll be seeing some changes at the defensive side, but I'm not sure Callahan will be going.
First off if you want to chop off heads and fire a coaching staff, you brought in the wrong AD. TO is a patient man and will not fire anyone too fast, that's just not his style. You also have to consider that back in the 70s TO was headed to Colorado to coach because he was tired of all the critics here. He will have sympathy for Callahan because he understands what he's going through, and understands that it's even worse today with radio sports talk shows and the internet. I'm convinced if we had the internet back in the 70s, TO would have never been here in the 90s for his National Titles. We'd of run him off. He will not get in a hurry to fire Callahan. Now he may ask Callahan to make some defensive changes, and if Callahan objects, then maybe they all go. But that's something that only time will tell.
Secondly TO has mentioned the importance of culture and tradition. And while Callahan did make some changes, such as back off on the walk ons at first. Many of the changes that were made to back away from the old Ne. culture came from Pederson. Does anyone really think it was Callahan that said don't put up any pictures of past All Americans. That had to come from Pederson. We'll have no way of knowing just how many of the old traditions were broken by Pederson and not Callahan. But TO will know, and if Pederson is mostly to blame, then that is not a strike against Callahan. Pederson was Callahan's boss. So if Pederson said this is the way it will be, then it was up to Callahan to go along.
Callahan made some mistakes up front because he didn't understand Ne football. In some cases he figured that out and changed back. And other times he didn't. The only thing we don't know is, would he have changed back other things if Pederson was not there. Also Pederson is from Ne so he knew how important tradition was. It was his job to make Callahan understand this up front. That is if the past Ne culture was important to Pederson. If it wasn't, then he just let Callahan move away without saying anything.
We've found out TO likes the spread. While the spread and the WCO aren't the same, are they really that far apart. Up to this point we haven't had a QB that can run, but it does seem Callahan has recruited some and tried to recruit others that can run. Freeman comes to mind. With a running QB at the helm would our WCO end up looking a lot like a spread offense that runs the ball. It seems to me it could, and if it does, again it seems TO would be happy.
I'm not saying I'm a big Callahan supporter. He's done some things that I've thought were a little weird, and I'd say I'm not going to be heartbroken if he's gone. But I think we may want to hold off ordering the booze for his going away party. Or if it's already ordered, use it during the last games this year. We may need it.