Anyone Heard from Bill Callahan?

husker249 said:
honestly, i loved the option dont get me wrong, but its out dated. of course navy ran the option and had some success, but when you get behind in a football game like navy did against utah in their bowl game, they couldnt pass to save their lives. not to mention defenses are getting faster. i would like to see the option evey now and then, but not evey play because its not nearly as effective, especially in the big12. Honestly i think the spread is the way to go.
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Yep, you could have the 94 Nebraska team playing today and it would'nt work. To many fast guys on defense now. Let's stick to the modern offense "West Coast" and take what we want when we want it.

 
Vuren said:
Cy the Cyclone said:
jayhawk said:
Cy the Cyclone said:
Spartness said:
I think it's human nature when one gets fired he stays away from the public eye.
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You're right...Mussolini was like that too...
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Of course, when Mussolini failed, he was murdered and his corpse was drug through the street. I am not sure BC was there yet, but he and Cosgrove were on the path (mostly joking, but BR fans were PISSED).

If I were Callahan, I would not say much. A team with Nebraska's talanet should not win 5 games 4 years into the mission. He only won 5 games in year one and they stuck with him (I was bitter, but I loved old school Husker Option football combined with hard nose defense, so I felt vinidicated in my bitterness). Anyway, Ironically, he never matched the 10 win season that Solich got fired for. I think, in Hindsight, Solich's firing was a bigger error than the Callahan hiring in a lot of ways. Solich getting canned after winning 10 had to scare a lot of the other options off... Pederson deserved his canning every bit as much, if not more, than BC and Cosgrvoe (OK, maybe not more than Cosgrove). IS there ANY chance the option wil come back? I have ranted on this message board before, I think it would stil work. THe wishbone may not, but the Big Red won pretty recently with that system and it matched well with the talent the could reliably get.... That is a lot of titles and title games to be dismissing it....
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The option worked pretty well for Illinois last year (of course that was against the high school teams that call themselves the Big 10) so there's really no reason that it shouldn't work for Nebraska if we have a QB that can run it right. Actually, the way almost all defenses are geared to pursuit, you would probably have a monster offense just running the fullback up the middle the majority of the time with a quick pitch now and then to keep em honest. I think it's been so long since anyone ran the option well and defenses are so used to the spread and WCO, that an option offense with some play action passing thrown in would blow most teams up...at least that's the way it looked during most Illinois games.
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if navy can do it with the athletes they have then nebraska can do it with bigger athletes. though lets be honest pitt should have beat navy but the stashe doesn't know how to call a game.
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The thing is, top-flight recruits aren't going to want to run the option like Navy runs it......the only way to make this plausible to attract top recruits is to run a version of West Virginia's (more Rich Rodriguez's) spread option that would have more passing game elements in it. Yea, we could get top running back recruits if we were a strict running team, but no top-flight QBs or WRs will want to go to a school where you run it 75% of the time unless they are content with the fact they won't go to the NFL. And as much as it sucks, that's the number 1 goal of high school kids now, not loyalty to a program. If you can find a QB who doesn't mind having only 15 passing attempts a game and knows going in that his job is to run, as well as receivers whose main job is to block, then you'll be OK.

 
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Alright, we need to get something straight. Back in 94' and even when we started running the option, we didn't run it every play. We didn't even run an option 50% of the total plays. Nebraska was a power-I offense but everyone just associated us with the option because when it was called we couldn't be stopped. Yes I know that there was a few games that we ran it alot but if the other team couldn't stop it, why stop calling it. You have complete control of the clock and the game. Frank was the one that used the option too much, Crouch was good but he should have pitched to ball to Diedrick more, he (Diedrick) led the conference in rushing his junior year and then his senior year came around and he didn't get as many touches. I believe if he had, that we would have had an even more punishing offense.

Anyway, if I can dig up the article, I will post the comment a former player made when talking about how much we used the option. That's where I got my info from. Osborne used to set people up with option and then use misdirection, fullback traps, and the tightend almost to perfection. The option pass was a thing of beauty when defenses would crowd the line to stop the run.

I still believe that the offense Osborne used to run would still work today, but the only man that could make it work is now our AD. Offense still comes down to the basics; put a man on a man, sustain your block, don't make stupid penalties. In other words, EXECUTION. Just like what Bo preaches on defense, do the little things and the big things take care of themself.

 
bbhusker said:
Alright, we need to get something straight. Back in 94' and even when we started running the option, we didn't run it every play. We didn't even run an option 50% of the total plays. Nebraska was a power-I offense but everyone just associated us with the option because when it was called we couldn't be stopped. Yes I know that there was a few games that we ran it alot but if the other team couldn't stop it, why stop calling it. You have complete control of the clock and the game. Frank was the one that used the option too much, Crouch was good but he should have pitched to ball to Diedrick more, he (Diedrick) led the conference in rushing his junior year and then his senior year came around and he didn't get as many touches. I believe if he had, that we would have had an even more punishing offense.

Anyway, if I can dig up the article, I will post the comment a former player made when talking about how much we used the option. That's where I got my info from. Osborne used to set people up with option and then use misdirection, fullback traps, and the tightend almost to perfection. The option pass was a thing of beauty when defenses would crowd the line to stop the run.

I still believe that the offense Osborne used to run would still work today, but the only man that could make it work is now our AD. Offense still comes down to the basics; put a man on a man, sustain your block, don't make stupid penalties. In other words, EXECUTION. Just like what Bo preaches on defense, do the little things and the big things take care of themself.
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Could not agree more with you post

 
bbhusker said:
Alright, we need to get something straight. Back in 94' and even when we started running the option, we didn't run it every play. We didn't even run an option 50% of the total plays. Nebraska was a power-I offense but everyone just associated us with the option because when it was called we couldn't be stopped. Yes I know that there was a few games that we ran it alot but if the other team couldn't stop it, why stop calling it. You have complete control of the clock and the game. Frank was the one that used the option too much, Crouch was good but he should have pitched to ball to Diedrick more, he (Diedrick) led the conference in rushing his junior year and then his senior year came around and he didn't get as many touches. I believe if he had, that we would have had an even more punishing offense.

Anyway, if I can dig up the article, I will post the comment a former player made when talking about how much we used the option. That's where I got my info from. Osborne used to set people up with option and then use misdirection, fullback traps, and the tightend almost to perfection. The option pass was a thing of beauty when defenses would crowd the line to stop the run.

I still believe that the offense Osborne used to run would still work today, but the only man that could make it work is now our AD. Offense still comes down to the basics; put a man on a man, sustain your block, don't make stupid penalties. In other words, EXECUTION. Just like what Bo preaches on defense, do the little things and the big things take care of themself.
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:yeah

Drove me nuts when Crouch would have 3 defenders hanging on him and still wouldn't pitch it to Diedrick.....

 
Husker_x said:
Anyone heard from Bill Callahan?
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Yeah, he played here in St. Louis last Friday night:

Fri 02/29/08 - Bill Callahan - Blueberry Hill's Duck Room

I didn't make it to the gig however.

He's come out of the closet with his music career while we were distracted by Bo!

Biography by Heather Phares

After almost 20 years of using the alias Smog for his music, former Nebraska Cornhuskers head football coach Bill Callahan switched to his given name for his releases after 2005's A River Ain't Too Much to Love. The 2007 EP Diamond Dancer and full-length Woke on a Whaleheart both mixed the intimate, reflective, largely acoustic sound of later Smog albums like Supper and A River with gospel, soul, and pop elements, and boasted arrangements by former Royal Trux mastermind Neil Hagerty.

 
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jayhawk said:
Cy the Cyclone said:
Spartness said:
I think it's human nature when one gets fired he stays away from the public eye.
Click to expand...
You're right...Mussolini was like that too...
Click to expand...
Of course, when Mussolini failed, he was murdered and his corpse was drug through the street. I am not sure BC was there yet, but he and Cosgrove were on the path (mostly joking, but BR fans were PISSED).

If I were Callahan, I would not say much. A team with Nebraska's talanet should not win 5 games 4 years into the mission. He only won 5 games in year one and they stuck with him (I was bitter, but I loved old school Husker Option football combined with hard nose defense, so I felt vinidicated in my bitterness). Anyway, Ironically, he never matched the 10 win season that Solich got fired for. I think, in Hindsight, Solich's firing was a bigger error than the Callahan hiring in a lot of ways. Solich getting canned after winning 10 had to scare a lot of the other options off... Pederson deserved his canning every bit as much, if not more, than BC and Cosgrvoe (OK, maybe not more than Cosgrove). IS there ANY chance the option wil come back? I have ranted on this message board before, I think it would stil work. THe wishbone may not, but the Big Red won pretty recently with that system and it matched well with the talent the could reliably get.... That is a lot of titles and title games to be dismissing it....
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Oh boy, talk about something dear to my heart.

Sadly, probably not as most NU fans have been brainwashed that "it couldn't work". Total and complete BS, but yet they believe it. So much better to have a "modern" fluffball offense even if you just keep losing ya know...

 
I talked to Matt Slausen at a bar a couple weeks ago about Callahan. He actually compared Callahan to Hitler. He said he is like an "evil genius" when it comes to offense. He didn't blame all of last season on Callahan. He said after we lost to USC, the entire team basically looked at the season as if it was over(including the coaches). This to me is the coaches fault letting their team think this way.

He went on to say that Callahan is a very good O-Line coach and will probably do very well in New York, but is not at all the right type of person to coach a college football team. I tried to get some more interesting info from him about Callahan, but everything he said I basically already knew.

 
Smitt said:
I talked to Matt Slausen at a bar a couple weeks ago about Callahan. He actually compared Callahan to Hitler. He said he is like an "evil genius" when it comes to offense. He didn't blame all of last season on Callahan. He said after we lost to USC, the entire team basically looked at the season as if it was over(including the coaches). This to me is the coaches fault letting their team think this way.

He went on to say that Callahan is a very good O-Line coach and will probably do very well in New York, but is not at all the right type of person to coach a college football team. I tried to get some more interesting info from him about Callahan, but everything he said I basically already knew.
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WORD....Matt Slauson and me are friends on facebook, last year i was talking to him and he was telling me how bad @$$ Ganz was. I gotta give it up to him, he's pretty open to fanz

 
I hear that Bill Callahan has put on a little weight since he's left Lincoln I think I found an image of him.

10431075.jpg


Talk about letting yourself go.

 
naw the option is still a viable offense, it worked at navy, it's worked at air force, which have mediocre football talent, so if we put it in with big fast players yes it worked, besides in 94 when nebraska played florida wasn't the lead up to the game "the offense of the 50's and the offense of the 90's meet"? last time i checked nebraska put up 64 points against the gators. also the option is still used by some teams. plus you have to think that most teams aren't built to stop the option any more they are built to stop passing attacks so they don't have the proper defensive athletes so you force them into mismatches. i'd say a power i offense would still work just fine.

 
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