vadernation

We had the top ranked class 3 years ago according to ESPN.....HMMMMM...how'd that work out for us? Here's a few top recruits from that year....Justin Tomerlin, Franz Hardy, Leon Jackson, Chris Brooks, Harrison Beck, Zach Bowman. Bowman was good for 1 year. A few 3 stars and lower turned out OK...Zack Taylor, Matt Slauson (0 stars), Barry Cryer... I'm not saying we don't need 4-5 star players, but if they don't want to play for N then we don't need them. Callahan could have stayed and Gabbert could have broken every record we had, and we still would have lost 3-5 games a year. I'm not interested in that. It's not the class, it's the coach. That class of freshman are seniors now so they should be winning more than 5 games a year. We'll see how Bo does.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amen brother - I have been saying that for 5 weeks since Bo was hired. I will take 25 3 star players and Bo as coach than 25 4 stars and Callahan and Cosgrove at the helm. Did you ever hear one player say that Callahan got them to be the best they could have been? Did Callahan ever have the type of sentiment that Bo's former players are saying about him? He might have been a good recruiter, but it makes me wonder what he was saying to all of his recruits when they jump ship as quickly as they have. He wasn't recruiting the program and being honest, he was filling their heads will all sorts of NFL dream lingo. We are 100 times better off now than we were 2 months ago.

I agree wholeheartedly that hiring a new coach is a huge risk. But keeping Callahan will drive a stake through the hearts of many Husker fans. Some eventually got on board with Callahan, but many have not. Those that got on board, many have not stayed due to his poor gameday coaching, arrogance, irrational comments, and loyalty to assistants that clearly cannot do the job. I consider myself a huge Husker fan, and my apathy toward this year's team was the highest it has ever been. I was mad when we lost to USC, disappointed and embarrassed when we got blown out at Mizzou, and then things started fading away to the point where I simply wanted the season to be over with. With Coach Pelini, he will not allow a team to give away games; they will be fired up for each and every play. He understands what college football is all about and that you cannot simply take games, weeks, or seasons off. I fully understand that he might not be as polished as Callahan, as good at offensive X's and O's as Callahan, and probably doesn't understand the Husker legend as well as Gill or Osborne. But, I want him as my coach because he knows football, passion, and is willing to learn what it takes to be a Husker. He showed that ability in 1 year than any other assistant coach we have ever had. Bring Bo on!!!

Rose is done - just announced it on KFAB. Let the full house-cleaning begin...

Way to go out on a limb there you one-year bandwagon fan.... you are undefeated and we are below .500 and you declare you will win on your home field. I'm sure next you will say that your hoops team will probably beat ours in Allen Fieldhouse. Stay on your own message board you freak and I'm sure we'll see you next year when you are not as good and we are better and we play you in Lincoln. Go away.

Pelini is the man, plain and simple. He took a very average defense from 2002 and turned it into a fiery, aggressive, turnover-creating unit in 2003. He put up with Stevie P's crap for 45 days and still held it together for the bowl game. He has seen some of the best football in the nation since his NU departure, and I'm sure has created recruiting contacts during that timespan. Bo has been at the very top of college football since 2003 and will be able to share that knowledge with his players on what it takes to get there. People criticize him for his Bill Snyder rant in 2003, but I loved it. He stands up for his kids, gets them to play hard, and has a top-notch defensive mind. After the last four years, I'm so ready for that. Plus, with T.O. at the helm, Bo can be mentored on the "polished" side of being a D-1 head coach. BRING HIM ON.

Pederson will be gone - Perlman has heard enough from the boosters, who nearly all want Pedey gone. There has NEVER been a person in our athletic department that caused such hatred, and Perlman has to be smart enough to realize that. I firmly believe Pedey, Callahan, and all of the assistants will be gone the Saturday after Colorado. Pelini is the natural choice - he LOVED it at Nebraska when he was here, and he'd come back in a minute if Pedey was gone. Especially if he had the top job. Fill in his staff with a few former Huskers, and give TO the AD job and we are set. The talent level is here - all we need is a motivator and some decent technical people to allow this talent to excel. The Pelini transition would be the smoothest possible since he already knows what it means to be a Husker, he knows that Pedey has ruined this program, and he knows football and defense specifically. His defense will keep us in every game next year.

Dennis Dodd on CBS Sportsline.com said it best - clean house from Pederson to Elmo... beg and hire T.O. as A.D., beg and hire Pelini as Head Coach, and bring back some old Husker blood as assistants. We need to find a correct mixture of old Husker blood that can instill what it means to play FOR Nebraska (instead of playing AT Nebraska), and new Husker blood that can recruit, coach, and develop talent. Regardless who the new coaches are, nothing can be worse than what we have now.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________ AMEN!!!! Well said Hanc, well said.

Good lord people, I am as big of a fan as they come, but can we not set football aside for this issue? Clearly the man is going through something, and I hope he makes a full recovery - NOT for what is best for our beloved Big Red, but for what is best for ML. If recovering and moving back to Cali and his family is what is best for him, so be it. We will survive without him - what is of the most importance is his health and overall well being. Get better #20 - get better.

Comparing Meyer and Cally is so unfair - Meyer trips over a dozen 4-star players on his way to the office each day. Cally has to work his you-know-what off just to get a 4-star to visit. Zook had that program stocked with talent before Meyer got there. Solich had some decent defensive players on board, but nothing in the way of QB, OL, or WR's. Cally has done a decent job - I'd give him a B. He needs to do three things for us to get better long-term: (1) Turn more of the play-calling over to Norvell so he can watch the entire game and motivate the entire team, (2) Stop giving full control of the defense to Cosgrove, if not replace him. Our D has been so inconsistent for 3 years with improving talent and that falls entirely on the DC, and (3) Get rid of Elmo and reassign Busch to special teams and recruiting only. We need to get a quality secondary coach. Firing BC would be catastrophic to our program, but a tweaking of the staff is mandatory at this point.

Elmo needs to go, Busch needs to stick to special teams only and recruiting, and we need to hire a complete secondary coach - one that is really good at teaching technique and can motivate. I agree with the sentiment that there is a reason a person has 20 jobs in 22 years (or whatever the numbers are) - people don't want to keep him around for very long! I don't think Busch is a very good coach either, but he can recruit like a mother. I think the talent is there to be a decent secondary, but unfortunately they are all sitting on the bench watching Grixby, Shanle, Green, and Jones getting routinely burnt.

Hoping for Devine and getting him are 2 very distinct things at this point - the way Cally & Co. are stockpiling RB's with the vast majority of them sitting on the sidelines and not getting any playing time will start scaring RB recruits away. Lucky was THE MAN coming out of high school along with J.Stewart who went to Oregon. Stewart starts for Oregon and averaged 15 carries a game. Lucky averaged 9. High school kids see that, along with the numerous other recruits already on board. Castille is starting to shy away as will Bo and Noel.

Least intriguing perhaps, but our best shot to end the season on a winning note. Assuming we go to Tempe and win, that would make our season a raging success at 11-3. I can't think of any better way to head into the off-season.

I think we would all be amazed if we had a decent safety in place of Shanle. Think about it - one weak link back there makes everyone look bad. If Green could cover his space and not worry about Shanle screwing up, he and the corners could afford to play more aggressively and probably better overall. Please put Culbert in.

I think it was completely classy for BC to get Glenn in the game in quality time with all of his family and friends in the stadium. I'm sure he has winning the game first and foremost in his mind, but he just as easily could have had B-Jax score those first two TD's. Maybe not the 2nd one because Glenn ran like a Mack Truck on that TD. Kudos to Billy C for getting Glenn some much-deserved P.T.

Shanle makes Blake Tiedtke look like an All-American. What is the worst possible thing that can happen if we put Culbert back there in Shanle's place - out of position? Missed tackles? Getting beat on a deep pattern? Taking wrong angles? Crap - those things are happening now with someone who has half the athletic ability to overcompensate. Shanle has to go; I swear that Tierre looks bad at times trying to make up for Shanle's errors. Bring on the freshmen and let them learn on the job. This is MY SINGLE BIGGEST COMPLAINT OF BUSCH, COSGROVE, AND ELMO - they play the older guys and never give the young guys an opportunity to learn. In the words of William Devane in Bad News Bears Breaking Training... "LET THEM PLAY!!!"

Husker55's rants are not well written, but have a small bit of validity. In the 2nd half this year, we have been outplayed in nearly every game (Texas is the only game I can think of where we were clearly the better team in the 2nd half). Why is this? A lack of overall depth would cause some of the problem, but an overall lack of strategy at halftime has to be part of it as well. We kicked A&M's tail all over the field in the first half and in the second half, we looked inept. You would have to believe that in Callahan and Cosgrove's pregame planning, they would look at possible changes that A&M would have made, and have counter-attacks ready to communicate at half. I loved the win, but we came out of the halftime locker room looking like we expected no change from the opponent.

We are seeing that talent does not always equal wins. In addition, the talent is not hitting the field soon enough, and that is a coaching and development flaw. We have good "X's and O's" guys on the offensive side of the ball, and thus our offense has shown improvement. But on defense, we have one excellent recruiter (Blake), a very good recruiter (Busch), and two pretty good recruiters (Cos & Elmo). We need to get rid of Cos and Elmo and replace them with great defensive minds and technicians. People that can adjust on the fly and make worthwhile halftime adjustments. I was not the biggest fan of Pelini and Sanders, but they seemed to be able to make such adjustments. Blake and Busch can bring in the players - we need people who can properly coach them.

I cannot believe how accepting the people on this board are!!! Have all of us forgotten what it means to be a Nebraska Cornhusker??? It means being pre-season ranked Top 10, winning 10-11 games every year, not hoping to play in a New Years Bowl game, but rather wondering which one it would be, and every couple of years, being in the mix for a National Championship. That is what it means - not hoping to win a mediocre division title and playing in the Big 12 Title Game. Not back-to-back Alamo bowl bids and this year, looking like we'll spend Christmas in glorious El Paso. I realize that building this program back up takes time, but we ought to be getting beat by freshman and sophomore athletes being too aggressive and overrunning a play... not a slow senior taking the wrong angle and missing the tackle. There ought to be a glimmer of hope that the glory days will return, but I don't see one. If we had not gotten Sam Keller for next year, and knowing what we know now about the players in the program, what would our expectations be for the 2007 season? I would think nothing better than 7-5 again (I'm hoping Keller gets us to 8 or 9 wins). But again, this is not good enough - not for the program I've grown up with!

The requirement for instant gratification is not one of the becoming traits of some Husker fans ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who said anything about instant gratification??? I simply want a coach that betters his players while they are in the program. At present, I cannot think of one that has gotten marginally better while under Callahan's tutoring. Also, why do other programs get freshman and sophomores to start and play meaningful minutes, but we cannot (for the most part)? Why don't the young secondary guys play when they are clearly better and more talented than Shanle? I'm a Husker fan through and through who has contributed my time, effort, and finances to the Husker program, and it is my right and duty to call out people who are not putting their best foot forward where the program is concerned. Callahan and Cosgrove are #1 and #2 on that list, in my opinion.

The direction of the program is very much up in the air. We could easily be 7-5 at the end of the year and heading to another mid-tier bowl. And to say that Callahan is blowing the recruiting doors off is simply untrue - he is bringing in some good players, but definitely not great players. His #5 ranked class is turning out to be a joke because 9 of those 31 players are not even with the program any longer. With all of the JUCO players the he brought in, we should not have to be playing with Solich players any longer. But we are. So what is Callahan really doing? Granted, he has brought in a more enjoyable and up-to-date offensive scheme, and he has brought a very organized approach to recruiting. But I have a very hard time saying he is a good "COACH". Our players do not get better while they are here (Beck, Lucky, even Taylor to some extent), and our teams do not get better as the season goes on (last year we were within a whisper of losing to K-State and not making a bowl again). What Callahan is doing, others can do as well, plus I'm guessing they can coach better. Cos and Elmo clearly have to go because our defense is playing to within 10% of their potential.

What makes you think that our time is coming? Better recruiting - I agree we have improving talent. But this coaching staff won't know what to do with it. This was the year that Callahan was to take a major step forward - 9-3 or 10-2 and he'll be lucky to match last year's 8-4. He does not get the college game and he will lead us nowhere. That is not crying or me jumping off the bandwagon - that is fact based upon watching three years of this regime with most of the emphasis put on this year's team.

You want to know why educated fans complain about the coaches and players after a loss? Because it is the coaches' job to get their team ready to play, to recruit the best athletes in the nation, and not to lose to middle of the pack Big 12 teams!!! I hate change and want BC and his staff to succeed, but I expect more from my Nebraska teams than 8-4 records year after year after year. Callahan is sub-.500 against the Big 12 so when Pederson said he did not want mediocrity, he got it. We are worse than mediocre. If you truly believe that BC is the answer and he will get us to a national title game in the next 3-4 years, that is great and I hope you are right. But then you are not watching the same team I have been this year. Our wins have been against terrible opponents. The Texas game is the only team that we showed up and played well against - I expect more than that as an educated fan.

Blackshirt guru - I hear what you are saying because change and turnover is never good for a program. But, if a coach does not get it and cannot take a program to the level it needs to be at, what is worse - keep the coach and suffer through 8-4 seasons forever, or hire another coach who can take the talent in the program (there is definite talent here) and coach it, motivate it, make it better? When BC came, there was very little talent here. That is not the case now - I just firmly believe that BC and KC cannot "coach up" a team in college that gets to the Top 10 and BCS level bowls. I don't know the reasons (too technical on offense, not the right personality, etc.) but I am seriously questioning if he can get it done.

I have two goals: (1) play in January, and (2) face an opponent that we can compete with athletically. LSU scares me from athletic standpoint because they have some severe horses. Arkansas and Notre Dame would be great because I think we could beat both of them. How much better is the off-season for everyone if we win our last game? The recruiting finish would be improved and we would have some serious national mo-jo heading toward next year. Go Big Red.