restored_order

I believe this is a shot at the anti-Tebow crowd or at least I think it is.

 

NU would be lucky to have a player the caliber of Tebow running the team. Like him or not but he is a special college football player plan and simple.

I believe Nebraska was still in the running for him until Urban Meyer was named coach at Florida. The ultimate what if had Callahan landed him.

The more hilarious thing I remember is how many Nebraska fans were so much happier to have Freeman as opposed to Tebow. Calllllllahan never would have landed such a player.

Another of the awesome Calllllllahan recruits....

Truthfully there are a good deal of players in the NFL that played while under Bill Callahan.

 

Adam Carriker, Jay Moore, Josh Bullocks, Bo Ruud, Zackary Bowman, Stewart Bradley, Steve Octavien, Carlos Polk, Scott Shanle, Maurice Purify. I might be missing a few more, but for the most part those are the big names i remember that stick out in my head, im pretty sure Callahan doesnt call them, but im sure Nebraska still calls them and ask them to stop by and speak to the new recruits coming in or wanting to join up. I wont say Callahan was bad at picking talent, because thats not true, he just didnt know how to get them to perform at their top levels, motivating them, and play-calling.

 

You could definately tell what kind of team Callahan was running when Bo took them against Oklahoma and the team looked dead to the world. I didnt like how the Husker faces looked during the first quarter of that game, but i loved the job that Bo did getting in their faces to keep them from giving up. Callahan would have never done that, he would have sat on the sidelines along with them looking like he gave up with them.

 

But enough talk about Callahan, thats in the past time to look forward to the Bo Era.

FYI, neither Polk or Shanle played for Calllllllahan, and the only 3 on that list who were recruited by BC were Octavian, Purify, amd Bowman. The rest were all recruited by Solich.

Really? He did everything in his power to destroy this program and it's traditions, and didn't care what ANYONE thought.

 

If there's any hate or dislike directed at Callahan, he earned every damn bit of it.

 

Yes, I am sure that is exactly what he set out to do. He sat down and said, "OK, let's see. I'm HC here, but I just really don't like this place, for some reason. So I will tear this program down. I want to lose every game and set this program back fifty years. I might not be able to pull it off, but dammit, I'll try." :roll:

 

He had his way of doing things, and he was not a good fit here at Nebraska, but he tried his best and in the end couldn't get the W's that he needed. Bottom line. But you know what, he did set us up with what we have now on that vaunted offense we all love. You think we'd be here without Callahan stocking our O-line, instituting the WCO, and guys like Taylor, Keller, and Ganz? What about all the community-related events that Callahan put out there?

 

Don't give all the credit to Watson, by the way. Watson is another one of the guys who gushes about Callahan. He's learned a lot under him and passes off a lot of the credit to his teacher.

Funny that you mention Watson because it was reported on one of the local Omaha sports radio stations that even though Watson considers Calllllllahan a "close friend," BC has not tried to contact Watson since he was fired.

I agree with the other poster that BC didn't give a damn about Nebraska and was only here because he got fired and needed a job. Many of the things he said about us being "Sand-hillbillies" "Reading a real newspaper" "Crusty old f@*k" etc. show exactly what his level of appreciation and understanding for Nebraska are. He will always be tied to Pederson, the two have almost morphed into one ugly creature.

This staff reminds me of the staffs that Osborne had for many years, and obviously like Solich's last staff. These are coaches that are not flashy, do not get all of the national pub, and quite frankly may not be "great coaches" but these guys know football and these kids love playing for them. It is a complete contrast to the former regime. I remember when Calllllllahan put his horrible coaching staff together and many Husker fans bought the B.S. that it was all about recruiting talent and coaching was easy. As we have seen from the likes of Boise St, Utah, Cincinnati, and now this staff, good coaching and developing talent is every bit as important as recruiting great talent. Even with some of the supposedly greatest recruiting classes in NU history, this team probably has the least amount of pure talent NU has had since the sixties. Not only was the past staff poor at developing talent, they were poor at evaluating it, and in hind sight, poor recruiters.

Thankfully, Bo and his staff have put together a solid class that addresses the holes that were left. Hopefully all of these kids make it to NU and these coaches can turn them into stellar players.

I'm not sure that Bo will win a National Championship here, but I have a feeling in a couple of years, he will be able to have us in contention for the Big 12 and a BCS game almost every year. Considering where we have been for the past 4 years, we as Husker fans should feel pretty good about that.

Callahan made this offense. And he's a beast at recruiting. This is by no means a bad hire - if chemistry and things like that pan out, which is something nobody can predict.

This year's offense is miles away from what Calllllllahan put in. This offense runs zone reads and looks more like the spread than the antiquated West Coast Offense of BC.

And for all the hullabaloo and kudos that Calllllllahan gets as a recruiter, NU is well below the top 4 in the South and Mizzou in terms of talent, right along side of Kansas. Contrary to what Scout and Rivals says, we don't have that much talent, and his recruiting capabilities were highly overblown. He may be a snake-oil salesman, but he can't evaluate talent on his own, or develop said talent once he gets it.

Is anyone a little concerned that it took Watson this long to figure it out? He has been here for what, 3 years now, I would have thought he had a better idea of what was going on/what he wanted to do.

ugh.

Yea, I agree, we should have a Callahan/Pederson day in the near future to pay respect for all the greatness they bestowed on our program. I bet you would get behind that.

Yup, damn, you got me again! Man your good! :dumdum :dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum:dumdum

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YOUR spelling is good, too. Very classy. I guess only board mods can make personal attacks.

I'm glad it's over but for any of you who think Chase Daniel might have made it up think again. There is no way he did that.

And I say there is NO WAY a Nebraska player would do that (sarcasm). Listen, like Bo said, its he said, he said. I don't know either player personally so sould it have happened, sure. Could Daniel be lying, sure. If it happened, it was disgusting. If Daniel is lying, he looks like more of a classless crybaby after the rest of his 3 1/2 minute tirade, along with his comments after last year's game.

No one witnessed the alleged act and it seems highly unlikely that one player would approach another player and spit on them without some sort of confrontation. So as far as I am concerned it's innocent until proven guilty.

ugh.

Yea, I agree, we should have a Callahan/Pederson day in the near future to pay respect for all the greatness they bestowed on our program. I bet you would get behind that.

you guys are really quick to throw guys under the bus.

 

chill out and let's see how the rest of the season goes.

This is year 5 of this offense, with "top flight" (ahem) recruits to run it. It doesn't work. It wasn't that good a CU, it has been bad here whether it was BC or Watson calling the plays. A similar offense sucked a Auburn. If we don't have Joe Montana winging it to Jerry Rice and John Taylor, or Roger Craig taking handoffs, I would rather evolve to a successful college-type offense. Heck, the flippin' wishbone would be better than this crap.

I was going to start a similar thread, but you pretty much hit this one right on the head. Anyone that wasn't blind and knew anything at all about football knew that Calllllllahan and his staff were not good coaches and were not the right fit for our program. But I was hoping that at least they would stock the shelves with enough talent so that when we did get a decent coach we would have enough talent to compete, ala Oklahoma and Alabama. But that was another bill of goods we were sold by SP/BC. Not only was he a worse coach than Solich, but he was a worse recruiter, too. There were very few players that Calllllllahan "took" from top level schools. Heck, he wanted Maclin to walk on, but gave scholarships to guys like Brooks and Hardy? He gave Kunalic a scholarship when he had a better kicker in his own back yard? There will be more Solich recruits in the NFL than there will be Calllllllahan recruits, and at least Solich knew what he needed and how to utilize and coach his players.

I know, I know but Bill put us in a hole that is going to be very, very tough to get out of. It was tough enough to build a football factory in this state, but to do it again, with the way kids are today and how college football has changed, wow. It's gonna be even more difficult then Bob Devaney had it. I was hopeful that we were on the right track but the last couple of games really have me down, again. I knew that SP/BC ruined Nebraska football but I had no idea how bad it really was.

I commented on this in another thread but it didn't get much play. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think about this.

 

Personally I'm now of the opinion that the west coast offense has failed and failed utterly. It is a useless system which has no big play ability, and the prancing nancy way we run it yields the results we've seen against teams like Missouri. Furthermore I'm of the opinion that Watson––if he wants to remain at Nebraska, anyway––should starting Monday begin the transition to another style of play. This is precisely what Missouri did a few years ago when they realized what they were doing just wasn't working.

 

My preference would be the spread option. To this end I'd like to see a few redshirts pulled and a committed effort by our coaching staff to prepare for the future. Starting next week I think more wrinkles should be worked into our existing cesspool of an offense. Hopefully near the end of the season our conversion will be well under way. If this means that Zac Lee has to perform the function of a series by series quarterback, so be it.

 

Of course this is only my opinion, but I defy any of you to mount an argument for our current system. Unfortunately Callahan's shadow still looms over this program, and all the irreparable damage he's done.

 

 

i just think Husker X might be well on to something here.......i tend to agree, we need a different O philosophy altogether. getting it from Watson, however, is quite unlikely.

I couldn't agre with both of you more. His track record is less than impressive and if Watson can't get it done, show him the door.

No one will give them credit, but Wags and BC were absolutely fantastic coaches for our line. Wags should have NEVER been let go unless we were bringing in someone like Art Shell or Hudson Houck.

Our o-line has been bad since 2002. Wags and Calllllllahan sucked, they didn't bring in very good talent, and what little talent we do have, they didn't teach very well. We are seeing just exactly how bad the Calllllllahan era was here. It's gonna take a few years to get rid of that disease.

Look at how bad he screwed up the Raiders. Its been 6 years and they are still a disaster.

well im not about to run a guy out of town that supposedly will be out of town by december anyway with a head coaching job, but there are problems. There are times when things work well and look like an offense with an identity, but too often it just seems like we are being too fancy for our own good still

Good, see ya. Take Gilmore with ya.

Asante is the worst starting defensive player that I can ever remember at NU. Murillo isn't great either. He makes the occasional play, but whiffs on tackles and lets guys go by him. I really don't remember much of Wortman from last night. O'Hanlon is up and down.

Wow, we need help.

So, you don't want us to run the option, we should get rid of our current playbook, get rid of the offensive coordinator, and run POWER? Like what? a wishbone? Flying wedge? Scrum?

Most people don't know what they want. They just want to run what works. If what's being run now doesn't work, it must suck!

The problem is that this offense has never worked well with any longevity or consistency. Not here, not at CU. The weak dive plays with stutter-step-and-fall-down-Lucky and WR screens are old, tired and usually leave us with a long yardage situation. Then the 3 yard out or 3 yard slant pattern on 3 and 8 just doesn't cut it. I agree with whomever said Watson should have been shown the door with Calllllllahan. The sooner he takes his crappy 80's style offense and leaves, the better off we will be. Do you think that elite qb's (I'm not talking about Beck or Freeman) want to come and play in this garbage, or go to a place like OK St or Mizzou and light up the sky?

I would like to see an offense that can pound someone, get a receiver more than 5 yards downfield on a consistent basis, and can sustain a drive for more than 5 plays.

Playing the speed card on defense is great, but a powerful o-line will dominate speed almost every time. I think it would be easier to find strong tacklers and run stoppers and make them faster than give up size to have a faster defense. Just look at the impact a better conditioning program has had on this team in one summer. Give Bo's system time to work and I don't think that we will need to think about moving players around all that much in the future.

Did you see any NU games from the late 80's/early 90's when we played smaller, faster teams? If so, you will retract that statement. Part of that conditioning program of Bo's that you speak so highly of concentrated on losing about 20-40 pounds per player, FYI.

I thought it was Pat Ricketts out there, but maybe I'm alone on that. This kid played alright by no means would I say he played "Great".

 

Good for him though, but bring back West please.

I wouldn't say he played great, but he didn't take out our starting D-end or miss nearly as many tackles as 5* Asante. And he did end up around the ball quite abit.

2 Words---HELL NO!!!

They are making improvements, but not quite there yet. I feel that the players have to earn them individually. Imagine if 3 or 4 guys got them first. It would be a real kick in the backside to the rest of the team. That would show them how to play the game.

I personally hoped that we would have dominated these teams in a much more impressive fashion. That being said, its a work in progress, hopefully every week gets better. I guess we will know in a few weeks.

Do we even have a all conference type player? Certainly not an all american at this time.

 

You are talking about a team that has two viable Hypsman players. An offense that is nearly unstopable, and a few notches above anything we have seen this year. Kinda like comparing pee wee football and highschool.

 

This game will be far from competitive is my guess. This will have the fire Bo signs coming out is my guess, and there will again be booing at the stadium. It is going to be ugly period.

 

suh, potter, ganz, lucky, I think murrillo by the end of the year will be a all conference type as well. possibly murtha.

Suh, Potter, maybe Glenn and Murtha. The other 3 won't sniff All conference honors. Well, Lucky might if he gets to face a couple more Div 2 level defenses and he get 20 touches each game.

If your not sold on Watson you haven't been paying attention to the Big 12 the last decade! 2001 CU game, hello! This guy knows the conference and knows how to get a lot from a little. He is most certainly an asset to our football team.

He had alot of talent at CU and had middle of the road offenses (with one exception). He was at least smart enough to kiss up to TO and save his job, but if he can't get us the spread, he can hit the bricks. His offense is boring and predictable.

My feeling is he's here for this year to train Cotton on his offense and then get his own team.

 

So where do you think he'll go?

 

Can't see a big name team for him.

 

iOWA?

Hey, Lane Kiffin might be available pretty soon, some time next week actually. I'd rather see him come in if Watson finds a head coaching job (his stated goal) after the season.

That would be awesome! If he can't figure out how to change to a spread offense, hopefully someone lures Watson away at the end of the season. He had 1 top 20 offense at CU and our offense this year hasn't exactly been burning up the stat books.

After reading most of these threads it has become obvious that Tom screwed up with his hire and should have hired some of the Mod's off this board. They are clearly more versed in Husker football then Bo or Tom. I feel so lucky that they grace us with their infinite knowledge.

Awesome!