Sports Illustrated recently named Callahan as the worst coaching hire of the decade in college football. Exacerbating Cornhusker fans' consternation with Bill Callahan's tenure at the University was his insistence that he had "done an excellent job in every area. All three repeated in Under Callahan's direction of the running game the Jets broke the franchise record in gaining yards on the ground through 16 regular season games. They led the National Football League in rushing and averaged 4. For the season, sportswriter Peter King named Callahan the assistant coach of the year.
American Football Wiki Explore. Games by year. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Bill Callahan. View source. History Talk 0. Callahan with the New York Jets. Retrieved on Retrieved on 5 January Universal Conquest Wiki. July 31 age Career highlights.
Pro Football Reference. Team s as a player if any. Nebraska Cornhuskers Big 12 Conference — W Alamo. L Cotton. National championship Conference title Conference division title. Rankings from final Coaches' Poll. He fired Callahan during a five-minute meeting Saturday. The move was expected after the Huskers finished with Friday's loss at Colorado, a game in which they squandered an point halftime lead by allowing 34 consecutive points. Osborne said he had told Callahan in late October that the coach would lose his job if he didn't have a winning record this season.
The Huskers kept losing -- and losing big, with five defeats by at least 18 points. That included a embarrassment at Kansas, the most points ever allowed by Nebraska. These coaches tried very hard to have that happen. Yet sometimes you didn't see the effort and intensity you like to see in a football game," Osborne said.
LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini and Buffalo coach Turner Gill are the names mentioned most often to lead a program that was once one of college football's most prestigious. Osborne's decision came one month and a day after Callahan said, "I have done an excellent job in every area.
The new contract was signed in September before the firing of athletic director Steve Pederson, who hired Callahan. I think they know what they're doing. But there was something missing, as far as I was concerned. Pelini was Nebraska's defensive coordinator in and was popular among fans, who chanted "We want Bo" after he led the Huskers to an Alamo Bowl win over Michigan State as interim head coach following the firing of Frank Solich.
Gill, a longtime assistant under Osborne and Solich, was the Huskers' quarterback in the early s and a Heisman Trophy runner-up in Osborne said he still talks with Gill about once a week.
Callahan came nowhere near meeting the high standards for Nebraska football established by Osborne, who won games and three national championships in 25 seasons before retiring after the season. The Huskers' defense posted some of the nation's worst statistics this season and their offense fell flat in the biggest games, leading to a five-game losing streak.
Callahan's four-year record was , with three of those wins coming against opponents in the division formerly known as I-AA. He was against the Big 12, against top 10 opponents and against the Top He was in games in which the Huskers trailed at halftime. The Huskers lost three home games for the first time since and allowed 40 points or more in six games for the first time, leading to heavy criticism of defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove.
Osborne said he never asked Callahan to fire Cosgrove or any other assistants in order to save his own job. You're responsible for hiring those people, so I was not going to tell Bill Callahan who he had to keep and who he had to let go. Bill Callahan is where the buck stops. When the Huskers were , Osborne said, he told Callahan that if the team finished , there would be no coaching change and that if he won three of the last four games "we can maybe make it work.
The parameters were pretty clearly spelled out. Was Bill a bad coach in Lincoln? Not quite, he did his job on the offensive side of the ball and recruited fairly decent by all accounts.
If you think his recruiting wasn't good, go ahead and name all the players on the defensive side of the ball on the squad that no one could score on that Bo recruited. You'll come up with a pretty short list. Ndamukong Suh?
Recruited by Callahan and Dennis Wagner. Furthermore, no one liked the losses in or , but people also say that they didn't like playing not to lose, like Bill tended to game plan to. I understand that, and it's not the greatest way to try to beat someone. However, when you look at scores like and , is it the worst thing sometimes? However, Bill did fail as a Head Coach in Lincoln. The reasons Bill failed in Lincoln are simple; that not only couldn't he fire his friend that he gave a job to, but he also was the punch line of Steve Pederson, a man who felt like he needed to revamp and create a new identity for Nebraska sports and football.
It's not Bill's fault Steve fired Frank Solich, neither is it Bill's fault that Steve's pearly whites wrote checks no one's butt could cash with his mouth. It's also Bill's fault that he couldn't see the issues coming a mile away and have the ability to separate friendships from professional relationships. Could he have won more? Of course he could have. But, lets end the whole "Bill Callahan destroyed Nebraska football" narrative, because while things were bad, there were a lot of decent things about Bill Callahan's time in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Again, I'm not going to tell anyone that they are wrong for the Callahan rage. However, I would just appreciate that one knows why to rage about him instead of saying things that were simply untrue. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
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