Monday, August 21, 2006

Billy C Might Not Be For Me

I'll admit that I sooooo wanted to fall in love with the idea of Bill Callahan, Nebraska Football Coach because he was such the polar opposite of what some Nebraska fans would call "the Nebraska way". He'd go glad handing at the Green Onion, shilling his "program" and recruiting and selling like none other. And when he signed that Harrison Beck kid from FLORIDA, who was courted by it seems like every school down south but....well, let's just say he wouldn't have been on Frank Solich's radar. Callahan somehow sold this 5 star recruit to come to Nebraska as his golden child. Like a lot of "Nebraskans" who weren't familiar with the guy -- other than his rather highly documented hatred from Raider Nation -- I started to buy in, and thought "Billy C" (as his first NU quarterback Joe Dailey would later call him) had some sort of the making of Nebraska's latter day Bob Devaney.

That's the problem. We all fell for Bill Callahan, salesman extraordinaire. It was easy to buy him in February, 2005, when he proudly stood up to a podium in front of a throng of eager reporters, bragging about the "New Class of Recruits", headed by Beck. Hell, the Omaha World Herald put together a TWO PAGE spread complete with artisitrs renderings of EVERY SINGLE RECRUIT from Callahan's award winning first class. It was the sort of overdone piece normally reserved for when, oh I don't know, the Red Sox win the World Series. Or at least Nebraska winning a National Title. Or so "Husker Nation", as Stevie P dubbed all Husker fans, thought.(Stevie P, it should be noted, is the proud Nebraska Athletic Director Steve Pederson,and if Callhan's moniker is Billy C, Stevie P has to ride shotgun). It was enough to get over 60,000 people to watch a football practice, known in Nebraska as the Spring Game, in April, 2005.

When Stevie P brought Callahan in to even interview, I was stunned because he was run out of Oakland so quickly, especially from Tim Brown, Al Davis and Charles Woodson, who went on the record to the media about what an ass Billy C was and had lost and entire team just one year from a Super Bowl they could have won if their idiot coach would have bothered to change the audibles (more on that later). But I shouldn't have been that shocked, considering that Stevie P had spent over a month trying to find ANYONE to take the coveted job of Nebraska Head Football Coach. Oh sure, he had a guy who WANTED the job in Defensive Coordinator (and interim head coach and fan favorite) Bo Pellini, but evidently Stevie P's main target was none other than...Houston Nutt, who promptly used the courtship to get a better deal from Arkansas. After all of this blew up, Stevie P had omlettes all over his face. And then somehow, someway, out of the clear silver and black sky, a fallen Billy C somehow told his agent to try and get him an interview at Nebraska. Within what seemed like 45-seconds, Billy C and Stevie P fell in love and Callahan was bringing the West Coast Offense to Nebraska. So at the very worst, we'd at least have fun for a minimum of 3 years before somebody accused Billy C of calling his team "idiots" like he did in Oakland.

So even if we all agree that Billy C, salesman, is a great idea, shouldn't the mainstream media at least be questioning Head Coach Bill Callahan right now? Shouldn't Tom Shatel of the Omaha World Herald at the very least SUGGEST that Callahan just isn't cut out to be a head football coach? Let's consider some of his ON FIELD highlights during the past two seasons:

  • He literally shoved the West Coas offense idea around Joe Dailey, a Solich recruit who was brought here to play quarterback in the mode of, if not Tommie Frazier, at least Jamal Lord. All things considered and with what he had to work with, Dailey will be known as the first Nebraska Quarterback to throw for over 300 yards in a game. Enter emergency golden boy, Juco transfer Zac Taylor, who dazzled those 60,000 + at that spring game to the point that Joe Dailey went to the media and promptly called Callahan "Billy C", and the following Monday announced he was transferring to the friendly confides of North Carolina.
  • Ross Pilkington, a wide receiver who was named a captain as a junior during Billy C's first season and had all the makings of someone who could thrive in an offense that throws the ball quite a bit, promptly quit at the end of the season, supposedly because he hated "his coach" so much. (By the way, shouldn't SOMEBODY have said WTF when Callahan named four guys as captains during his first season and for the first time maybe ever NONE of them were seniors? Doesn't that at least raise some sort of red flat. Sophomore CAPTAIN Joe Dailey???)
  • On national TV, Nebraska is embarassed by Texas Tech 70-10. After game, Billy C the salesman, "still saw some good things out there". Like what? That the clock struck 0:00 when the score read 70-10, was that the good thing? Many Husker fans point to the 62-36 loss at Colorado as one of the lowest points in recent Husker history. The Tech loss in 2004 has to be the biggest loss in Husker football, period.
  • The embarassing tradition of making his quarterback run back to the sidelines before EVERY SINGLE PLAY. I'm not even sure this happens in high school football. The sad part about this was, even though we might have forgiven this sort of thing with Dailey as QB, it still happened with Taylor!
  • Ending his first season with a 5-6 record, which of course had to make Tom Osborne nod in approval when announcers said, "For the first time in over 35 years, Nebraska will not make an appearance in a bowl game." But no worries, following the game, Billy C announced, "We're building towards our championship season." Nobody brought up the fact that he didn't say seasonS, but never the less, the salesman sold us the bridge that said, "Right this year off and get all ready for next year and my amazing 5 star recruits."
  • Missouri finally won a game against Nebraska in 2005, 41-24, but that's probably only because they found a way to rack up 523 yards of total offense against the Huskers, including a 79-yard run by QB Brad Smith (480 of those 523 were compliments of Smith himself). The local papers even had to admit it was as school record.
  • Oh yeah, a player who at one point in time committed to coming to Nebraska thought so highly of Billy C that he sent the coach a TEXT MESSAGE announcing that he changed his mind and was picking Kansas State instead (which probably made Frank Solich smile for the first time since getting busted for DUI).


Which all leads us to Harrison Beck, who came here, as, there's just no better way to put it, the chosen one. It was all set up perfectly. Zac Taylor falls into Billy C's lap, gets the whole West Coast offense thing even better than anyone expected, and all of a sudden he had a proven QB who could run his system, his offense, for two years. Beck would redshirt during the 2005 season, learn as a true freshman, then be the second coming of Matt Leinert for THREE freaking years. This couldn't go wrong. All of a sudden my thoughts on Billy C were back to positive. He could be Coach Callahan.

Then out of nowhere, because he KNEW he had to win a game at home against an overrated Kansas State team, Taylor gets minorly dinged, and Billy C pulls Beck from his redshirt during the middle of the game, has him play something like THREE series, only for Nebraska to win the game by 2 points, just to become bowl elligible. (Let's also not forget that Solich losing to Kansas State at home was his Waterloo, something that may have been in the back of Billy C's mind.) All of a sudden, Beck had used up a year of eligibiltiy, and would have to come in this year as a sophomore instead of a frosh, but it still looked like it could work out OK in having two years of the "chosen one" as the QB.

Only a funny thing happened on the way to "Fall Camp. Harrison Beck was all of a sudden 4th on the QB depth chart, and then we all learned that the chosen one had a huge fan in his own mother. Before we could really learn anything from camp, Beck's mom spouts off to the media (Steve Sipple of the Lincoln Journal Star in particular) about how her son should be the starter NOW, how he's better NOW than Zac Taylor. Finally, Tom Shatel wrote something importanta about the situation, that this would be a defining moment for Callahan and that he had to handle the "Beck situation with kid gloves". The next day, both Billy C and Beck agreed that it was in the best interest for Beck that he just take his ball and his mother and go home, or at least transfer somewhere like North Carolina State. And everything we read now is that Beck had to go, he was too immature, wasn't right for us anyway and oh by the way good riddance? All we'd hear about was how the kid was just a big baby who couldn't handle being ordinary, nevermind the fact that shit should have happened the same way when Eric Crouch babied out and quit for a day and took his ball and ran home to his parents, only to be talked off a ledge by having Solich personally drive up and tell him, "It's OK, boy. You can be our starting quarterback". Less than two years ago, Harrison Beck and his family (I'm assuming his vocal mother was with) received a POLICE ESCORT to get to Lincoln in time to watch the spring game.

Callahan got so incredibly lucky last year by beating up on what turned out to be an eextremely bad Colorado team and then somehow won an exciting Alamo Bowl against an overrated Michigan team. Everybody's confused Billy C with Coach Callahan. EVERYONE'S excited about this year, primarily because the the Big XII North is as winnable as a game against Pacific, and all I can smell is another mutiny. How long before Marlon Lucky gripes about someting? How long before everyone realizes that yes Zac Taylor is a really special quarterback, but unless there are receivers and lineman who "get" the system too, it's not going to amount to a pitcher of warm spit? And I swear to you, if Billy C does that shit where he makes Taylor -- now a senior and captian, -- come running to the sidelines before EVERY play, well, at least we'll know that Joe Dailey will have a drinking buddy someday. We should have realized the luck on this guy way back on September 17, 2005, when Pitt came to Lincoln. Less than 7 days before, Frank Solich's new team Ohio had somehow upset Pitt on a nationally televised game. The split camp of Solich Supporters/Callahan haters couldn't wait for the Pitt/NU game. If Nebraska couldn't beat a team that former coach Frank Solich could beat with a group from Ohio University....somehow, the salesman Billy C managed a 7-6 win at home because some poor kicker for Pitt missed a field goal in the final seconds. If that kid makes the kick, Callahan doesn't even get a chance to get the lucky breaks he got at the end of last season.

I want Callahan to work because he's interesting, he doesn't play the bible card like another former Nebraska football coach, he yells things like "Fucking Hillbillies" at OU fans, and he's genuinely happy after a win (remember how hard it was for Osborne to do anything but remain stoic while staring at one of those National Championship Trophies? Could you imagine what Billy C would do with one of those things?). I want to toast some scotch with him at the Onion after winning a title. But I'm not drinking Billy C anymore. The more I look back on it, Callahan was Ray Handley, that disgruntled NY Giants coach who followed Parcells, with a lot of luck. At one point in time during his first year with the Raiders, Callahan's team was 4-4, then they somehow ran the table and went to the Super Bowl. He was run out of the NFL in a big glorified way, and he lucked into a situation where Nebraska had an opening, and Callahan knew he could get away with any of his shenanigans at a place like Nebraska because football runs the state and all he'd have to do is win. I hope he goes 10-2 this year, somehow finds a way to beat either USC or Texas (because we all know beating both is just not even a long shot), and plays in a BCS game. But I smell doom, I smell a big flop a coming, maybe a 6-5 or 7-4 that somehow buys Callahan another year. Mostly I smell a big loss at Oklahoma State, and all of a sudden people won't buy Billy C's speak anymore.

Oh yeah -- about those auidibles at the Super Bowl. About three months after Callahan was hired, I had the chance to talk to a former NFL player who was on one of those teams (I promised I'd never reveal his name). Callahan was up against the Tampa Bay Bucs, coached by none other than Chucky Jon Gruden, who the previous year had coached the very same Raiders team very close to a Super Bowl. The story goes that Rich Gannon, QB for Gruden and then for Callahan in the Super Bowl, was using the SAME EXACT audibles that Gruden had used the year before. It got so ridiculous that, the story goes, somebody on the Tampa Bay defense TOLD Gannon that they knew the audibles were from last year, that the entire defense knew what was coming, and Billy C still did nothing.

Even if that story isn't true, it certainly should be.

34 comments:

PTPers said...

Sam Keller will cure all that ails you.

Anonymous said...

well done with the grammar-challenged sub-title for the blog.

kudos.

Anonymous said...

Coach C didn't pick the captains you moron...the team elected them.

Anonymous said...

anonymous is a little hostile isn't (s)he? and for the record we welcome critical reasoning skills here in ames so you're welcome on the bret meyer bandwagon anytime.

Anonymous said...

Plenty of people (fans, sportswriters, boosters, players, Osborne, etc.) have publicly voiced their concern with Callahan throughout his time in Lincoln. This dope makes it sound like every Husker fan has fallen for Callahan, hook-line-and-sinker. Husker fans are way ahead of this guy in realizing the obvious. Years ahead. And about the last part, where you reveal your inside info/source pertaining to the ex-NFLer, that whole "audible-gate" was revealed during the telecast of the Super Bowl. It was because John Lynch was miked up during the game and said they knew exactly what was coming.

I don't know if you're a Husker fan. But if you are one, get your f-ing story straight. You give common-sense, Husker fans a bad name.

Blogs suck. Perfect example here.

Anonymous said...

God help you. You just wasted 5 minutes of my life, by reading this crap. In the future please get research so I don't have to shake my head a couple dozen times. As for Ross Pilkington, with the type of reciever NU has now he would be struggling getting reps on the scout team. As for slamming TO's expressions, PISS OFF!

I want you to promise those of us you read this, that you will have a revised version after "BILLY C" wins the north, and plays competitive in the Big 12 champ game. After all you should redeem yourself.

GBR!!!

Anonymous said...

You will be embarrassed for having written that, and deadspin has no idea what they are doing by linking to you. I honestly feel sorry for people like you. Go howl at the moon.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to see the empire crumble first hand when my Tigers come to Lincoln and destroy the Huskers.

Anonymous said...

With the ghost of Brad Smith??

Anonymous said...

The coach doesn't have to sell the program to the fans, especially "fans" like you, idiot. He has to sell it to the players. It also has to be sold to capable players. Solich wasn't bringing in capable players(although I heard rumors that he was good at showing the petite co-eds his championship ring), and I'm scared as hell to think what the Husker Nation would be sitting in if Steve P. had let things stay status quo. We would be lucky to be in the bottom half of the Big12 North, the new facilities would be half-built because of lacking donations, AND THERE WOULD BE NO HOPE! The majority of Husker fans know that you're just a weasel shithead that's probably never played a sport in your entire life...or else you live in Colorado.

Anonymous said...

Man, the Husker fans are a whiny bunch, aren't they. But, I'd be whiny, too, if I had to live in Nebraska. That's what happens when you spend to much time in the wind, I guess.

DFS Dude said...

Nebraska is awful...Bill Callahan is a joke and Nebraska will always play like crap as long as he is head coach.

USC 42 Big Pink 3

Unknown said...

WOW all you h8ters of Nebraska make me laugh. Don't cry when they run a train on the Big 12 this year!

Go Red!

Anonymous said...

I love the one reason these haters love to hate Nebraska.

Dominance!!!!!

Unknown said...

I couldn't agree more! They think they can clown because Nebraska has slipped a little.... That won't last forever.

Anonymous said...

You obviously have issues. You give loigc, reason and common sense a bad name. If you are a RED fan and don't like it, I say don't let the door of HuskerNation hit you in the ass on your way out. Last time I checked, we aren't really in need of any more fans...

Anonymous said...

That was an amusing little article DL.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

Don't H8™ the big red son!


CWTR™

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

You make many excellent points. The most poignant was when you noted that you don't need to sell a program to the fans, within the same paragraph that you spoke about the program's dependency upon donations. Either that, or when you noted that haters tend to hate because of Nebraska's dominance. That's fair. I have admittedly been pretty jealous of the continued success of the women's air rifle team. I hope your football program can rise to that level at some point, too. Good luck, and keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Sam Keller can only "cure what ails you" if he is allowed to bring his Cocaine & Steriods with him.

Awesome Inc. said...

Callahan came to Nebraska with a completely depleted level of talent. You can't turn that around in one season. We had a three game improvement from Callahan's first season to his second one and continue to get grade A talent (now Keller from ASU, a potential 1st round NFL QB). Pete Carroll was 6-6 in his first year at USC and that seemed to work out okay for them.

By the way, to the anonymous person who posted at 2:50, what are you talking about with the wind? And it's TOO much time in the wind. I guess I wouldn't know the English language either if I lived wherever you do.

Anonymous said...

Best blog ever. You are prophetic.

Anonymous said...

Wow, are you serious about this article? First of all if you are a Husker fan how in the world can you say anything bad about TO? Secondly isn't it convenient that "somehow" Callahan won the Alamo Bowl and "somehow" he made it to the Super Bowl? Could it be that he's a good coach?

GBR

Anonymous said...

Wow, Nebraska fans dont like to hear the truth.

Can't spell dominance without C-A-R-Q-U-E-S-T

Awesome Inc. said...

Actually, you can spell dominance without that. I don't think any of the Husker fans who commented here made outlandish claims of our success under Callahan. We're just defending him b/c we know a lot more about the Huskers than people who aren't Nebraska fans and didn't realize how quickly the program was going downhill under Solich. Things are turning around, but it is pretty much impossible to maintain a level of excellence that Nebraska had for over 30 years in today's college football. Even Miami was subpar and got smoked in their bowl game last year. And if you're a USC fan, spare me. The Pac-10 is an absolute joke. Nice conference. Let's have every game be 42-38 b/c we're soft and don't play defense.

Anonymous said...

Funny blog but Missouri also beat NU in 2003 by the same score as 2005...41-24.

Anonymous said...

I met former president Bush a couple of years ago. I also met W before he became president. I've spoken face-to-face with Barbara and Laura, too. So I must be a very close friend of the Bush family and a powerful human being, right?

Wrong. Completely wrong. They wouldn't know me from Adam's housecat. Yet everything I stated above is absolutely true.

A couple of players quit. Several were disgruntled. Find me another major program in the BCS where this doesn't happen on a regular basis. Callahan made some stupid comments, so he is the great Satan.

Strangely, you also find a way to blister Tom Osborne for his morality and faith.

It's going to be tough to please you, but I suspect you'll be happy if Nebraska loses to Oklahoma State, a few more players quit and your conspiracy theory takes on more influence.

Here's hoping you're miserable this fall.

Anonymous said...

Funny how Nebraska dominating their CONFERENCE (or at least half of it and playing "competitively" in the chamionship game) now stands as DOMINANCE that we, um, h8ers h8.

I root for a wretched football team with no hopes ever of glory (U of Ky.). But we have a history of power when it comes to b-ball, and we know that winning the SEC matters about as much as kissing the 9th hottest sorority sister standing near the keg. So good luck, Big Red fans, and keep up the tough talk on the road to another B- year.

Anonymous said...

As a Husker fan, Other embarassing events by Billy C were the throat slash and last year's loss to KU. Living in San Diego, I know quite a few Raiders fans. After Nebraska hired Billy C, the Raiders fans were amazed that anyone would want to hire him as a head coach. He has trouble with egos. And the top best players always have egos. Wisconsin fans were amazed when Billy C hired the defensive coach from Wisconsin. What they told me was "Thank you for taking that idiot off our hands."

Still despite all the negativity around him; I am not going to call for Billy C's resignation just yet. I will give him at least one more year. NO embarassing losses especially on TV. and win the big 12 north. hopefully I am not expecting too much.

Anonymous said...

Interesting observations. I agree. Callahan needs to go.

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