No Lateral Move

LINCOLN, Neb. â€”  Newt Gingrich switches to Green Party, John Deere to make greeting cards instead of tractors, Madonna enters convent, Nebraska football ditches option attack in favor of West Coast offense ...

All of these ridiculous notions are false except the last and still, to believe that one, you had to jump on a plane and see it with your own two retinas.

First, the closest thing to “West Coast� in Nebraska is Scottsbluff, and the most significant aerial shows in the area have taken off from Strategic Air Command headquarters, not a Cornhusker’s hand.

Did you know that a Nebraska quarterback has never thrown for 300 yards in a game?

That’s never, as in not ever.

Incredibly, though, the reports are true, sure as first-year Coach Bill Callahan, late of the Oakland Raiders, sat in Memorial Stadium recently after a quick-paced, pass-happy practice orchestrated with the precision of a Busby Berkeley musical.

“This is a shift in philosophy,� Callahan explained over the warmup burps of Nebraska band tubas.

Make that a seismic shift.

Of all the radical departures in the history of sport, this one may top all.

After decades of tilling the soil with a corn-fed, ground-oriented football philosophy that reflected a conservative, land-locked people, Nebraska has junked it all and gone Hollywood.

All this because of a 2003 season that ended disastrously at ... 10-3.

If you’re having a tough time digesting how the previous coach, Frank Solich, a Cornhusker lifer and Tom Osborne’s handpicked successor, could be tossed into the silo after leading the program to its 35th consecutive bowl appearance, well, that makes you and a lot of other people.

The man responsible for this philosophical overthrow, Athletic Director Steve Pederson, tried to explain himself.

“The record doesn’t always mirror what’s really happening,� Pederson said.

A few months ago, Pederson might have ventured out only incognito.

Many Nebraskans were, frankly, not pleased with the way Pederson handled the firing of Solich and the subsequent coaching search, during which he kept fans that are some of college football’s most knowledgeable largely in the dark.

Bill Doleman, a native Nebraskan and host of a radio talk program called “The Average Joe Sports Show,� says Cornhusker fans will not forget how Pederson left them “twisting in the wind� during a coaching search that lasted more than a month.

That said, Doleman added that the hiring of Callahan was brilliant.

Callahan “saved the University of Nebraska from embarrassment,� Doleman said.

Passage of time has allowed Pederson to venture outside freely.

Simply put, he said, it was time for change at Nebraska, even if it didn’t feel like it.

Pederson said it was his responsibility as a native Nebraskan to make the calculated decision to break the championship chain of history that began with Bob Devaney in 1962 and ended late last year with Solich’s firing.

The Nebraska coaches in that span -- Devaney, Osborne and Solich -- had a combined record of 414-88-5.

More than that, the coaching transitions here always had the feel of a father’s passing on the family business to a son.

Devaney won two national titles before, in 1973, bequeathing the program to Osborne. Twenty-five years later, after winning his third national title in 1997, Osborne stepped aside only after he was assured that Solich, his longtime assistant, would succeed him.

Solich went 58-19 in six years, taking the team to the national title game in 2001, yet Pederson sensed a program on the downslide.

He saw no Big 12 titles since 1999, a leaking boat in terms of recruiting and, last year, blowout losses to Kansas State and Texas.

In 2002, Nebraska finished 7-7, its first non-winning season since 1961.

Last year’s bounce-back season was not enough to change Pederson’s vision.

A Nebraska graduate and former associate athletic director, Pederson returned to Lincoln in December 2002, after a six-year stint as athletic director at Pitt.

He wasn’t coming back to change the wallpaper.

What he sought was a modern makeover -- and there was pressing precedent.

Oklahoma, Nebraska’s archrival and once an option team, changed to a pro-style offense under Bob Stoops and won the national title in 2000.

It was tough to argue against the idea of Solich’s deserving another year, but Pederson thought it best to make a proactive strike.

“What I didn’t want to do was let us get to the point where the decision made itself,� he said.

Solich was fired after Nebraska defeated Colorado on Nov. 28, and Callahan, 48, wasn’t hired until Jan. 9 -- an uncomfortable period of wondering for Cornhusker fans.

Osborne, now a congressman from Nebraska’s 3rd District and a man many believe will become the state’s next governor, was publicly critical of Pederson’s move.

“I knew this decision wasn’t going to be popular with him,� Pederson said.

Nebraska players spent most of December in shock.

“A lot of players just didn’t know what to do,� junior tight end Matt Herian said. “We didn’t have a lot of direction.�

Initially, there were rumors -- false -- that Steve Spurrier was in town.

Pederson then made a play for Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt but, when that didn’t work out, he hired Callahan, two years removed from an AFC championship at Oakland but more recently removed by Al Davis after going 4-12.

Callahan, an outsider from Chicago, accepted the Nebraska job after considering it for only 48 hours.

He studied for his job interview the way a college kid crammed for an exam.

Known as being meticulously organized and a serial note-taker, Callahan went so far as to study “The Old Farmer’s Almanac� to acquaint himself with local weather patterns.

There was no question Callahan was going to junk the option in favor of the pro-style offense he ran with the Raiders.

“I have great respect for what they accomplished here, but I’m a firm believer that you don’t coach what you don’t know,� Callahan said. “I don’t know that game.�

Callahan’s first-year challenge is monumental. He is teaching a passing system to players who were recruited to run the option.

There is debate as to whether the West Coast offense, run by several pro teams including the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs, might be too complicated for the college level.

USC struggled with the offense under Paul Hackett, and UCLA certainly had its problems last year under first-year Coach Karl Dorrell.

Callahan has a six-year contract to make the West Coast system work.

“When I came in, I asked the kids to keep an open mind, to stay open to what we wanted to present to them,� Callahan said. “I asked them to give us a chance to earn our respect, because I felt, coming in as an outsider, that we had to earn their respect. I didn’t come in here pompously and try to wave the NFL flag around or anything like that.�

The man getting first crack at the offense is sophomore quarterback Joe Dailey, who carries with him a playbook as thick as two Omaha phonebooks.

For the record, Nebraska last year finished 114th out of 117 schools in passing.

As for whether Nebraska fans are ready for the transformation, Dailey, a New Jersey native, quipped, “Whether they are or not doesn’t matter, to be honest with you.... They’ve had almost eight months to let it all settle in.�

The problem for Callahan is, he inherited a team that won the Alamo Bowl.

“This is unlike any other situation,� he said. “This is not like a situation that’s been 2 and 10, this is a situation that’s been 10 and 3. They have been winners and they are winners. This is a group you have to respect because of their performance on the field.�

Fans are, so far, enamored of Callahan’s experiment.

More than 61,000 were at Memorial Stadium for the annual spring game.

On the first offensive play, Nebraska lined up in a run formation but then, in a seminal and choreographed moment, split the receivers wide and threw a pass downfield.

Cornhusker fans went nuts.

“I’ve never seen a standing ovation for an incomplete pass,� said linebacker Barrett Ruud.

Callahan had ordered the pass to signal the dawning of a new era.

“I wanted to show, not only our fans, but to our recruits out there, that the spring game was about marketing the program,� he said.

Sixty-one thousand fans for a scrimmage?

“That blew me away,� Callahan said. “I was awed. I came out of the tunnel right here, it was chilling, to see this whole place in a sea of red for a spring game. It was surreal in a lot of ways.�

Pederson has staked his future at Nebraska on this hire.

Doleman, the talk-show host, says of Pederson, “I think everything he is putting into athletic director at Nebraska rides on how well Bill Callahan does.�

Pederson is hoping that hiring an out-of-work former NFL coach will work out as well as Pete Carroll worked out at USC.

“People would probably want to draw parallels, and I hope they’re right,� Pederson said.

Make no mistake -- there are no write-off seasons at Nebraska.

Does Callahan have what it takes to get it done right now?

“I really don’t know,� he said. “I haven’t been on this level, in this division, in this conference, to compare it to anything. I can only compare it to what I know. I can’t compare it to what it will be like. So it will be a learning process for me as well.�

The honeymoon ends Saturday, when Nebraska opens the season, at home, against Western Illinois.

And what of those fans cheering for incomplete passes in the spring?

“I don’t think they’ll be applauding in the fall,� Callahan said.

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The Big Red, as We Knew It

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Records of the last three Nebraska football coaches. Bob Devaney won national championships in the 1970 and ’71 seasons, and Tom Osborne in 1994, ’95 and ‘97, the last a split title when the Cornhuskers won the ESPN/USA Today title and Michigan the Associated Press title (CT-conference titles; NT-national titles):

*--* Coach Years W-L-T Win Pct. CT Bowls NT Frank Solich 1998-2003 58-19-0 753 1 2-3 0 Tom Osborne 1973-97 255-49-3 836 11 12-13 3 Bob Devaney 1962-72 101-20-2 829 8 8-3 2 Note: Big Eight Conference expanded to the Big 12 Conference in 1996.

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