Nebraska Athletic Director Steve Pederson was fired this afternoon.
Husker fans can give a collective sigh of relief, because with Pederson out of the way it opens the door to a dismissal of head football Coach Bill Callahan and a possible end to a nightmare of mediocrity Pederson has heaped on NU since dismissing winning Coach Frank Solich.
After Saturday's loss to Oklahoma State, we knew this was coming. Those usually stoic and conservative midwesterners in Lincoln didn't waste any time. Two days after the 45-14 drubbing by the Cowboys the university chancellor said enough is enough.
Chancellor Harvey Pearlman said "new leadership" is needed to assess the state of the football program. In other words he didn't trust Pederson (who hired Callahan) to find a suitable replacement for the football coach. It is therefore a foregone conclusion that Callahan won't be back next year calling any opposing fans "f***ing hillibillies" like he did on his first trip in Norman in 2004 (where he lost to the Sooners 30-3).
No disrespect to Oklahoma State, who did a masterful job of destroying Nebraska on Saturday, but the egg laid by NU was about the size of sprawling Omaha. Their players gave up. Their fans threw things at Callahan. Otherwise nice wheat and corn farmers turned ugly. Nebraska fans can live with losses to Oklahoma, and sometimes to archi nemisis Missouri -- or even the coke heads of Colorado. But to lose to those Cowboys from Stillwater? That's just awful, they're thinking. The lowest of lows. The worst of agony. The deepest valley of Husker football.
As Sunday's headline read in the Lincoln Journal Star: "This is not Nebraska football."
So it was time to take desperate action. Today they did just that. But, as Alex writes on the front page of www.soonerguys.com, the loss to OSU made this decision easy for the Big Red of the North.
-- Mike
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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