Open your eyes, Nebraska: Pederson no enemy
Here's a message for the silly Nebraska people who voted Steve Pederson as the No. 1 Enemy of the State in a Sports Illustrated poll last week:
If you're not smart enough to realize what you have, you can send Pederson back to Pittsburgh. We'll take him again in a heartbeat.
Pederson was the best thing to ever happen to Pitt athletics. You can see that every time you watch the Panthers play at Heinz Field or the Petersen Events Center. He'll also be the best thing to happen to Nebraska as its athletic director, no matter what the 26 percent who fingered him in the Sports Illustrated poll might believe.
"I'm not too upset by it," Pederson said last week. "I'm an optimist. I guess I'm looking at it as if 74 percent think I'm doing OK."
Nebraska's uneasiness with Pederson is the result of his decision to fire football coach Frank Solich after a 9-3 season last year. He and Solich were friends. Their relationship went back to the mid-1980s when they worked on Tom Osborne's staff - Solich as running backs coach and Pederson as recruiting coordinator.
Pederson looked at Solich and saw a coach who had a ceiling of 9-3 and had allowed the program to slip behind Big 12 Conference rivals Oklahoma and Kansas State. He wanted a man who could go 12-0 and compete for national championships. He's betting his and Nebraska's futures on former Oakland Raiders coach Bill Callahan.
"I just felt like we weren't on the right track both in terms of recruiting and in the direction we were going as a football program," Pederson said. "I came back to a much different place than the one I left in 1996 (to go to Pitt). We've got to get back to Nebraska-type football. If we didn't make a change now, down the road, we might have fallen off the radar screen."
Firing Solich isn't what chapped many Nebraskans. Most wanted Solich replaced a year earlier after Nebraska went 7-7, its first non-winning season in 41 years. It was the way Pederson handled the search for his replacement that rankled.
He reached out to Miami Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt, Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Al Saunders, Arkansas coach Houston Nutt and Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. None reached back, making Pederson look foolish and his search sloppy.
It also was the secrecy with which Pederson conducted his business. He consulted only Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman. He didn't include Osborne, the state's living legend, prompting Osborne to call a news conference to say how disappointed he was in Solich's dismissal.
If Pederson made a mistake, it was allowing that to happen.
"Tom is going to be fine," Pederson said. "I knew Tom wasn't going to be excited about a change. But I also know that he understands it's my job to make the changes I feel are necessary for the good of the program. -
"I'm sure some people would have liked a more open process. But it's hard to get the real top candidates to go through that kind of process. Actually, the real top candidates tend to run from that kind of process."
Pederson's popularity rating would be lower if Callahan hadn't made such a strong early impression. He salvaged a decent recruiting class despite getting a late start. He has most Nebraska fans excited about changing the Huskers' offense from an option attack to a West Coast-passing style.
"That's exactly what Oklahoma did," Pederson said. "They've gone from 0 to 100 on the scale in terms of offensive excitement. Players and recruits want to play in that type of system. Fans like to watch it."
Pederson's enthusiasm has won over many. Solich was a stone by comparison. Callahan has been compared by the Nebraska media to Southern California's Pete Carroll, another one-time NFL coach who led the Trojans to a share of the national championship last season.
It's to the point Pederson's critics are saying he got lucky with Callahan despite his bumbling.
But that's not fair to Pederson. He didn't panic when the early stages of his search didn't go well. He could have taken the easy way out and hired Solich's defensive coordinator, Bo Pelini, or longtime quarterbacks coach Turner Gill.
That's the path Pitt administrators took when they hired unproven Jamie Dixon as their basketball coach after Wake Forest's Skip Prosser turned them down. But Pederson kept going in the process until he found his man in Callahan. He's willing to live with the consequences even if it costs him his job.
"I understand if people want to criticize the change. That's their right," Pederson said. "But time will prove if it's the right decision."
At least 74 percent of the Nebraska fans are smart.
They're not betting against Pederson.
If you're not smart enough to realize what you have, you can send Pederson back to Pittsburgh. We'll take him again in a heartbeat.
Pederson was the best thing to ever happen to Pitt athletics. You can see that every time you watch the Panthers play at Heinz Field or the Petersen Events Center. He'll also be the best thing to happen to Nebraska as its athletic director, no matter what the 26 percent who fingered him in the Sports Illustrated poll might believe.
"I'm not too upset by it," Pederson said last week. "I'm an optimist. I guess I'm looking at it as if 74 percent think I'm doing OK."
Nebraska's uneasiness with Pederson is the result of his decision to fire football coach Frank Solich after a 9-3 season last year. He and Solich were friends. Their relationship went back to the mid-1980s when they worked on Tom Osborne's staff - Solich as running backs coach and Pederson as recruiting coordinator.
Pederson looked at Solich and saw a coach who had a ceiling of 9-3 and had allowed the program to slip behind Big 12 Conference rivals Oklahoma and Kansas State. He wanted a man who could go 12-0 and compete for national championships. He's betting his and Nebraska's futures on former Oakland Raiders coach Bill Callahan.
"I just felt like we weren't on the right track both in terms of recruiting and in the direction we were going as a football program," Pederson said. "I came back to a much different place than the one I left in 1996 (to go to Pitt). We've got to get back to Nebraska-type football. If we didn't make a change now, down the road, we might have fallen off the radar screen."
Firing Solich isn't what chapped many Nebraskans. Most wanted Solich replaced a year earlier after Nebraska went 7-7, its first non-winning season in 41 years. It was the way Pederson handled the search for his replacement that rankled.
He reached out to Miami Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt, Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Al Saunders, Arkansas coach Houston Nutt and Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. None reached back, making Pederson look foolish and his search sloppy.
It also was the secrecy with which Pederson conducted his business. He consulted only Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman. He didn't include Osborne, the state's living legend, prompting Osborne to call a news conference to say how disappointed he was in Solich's dismissal.
If Pederson made a mistake, it was allowing that to happen.
"Tom is going to be fine," Pederson said. "I knew Tom wasn't going to be excited about a change. But I also know that he understands it's my job to make the changes I feel are necessary for the good of the program. -
"I'm sure some people would have liked a more open process. But it's hard to get the real top candidates to go through that kind of process. Actually, the real top candidates tend to run from that kind of process."
Pederson's popularity rating would be lower if Callahan hadn't made such a strong early impression. He salvaged a decent recruiting class despite getting a late start. He has most Nebraska fans excited about changing the Huskers' offense from an option attack to a West Coast-passing style.
"That's exactly what Oklahoma did," Pederson said. "They've gone from 0 to 100 on the scale in terms of offensive excitement. Players and recruits want to play in that type of system. Fans like to watch it."
Pederson's enthusiasm has won over many. Solich was a stone by comparison. Callahan has been compared by the Nebraska media to Southern California's Pete Carroll, another one-time NFL coach who led the Trojans to a share of the national championship last season.
It's to the point Pederson's critics are saying he got lucky with Callahan despite his bumbling.
But that's not fair to Pederson. He didn't panic when the early stages of his search didn't go well. He could have taken the easy way out and hired Solich's defensive coordinator, Bo Pelini, or longtime quarterbacks coach Turner Gill.
That's the path Pitt administrators took when they hired unproven Jamie Dixon as their basketball coach after Wake Forest's Skip Prosser turned them down. But Pederson kept going in the process until he found his man in Callahan. He's willing to live with the consequences even if it costs him his job.
"I understand if people want to criticize the change. That's their right," Pederson said. "But time will prove if it's the right decision."
At least 74 percent of the Nebraska fans are smart.
They're not betting against Pederson.
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