Callahan: 'I know there's criticism out there'
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BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Say what you will about Husker football coach Bill Callahan — and you better believe they’re saying plenty about the guy after Saturday’s 41-40 narrow escape of Ball State — but don’t call him naive.
What would he say to fans who think the program hasn’t made any tangible progress in this, his fourth season at Nebraska?
“First off, I would say that I’m not naive. I know that there’s criticism out there. I’m sure I’m at the heart of it. All I’m going to do is the best I can,” he said Monday during the weekly Big 12 Coaches Teleconference.
“I think the main thing is that you’ve got to change, you’ve got to change where you are from an attitude standpoint, from a performance perspective. You’ve got to really change anything you can to get your team going.”
Though 3-1 going into Saturday’s conference opener against Iowa State, the Husker defense is taking a public beating after back-to-back embarrassments.
Nebraska surrendered a combined 1,067 total yards and 89 points in home games against Southern Cal and Ball State.
USC averaged 8.2 yards a carry against Nebraska and Ball State didn’t do so much worse — getting 5.2 a pop.
The Trojans and Cardinals both scored more than 40 points, the first time since the 1990 season that the Huskers have allowed that in back-to-back games.
What makes it more alarming is that Ball State, out of the Mid-American Conference, scored just 13 points at home in its season-opening loss to Miami of Ohio.
One of Callahan’s biggest concerns was that the Cardinals were 6-of-8 on third downs in the first half against Nebraska. All of those conversions came on plays of third-and-five or more.
“Mainly, we were in man coverages. They beat us pretty good in man coverage,” Callahan said of those situations. “That’s something that’s been noted, something we’ve talked about. We’ll try to do a little bit better job putting the players in position so that they can make plays.”
Still, Callahan came away from the Ball State game film thinking things are correctable.
“They’re different problems. There’s some similarities that carried over (from the USC game),” he said. “But by and large, we’ve got to play better team defense. We played pretty good on early downs, (but) we got caught on some nickel situations where we didn’t play as well as we could have played.”
Texas Tech defensive coordinator Lyle Setencich stepped down this weekend after his defense got torched in a 49-45 loss to Oklahoma State.
With Husker defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove taking a lot of heat, Callahan brushed off a question if he would consider a similar staff shakeup in the middle of the season.
“I don’t know the Texas Tech situation,” Callahan said. “I heard about it. I don’t know their business, so I’m not going to respond to that one.”
The coach did respond, however, to a question about the post-game comments of linebacker Steve Octavien.
Callahan said the senior regretted a comment he made on a radio show after the Ball State game. Responding to the boos from fans, Octavien said: “We’re not worried about the fans. They can’t play for us. They’re not on the field. We’re the ones putting in the hard work. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to come and watch the games.”
Callahan was not a fan of those remarks.
“I talked with Steve yesterday,” he said. “He came up here on his own and he said, ‘Coach, I made a big mistake.’ And I said, ‘Steve, I've been there myself.’ You’re in the midst of an emotional game, you know. No one is really happy or satisfied in terms of how we played. He said, ‘I’m just trying to defend my coach and our team.’ I said, ‘Well, there’s other ways go about that. I don’t think that was appropriate...’
“I’m looking forward to him possibly stepping up and saying something to the fans. I thought, by and large, our fans stepped up when we needed them to right there in that last drive.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
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