For growing numbers of Nebraska football fans, there exists a sobering thought that the Huskers' season is all but over. Five games remain, and the way NU has played recently, they can't be over with
CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, October 19, 2007 7:00 pm
Saturday could be the most gorgeous day of fall around these parts, and yet there’s a definite chill in the air.
Nothing like your normal mid-October, change-in-season feel, either.
For growing numbers of Nebraska football fans, there exists a sobering thought that the Huskers’ season is all but over.
Five games remain, and the way NU has played recently, they can’t be over with soon enough.-October, change-in-season feel, either.
Not only have players, coaches and Big Red followers had their hopes of a return trip to the Big 12 Championship Game dashed by lopsided losses to Missouri and Oklahoma State the past two weeks, there’s a belief that this winter also will be void of a bowl trip.
“I think a lot of people are writing us off,” senior linebacker Bo Ruud said, unable to offer convincing evidence to the contrary.
The 4-3 Huskers have lost games by 18, 35 and 31 points. They beat Ball State 41-40.
This week, perhaps out of respect for tradition (or is it embarrassment?), the first-team defense even quit wearing its Blackshirt practice jerseys.
That decision came after the man who hired coach Bill Callahan, Steve Pederson, was fired as athletic director Monday, and then replaced Tuesday by legendary former coach Tom Osborne.
Those developments only added fire to those who already believed it’s a foregone conclusion Callahan won’t be back for a fifth season.
Indeed, it would not be a stretch to think that those who hope for a much different scene in Memorial Stadium Saturday than last week base their feelings more on the opponent, Texas A&M, than they do Nebraska.
The Aggies, they think, may be the team that can match the Huskers problem for problem.
A&M may be 5-2, but in its two prime-time network appearances, coach Dennis Franchione’s team was blown out by Miami and Texas Tech.
Worse yet for the embattled fifth-year coach was the discovery of a secret e-mail newsletter he’d been charging subscribers $1,200 a year to receive. In the newsletter, Franchione detailed injuries and recruiting, gave unfavorable reports on some of his players and was critical of Big 12 officiating.
Though Franchione said the profits went toward the cost of maintaining the Web site, A&M conducted an internal investigation that didn’t exactly leave AD Bill Byrne in a good mood.
“The Aggies are embarrassed by this,” Byrne said last week.
Amazing, because it was only 10 years ago that Nebraska and A&M played in San Antonio for the Big 12 championship.
Didn’t the Huskers go on to win that game and then a share of the national championship?
Didn’t A&M recover from that loss to win the Big 12 in 1998?
Is what’s going on right now just someone’s cruel joke?
“What hurts so bad — we know what we’re capable of,” Nebraska tight end J.B. Phillips said. “I mean, if we were a team that had no talent and we were maximizing it. … But we are a great team. We have that talent.”
Ask Phillips what he finds most surprising about the current situation, though, and he struggles for an answer.
Eventually, he offers that the Huskers may still be dealing with the 49-31 loss to Southern California five weeks ago. They’re pressing.
“You try, sometimes, too hard to win. It had to make sense of that, because you want to try as hard as you can, but you can’t try to do more than what you should,” Phillips said. “It’s not a confidence thing, it’s just being able to keep everybody relaxed and doing what they’re supposed to — nothing more.”
Lots of people will tell you it’s too late.
The Husker defense, 104th nationally, has allowed two opponents to gain more than 600 yards and a third to get more than 550. The Huskers also are sliding on offense, scoring just 20 points total the last two weeks.
Things don’t look much better for A&M, which has a passing game that ranks last in the Big 12 and which is next-to-last in pass-efficiency defense.
No wonder that after their last games, the 51-year-old Callahan and 56-year-old Franchione both were peppered with questions about their job security.
“I know this is new to Nebraska. I know that it’s hard on the fans,” Callahan said. “As a coach, you continue to work hard and study and prepare your football team to the best of your ability.
“You really can’t worry about everything else, but, unfortunately, it’s there. … I try extremely hard to keep it on the peripheral.”
Under Callahan — who came to Nebraska as an out-of-work NFL coach following the controversial firing of Frank Solich — the Huskers are 26-18 overall, 14-14 in the Big 12 and 3-8 against teams in the Top 25.
Franchione has fared worse since being hired away from Alabama. He’s 30-25 overall and only 17-18 in the Big 12. That includes a 2-13 mark against A&M’s biggest rivals — Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
Like Callahan, the Aggies’ coach tries to push through the criticism. But he also acknowledges that coaches today, largely because of the millions they’re paid, operate in a quick-trigger world — especially when the desired result of winning championships isn’t achieved.
“I don’t know Nebraska’s situation at all,” Franchione said. “But I do think we live in a little bit of a microwave society today.”
And so how has his team handled the distractions that he’s helped bring about?
“Really well,” Franchione said. “I think our whole organization has done a great job of focusing on the games and what we have control of. The players certainly have done a good job of it, practiced and prepared very well. I couldn’t be more pleased.”
Given the circumstances, of course.
And the only things that will change the schools’ situations are a bunch of wins.
And how likely is that?
“Nothing is stopped in terms of the machine that continues to roll, in terms of preparation,” Callahan said. “That’s continual and ongoing. (But) we’re all human. The guys on the staff have families, and they hear things and see things, and that’s uncomfortable.
“It’s awfully tough right now.”
Phillips agrees with that assessment. But like his coach, he aims to not let the past couple weeks push him into a hole he can’t climb out of.
“We know something will happen that will get that spark and we’ll get rolling, and a couple weeks from now we’ll laugh about this midpoint in the season, like, ‘Man, that was crazy back then, wasn’t it?’” Phillips said.
Or so he hopes.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.