Day 1 of the Great Hate Festival - 2006
Day one of the 2006 Hate festival in my workplace, and the battleground is nothing that I've ever encountered.
In years past..both in my current job and my past one...I've been welcomed to MU-NU week with a variety of taunts and jokes that have ranged from red construction paper tacked to my office door to sabotage of my computer to display red fonts on everything I type. I've walked into work on Monday with a drawer full of Big Red gum. I've walked into meetings where Hail Varsity has been playing as the hold music. I've been taunted, teased, baited and abused for years prior to Nebraska beatdowns of various proportions. I've had my front yard toilet papered with red Charmin. I've had photos of games gone by mailed to me without return addresses.
Yet today...the first full day of the annual right of fall...a strange silence has fallen over the landscape.
Nothing.
Not a single e-mail. Not a taunting phone call. Not a photo, not crank phone call. It's almost as if it's the same as any other day. Hell, even when I try to taunt them into some banter, I'm either met with no reply or a, "We're both really bad." So this is what things have come to?
I'm truly sailing in uncharted waters. Not only is my team looking at a 3rd win in 4 years over a team that had beaten them every single year of my life between my pre-teen years all the way into my 30's. I've stated this in replies and on message board posts throughout the last couple of days...but it still rings true. The dark mood and nervousness of this state is nothing I've ever seen before. In 2004, (before my team was once again kicked in the nuts in Lincoln) there was despair...but with glimmers of hope. Even though they were struggling, there were always cries of, "Wait til Cally gets his own players. We'll be back." Even after my taunts last season after yet another late game Husker choke-fest, I was met with "We're young...we'll restore the order soon."
So how about now?
The Huskers and their overmatched coaching staff is sitting on the cusp of armageddon. Should the Silver and Black fluky with the pale blue eyes fail this weekend...his next job will be greeting shoppers at Wal-mart. You see, there won't be any, "We're young" or "We'll be back". There won't be anything at all. What will have happened, should the Hicks lose this weekend, is the great red unknown. This man and his boss (who has been uncharacteristically absent over the last couple of days) destroyed a program that was 40 years in the making. A big red machine that bulldozed opponents and basically pillaged an entire conference for 30 years. Bill Callahan and Steve Pederson were the lifeboat to sail the Nebraska football program through the turbulent waters of change...expecting to come out clean as a whistle when they reach land on the other side.
But the sight of land is a long way away. If Bill Callahan fails this season, the Huskers will be right back where they once were..only this time without a life jacket. Their vaunted tradition...gone. Their crushing ground game...gone. The fear that they once instilled into every opponent...gone. Nothing will be left but a big fan N on the side of the helmets that may as well stand for "Nothing left". This game is the gateway into that hell for Husker fan.I for one certainly feel the pressure...pressure from other schools and fans like Colorado, K-State and Iowa State...who would LOVE to have the chance to knock the big red nation off the cliff, and into the big fat black hole that is mediocrity. Chances like this don't come around very often...which is why I'm going at this at full throttle this week. Again, don't get me wrong...I'm WELL aware of the problems and challenges that await my favorite team this week. I'm WELL aware that God hates Missouri and will never let them or their fans taste the sweet taste of victory.
This is simply an opportunity I can't pass up.
Next Monday morning, I may find my car completely encased in red cellophane. I may walk into my office next Monday and find pictures of Scott Frost in every nook and cranny of the room. But with an opportunity like this...with the wooden stake ready to be plunged through the heart..and that's a chance I just have to take.
The hate train will roll on this week....whether or not anybody jumps onto the tracks is yet to be seen.
Time will tell.
posted by A J at 10:41 AM
21 Comments:
THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.
By the way...Texas Tech > Okie State.
I love carrying the flag for the rest of the North. Although...be carefull to all of those hopping on Mizzou's bandwagon this week.
Mizzou fans are used to pain and suffering...you may not be. ;)
Just kidding.
Kill the beast. (<-- My first Beauty and the Beast reference today)
This is the end times folks, Mizzou playing for a chance to go to the Big XII championship game. For the first time since I've been a Mizzou fan; 17+ years of frustration, misery, fury, fifth downs, and kicked balls (you might be able to let that go AJ, but I cannot) can be quashed while at the same time freeing an entire state from the delusional hold that a bunch of red-clad butt monkeys hold over them. Either that or Mizzou will lose because there is no God and if there is he hates us.
Colorado has ONE win. Who did they beat?
AJ,
Oh yes we all will be with your Tigers this week. The second they dropped the wide open TD and OU turned it into a TD drive of their own in the first qtr. I knew it was over. That was one of the bigger nut crush, momentum swings I have seen this year. Funny thing was, they had several more in that game, but none as bad. The final score makes this comment sound silly, but I really think if MU scores that TD and go up 10-0 that game is over. If MU had a two score lead and OU was forced to get away from the ground game a bit it could have been very different.
That being said, I don't think MU can withstand an error or two like that in Lincoln either. They can make some mistakes and still have enough to beat NU, just not the ball crushers like they did last week. I've seen just about every snap of Husker ball this year and seen all of MU's televised games, and I do think MU is a) better and b) as bad a matchup for NU as they have played to date.
Honestly, I think the NU fans are being quiet cause they want no part of the Championship game (just kidding, I think they are still recovering from their Saturday which was FAR FAR worse than yours). Unless the Huskers can order up a blizzard they want no part of this Texas team.
and BTW jp, what is Pinkel's record against Cally? What is the average score when those two meet? Just curious.
JG
I almost didn't approve that JP. That was a softball I saw coming a mile away.
PS - Mizzou owns Solich is what he meant to say. :)
I agree Solich wasn't the answer...but Callahan was like 5th choice.
You guys could do better you would think.
You have an office door???
I bet you've never been sent home from work because the sweatshirt you wore on "Husker Friday" was not, in fact, anything Husker related but rather from the college you attended (not NU). Happened in my former life many many years ago.
'96
JP,
Oops, I did lob you a softball there, don't know why I thought that record was different, think I was confusing the last Solich year or two with a Cally year.
I may show up as Anonymous, but I am "JG" on all my posts, haven't gotten around to registering, sorry. I have been lurking around for a month or so and probably should get with the times, but I'm too old and computer un-savvy to get with it.
My question to you is if Cally loses two more games this year (not out of the realm of possibility by any means I would think you would agree) would you brand him an "incompetent" as you did Solich? I'm realy not asking that as too much of a smart aleck, I do seriously think the whole Callahan regime is right on the brink of falling off a cliff, or assuaging the faithful for another year or two depending on how they end this year.
JG
Alright, thanks to JP's taunt I am no longer anonymous, I am no longer JG
I am JGerardi.
This week is too important in the grand scheme of things to fuck around.
Remember, Stevie P will not surrender the conference to the likes of OU and UT.
The good news is, he hasn't had to for the past 6 years - KState and Colorado made sure of that. It looks like MU is going to carry on the tradition of NU being an also ran. Way to "Restore the Order".
Also, after the Huckin' Fuskers lose to Mizzou this weekend they're going to take their sorry asses to College Station and get prison raped for the third week in a row.
JP, I see that public school education didn't take. We taxpayers should ask for a refund.
JG, you're going to be wasting your time trying to have a rational discussion with JP. More points have been missed by JP than the hairs on his head. JP would have you believe that Solich was unable to recruit talented athletes, yet the NFL and JP must not agree on the definition of "talent". (Rivals.com, another place that pseudo intellectuals go to try and prove a point. How many top ten recruiting classes did T.O. have? Let me answer that for you, ZERO, like your nickname in high school JP.)
Callahan is not the answer plain and simple. Give him twenty more years and we might beat a ranked opponent, that is if we get lucky and Cosgrove dies from suffication from having his head up his ass.
I don't blame Callahan, hell he was unemployed, the phone wasn't ringing, and he had nothing to lose, his reputation was already in the toilet. (No coach in their right mind wants to take over a program that went 10-3, and the coach was FIRED! Why do you think so many coaches passed on even talking to Stinky P?)
JP drink some kool-aid, pull out that man-size picture of Callahan you keep under your bed, and give yourself the left hand salute. (Why you're at it, check my grammar, the secretary is out today.)
Mizzou wins this one, and if Missouri elimates their turnovers, it will be ugly.
According the JP, we hired a coach that is "learning the college game". I thought we were going to the WCO? JP do you think about what you write?
How about we hire someone for the volleyball program that wants to "learn college volleyball"? That has got to be one of the all time stupid defenses of Callahan and Company.
T.O. screwed the pooch? You're saying that the guy that recruited the talent, did the play calling, assembled the coaching staff that won three national championships and played for a couple others, wasn't able to determine who would make a good coach.
Folks, the ARC has it's winner.
I thought blogs were only for prepubescents who had nothing to do but whine about their feelings 24/7. And you're 30-something? I'm sorry that you think that death should be the consequence for being a Nebraska fan. You really need to find a more constructive way to relieve your stress.
JP conveniently ignores the fact that USC perennially had top 10 recruiting rankings in the 90's. And usually ended up not even making a bowl game.
Then something changed. Not their recruiting. Rather, they hired a guy like Pete Carroll.
Suddenly, a guy who was regarded as a recruiting bust won the Heisman. Then his successor won the Heisman. And a national championship.
It's called coaching.
As for Solich, he's coaching his team into the Top 50 according to Sagarin and SI. They're headed to the MAC Championship game and a bowl game.
Talent is important. But coaching is more important.
JP, education and evaluation is not a strong point in your arguements.
You admitted that T.O. never had high ranked recruiting classes, yet you point to that as a reason why the program failed under Frank. You said that Frank did not recruit talent yet, he has a respectable proportion of his talent is on NFL rosters. So is the NFL wrong, and the players drafted were in error, or was Rivals evaluation of the talent wrong. We'll see how the great recruiter Callahan and company claim to be stack up against the history of the program. (Are you really Jim Rose?)
Callahan, yep, plain and simple. The throat slashing must be a NFL coach thing because I haven't seen much of that in college. Pellini for all intensive purposes was eliminated as a canidate due to his sideline incident in the Alamo bowl, and Callahan appears to have similiar qualities. So what was bad for one individual is not so for another.
Callahan turned the entire program into the WCO in a single year despite not having the talent to pull it off, brilliant move. In your world, "good" coaches try to fit square pegs into round holes. It is apparent that Callahan is very narrow minded. (Sounds like the Raiders all over again.)
Callahan limited the number of walk-ons at Nebraska, which has been a very, very, very good source of talent and moving tackling dummies for the program. The reason that he gave for limiting the walk-ons, "it was hard to manage all those players", and this is supposed to be one of the smartest coaches alive (per Pedersen and kool-aid drinkers). Nothing like telling the literate that you're too stupid to evaluate talent.
Callahan let Pellini go and hired who? Cosgrove, which has turned the blackshirts into a joke. Cosgrove after the Texas Tech debacle, "we stopped watching the film after it was 42-0", if that is a sign of genius, then you're right, you are the ARC champion, and the only person responsible for bringing Cosgrove here is Callahan. I say the reason Callahan had to let Pellini go, is because Callahan knew Pellini was smarter than he was, and Callahan couldn't have that, so he hired a dumbass.
Callahan and his game plans are predictable, he is poor at play selection, and he does not manage a clock well. (Please argue to the contrary, it will show how little you understand about the game of football.)
Let's take a look at Callahans professional career, he was head coach of the Raiders for two years. The Raiders were on the verge of going to a Super Bowl before Callahan became head coach in name only, so the team was assembled by Gruden, not Callahan. The Raiders offense was managed by Gannon, not Callahan. The defense was manage by the steroid pumping linebacker, can't recall his name off-hand. The Raiders enjoyed the success on the field because of leadership by the players, not much of to do with Callahan. Callahan wasn't key in breaking down game film, he was a "players" coach, and the players ran that team. When Callahan did insert himself, the team went from Super Bowl contender to also rans, and age did the rest.
Callahan has more headlines for what happens off the field (Beck, etc.), than winning on the field. Not generally a good sign of leadership, but in JP's world that worthy of the left hand salute.
Last year the program lamented that their punter, the NU punter for God's sake was left off the All-Big 12 team. The punter wasn't even a Callahan recruit. He wasn't concerned that the Husker team playing poorly, he took time out to lobby for the punter to be on the All-Big 12 team.
"Time to rebuild". I hate to tell you this, but by next year, all the players will be his guys. We were told that Callahan could recruit and would bring guys in that could contribute immediately, well we're three years into this nightmare, and I don't see anyone that is up for any awards (Heisman, Butkus, etc., etc.). If Callahan was supposed to be this great recruiter, why is the cupboard bare, you don't hear any attention given to our players. (All we have is the apologists telling us what a great recruiter Callahan is, but no results. So until he recruits someone that produces, he has not proven himself a great recruiter, and besides, he wouldn't know what to do with the talent if he had it.)
"He's really only had two years to recruit", which is the same as "do-over" for Callahan apologists. Is this about the lamest excuse for poor performance that an apologists can come up with.
Pedersen hired a guy that is learning the college game. Shouldn't we have hired someone that new what the hell they were doing? So admitedly, he's a moron, to many of us, that is basically what it being said. The apologists should just say, "Hey, he has no clue what he is doing and where he is going, but wait." Well, evidently he is a slooooooooow learner, because he didn't start in the NFL did he? He started in the college game, and was at a Big 10 school. I'd say either one or the other is true, either he was too stupid to learn anything about the college game while he was there, or he didn't bother learning it because he knew he'd never get a shot a being the "man".
Your condemnation of the program after the national title game gives away your ineptness to see the entire picture. The staff that recruited those players post national championship game were gone. The new coaching staff was put into place, and 10-3 was the result with a class ranked about 40th. Callahan could only do about what, yeah a losing record.
He brought in a system that is complicated and takes time to learn, the apoligists say. So the head coach implements a program that basically holds back the kids because it takes an inordinant amount of time to learn. Doesn't that fly in the face of the arguement that Callahan would bring in kids that could contribute immediately? What good is a system that is that complicated?
You brought up the USC and Oklahoma programs. Hey retard, those coaches won WITHOUT THEIR OWN PLAYERS. Both of those coaches turned their respective programs around with the previous coaches players. Somehow the retard at the helm in Nebraska doesn't have the ability to do that. Why don't you go check out what their rivals.com class ratings were, and then give yourself the left hand salute.
Yep, guys like you really know football, and politics, and finance, and engineering, and blah, blah, blah. Keep working, you'll get that GED about the same time the SS check comes rolling in.
Why is that people named JP wouldn't know a football from a frog? Go drink some more kool-aid.
Irony defined:
Anybody else see the humor in the fact that all you Husker fans are arguing with each other about who is to blame for your problems...on my blog?
Not that I want you to stop...just thought it was funny.
carry on.
Did Rivals.com tell you to stop reading?
Fact is that now there is more than enough infighting within the Husker family, you'd think we were from Tennessee...
Man, you're really a wizard there JP, posting an arguement like that doesn't help you cause. (Although in your world of let hand salutes, you're doing just fine.)
So taking your statement to it's LOGICAL conclusion, is that Cosgrove is running a system that kids can't immediately be inserted into, or Cosgrove is not able to identify the talent that he needs to run the defense, or maybe Cosgrove is unable to pass along this wonderful wisdom. (All aforementioned items stink to high heaven of being a bad coach.)
Kool-aid drinkers are slowly coming to realization that they're beating a dead horse.
(Please check my spelling and grammar JP, it seems to be what you can actually do well.)
Post a Comment
<< Home