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LINCOLN, Neb. -- It was a joke. A fired NFL coach who hadn't so much as scanned a recruiting list in years landing in a million-dollar safety net in college. One day the guy is lounging on a couch somewhere, the next he is trusted with one of the most traditional programs in America.
Yeah, that Pete Carroll sure was a fraud.
Daryl Gross made the connection fairly quickly when Nebraska announced the hiring of Bill Callahan on Friday. Carroll took three years to win a national championship at Southern California. While that might be a bit slow for the folks here, it's obvious Carroll has broken down some barriers.
You know, the ones who say you had better not hire an out-of-work coach who is a fifth choice in an aimless, drawn-out search with the program's future on the line. Those kind of barriers.
"That's the most overrated thing that (pro coaches) haven't coached or college or recruited," said Gross, who as senior associate athletic director at USC helped AD Mike Garrett identify Carroll as the guy before the 2001 season. "Pro guys have a lot more intricacies to their knowledge. They work 24 hours a day. It's like getting a guy at NASA who is in hydrocarbons to come teach your class."
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| Southern Cal's Pete Carroll turned raised eyebrows into appreciative cheers. (AP) |
Yeah, Garrett and Gross might have gotten lucky. But the point is, by whatever method, they got their man.
"Pete's success, that's the model people are going to consider now," Gross said by phone from Washington, D.C., where he was accepting an award for Carroll. "Before there was separation between pros and college."
With the hiring of Carroll and Callahan, football's church and state of the sport interact more easily. Pro coaches are looking for a new challenge in college as much as college coaches are looking for a promotion to the NFL. When they get there, sometimes they find out it isn't all that.
Nick Saban is currently weighing what will be a $3 million offer from LSU against a chance to coach the Bears for what will probably be at least that much. Given that he is coming off a national championship, it's obvious where he has the better chance to win.
"I don't know if any of us believe the NFL is the end-all, where you need to be," Oklahoma's Bob Stoops said last week before the Sugar Bowl. "That's far from the truth. Look at a guy like Bill Callahan, who is in the Super Bowl one year and out of a job the next."
But if Carroll hadn't been all that he was, it's highly doubtful Callahan would have been hired as only Nebraska's fourth coach in more than 40 years. Like Carroll, Callahan was out of work. Like Carroll, he had been fired. Like Carroll, he had spent more than a decade away from colleges. Like Carroll, his biggest qualification at the time he was hired was he was available.
"The one person that just jumps out at me is Pete Carroll," Callahan said. "He is a good friend. He took on a situation where at first people were kind of leery who this coach was. He's done an outstanding job of bringing that program back."
Pederson half-kiddingly tried to hire Carroll as Walt Harris' defensive coordinator when he was AD at Pittsburgh. One of Harris' first recruits was Brennan Carroll, who is now on the staff at USC.
"When USC hired Pete, I said, 'What a great hire, what a fabulous hire!' ... " Pederson said. "If you have a chance to have an NFL head coach that has such vast football knowledge combined with such unique football knowledge, you take it."
It's still a risk, a big risk, for Nebraska. Until Friday, Pederson was perceived the same as Garrett, circa 2001 -- so far out over his skis that he was going to take a header Wide World of Sports-style.
Now it's a contented wait-and-see. Pederson struck out in his quest for a college head coach to replace Frank Solich. In fact, it seemed like he had an unholy attraction to NFL types. Kansas City offensive coordinator Al Saunders, Philadelphia offensive coordinator Brad Childress, Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher and Miami coach Dave Wannstedt were all at least mentioned, if not interviewed.
Like USC, Nebraska is a unique college animal. But the Trojans have been down and back up again having suffered former NFL offensive coordinator Paul Hackett. The foundation of what Osborne and Devaney built has only recently shown cracks. It can be argued that Nebraska was the country's last program to suffer the vagaries of parity, going 7-7 in 2002.
Unlike USC, Nebraska football is the state's most important product. Fans follow it the way Ahab tracked Moby Dick.
Pederson alienated folks enough since Solich was fired Nov. 29. When he came up with Callahan, well, you certainly couldn't blame the embattled Raiders coach. He was looking for a job and came highly recommended from Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez, for whom he was an assistant from 1990-94.
"This is something I've aspired to since I was in high school, to be a college head coach," said Callahan, 47. "The tradition is unparalleled. The fan base, the sellouts, the home winning record and the meaningfulness of it brings to the recruits and the fans. We want to maintain that."
It will take the thing that got Solich fired -- recruiting -- for Callahan to succeed. In the hyper-competitive Big 12, the Huskers have fallen behind at least Kansas State, Oklahoma and Texas, with Missouri and Colorado nipping at their heels.
Callahan seems to understand this. Recruiting analyst Tom Lemming ranked Callahan (his dear friend, by the way) as one of his top 10 recruiters of "all time." That would mean a whole lot more if coaches kept a list of their top 10 recruiting analysts.
They don't. Note to the Lemmings out there: Most good coaches don't recruit off lists. That's a huge reason why Carroll is on top.
"We left no stone unturned as far as evaluation of players, bringing them in, finding out what they can do," USC recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron said. "It was the eye for talent, making no mistakes, not worrying about what everyone else thought and not recruiting off lists."
But even in limbo, Nebraska was able to snag 11 commitments. Others will no doubt come streaming in in the days ahead. If Pederson didn't hit a home run, he at least whacked a solid double.
Callahan began recruiting right off the bat in his press conference. He was shrewd to point out that he will run the West Coast Offense, a set that "appeals to a lot of young players out there that are looking for an opportunity to enhance their career as a professional."
Two key points, though:
- If today's spread offense is Britney Spears, then the West Coast is Whitney Houston. Sooo 10 years ago. Because of the speed of modern defenses, everyone has to incorporate some sort of spread scheme in their offense. Not so with the West Coast.
- Look at Notre Dame. Tyrone Willingham in two seasons still hasn't been able to find the personnel to run his West Coast scheme. In the process, he has burned through a couple of quarterbacks (Carlyle Holiday and Matt LoVecchio) and had to turn to freshman Brady Quinn in 2003.
Callahan is going to be installing that offense with a lot of players recruited to run the I-option attack. There are going to be growing pains. When Rich Gannon was healthy, he was an NFL MVP. When he wasn't, the Raiders went in the tank.
The tradition here is Blackshirts, not The Black Hole. Nebraskans like beef, brawn and blowouts on a regular basis. Callahan isn't a lightweight, but until 10 days ago, he wasn't even a candidate.
You hope Pederson has done his homework better than just to hope for a repeat of USC's luck-out.
"I keep thinking to myself," he said, "we're not even to the next Super Bowl and he just coached in the last one.'"
Less than a year later, Callahan was fired.
