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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/GuyOnTheMike on 2025-12-03 01:12:22+00:00.
On November 29, 2003, Nebraska fired Frank Solich—Tom Osborne’s successor—after completing a 9-3 regular season. Solich had posted a very good 58-19 record in six years with the Huskers, reaching the 2001 Rose Bowl, serving as that year’s BCS National Championship. However, he went 7-7 in 2002, Nebraska’s first non-winning season since 1961. The improvement in 2003 was not enough, and a 38-9 home loss to K-State in mid-November sealed his fate.
Afterwards, Nebraska focused their attention on a mystery unnamed NFL coach, which in 2021 was revealed to be incumbent Green Bay Packers Super Bowl-winning head coach Mike Sherman. That fell through and the search dragged on for 41 days, into January of 2004. On January 2, a private jet left for Fayetteville, Arkansas to pick up Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt, who decided at the last minute to stay. The jet returned empty. Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Al Saunders and Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer were both interested and Saunders went so far as to start lining up assistant coaches. But both backed out.
So, 41 days later, on January 9, 2004, the Nebraska Cornhuskers hired recently-fired Oakland Raiders head coach Bill Callahan, barely a year removed from a Super Bowl appearance. In Callahan’s introductory presser, Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson ominously said “History will be the judge of this decision.” Well, Callahan went 5-6 in his first season, Nebraska’s first losing season in 43 years. He went 27-22 in four years and was fired after a 5-7 year in 2007. Pederson was fired along with him.
After losing four games just three times from Bob Devaney’s hiring in 1962 through 2003, and firing Solich after a three-loss season, the Huskers have now lost four or more games every single season since then, had ten losing seasons, and will finish outside the final Top 25 poll for the 12th year in a row. History has judged the Bill Callahan hiring—and the man who hired him—very poorly.
TL;DR: Nebraska fired a successful coach, had a drawn-out search with many top candidates dropping out, then made a bad hire and over 20 years later is in a much worse place.
James Franklin’s firing was 51 days ago, with numerous candidates either passing or landing jobs elsewhere. Even Franklin already has a new job, at Virginia Tech. Penn State is now the only P4 job that is open. So, will they somehow find the right guy, or will they hire a Bill Callahan and fall off the map?