Everybody hurts

I've always felt like the Lincoln Journal-Star has done a great job with their coverage of Cornhusker football. The staff blog could use a few more bells and whistles but it is still the best place for up to date Husker news, Steve Sipple has done a good job as their lead columnist and overall I've felt that they've always provided a fair assessment of the football program through good times and bad.

That said, the most recent blog post from Brian Rosenthal was still a bit shocking in its honesty and emotion. Not to read too much in to it, but the piece feels like he put away the press badge for a second and just wrote for the sheer therapeutic value of the process. I was glad to see it.

Nationally the college football scribes have been willing to proclaim the Callahan era over for a few weeks now but after this latest debacle the sentiment seems to be hitting home in ever increasing numbers.

Is there a critical mass? Out of the thousands of questions floating around out there, that might be the answer I'm most interested in: does the power ultimately rest with the producers or the consumers?

To be honest, I'm terrified that Bill Callahan won't be fired at the end of the season. Everything changes after you've gone five months without college football, but I can't picture myself being excited about a team going into next season with him at the helm. Is that what we're talking about now? Not just coordinators but a totally fresh start?

Some big time boosters are. Like everything else surrounding Nebraska football these days, it's tough to get a read one way or another from the article but when Dale Jensen, a partial owner of the Diamondbacks and Nebraska booster, is talking Cornhuskers on a day where his team is playing in the NLCS you know the sting is running deep. In that Journal-Star article, Jensen was quoted as saying, "The general consensus from everybody I've talked to is that Callahan and Pederson both have to go."

See, you say that and I think a lot of people are starting to believe it (myself included) but what if it doesn't happen. How do Husker fans come back from what they've seen? Is their a defensive coordinator in the world strong enough to do that? To fully put 07 in the past?

Outside of Nebraska's new favorite son, Bo Pelini, I don't think there is and he's not coming back for anything less than the head job, maybe not even then.

It took a bold move to get Nebraska to where they're at presently and it's going to take another bold move to get them out of it.