College football quick kicks

Several things jumped out at me in the college football world during the past several days:

Has there ever been a worse college head coach than Bill Callahan? He consistently recruited top-10 classes at Nebraska, yet the Huskers' defense, once their calling card, was among the nation's worst. His pro-style offense never caught on, and its debatable the Huskers ever had the correct mix of personnel. Nebraska endured it's worst losing streak since the early 60s and absorbed beatings by Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma State that were virtually unparalleled in school history. But why stop there, the Oakland Raiders have been a shambles since Callahan had his hands on them. That's quite a resume - destroying one of college's most tradition-rich programs on the heels of sending one of the NFL's proudest and winningest franchises into a tailspin it's yet to recover from. ...

Hiring Bo Pelini, a former Huskers assistant and defensive expert, is a step in the right direction, but one wonders how long it will take him to un-do all the messes Callahan created, including alienating in-state prospects. ...

Frankly I don't know what BCS stands for anymore, but if you remove the "C" you're probably in the right zip code. If ever there was a season crying for a playoff (say eight teams), this is it. It doesn't matter which team, LSU or Ohio State, wins the "national championship" game, does anyone really know if those are the two best teams. The NCAA argues against a playoff by saying they're concerned about athletes playing more games. This from an organization that has signed off on the season expanding from 11 games to 12 or 13 in some cases. Simple solution guys: Cut the regular season to 11 games. Hold playoffs the final two Saturdays in December and the first Saturday night in January - college students are on break then anyway so the class time is a non-issue. Keep the traditional bowl games and restore conference affiliations, just put the top eight teams into a playoff aligned with seven "BCS" bowls. ...

UCLA's Karl Dorrell, fired as coach Monday, got a raw deal. Bob Toledo left the Bruins a mess on and off the field. Dorrell cleaned up the latter, guided UCLA to five consecutive bowl games and from all accounts had changed the culture around the program. He even managed to beat USC last season and spoil the Trojans' title hopes in the process. Apparently it wasn't enough. True, the Bruins talent level never approached USC's, but whose does most seasons? UCLA seems to be on the right track on a lot of fronts, too bad Dorrell won't be around to watch it. ...

Another nice job by ESPN reporting rumors on Saturday. This time it incurred the wrath of LSU coach Les Miles, who may or may not have been headed to Michigan to replace Lloyd Carr. On Sunday, analyst Kirk Herbstreit admitted he was wrong. Gee, maybe Sportscenter can lead with that. ...

Gearing up for Bowl Season and wondering what a team has to do to NOT get invited to a bowl these days.