From Yahoo Sports.
Nebraska fires football coach Callahan
By ERIC OLSON, AP Sports Writer
LINCOLN, Neb. – Bill Callahan was fired as Nebraska’s coach Saturday, his four-year stay marked by the most embarrassing losses at a football program once among the mightiest in the nation.
Interim athletic director and Nebraska great Tom Osborne announced the dismissal one day after the Cornhuskers ended the season at 5-7 following a 65-51 loss at Colorado. They squandered an 11-point halftime lead by allowing 34 consecutive points.
“As a former coach this is a role I really don’t like,” Osborne said at a news conference.” I hate to sit in judgment of other people. I never envisioned having to do this.”
Osborne said that at the end of October he told Callahan there would be a coaching change if Nebraska finished with a losing season.
The dismal results came one season after the Huskers reached the Big 12 championship game. This year also was marked by a 76-39 defeat at Kansas, the most points allowed by a Nebraska team.
The firing came one month and a day after Callahan said, “I have done an excellent job in every area.” Osborne apparently thought otherwise after only the second losing season at Nebraska since 1962, both coming on Callahan’s watch.
It will cost the university more than $3.1 million to buy out Callahan’s contract, which was to run through the 2011 season.
The contract was signed in September before a series of the most lopsided losses in decades and the firing of athletic director Steve Pederson, who hired Callahan.
Nebraska coach Bill Callahan, left, leaves the field after Colorado’s 65-51 victory over Nebraska in a football game in Boulder, Colo., on Friday, Nov. 23, 2007. (AP Photo/David Zaubowski)
Read the rest of the news piece here.
