No D, no AD

On the most basic level, it stands to reason that Steve Pederson lost his job as athletic director at the University of Nebraska because of 11 kids.

Reality says that it is much more complex than that, but at a school where football trumps everything else, the fact that the Cornhuskers' defence can't actually tackle anymore certainly looms as a final straw.

So if you're keeping score, the Nebraska athletics department has the No. 1-ranked, and defending national champion, women's volleyball team, a competitive baseball team that was close to a national title just a couple of seasons go, and a number of other teams that earn recognition across the NCAA, yet Pederson is out of a job today because, basically, a football team is mediocre and its defence is the worst the school has ever seen.

At Nebraska, a 4-3 record is unacceptable and grounds for public lynchings. Add in that the team was humiliated in back-to-back games at Missouri and home to Oklahoma State and the cries for Pederson's head became louder and louder. Nebraska fans can accept losing (although begrudgingly), but not being competitive and seemingly hopeless is a whole other matter.

But for anyone who thinks it unfair that Pederson lost a prestigious position because of a lacklustre football team, it should be remembered that it was on his watch that Frank Solich was fired, which led to Pederson's infamous speech of refusal to "gravitate towards mediocrity." Consider, too, that Solich was Tom Osborne's hand-picked successor to the legend and it's clear to see that Pederson was working with a very short rope from the get-go.

But, to be fair, he shaved off much of that rope on his own.

Now Osborne, on an interim basis, has been enlisted to fly to the rescue of the Huskers — the football team that is — as the interim AD who will, by all accounts, decide the fate of the coaching staff, including head coach Bill Callahan and his gargantuan contract extension he signed earlier this summer.

But maybe Osborne needs to pick his battles. One of the most beloved figures in the history of the state of Nebraska, Osborne's risk-reward ratio slopes more towards the risk if only because thousands of followers are utterly convinced that, because of his years of great success as a coach, he will naturally return the program to the days when he was patrolling the sideline. And in the current state of college athletics, it takes much more than a snap of the finger to put programs into positions of prominence. That's why, if Osborne doesn't succeed in his temporary role as Nebraska superhero, it will be to Nebraska fans the same as watching Superman or Batman somehow not save the day at the end of their tales.

Still, if anyone can do it, it is the man who continues to work on campus and still bleeds bright scarlet red. He also understands the importance of the football team to the followers, to the alumni, to the state itself, all of whom are desperate to see the lustre restored to their beloved team. Osborne is about as close to that superhero status as a Nebraska man can be.

And if Osborne can shake off the dirt of the Pederson Era, come through and make Nebraska football relevant again and all the while do it with his typical dignified poise — considering how far things have fallen — then that would truly be this superhero's greatest rescue act.