Gene Wojciechowski, the senior national columnist for ESPN.com typed up some sensational copy regarding the state of our football program.

Now Pederson and Callahan are gone, and so is Nebraska’s one longtime advantage: an identity.

Lincoln was once I-Back U. It was Walk-On Heaven. It was a national recruiting pipeline, stretching as far as Jersey, Florida and California.

Now it’s a seven-tractor pileup.

Tradition is nice, but elite high school recruits from outside of Nebraska’s state lines (and there aren’t many of them on an annual basis) don’t remember much, if anything, about Mike Rozier. They want to win. They want to be on TV. They want to play for someone who can get them a job in the NFL.

If interim AD Tom Osborne is going to seal the gaping holes in this program, he had better find someone who understands and appreciates Nebraska’s past, but more important, someone who understands the realities of its future. Nebraska needs its football identity back.

Personally, I don’t see that it’s all that dramatic. We put two like-minded guys in the wrong jobs, it blew up in our faces and now we’re fixing it. Nebraska is still Nebraska and will always be Nebraska. Come August, we’ll be playing our style of football again. Guaranteed.

[Thanks to Art S. for the pointer]