It's been the talk for quite awhile, so the firing of Bill Callahan as Nebraska football coach was not a great surprise. Most fans we talked to believe it was the right call.

"I said if we have a losing season, I don't think there is any way this will work," said Interim Athletic Director Tom Osborne Saturday morning.

While fans filled the Qwest Center for Nebraska-Creighton basketball, the talk was football. "I thought Osborne did an excellent job of laying out what the criteria were."

"I think it was expected after a 5-7 season, two losing seasons in four years, I’m not surprised."

"That's what we all want are benchmarks of improvement and improvement wasn't made and I think the coach sees that, too."

"I think it's a good overall decision for the program, kind of heading downhill, had a lot of big losses."

We certainly don't need a professional survey poll to get people talking about Nebraska football and one consensus is where the changes need to be made.

"We used to be a team people hated to play because they felt it for two or three weeks," said Osborne.

"We used to hit people in the mouth and play smash mouth football, we kind of lost that a little bit."

"Probably the defensive plays didn't seem to make a lot of improvements.”

"I think the defense after the USC game just started to give up a little bit, they didn't have the heart like they did."

"We didn't play Nebraska football, we didn't hurt anybody out there, we tried to finesse people and it didn't work."

Nebraska gave up 40 or more points five times this year, including a team record 76 to Kansas. Now Callahan is out and the search begins. And fans had plenty to say about that, too.

"Somebody that knows football, somebody that has a good work ethic, somebody that can motivate," said Osborne.

"Somebody to put the enthusiasm back into the kids."

"Somebody who can bring some intensity back, get the put the fire back in the fans, the Blackshirts. We lost some of the intensity, basically we want someone who will win, that's the main thing."

That remains to be seen. Osborne said there is no timetable for naming a replacement for Callahan and it's not necessary that person have Nebraska ties.