Chicken Little must be running up and down the streets of Lincoln, Neb. proclaiming that the sky is falling. What other explanation could University of Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson have for brushing up on the laws of gravity?

To fend off whatever may be going on out on the plains, Pederson refused to let the football program “gravitate into mediocrity” as he put it by firing football coach Frank Solich over the weekend.

It seems Pederson may be looking to start a second career on campus as heading up the physics department if this whole sports thing does not work out. After watching the Cornhuskers’ season improve to a 9-3 mark following an average 7-7 the year before, Pederson must have seen the Huskers headed towards the black hole of the Big 12.

Just six years removed from replacing a coaching legend in Tom Osborne, Solich got the boot because Pederson, a former OSU recruiting coordinator under John Cooper, said “We won’t surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas.”

Aside from the record, which the departed coach registered a 58-19 mark, like everything else in college football, this comes down to money. If the Huskers “surrender the Big 12” it means they will also forgo a shot at the conference title game, a spot on national television and more importantly, a possible trip to a BCS game and even more greenbacks.

Maybe what influenced Pederson more was the trip to the Holiday Bowl rather than the two big losses to Texas and Kansas State in the last three weeks of the season.

Under Solich, the Big Red, thanks to those unpredictable BCS computers, made it all the way to national title game two years before losing to Miami 37-14. The coach only reached the Big 12 title game once and had a record of 16-12 in the last 28 games.

More importantly, Pederson, who took over a year ago, was thinking he needed to right the ship just two days before the university announced a $49 million upgrade of Memorial Stadium. Former Nebraska quarterback Tommy Frazier, who led the program to a national title in 1996, said the project will help attract some of the nation’s top recruits. Meanwhile, the sudden side project of Pederson included a new figure to bring those boys to Lincoln.

The move has divided the fans of the Big Red like Moses’ parting of the Red Sea. A 9-2 record is an improvement after Solich fired three of his assistants in the off season and brought in six new ones.

Part of that crop is interim coach and former Ohio State free safety Bo Pelini. Despite the changes, Pederson concluded the improvement was not good enough or perhaps he had plans to let Solich go before the season.

It is yet another indicator the move was more about money than winning. Impatient to let the new staff take a couple years to bring Nebraska back to the peak of college football, Pederson has opted for the quick-fix.

Although, the athletic director is starting to put together a string of bold moves dating back to his last job at his last stop in Pittsburgh. He pushed for the demolition of Pitt Stadium, the home of the Panthers for 74 years, in favor of sharing the new Heinz Field. The move has paid off with an increase in attendance, but removing a coach who was spent 26 years with the program might crank up their bulldozing over a historical landmark. Attendance has increased dramatically in the Steel City, which has a winner again. So possibly Pederson knows what he is doing.

But who exactly could pull off a quick improvement? It can be done, but some of the names mentioned so far offer predominately passing attacks, which make the Husker faithful cringe as much as the Buckeye Nation, when they see five wide outs and running backs out on the field.

How about Pittsburgh’s Walt Harris and his passing attack, or better yet Steve Spurrier brings the Fun ‘N’ Gun offense to the Great Plains? I wonder if he will wear the visor in late November in a freezing Lincoln?

West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has already said he was not interested in leaving Morgantown. Other names quickly surfacing include former Georgia coach Jim Donnan, Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defensive coordinator and former Nebraska assistant Monte Kiffin, as well as Utah coach Urban Meyer, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti and California coach Jeff Tedford, or with all the talk of gravity maybe some football junkie and descendent of Sir Issac Newton is interested in the job.

Whatever direction Pederson takes he may want to study the laws of gravity to examine the future of Nebraska football and his own stock.

Nick Houser is a senior in journalism and can be reached at [email protected].