A current poll asking if the Huskers will win the Big 12 North in 2006 led to some interesting results. 73% of Husker Forum respondents think Nebraska will win the Big 12 North title next season. These results indicate a few things to me:

1) Callahan has won the confidence of the vast majority of people in the Husker Forum. That's quite a huge step from a year ago today.

2) The flip side is that now that our confidence in the staff is up, so are our expectations. If Nebraska doesn't win the North in 2006, there are going to be some very unhappy people.

3) Callahan's grace period is over. There are only 15 players remaining on the roster who were signed by and ever took the field for Solich. In other words, this is Callahan's program now. He signed 71 of 85 scholarship players on the current roster. The "no talent" excuse won't fly next year, because Callahan himself signed the talent. He will get all the credit or blame for this season.

4) Expectations, even going into Callahan's third year, still aren't too high. Winning the North with ISU as the only team not suffering major losses going into this season isn't too much to ask. An appearance in the Big 12 title game will make fans happy and set the stage for BCS expectations in 2007.