Bill came due at University of Nebraska

Everyone knew it would happen. It seemed almost anticlimactic.

Bill Callahan (upper picture) was fired as Nebraska's coach Saturday, his four-year stay marked by the most embarrassing losses at a football program once among the mightiest in the nation.

Interim athletic director and Nebraska great Tom Osborne (lower picture) announced the dismissal one day after the Cornhuskers ended the season at 5-7 following a 65-51 loss at Colorado. They squandered an 11-point halftime lead by allowing 34 consecutive points.

It will cost the university more than $3.1 million to buy out Callahan's contract, which was to run through the 2011 season.

The contract was signed in September before a series of the most lopsided losses in decades and the firing of athletic director Steve Pederson, who hired Callahan.

The meeting between Callahan and Osborne only lasted for five minutes.

That’s all it took - five minutes for Osborne to send Callahan and his assistants packing after dragging the once proud and mighty Husker football program down to a 45-year low.

Osborne’s next task will be to find a new head football coach.

LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini and Buffalo coach Turner Gill are the names mentioned most often to fill one of college football's glamour jobs.

Pelini was defensive coordiantor and Gill was quarterbacks coach at Nebraska. They both left when Callahan arrived.

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