Frustrating as his final days at Nebraska might have been, Pelini will probably never forget the chants of "We Want Bo! We Want Bo!" that rang throughout the stadium during his one and only game as a college head coach.
It was only four years ago, you might remember, when Cornhuskers fans were pulling for Pelini to replace Frank Solich, who was fired after a 9-3 season in 2003.
Pelini – despite being on staff for less than a year – was named interim head coach for Nebraska's bowl game. For the next month, the team would be all his.
Not bad for a guy in his first college season after spending the previous eight years in the NFL.
"I think that's when the light bulb went off," said Pelini's wife, Mary Pat. "That's when he realized that college coaching was something he wanted to do for a long, long time."
That sounded good to Nebraska's players, who had come to respect Pelini through the course of the season. Under Pelini’s guidance, the Blackshirts finished second in the nation in takeaways while moving from 55th to 11th in total defense.
Pelini used a fiery persona to inspire the Cornhuskers and win over fans. After Kansas State defeated Nebraska 38-9 in Lincoln, Pelini chased down Wildcats coach Bill Snyder at midfield and lashed out at him for running up the score. Months later, during Nebraska's bowl game, Pelini drew a 15-yard penalty for leaving the sidelines to argue a call.
"Guys were ready to run through a wall for him," said Ruud, a junior on that Nebraska team. "He was such a great motivator. He'd print out cards with different quotes and leave them in our locker to fire us up before games, and when it came to X's and O's, he definitely had the 'it' factor.
"He was the total package."
With Pelini leading the way, Nebraska annihilated Michigan State 17-3 in the Alamo Bowl, prompting fans to chant his name as he left the field. In just a few short months, Pelini's blue-collar approach had won the support of a rabid fan base that didn't even know his name a year earlier.
In the end, it didn't matter.
Pelini said Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson "stopped talking" to him in the days leading up to the bowl game and, following the victory, Pederson didn't fly back to Lincoln with the team.
Pederson eventually spoke with Pelini about the opening, but Pelini said it was clear he had no chance of landing the job.
"It was just a token interview," Pelini said. " (Pederson) brought me in because he had to bring me in. He told me I was being considered, but I don't think I ever was. He wanted to hire a name guy. He would've hired anybody that had a big name."
That person turned out to be Oakland Raiders head coach Bill Callahan, who has yet to win the support of Nebraska fans. The Cornhuskers went 5-6 during Callahan's first season in 2004 – their first losing campaign since 1961. They're struggling again this year, too, following last week's 41-6 loss at Missouri.
Pelini, though, doesn't take any delight in Nebraska's demise. He's too consumed with his role at LSU to play the what-if game.
"I didn't feel any sense of entitlement to that job," said Pelini, who spent a year as an assistant at Oklahoma before moving on to the LSU job in 2005. "I don't completely agree with how it was handled, but that's not for me to say.
"It's only the right job if it's a mutual thing, if both sides see it as the right fit. That obviously wasn't the case at Nebraska."
But what if the Cornhuskers had offered Pelini the job? At 36 and with only one year of college experience on his resume, was he ready to become a head coach?
"Oh yeah, I was ready," said Pelini, tilting back in his office chair and propping his feet up on his desk. "But I'm even more ready now."
