Nebraska football coach Bill Callahan is just one of the many disciples of the West Coast offense, which was created by former Stanford and San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh. On Monday, Walsh died at the age of 75 after a long battle with leukemia.

Here are Callahan's comments about Walsh:

"I was deeply saddened to learn of Coach Walsh's passing," Callahan said in a statement. "He had a profound impact on the game of football. He is truly one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, and was a mentor to many who have followed him in this profession.

"Coach Walsh was incredibly creative and innovative, and he played a vital role in developing and modernizing the West Coast offense as we know it today. A lot of the successes I have enjoyed in the profession can be attributed to Coach Walsh and his principles of coaching and leadership. His legacy will continue to prosper well into the future."

I personally had an opportunity to interview Walsh once in the early 1990s when I was a sports writer for the Hastings Tribune. Then in his second stint as Stanford's head coach, he gave a speech at Hastings College and, if memory serves me correctly, slipped over to Wood River to visit a potential recruit named Scott Frost.

While I can't recall what the angle of my story was, I remember coming away incredibly impressed with Walsh's intelligence and his explanations for why he was sometimes willing to go against the grain of conventional football thinking. Certainly, it's difficult to argue with three Super Bowl titles.

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