To date myself, the first game I have memories of is the 1992 Orange Bowl, following the 1991 season, where Miami shutout Nebraska 22-0, but it really wasn’t until Byron Bennett’s 45 yard field goal hooked left versus Florida State that I understood the emotions that came with a heartbreaking defeat. I could sense the frustrations and disappointment of my family, especially my dad at the time. It was like there was a 10-foot hurdle in the way and no pole to vault the program, hell, the state, to reach its ultimate goal. Anything short of winning a national championship in football was not good enough. I consider myself fortunate to have been introduced to Husker football at the very beginning of an incredible streak of success. The next 7 years yielded 3 national titles and national championship games 4 appearances. Multiple conference championships, incredible win percentages, great athletes, great coaches. A loss would ruin your week, because you knew the perfect season, the ultimate goal, was unreachable.
I joined this board the day we were introduced to Black 41 Flash Reverse Pass and celebrated a great win over a tough OU squad, with many of you. We were almost immediately met with the beginning of the end in Boulder, and watched the board melt down similarly to how my dad would melt down to losing to Florida State or Miami. 23 years here has been quite the ride. Through each of the 6 head coaches in that time frame, at some point there was always some level of HOPE and OPTIMISM, but at the same time, the bar of success continued to drop. What was once “National Championship or Bust” became the desire to not get left in the dust by Texas and Oklahoma, then it was maintaining 9 win seasons, then the bowl streak. What was once a national power came crashing down and cannot find its identity. The program has ridiculous amounts of fan support and wants to be a blueblood, but cannot even churn out mediocre results at this point. Even when we think we have an idea of what piece of the puzzle is missing, we are smacked in the face with issues in other areas holding the program back.
In 2009, NU was arguably a QB away from making a serious run at a BCS bowl. In 2023, NU was arguably a QB away from 9 or 10 wins. Flash forward a year… we landed the QB of our dreams, yet we are on the verge of extending our streak of losing seasons. “The more things change…” This has become a broken record, going on decades now. What is the programs identity? Not a single conference championship this millennium and no bowl games in two coaching cycles isn’t going to sell a tired fanbase going forward. The younger generation only has stories and YouTube to try and understand that the program was at the peak of the college football world at one point. The generations that lived through the 70s, 80s, and 90s have undoubtedly reached a different level of tired-purgatory. We know the history. We lived the history. We just long for a taste of what things once were. Any semblance at all, but it feels like it’s never going to happen. These are dark times. Have we reached a fork in the road as a fanbase? How will the program continue to garner support with continued failures and an exhausted fanbase?
Winning one of the final two games feels more important than ever. It won’t remove all feelings of fan fatigue, but it would show that the program is able to jump a hurdle and is ready to raise the bar for once, as opposed to further lowering it.
I’m not sure where I was going with this, other than say I do come across negative at times because I’m frustrated and I truly just want to program to get back on a winning track. Win a game that matters.
Along with scarlet red and others, I personally am gonna be 71 years old next month. I started being a huge NU fan in 1962 when I was 9 years old. My oldest grandson is married with 2 children. I have a great-granddaughter and great-grandson. So, it's been a while.
I would almost bet you, guys like scarlet and I can not only name every game we lost most years through the late 90's, but we also can remember pretty damn close what the score of those games were. I'm not sure the younger generation realizes how effing important this football program was to "guys like us" in those days as young men, with growing families, and football was near the top of our universe. The unbelievable highs and the unbelievable lows.
I went out to Virginia to live with my mom when I was 16 years old. The night Jerry Tagge reached across the goal line to score as we beat LSU for our first national title, I looked out the window and the KKK was marching along the railroad tracks.
During the next year when I turned 17, I enlisted in the USAF. In basic training I begged my Staff Sergeant to find a way to get a t.v. into the Dayroom so 96 of us guys could watch the "Game of the Century." He complied, AFTER I agreed to do KP (Kitchen Patrol) 3 times during basic training when only 1 time was required. KP was not fun. I didn't want that to be the first Husker football game I had ever missed. NU football meant a lot.
Along with the other oldtimers, we've seen it all, the climb to get to the top of the mountain, and then the very best program for a period of times in all of college football. So, can I get pissy when the program continues to reel year after year? Yes I can.
Its a feeling of betrayal. A veritable money machine that continues to malfunction. Every effing excuse in the world for why we no longer can win.
I had a room in my basement dedicated to Husker football. Nothing fancy, just decades and decades of Sunday World Heralds with the latest game. Stacks and stacks of Street and Smith, Athlon, etc magazines, Sport Illustrated magazines with the Huskers on the cover. If it had anything to do with NU football, I had it.
On that day in Boulder in 2000 when we got run off the field by Colorado, I went to my basement, got my son to help me and went to the backyard where my burning barrel was at. Other than the Sports Illustrated magazines, I burned everything I had. I told my wife and son, this program is over, its never gonna recover from this humiliation.
I'll be a son of a bitch, I was right.
The "history of this program" is THIS PROGRAM IS HISTORY.
Donate to this mess? Not in my lifetime.