I'm keeping our season tix. But I do recall that back in the days Nebraska was perennially good, very good, the fact of this state's low population base and non-metropolitian/big city culture was washed out by the style of football being played then: just hard hitting run/option tough ball. That kind of football and the kind of coaching it required (throw a real block! you're not dancing with him! "hit him harder! hat to hat or put your helmet in his belly! drive him to the ground, hard!!" etc) morphed into something else entirely. Hell, there are girls starting on high school teams now, and a few colleges, as linebackers and quarterbacks, not just kickers. It's changing. Get ready for more; rules will eventually have to change (even more so) too.. think about it.
Rules are already changing radically in efforts to protect players more. Rules that insurance lobbyists push through about everything from equipment to how a tackle can be made legally to which positions can be hit certain ways and which ones can't be hit that way.
So, what's changing? Football itself. The "60 minutes of football and a half-hour halftime" game is twice as long now and more. Remember the hour and a half games of old? Reviews and consultations by officials and often questionable, strange "injury" time outs and commercials stretch the game to four and five hours now. Hello snoozers goodbye momentum.
Nebraska thrived when it was about eleven guys and their assigned target, offence and defence and that was about it. Big guys on the line, fast guys at halfback, and a good quarterback. The programs that have adapted well and move along with the times have that ability because they have huge recruitment bases, and other reasons of course. Nebraska is still at a disadvantage even in this age of jet travelling to recruit: it ain't working.
