Huskers Way

On 12/28/2019 at 7:28 PM, ReddyRed said:

Agree. In retrospect, those expectations were way out of whack, and I think will continue to be. College football isn't what it was in the 1990s, and I've now accepted that any expectations of returning to that era of Husker football are a pipe dream. I honestly don't think there's a reasonable chance of winning a NC in the next 20 or 30 years, if ever. Too much has changed, and too much time has passed since the glory days. Too many teams in the Big 10 have as many or more advantages as NU, especially in recruiting areas (geography). I've decided to just enjoy the game for what it is, without dreaming about national, conference or even division titles. Bowl seasons with 6 or 7 wins, with an occasional 9-win season? I'll take it. I don't think anyone should expect more in this new era.

 

 

Well, if that's going to be the new normal, then - IMO - NU had better be expecting other things to change beyond the W-L record:

1) A perennial 6-7 win team should not expect to sell out Memorial Stadium

2) A perennial 6-7 win team has no business paying the head coach $5 million per year

3) A perennial 6-7 win team should think long and hard about things like building a new $155 million football facility

10 hours ago, BigPeterJ said:

They've been solid for a while though.....but never great.  Have they ever made a BCS bowl?

 

Edit: Looked it up, only looked back 30 or 40 years, but not 1 BCS bowl....they did go undefeated in 94' with 1 tie, but didnt go to a bowl.  Not sure how that happens? 

A&M got hit with 5 years probation by the NCAA at the beginning of 1994 - which meant they were barred from appearing on television or playing in a bowl during the 1994 season.  

I still watch every Husker game live on television, but I no longer go to games at Memorial Stadium - even if the tickets are free, I'm just not going to give up an entire Saturday and go through all that hassle and discomfort to watch a bad/mediocre Husker team play some Big 10 opponent I couldn't care less about like Northwestern or Purdue.  Besides, I don't really like the in stadium experience anymore - the very frequent TV timeouts are just brutal to sit through.

On 12/6/2019 at 2:32 AM, Landlord said:

 

tl;dr they've had minor down spells, but nothing as long or as pitiful as pretty much any other blue blood that exists. They've been the most consistent over 50-60+ years in a way that just seems unfair and improbable  

Well, it probably has helped Ohio State that they are the only Power 5 football program in a state with a population of over 11 million people.  Frankly, it's shocking that the lawmakers in Ohio never made a push decades ago to get a second Ohio school in the Big 10 - there are many states that are much smaller that have had more than one power conference football team for decades (Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Oregon, etc).

There's really not enough history between us to call it a rivalry - after all, we only played them six times from 1947 through 2010 - a double home and home from 1979 through 1982 and a home and home in 1999 and 2000 - for most of my life, Iowa was really a non-factor.  At best I would say they are basically what Colorado used to be to us (but with less history) - Colorado wasn't really a rival to us, they were just the team in the Big 8 we most disliked - that's probably what Iowa is to us right now.

Our history with the Big 8 schools went back even further than that - Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri were founding members of the MVIAA in 1907 - with Iowa State, Kansas State, and Oklahoma joining shortly after and our history with KU, Missouri, and Iowa State went back to the 1890s.  I've accepted the fact that we'll never go back to the Big 12, but I'll never consider myself a "Big 10 Man" - I really couldn't care less about any of the Big 10 schools - since 2011, I basically think of NU as an Independent that has a financial arrangement with the Big 10 to play a slate of Big 10 teams.