Apparently, NU needs CU rivalry

[Husker_Power]

Like it or not Huskers, you need Buffs rivalry

by, Mark Knudson, a former major-league and CSU pitcher, writes a weekly column for the Coloradoan.

 

There are an estimated 25,000 Nebraska football fans living along the Front Range in Colorado. Like everyone else, they're anxious for the start of the new college football season that's less than a month away.

 

But before the first kickoff, this group of Huskers supporters needs to relay a message back to Lincoln. It's time for Nebraska to accept the University of Colorado as its one true, natural rival, complete with all the contempt and name-calling that goes with it.

 

The reason is simple. Rivalries make college football tick. You don't think of Ohio State without Michigan. Hard to imagine Oklahoma without Texas, or Florida without Florida State. USC may be on top, but their backers get the most worked up for the annual bash with UCLA.

 

As things stand right now, Nebraska does not have a true rival. Huskers fans still point to Oklahoma, but the two teams only play twice every four years. You can't have a true rival that isn't on your schedule every year. It's sad, because NU vs. OU was every bit as good as Ohio State-Michigan and the others, but expansion and the emergence of the Big 12 squelched it a decade ago.

 

With Oklahoma only a semi-regular foe, the Huskers are in need. Quick, name a great college football program that doesn't have a rival? Didn't think so.

 

CU fans have been aiming at the Nebraska game for decades now. It's the Cornhuskers who've refused to buy in. CU fans have long had the necessary hatred for Nebraska, and the game means more to most Buffs fans than any other on the schedule. Look no further than last season, when most Colorado fans took far more pleasure in beating a downtrodden Nebraska team than they did in a monumental upset of highly ranked Oklahoma.

 

On the other side, Nebraska fans would rather say nice things about Barry Switzer than admit that CU was a true "rival" for Nebraska. And it takes two to tango, as they say.

 

So will this, can this, mindset change among those wearing red? It better. For Nebraska's sake.

 

It's a little ironic. Even though they've been the ones pushing a rivalry with Nebraska that has not been reciprocated, it's the Buffs who don't really need the Huskers right now. Colorado has a built-in rivalry building with Colorado State University (whether CU fan wants to acknowledge it or not.) Over the past decade, CU leads the series 6-4, and the teams have split the past eight meetings in Denver. The games have had all the elements of a great rivalry, and if they were in the same conference with any sort of title on the line, no one would argue that CU-CSU was among the nation's great rivalry games.

 

But CU never has really wanted the CSU rivalry; much like Nebraska has disdained the Buffs. They want Nebraska. It was back in the early 1980s when new CU coach Bill McCartney tried his best to create this border war with Nebraska. He failed for two reasons. One, at the time, Nebraska was still on top of the college football world, and every other team in the Big Eight conference felt the same way about the Cornhuskers as CU did. They all aimed to take down the top dog. And to top it off, McCartney beat Nebraska only three times in 13 seasons.

 

Secondly, and more important, Nebraska still had Oklahoma on the brain. In those years, the Huskers and Sooners would annually end the Big Eight season with a titanic clash the day after Thanksgiving, the winner moving on to the Orange Bowl and possibly a shot at the national championship. The two schools played numerous epic battles, the kind of games where legends were born.

 

When the Big 12 came into existence, the Huskers and Sooners were dispatched to different divisions, and the rivalry died. Oklahoma was not left wanting. The Sooners' rivalry with Texas only intensified. It's Nebraska that suffered.

 

Certainly Nebraska- Colorado does not come close to measuring up as a rivalry ... yet. Despite some success for the Buffs this decade, the all-time series remains very one-sided. But you have to start somewhere, right?

 

If you only go by the games since the Big 12 was born and they started playing the day after Thanksgiving, Nebraska leads the series just 8-4. That is more like a rivalry. There have been snippets of what this rivalry could someday be, like in 1994, when the two teams met in Lincoln ranked second and third in the polls. Nebraska prevailed and won the national championship - with a big boost from CU's miracle win at Michigan. One-loss Colorado finished third.

 

With the exception of 2001, when the Buffs drilled then-unbeaten Nebraska, and both teams went to the BCS, the games between the two have not held a lot of national meaning this decade. That could be changing soon with the emergence of Dan Hawkins as the head man of the Buffs and the ability his team showed last fall to rise to almost any occasion. Nebraska has not been Nebraska for several years now, but optimism is running high in the heartland with the arrival of new coach Bo Pelini and the omnipresence of new athletic director and legendary coach Tom Osborne. Still, if Nebraska is going to ever get back to the pinnacle of college football, it needs the one thing only CU can provide: a rival.

 

So suck it up, Huskers fans. It's time to embrace the rivalry that the Big 12 worked so hard to create. It turns out the conference, and McCartney, were right all along.

[mickijc_20]

no

[cornhuskers4ever]

Let the Colorado fans be Classy like Oklahoma fans are, and maybe we'll accept it.

[huKSer]

5. Iowa St - sorry Cy, got to be competitive

4. KU - Longest continuous series west of Missouri, last year left bad taste, but one year a rivalry does not make

3. KSU - NU-Snyder was pretty good, but you need two teams, not a team and a coach.

2. CU - Nice guys and the worst fans in the country finish second. Again you need two teams, not one to make a rivalry

1. MU - If we had to pick a B12 North team as a rival I think the only reasonable choice would be Missouri. They are the only team who over many decades have provided the best competition. Rivals are forever - you can have the soup de jour, but not the rival de decade

 

My $0.02.

[Hunter94]

CU has no class....you have to be a classy team, with respect for your opponent to conduct a rivalry....CU is light years behind in this respect!

 

not a chance in hell....we don't need the thugs from Colorado or their classless fans!

[captain obvious]

I want a piece of Mizzou.

 

And this is a stretch, re: '94:

 

Nebraska prevailed and won the national championship - with a big boost from CU's miracle win at

Michigan.

 

I'm pretty sure the only boost that team needed to get the NC vote was beating Miami. I mean, that and absolutely drilling CU in the regular season.

[mitch93]

5. Iowa St - sorry Cy, got to be competitive

4. KU - Longest continuous series west of Missouri, last year left bad taste, but one year a rivalry does not make

3. KSU - NU-Snyder was pretty good, but you need two teams, not a team and a coach.

2. CU - Nice guys and the worst fans in the country finish second. Again you need two teams, not one to make a rivalry

1. MU - If we had to pick a B12 North team as a rival I think the only reasonable choice would be Missouri. They are the only team who over many decades have provided the best competition. Rivals are forever - you can have the soup de jour, but not the rival de decade

 

My $0.02.

I agree, we have a bell we compete for each year between mu and nu. Colorado would have to be more consistently good to be an actual rival. It would have to be big head to head bashes each year, I just dont see that from CU.

[Bleeding Husker Red]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If NU's natural rival isn't Oklahoma, then the only other team it could be is Missouri.

 

Read your husker history kids....

 

 

 

There is absolutly no way I will ever accept a 'rivalry' created in a conference boardroom. Never. This conference only slid CU into that place because McCartney was running his yap about it and they needed someone to fill the slot., lest they lose out on all those nifty holiday game television revenues.

 

Personally, I'd rather it would have been Iowa State. Even so, rivalries only work when they're NATURAL. That leaves Oklahoma and Missouri. No one else.

 

 

Sorry CU.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

I'm torn on this subject a little bit. I realize that CU fans hate our guts and the feeling is mostly mutual from all of us. I think to constitute a rivalry you have to have some type of hatred there. Three teams come to mind when I think of this. Mizzou, CU, and KSU.........................If I had to rank these in order of hatred for me it would probably be KSU, CU, and Mizzou a close third. I want nothing more than for us to stomp the living hell out of these teams every season! If we could only win three games a season these would be the three for me.

[kc_husker]

5. Iowa St - sorry Cy, got to be competitive

4. KU - Longest continuous series west of Missouri, last year left bad taste, but one year a rivalry does not make

3. KSU - NU-Snyder was pretty good, but you need two teams, not a team and a coach.

2. CU - Nice guys and the worst fans in the country finish second. Again you need two teams, not one to make a rivalry

1. MU - If we had to pick a B12 North team as a rival I think the only reasonable choice would be Missouri. They are the only team who over many decades have provided the best competition. Rivals are forever - you can have the soup de jour, but not the rival de decade

 

My $0.02.

 

Colorado has beaten us in lincoln recently Missery has not.

And have you been to Columbia lately? You would think your in Boulder

with out the mountains.

[The Snork]

CU fans are so desperate for our attention ... even if all we do is despise them it somehow validates their existance.

 

We don't consider anyone in the Big 12 North our rival because basically, we feel we should beat them year in and year out . The years we get beat its because of something WE did, not that we think they're any good.

 

Now Oklahoma, in the Big 8 years was an even match. Some years we were good but lost because they got lucky and vice-versa. Yeah there was some mild jawbonig between fans but things never got ugly basically because the people of our two states are civil.

 

I guess the main problem with CU is their fans have no respect for themselves or their team so why should we? Showing up drunk, throwing crap. Poor sportmanship would be an improvement. They exhibit no sportmanship whatsoever.

 

That's my advice to CU. Respect yourselves and your team and you'll find its easier for other people to do likewise.

[The Snork]

Oh I should add, as for Our rival? Its none other than the ENTIRE BIG 12. Its been nothing but an ongoing insult to us since the day it was formed and our inclusion in it has done one good thing for us. We play against it (hopefully) 9 weeks every year and anything less than 9-0 sticks in our craw. So other teams need one rival? Good for them. Underachievers if you ask me.

 

So there CU, there's some good news after all. You made it to 1/11th of our rival. Congratulations!

[zoogs]

Well, at least you can say there's no love lost between these two teams. That's one aspect of a rivalry. A lot of crazy recent games (getting walloped in '01, embarrassed last year, owning their asses in '06 with every trick play in the books), combined with some more absurdly close crazy recent games (see: every year from 1996 through 2000)...and then coupled with the fact that it's the last game of the regular season, every year, our Thanksgiving game...

 

It doesn't matter that they aren't consistently good anymore. It's a rivalry in my mind. We hate their guts. When we were on top and they were nobodies, they played us close like nobody's business. And now, seemingly every other year we go into that game with a score to settle.

 

The Missouri game has always struck me as too civil, too in-the-middle-of-the-year, too often one-sided, whether history is on its side or not. CU is the game I've got circled on my calendar year-in, year-out. KSU as well. Iowa St and Kansas I've always looked upon as our punching bags, though lately that hasn't been true.

[HUSKER 37]

I don't believe we really need a "rival"..

At least not every year.

 

It would be different if we were having trouble filling the seats, but the alternating 2 year thing with our "true rival" just seems to make the heart grow fonder (not fodder).

 

I do like the CU/CSU thing, though..Especially if they somehow ended up in the same conference.

 

Missery?

There's been a few moments here and there, but indistinguishable with Colorado's moments with us.

 

The one thing CU seems to have going for it in relation to a rivalry with Nebraska, is that no matter how hard they sukc during the non-conference schedule, they always seem to peak when they play us.

[huskernumerouno]

You cannot beg youself into a rivalry. This is something that is earned and manifested over years of competition that involves heatbreaking losses and Title clinching victories. The seeds may be planted for a rivalry to grow but begging it to happen wont make it so. We earned our rivalry with OU by competing with them and showing respect no matter the outcome of the game.

 

Our natural rival is OU and the Big 12 should reinstate our annual game with them, it was bullsh#t that it was taken away.