Hurt in the Big12 Heartland

[TheCheshireCat]

MANHATTAN, Kan. — The Nebraska Cornhuskers have been making the two-and-a-half-hour trek due south here for nearly a century. Generations of players have looked out the bus windows at the browns and golds of the tabletop plains. They watched Beatrice, Neb., give way to Marysville, Kan., before finally arriving at the home of one their oldest rivals, the Kansas State Wildcats.

 

Nebraska is bound for the Big Ten next season, a fact that is at once heartbreaking and infuriating to anyone who grew up in America’s breadbasket in the 1970s watching Big 8 Conference foes take on the Big Red machine on black and white TVs on autumn afternoons. From its Heisman Trophy winners Johnny Rodgers (1972), Mike Rozier (1983) and Eric Crouch (2001) to its five national championships over the past 40 years, Nebraska remains the standard-bearer for the nation’s farming football fans.

 

“It’s sad — I think of the history and tradition that goes along with that is relative to the Big 8-Big 12 conference, I think it will be missed,” said Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder, who is good friends with Tom Osborne, the iconic former Nebraska coach who is now the university’s athletic director.

 

“I hate to see them go,” he continued. “I am disappointed and saddened by Nebraska not being in the conference.”

 

How Nebraska’s last fandango — through a conference that it helped build and often dominated — will play out is anyone’s guess.

 

“I don’t know what to expect,” Osborne conceded. “I’ve heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss.”

 

If recent history is a guide, there is little doubt that breaking up is hard to do. In 2004, for example, Boston College’s final season in the Big East before heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Eagles were showered with fake money, booed heartily and mercilessly criticized on talk radio and Internet forums.

 

“It’s a divorce, and very few of those end up without hard feelings,” said Boston College’s athletic director, Gene DeFilippo. “The Big East fans felt jilted by Boston College, and you could feel that high emotion in about every stadium.”

 

Here in the Little Apple, as Manhattan is known, the bad feelings and abusive language erupted over the summer when Nebraska announced it was going to the Big Ten for, among other things, a larger amount of television revenues.

 

“There was a few days there, when the Pac-10 was wooing the Texas and Oklahoma schools, and it looked like the Big 12 was going to die altogether and K-State and Kansas would be out in the cold, and people were angry,” said Matt Walters, who graduated from Kansas State in 1990 and hosts “The Game,” Manhattan’s popular afternoon drive-time talk show. “It’s been calm mostly since.”

 

Over the years, the rivalry has been a respectful, if mostly one-sided, one. They, of course, are neighbors whose fan bases look and act alike — older, agriculturally based, friendly and well-behaved. Nebraska leads the series, 75-15-2, but Kansas State won five of seven games from 1998 to 2004.

 

In television commercials, the in-game video and the program, Kansas State officials acknowledge that this is an end of an era.

 

“The final chapter of a great Big 12 series,” reads the tag line of the game poster.

 

But they are not taking any chances, either. Kansas State’s athletic director, John Currie, sent a letter out to fans on Monday, asking them to live up to their reputation as classy supporters.

 

“We pride ourselves at K-State on the people and how well-respected our fans are across the nation,” a part of it read.

 

“We expect nothing less than Bill Snyder Family Stadium to be rocking Thursday night, but it is also a part of our mission as an athletics program to provide the best fan experience possible to both our fans and those visiting Manhattan.”

 

The Nebraska players are perhaps taking this final tour with the least concern.

 

None of them were born when the transcendent Rodgers returned a punt 72 yards for a touchdown to kick off the scoring in the ballyhooed Game of the Century between No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Oklahoma in 1971, which the Huskers won, 35-31. They were in grade school in 1998 when Kansas State beat Nebraska here at home, 40-30, for the first time in 39 years — since the Kansan Dwight David Eisenhower presided in the White House — touching off a goal-post-toppling celebration rarely seen in Wildcat football history.

 

“People have been telling us that it’s going to be a lot different, but personally I don’t see how it is going to affect us at all,” said the junior Jared Crick, a defensive tackle. “Usually when we go on the road, people don’t like us anyway, so I don’t really see what the big difference will be. It’s going to be a hostile environment no matter where we are playing. I don’t see leaving the Big 12 as a big factor in what we expect when we go on the road.”

 

Win or lose, however, there will be quite a few football fans from Nebraska and Kansas, as well as Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma, who were part of Big 8 country and will understand what has been lost when the Huskers board the bus and rumble back through Marysville and Beatrice one last time en route to Lincoln, Neb..

 

One of them will be an old coach. Osborne looks forward to new rivalries being established on storied football fields like those at Michigan and Ohio State. Still, he cannot help look back.

 

“I’m going to be sad,” said Osborne, 73, who joined the Nebraska coaching staff in 1964. “One chapter closes, and another opens.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07nebraska.html?display=screen

[UGAHusker]

MANHATTAN, Kan. — The Nebraska Cornhuskers have been making the two-and-a-half-hour trek due south here for nearly a century. Generations of players have looked out the bus windows at the browns and golds of the tabletop plains. They watched Beatrice, Neb., give way to Marysville, Kan., before finally arriving at the home of one their oldest rivals, the Kansas State Wildcats.

 

Nebraska is bound for the Big Ten next season, a fact that is at once heartbreaking and infuriating to anyone who grew up in America's breadbasket in the 1970s watching Big 8 Conference foes take on the Big Red machine on black and white TVs on autumn afternoons. From its Heisman Trophy winners Johnny Rodgers (1972), Mike Rozier (1983) and Eric Crouch (2001) to its five national championships over the past 40 years, Nebraska remains the standard-bearer for the nation's farming football fans.

 

"It's sad — I think of the history and tradition that goes along with that is relative to the Big 8-Big 12 conference, I think it will be missed," said Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder, who is good friends with Tom Osborne, the iconic former Nebraska coach who is now the university's athletic director.

 

"I hate to see them go," he continued. "I am disappointed and saddened by Nebraska not being in the conference."

 

How Nebraska's last fandango — through a conference that it helped build and often dominated — will play out is anyone's guess.

 

"I don't know what to expect," Osborne conceded. "I've heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss."

 

If recent history is a guide, there is little doubt that breaking up is hard to do. In 2004, for example, Boston College's final season in the Big East before heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Eagles were showered with fake money, booed heartily and mercilessly criticized on talk radio and Internet forums.

 

"It's a divorce, and very few of those end up without hard feelings," said Boston College's athletic director, Gene DeFilippo. "The Big East fans felt jilted by Boston College, and you could feel that high emotion in about every stadium."

 

Here in the Little Apple, as Manhattan is known, the bad feelings and abusive language erupted over the summer when Nebraska announced it was going to the Big Ten for, among other things, a larger amount of television revenues.

 

"There was a few days there, when the Pac-10 was wooing the Texas and Oklahoma schools, and it looked like the Big 12 was going to die altogether and K-State and Kansas would be out in the cold, and people were angry," said Matt Walters, who graduated from Kansas State in 1990 and hosts "The Game," Manhattan's popular afternoon drive-time talk show. "It's been calm mostly since."

 

Over the years, the rivalry has been a respectful, if mostly one-sided, one. They, of course, are neighbors whose fan bases look and act alike — older, agriculturally based, friendly and well-behaved. Nebraska leads the series, 75-15-2, but Kansas State won five of seven games from 1998 to 2004.

 

In television commercials, the in-game video and the program, Kansas State officials acknowledge that this is an end of an era.

 

"The final chapter of a great Big 12 series," reads the tag line of the game poster.

 

But they are not taking any chances, either. Kansas State's athletic director, John Currie, sent a letter out to fans on Monday, asking them to live up to their reputation as classy supporters.

 

"We pride ourselves at K-State on the people and how well-respected our fans are across the nation," a part of it read.

 

"We expect nothing less than Bill Snyder Family Stadium to be rocking Thursday night, but it is also a part of our mission as an athletics program to provide the best fan experience possible to both our fans and those visiting Manhattan."

 

The Nebraska players are perhaps taking this final tour with the least concern.

 

None of them were born when the transcendent Rodgers returned a punt 72 yards for a touchdown to kick off the scoring in the ballyhooed Game of the Century between No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Oklahoma in 1971, which the Huskers won, 35-31. They were in grade school in 1998 when Kansas State beat Nebraska here at home, 40-30, for the first time in 39 years — since the Kansan Dwight David Eisenhower presided in the White House — touching off a goal-post-toppling celebration rarely seen in Wildcat football history.

 

"People have been telling us that it's going to be a lot different, but personally I don't see how it is going to affect us at all," said the junior Jared Crick, a defensive tackle. "Usually when we go on the road, people don't like us anyway, so I don't really see what the big difference will be. It's going to be a hostile environment no matter where we are playing. I don't see leaving the Big 12 as a big factor in what we expect when we go on the road."

 

Win or lose, however, there will be quite a few football fans from Nebraska and Kansas, as well as Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma, who were part of Big 8 country and will understand what has been lost when the Huskers board the bus and rumble back through Marysville and Beatrice one last time en route to Lincoln, Neb..

 

One of them will be an old coach. Osborne looks forward to new rivalries being established on storied football fields like those at Michigan and Ohio State. Still, he cannot help look back.

 

"I'm going to be sad," said Osborne, 73, who joined the Nebraska coaching staff in 1964. "One chapter closes, and another opens."

 

http://www.nytimes.c...?display=screen

 

What is the "great series"? I understand what he is saying about the series being over and I guess it is a little odd to think that Nebraska will never play a lot of these Big 12 teams again except in bowls, but I wouldn't classify this series as great. When one team doesn't beat the other for 30 years, I don't think one can say that the series has been anything except "one-sided".

[tman]

Why does anything that come out of Kansas press cut up the game series to reflect a skewed picture of the series? Really from 1998-2004? Why this time frame? So 80's don't count? What about the rest of this decade? What happen to 2005-2009? Of course they'll try to pull out of their asses that they only count the years Bill Snyder was at the helm. Well then we shouldn't count the years that Osborne wasn't at the helm for NU. You can't have both ways k-state!

[Moiraine]

I sort of wish we had just stayed the Big 8. But, I'm too excited about the Big 10 to care for more than a few seconds.

[HuskerJosh]

Why does anything that come out of Kansas press cut up the game series to reflect a skewed picture of the series? Really from 1998-2004? Why this time frame? So 80's don't count? What about the rest of this decade? What happen to 2005-2009? Of course they'll try to pull out of their asses that they only count the years Bill Snyder was at the helm. Well then we shouldn't count the years that Osborne wasn't at the helm for NU. You can't have both ways k-state!

C'mon, they had to give them SOMETHING.

[zinner111]

 

 

“I don’t know what to expect,” Osborne conceded. “I’ve heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07nebraska.html?display=screen

 

Wait, what? We're going 0-8 in Big 12 play? Way to have confidence in the squad, Tom.

[bshirt]

I sort of wish we had just stayed the Big 8. But, I'm too excited about the Big 10 to care for more than a few seconds.

 

Yeah, me too.

 

Just a dose of nostalgia I guess......

[WCHusker]

It sucks to lose the OU rivaly and the games against KU, but beyond that. Well, phuck um.

[JOEY]

Idk If I'm going to be able to sleep tonight,I'm too excited about playing the purple kitties tomorrow.

[SaturnDrew]

Haha! I noticed that also. Way to have faith in our team, T.O.!

 

 

 

“I don’t know what to expect,” Osborne conceded. “I’ve heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07nebraska.html?display=screen

 

Wait, what? We're going 0-8 in Big 12 play? Way to have confidence in the squad, Tom.

[GBRsal]

100 years of boring beat-downs out the window...what a shame *yawn*

 

Next.

 

 

 

[bleedNUred]

I sort of wish we had just stayed the Big 8. But, I'm too excited about the Big 10 to care for more than a few seconds.

Same goes for me.

[Moiraine]

 

 

“I don’t know what to expect,” Osborne conceded. “I’ve heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07nebraska.html?display=screen

 

Wait, what? We're going 0-8 in Big 12 play? Way to have confidence in the squad, Tom.

 

I wonder if he mispoke or they actually typed it wrong on purpose

[HuskerJosh]

More like "Butthurt in the Big12 Heartland" Amirite?!

[Hercules]

 

 

“I don’t know what to expect,” Osborne conceded. “I’ve heard and expect more nasty comments in some places. There will be others that will be more respectful. I do know everyone in the Big 12 is going send us out with a loss.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07nebraska.html?display=screen

 

Wait, what? We're going 0-8 in Big 12 play? Way to have confidence in the squad, Tom.

 

I wonder if he mispoke or they actually typed it wrong on purpose

 

I'm not sure, but I laughed. Kinda seems like one of those classic Osborne remarks, where he makes fun of someone, and everyone responds with a double take.