Huskers Fighting Big Trend

R

Roundball Shaman

Four-Star Recruit
As we know, the Huskers have faced challenges in returning to national prominence. But there is a trend worth watching:  It is getting very hard for any cold weather team to win a national championship.

In the last 15 years, only one cold weather team (Ohio State in 2014) won a national title. Every other year it was a WARM weather team:

(In alphabetical order)
Alabama 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017
Auburn 2010
Clemson 2016
Florida 2006, 2008
Florida State 2013
LSU 2003, 2007
Southern California 2004
Texas 2005

And who’s up for this year? Warm weather Alabama and Clemson are higher seeds over cold weather Notre Dame and Oklahoma (some might argue that Oklahoma might be part of the Sun Belt). And should Notre Dame surprise and win it this year, they are a unique school with a unique special national footprint to help them along.

There may be reasons in addition to weather that warm site teams are winning most everything, but the trend is undeniable.

Since it is bit hard to move Lincoln further south a couple hundred miles, the Huskers need to find ways to compete with these warm weather powerhouses if national titles are ever to be found again. And maybe plant some palm trees around Lincoln.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Oklahoma should definitely be considered a warm weather school.
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Yeah. Norman is only 190 miles north of Dallas and it’s almost as far south as Phoenix. Looking at a map, it is roughly the same latitude as the southern border of Tennessee.

I don’t think the weather has near as much to do with this trend as proximity to recruiting hotbeds does. I also don’t think the perception of being rural is much of a factor. Tuscaloosa is no metropolis and pretty rural. Clemson SC is tiny and rural. The trick IMO is to get back to at least semi prominence, develope some consistency in staff and winning and then recruiting becomes much easier. Sustaining a program at a high level is much easier than getting there in the first place. It’s not the weather.

 
Landlord said:
This is totally true but neither of those states are known as the definition of a flyover state the way we often are.
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IDK, personally I've never given credence to the "flyover state" saying. It's just a phrase imo. I'd have to question anyone's intelligence who gives it more credit than that. I've been a lot of places that are much worse than Nebraska and it really has nothing to do with population density. Lincoln is a great city. Much better than many southern cities I've seen. If some people (recruits) are stupid enough to go off a perception or silly phrase, there's not much anybody can do about it. I've been to South Carolina, Auburn Alabama, Starkville Mississippi, Nashville, Athens Georgia, to name a few. Those places have absolutely nothing over Lincoln. IMO all we need to do is start fielding a respectable team and get some continuity back in the program. I don't want a player that chooses Tuscaloosa over Lincoln based on his perception of the city or area. His loss. Winning and program culture are what matters. We threw the baby out with the bath water when we went with Callahan and it's been a clusterf#ck ever since......until now. It'll get better and it has almost zero to do with "flyover state", cornfields, rural, Lincoln Nebraska or the weather.

 
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Our potential success has nothing to do with that, for sure. There are plenty of reasons and ways we can eventually convince people to come here.

But one of our unavoidable disadvantages does substantially have to do with perception of Nebraska by the majority of the country. We can overcome it. But it absolutely exists.

 
JJ Husker said:
Yeah. Norman is only 190 miles north of Dallas and it’s almost as far south as Phoenix. Looking at a map, it is roughly the same latitude as the southern border of Tennessee.

I don’t think the weather has near as much to do with this trend as proximity to recruiting hotbeds does. I also don’t think the perception of being rural is much of a factor. Tuscaloosa is no metropolis and pretty rural. Clemson SC is tiny and rural. The trick IMO is to get back to at least semi prominence, develope some consistency in staff and winning and then recruiting becomes much easier. Sustaining a program at a high level is much easier than getting there in the first place. It’s not the weather.
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exactly!

 
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