Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar

2026 Schedule

DrFumble said:
That is absolutely true, Cigarman.

Despite its truth, Osborne was rarely looked upon by our fandom as an innovator like Visor Boy. It flies in the face of the conventional Husker storyline. The story goes that once upon a time, Bob Devaney developed 'The Program' and our fan mindset was that Tom Osborne stepped in and just kept the machine running and rolling until it eventually kicked into a higher gear.

By the time TO retired the thinking was that we had the secret sauce to a time-tested, well-oiled machine that any good driver (like Solich) with a Big Red Husker heart could take over and succeed. The Callahan fiasco actually strengthened that mindset. After BC, fans bought into the theory that with a return to The Nebraska Way, even a wet-behind-the-ears head coach like Pelini or Gill could jump into the driver's seat and kick it back into high gear.

Despite our so-so results, we continued to cling to the unusual belief that The Program itself could develop an elite HC rather than the other way around.

That's the only way you can explain a fifth year for Frost despite compelling evidence he sure as hell wasn't The One and why a football program that was once the King of College Football has struggled to regain its footing for the last 25+ years.

Our misguided belief in the power of The Program is why we didn't demand an elite coach like Bobby Stoops or Nick Saban when we could've got them instead of the ones we settled for back in the day.
Click to expand...
So true. NU's administration was set on running our program on the cheap. Until Frost, they were unwilling to kick out the money necessary to fund a primer program. They allowed the program to sink to depths where coming back became a long-term project.

Much of Osborne's success was not due to the system but to the personnel. A line of scrimmage controlling O-line, a premium RB, and a tough game manager at QB paired with a fast, strong defense full of All-Americans was his game. He also had that knack for calling the right play at the right time. There are very few if any coaches who could accomplish that and they knew it, so not many waisted their time trying.
 
  • Like
Reactions: innmc and Doc Fumble
Cigarman said:
NU's administration was set on running our program on the cheap. ... They allowed the program to sink to depths where coming back became a long-term project.
Click to expand...
Volumes have been written about the reasons for our decline. You've provided the simplest -- and best -- explanation.
Cigarman said:
Much of Osborne's success was not due to the system but to the personnel. A line of scrimmage controlling O-line, a premium RB, and a tough game manager at QB paired with a fast, strong defense full of All-Americans was his game.
Click to expand...
Iowa fans complain about Ferentz -- and while he's not Osborne -- Kirk shares a number of things in common with TO. You always know what you're going to get from his teams. In this era of Merry-go-round coaches, there's something to be said for stability when you've got a solid HC at the helm.
 
  • Like
Reactions: innmc and Cigarman
Between the expansive walk-on program and the innovative use of partial qualifiers, we always had the biggest pool of players at practices. Cream rises to the top- more raw milk= more cream.
 
  • Like
Reactions: innmc
Listen up, Corn Nation:

Rhule and Dannen are taking the Bill Snyder approach to preseason scheduling. It was damn smart by Bill Snyder and his AD at Kansas State did it back in the early 1990s.

At the time, K-State had a long history of losing seasons and played in a tough conference. I don't think Kitty fans whined when Snyder was able to use their early cupcake home wins to eventually turnaround the program's fortunes. The Wildcats went from their usual 1-to-3 win seasons to 'mediocre' 5-to-7 wins.

Fortunately for Snyder, Kitty fans were appreciate of their sadsack program's early progress and went bonkers when Bill used it to springboard on to an amazing (for Kitty State) run of 4 straight years of 11 win seasons.

Nebraska's problem is that there are too many old grumps like me who remember our Glory Days and ignore our more recent B1G Dumpster Fire performances.
Many of the same people whining we're not winning enough argued that we should have played Tennessee. Why? I would argue that the Snyder approach is even more important today for Nebraska than it was for K-State back-in-the-day. In this CFP era, our tough conference slate minimizes the impact of a soft preseason schedule.

We whine about our 'mediocre' progress instead of realizing what it's building towards. Unless you experience 'once in a generation' instant-success like Bob Devaney did at Nebraska in 1962 or Curt Cignetti did when he went to Indiana, you've got to crawl before you can walk before you can run.
 
Honestly, I've come around in my thinking about these pastry style non-conference games. Yeah, it's a little embarrassing, but we play such a brutal conference slate it more than makes up for it.

I mean, I would like to see us play at least one P4 school in the non-con, but meh.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doc Fumble
DrFumble said:
Listen up, Corn Nation:

Rhule and Dannen are taking the Bill Snyder approach to preseason scheduling. It was damn smart by Bill Snyder and his AD at Kansas State did it back in the early 1990s.

At the time, K-State had a long history of losing seasons and played in a tough conference. I don't think Kitty fans whined when Snyder was able to use their early cupcake home wins to eventually turnaround the program's fortunes. The Wildcats went from their usual 1-to-3 win seasons to 'mediocre' 5-to-7 wins.

Fortunately for Snyder, Kitty fans were appreciate of their sadsack program's early progress and went bonkers when Bill used it to springboard on to an amazing (for Kitty State) run of 4 straight years of 11 win seasons.

Nebraska's problem is that there are too many old grumps like me who remember our Glory Days and ignore our more recent B1G Dumpster Fire performances.
Many of the same people whining we're not winning enough argued that we should have played Tennessee. Why? I would argue that the Snyder approach is even more important today for Nebraska than it was for K-State back-in-the-day. In this CFP era, our tough conference slate minimizes the impact of a soft preseason schedule.

We whine about our 'mediocre' progress instead of realizing what it's building towards. Unless you experience 'once in a generation' instant-success like Bob Devaney did at Nebraska in 1962 or Curt Cignetti did when he went to Indiana, you've got to crawl before you can walk before you can run.
Click to expand...
We are no where near as bad as Kstate was back then. And Bill caught a lot of flack from the national pundits for his scheduling. I remember when the dropped USC one year and replaced them with Indiana State (If I remember correctly) EVERYONE made fun of them.
You need to quit comparing us to them, we arent that bad and our OCS is embarassing.
 
Huskergod84 said:
We are no where near as bad as Kstate was back then.
Click to expand...
This is one of the reasons why Husker fans are an unhappy fanbase. We watch Glory Days videos from 30 YEARS AGO and think "Yeah, baby, THAT's who we are!" instead of remembering the utter futility of Frost final year in 2022. I get it--I want to forget those days too.

It's true that Snyder inherited a team that had only won one game the previous year when he took over in 1989. But after changing to an easy-breezy non-con schedule by Year 3, his Wildcats finished 5-6. The naysayers would point out Bill went 1-6 in the tough Big XII that season but psychologically it was a clear sign of momentum that the program could build upon. And Snyder DID use it to keep building the program.

Was Nebraska ever THAT bad? I guess it depends on if you're remembering the Glory Days or our 2021 season (Frost's fourth) when we were 3-9 overall and 1-8 in the conference. Yikes, time to move on, right? Oops---I forgot, we were THE BEST three-win team in the history of CFB by golly!!!! Let's do it again and start the season off with a BANG in Ireland!!!

Listen, I don't want to be argumentative, but I bristle when fans grouse about getting rid of Rhule because "he's not making ENOUGH progress." Progress compared to what? Fans want to compare his tenure to Curt Cignetti's at Indiana instead of what Scott Frost did in five years here or what Mike Riley did in three.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Uenth
You must log in or register to reply here.
Nebraska
NEBRASKA
VS
Washington
WASHINGTON
TIME TO KICKOFF
00DAYS
:
00HRS
:
00MINS
:
00SECS
DATE
OCT 31
TIME
7:00 PM
STADIUM
MEMORIAL
LOCATION
LINCOLN

Latest posts

Staff online

Members online

Total: 848 (members: 6, guests: 842)
Top Bottom
Back