Tales from the Heart of Huskerland

This has been a pretty strange week for Nebraska football hasn't it? Well I'm not going to talk about national anthems, because I'm sick of it. I'm ready to get back to football. By now I've just learned to get behind Mike Riley. He's a pretty level-headed, smart and mature dude.Whatever he decides is probably right. I trusted him to make the right call when Keith Williams was arrested for pulling a Keith Williams. I also trusted him to make the right call about these national anthem protests. And he did. In off the field issues Mike Riley is undefeated. And isn't that what really matters? No, of course not! On Saturday we're set for a "revenge" game against Illinois. ILLINOIS. Losing to Illinois (And Purdue) is like losing to Glass Joe in Mike Tyson's Punch Out. That's not even supposed to be possible! If you don't get that reference kids, ask your Google. All things considered we're pretty lucky the universe didn...

Before Nebraska plays Northwestern tonight let's rewind to November 2nd, 2013. Nebraska had just beaten the Wildcats on a Hail Mary. I was a freshman student then and all my friends wanted to go back to campus, but I just had to go meet up with my dad. I met up with him at the Railyard, drank a Coke and we talked about the miracle we had just witnessed and how it was going to set that 2013 team back on the right track to win the division and earn a trip to Indy. This probably seems peculiar. After a witnessing the first game-winning Hail Mary in Cornhuskers history, most students would probably want to go party, but I wanted to go talk about it with my dad. Growing up, it was the single most-discussed topic around the dinner table. For all of us. My dad, mom, brother and sister. My parents held 2 seasons tickets that we would split up each year, every road game we lined our basement bar with snacks out the wazoo and we attempted to attend a road game every year. That nigh...

There's a thread a lot of people are running through this game. A program with a rich history of success and virtually no recent success vs. a team with a bunch of recent success and virtually no history. Old School vs. New School. On one side we have the Oregon Nike Models, a team that changes its uniforms so much that I'd be shocked if they came out in the same uniforms for the second half. On the other side we have the Nebraska Cornhuskers, a team that changed it's uniform once in 2002 and it resulted in the end of 4 decades of dominance. Those 2002 uniforms will not be pictured here as they are too obscene for children's eyes. Now we just stick to the classics. Except for that one game every year where we try to look "cool" with alternate uniforms and impress recruits, but just end up looking like rejected Marvel superheros. The only thing missing is a cape. I've actually got a lot of respect for Oregon. You've got to have respect for...

I hate to do this. I really do, but I'm going to have to throw the flag. "Personal Foul on Nebraska. 15 yards for targeting our hearts." In my last blog I wrote about the magic of season openers and what we witnessed against Fresno State was truly special. In a night dedicated to the life of Sam Foltz, we all experienced something I've come to truly love about Nebraska football. Call it a sense of community, family or a sense of togetherness. It was on full display last week and it's definitely not the first time Husker Nation has come together like this. I bring it up today, a week later, because on the morning of September 11th I'm reminded of a Nebraska game against Rice played on September 20th, 2001. On that day, firefighters and service men marched with flags ahead of the Huskers through the Tunnel Walk. The stadium roared. I'm also reminded of a day in the April of 2013 in which a 7 year-old cancer patient rumbled 69-yards into the end-zo...

Every year, the season opener is one of my favorite games of the season, no matter the opponent. Not so much the actual game, but the anticipation leading up to it. It's that beautiful time where nothing has been ruined yet. No Tanner Magnum Hail Marys have fallen out of the sky to crush all your dreams. Not yet anyway. Sure, we all like to be realistic. "Ah, they're going to win 7 games." The last 15 years have taught us to temper expectations, but deep down we all like to think that this may be the year where Nebraska finally breaks through, stuns the Ohio State Buckeyes or the Michigan Harbaughs in the B1G title and sneaks into the playoffs. It's at that moment that Mike Riley will reach behind his neck, pull a zipper down over his head, step out of his costume and reveal himself to be the second coming of Tom Osborne. (TO isn't dead yet, but you get the point.) He then looks down and sees his shadow, meaning 40 more years of Husker football prosper...