Matt Rhule has turned around every college football program he’s ever coached, leading Temple and Baylor to bowl games in his second season. But will it change the bluebloods’ trajectory like Nebraska did? That took a little more effort.
“It’s the same arc and trajectory, but this one feels a little heavier because of the history,” Rhule told CBS Sports this week.
After eight years, four athletic directors, three head coaches, and enough frustrating close games to fill a lifetime (7-29 in one-score games over the past five seasons), Nebraska finally has a reason to celebrate. I put it in. The Huskers (6-5) ended the nation’s longest bowl drought among Power Five teams with a 44-25 win over Wisconsin last week, but it wasn’t without some trepidation.
“Everyone felt like this was inevitable, but there’s been so much PTSD that has built up over the last seven years that people are going through the motions, even during a game,” Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen said. “I started having doubts until the interception at the last moment.” “People were used to waiting for bad things to happen.”
In a suite filled with friends and National Guard members, comedian, actor and lifelong Nebraska fan Dan “Larry the Cable Guy” Whitney watched as fans poured onto the field. — Tom Osborn conference and national titles, something that would have been unimaginable in the 1990s, when the United States was winning conference and national titles.
“It was super cool,” said Whitney, perhaps the most famous Nebraska fan on the planet. “It was like winning a national championship. I know it’s sad, especially for someone my age who probably started at 4 or 5 years old. … My first 42 at Nebraska. We won nine, 10, 12 games that year. We went to the New Year’s Bowl once a year, almost every year, and we lost two games and we were devastated.”
Times have changed. A generation of Husker fans have never celebrated a conference title. For a young audience looking for something to celebrate, Saturday finally provided that opportunity.
“We have to start small.”
Even if people outside of the small state didn’t understand “GBR,” this was a huge moment for a program that had the resources it needed to accomplish much more. While fans across the country are spending this Thanksgiving debating College Football Playoff seeding and national rankings, Nebraska fans are happy to know the basics.
Linebacker John Brock is a sixth-year player who started his career as a walk-on from Nebraska. Imagine the emotions coursing through his body when the Huskers, the program he lived and breathed since he was a kid, finally achieved bowl eligibility in the penultimate week of the season. For years, he was told to temper his expectations, only to be teased for his successes only to fail again and again. Twice he came one game short of a bowl game. As freshmen in 2019, Iowa State players kissed the Huskers after their bowl hopes ended with a game-winning field goal inside Memorial Stadium in the final game of the season.
“You have to start somewhere, and you have to start small,” Block said. “It’s not going to be easy to go from one of the worst Power Four teams in college football to one of the best. It just takes time. I think over time we’ll get there eventually. And I know it’s going to happen.’ Get there. ”
It’s hard to convey the importance of Nebraska to sports. Especially since other bluebloods maintained their dominance while the Huskers stumbled in the dark for 25 years. Nebraska’s vast collection of trophies and banners is a visual reminder that the Huskers won five national championships and 46 conference titles under greats like Osborn, Bob Devaney, and Frank Solich. Not many people lived to witness it.
“I tell everyone you’ll never have a star player,” Whitney said. “I meet and work with all kinds of celebrities, which is no big deal. But one time I went to talk to the Nebraska football team and some I had to make a joke. I was so nervous. Are you kidding me?”
Lincoln, Nebraska has always been a football mecca. The championship DNA instilled in Osborne disappeared after the 1990s, a decade in which he won three national titles in his final four seasons. He retired as college football’s winningest active coach in 1997.
“Nebraska has been able to do it for a long time, just like everyone else, but sometimes we get a little spoiled and forget to understand what it means,” Dannen said. spoke. “It was a way of life for many people, and now they can go back in time and capture some of their memories.”
Just like Nebraska’s bowl drought, the streak is bound to end at some point. Nothing lasts forever.
“Those things obviously start to weigh on you and you feel a responsibility to get through them,” Ruhl said. “We’re doing well. The players are getting better and it’s similar to what we did in our previous spots.”
Usachi
“Everything happens when it’s supposed to happen”
Consider the discord within the fan base this season when Nebraska lost four straight after starting 5-1. A sense of deja vu loomed large. Will Nebraska stumble again and miss a bowl game?
“Everything happens when it’s supposed to happen,” Ruhl said. “Going through that losing streak was really bad, but it also made us grow. Our players chased, pushed, worked harder to get to this point. I was working harder.”
Despite a 56-7 blowout win at Indiana, the Huskers held a lead in the fourth quarter at Ohio State but couldn’t protect it. They then suffered devastating losses at home against UCLA and away against USC, losing just one possession. Meanwhile, fans continued to flock to Memorial Stadium, extending the school’s record for consecutive sold-out games to 403 games.
Gary Sharp said, “It’s pretty amazing when you think about how loyal the fanbase is, because this show has done a lot of things that have alienated the fanbase.” But people are coming back and they’re going to stay.” He is a longtime sports talk radio host in Nebraska.
Rhule knows what happens next. It’s a heightened expectation. Nebraska’s baseline going forward is six wins. The Huskers will be able to outdo Friday’s road game against rival Iowa.
“Hopefully we can make it to the College Football Playoff one day, but given where we are right now and where we’ve been the last eight years, this was a big moment,” Rhule said.
Freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola wasn’t too shy about his goals for next year.
“Next year is the playoffs,” he blurted out during Saturday’s press conference. “It’s very simple.”
Rhule became emotional after the game, fighting back tears as he talked about how his longtime senior finally qualified for a bowl game. Later, as I walked my dog downtown, I saw people still partying in the streets late Saturday night. It all seemed surreal, he admitted.
They hope the postseason becomes routine for Nebraska, even if it takes nearly a decade to get back into the habit.
“We actually don’t even have a bowl handbook,” Dannen laughed. “We’re down to four ADs since the last bowl game. We’ve reworked the movement and all the other procedures and operations, and it’s almost like starting from scratch.”
That’s the beginning.
