Huskers lack identity in lost decade
Start reminiscing about Nebraska football, and it's easy to close your eyes and see the Cornhuskers.
Classic white helmets, red block N on the sides, red stripe down the middle.
Brilliant red jerseys with only numbers on the front, worn with white pants.
And it's very likely when you see the
Huskers in your mind's eye, a big, burly dude will be wearing that uniform.
For the better part of half a century, Nebraska was a powerhouse in college football. Championships were won. Trophy cases were filled. Legends were built. And the Huskers did it with a distinctive brand. If you watched them in their prime, you knew exactly what you were going to see — hard-nose, smash-mouth
football in those distinctive uniforms. Today, the uniforms remain.
The identity does not.
As Nebraska prepares to come to OU on Saturday, there is much talk about the glory days of this rivalry. This game is being played in part to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1971 OU-Nebraska game, a classic that has rightfully been dubbed “The Game of the Century.” But while the Sooners have a program still contending for national titles, the Huskers have slid into a malaise of mediocracy.
Nebraska has had four consecutive losing seasons, struggling to contend for Big Ten titles much less national ones.
The Huskers have struggled so much that it can be hard to watch. Sort of makes you feel unsettled, uncomfortable even.
Folks seeped in Nebraska football have tried to figure out why this has happened. How did things get so bad? Where did things go so wrong? What can be done to fix this?
Nebraska hoped Scott Frost would provide some answers when it hired him as head coach in December 2017. He is a former Husker, after all, a native of Nebraska who loved the program and a quarterback who witnessed the inner workings. He didn't just peek behind the curtain during the program's glory days; he lived behind it.
But his first three seasons were losing ones. And his fourth season got off to a terrible start with a 30-22 loss to Illinois that was more lopsided than the final score.
“I believe in my heart,” Frost said after that game, “this team can still have a special season.”
But that loss prompted this newspaper headline in Omaha: “If Scott Frost fails to redeem Nebraska, what's left to try?”
Yikes.
Listen, I don't know if Frost is the answer at Nebraska. He won before. Excelled, really. So, he is capable of turning things around.
But nearly four years into his time as head coach, his program sure seems to have the same fundamental problem that started under Frank Solich, then spiraled steadily downward under Bill Callahan, Bo Pelini and Mike Riley. No identity.
Think about it — if you turned on a Nebraska game during the past 10 or 15 years, you wouldn't have any idea you were watching the Cornhuskers had it not been for those uniforms.
Back in the day, the Huskers were distinctive not because of what they wore but because of the way they played. They dominated physically, especially on the offensive and defensive lines. They mauled opponents. Bullied them. Pushed them around.
I hate to play into the stereotype of big ol' farm kids from the upper Midwest, but those are the type of players on which Nebraska built its dynasty.
Sure, skill players like Johnny Rodgers and Mike Rozier, Tommie Frazier and Eric Crouch got the headlines. But it was linemen, both offensive and defensive, who gave Nebraska its identity, greats like Larry Jacobsen, Rich Glover, John Dutton, Dave Rimington, Dean Steinkuhler, Will Shields and Grant Wistrom.
Power football was the Nebraska way. For decades, the Huskers wore down opponents with their physicality.
“That's what the hell used to happen at Nebraska,” former Nebraska linebacker Jay Foreman told The Athletic a few years back. “When we played Miami or Florida or Tennessee, they had better players than we did, but we were just a better team.”
But these days, Nebraska isn't beating down anyone, isn't scaring anyone.
Not to say that has to be the Huskers' identity now — if they could settle on anything, it would be more than they have at present — but it's a formula that is still employed successfully by their Big Ten brethren at Iowa and Wisconsin. While they prefer to run the ball while Frost might want the Huskers to throw it first, the Hawkeyes and Badgers are first and foremost physical. Tough. Bruising.
That's what Nebraska used to be, and for several decades, no one did it better.
The memory of that still carries weight.
“Nebraska being who Nebraska is and has been for a long, long, long, long time,” OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said, “coming into our place, we have a respect level for that and appreciation for the opportunity.”
The team that runs onto Owen Field on Saturday will look like the Cornhuskers have for many moons with the helmets and the jerseys. But they won't play like the Cornhuskers used to play. Nebraska is no longer that team. Frankly, the Huskers don't seem to know who they are nowadays.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/ jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.