5/31/21 | Tad Stryker
Tad Stryker's latest work is posted on HuskerMax's sister site on Sports Illustrated's On SI platform. Some of his most recent items are listed below. Go here for his full On SI archive and here for his HuskerMax archive.
5/16/21 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska kept its grip on first place in the Big Ten baseball standings by beating Northwestern twice May 14-15 in a series cut short by health problems in the Wildcat pitching staff. Here's a video report.
5/1/21 | Tad Stryker
There were signs. Interstate 80 traffic heading southwest from Omaha was busy. As you got into Lincoln, there were more signs. Lots of signs. Approaching Memorial Stadium, something seemed familiar, almost comforting. The signs said things like, “Game Parking $25.” Or, “Lot Full.” After a year of pandemic-induced isolation, it appeared that life was returning to the Haymarket. At least,…
4/18/21 | Tad Stryker
So now, entering Year 4, does the favorite son finally feel at home? That’s not a question I anticipated asking about Scott Frost in 2021, but the answer has profound implications as he tries to shape his beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers into a Big Ten contender. The first half of spring football has provided some big-picture optimism, as it often does,…
4/11/21 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska baseball is embracing coach Will Bolt's "Championship Sunday" mentality, and it won another weekend series, this one over Maryland.
3/29/21 | Tad Stryker
Tad Stryker’s video report of Nebraska’s four-game sweep of Minnesota gives kudos to Husker fans who set the program apart from its conference foes. A longtime Husker fan, sportswriter and history buff, Tad Stryker started writing for this website in 2008. You can email him at tad.stryker@gmail.com
3/12/21 | Tad Stryker
It looks as though an army of Husker Nation first responders have talked Bill Moos down from the ledge. In perhaps the quickest mobilization in more than 130 years of Nebraska football, the army formed and took action when word spread that Moos was pondering something that orthodox Big Red fans would consider the unforgivable sin: refusing to play Oklahoma.…
2/20/21 | Tad Stryker
The rising frustration and widening divide among Nebraska football fans is real. My inbox is evidence that three consecutive losing seasons under favorite son Scott Frost are reopening fault lines that have plagued the program for two decades. Frost returned in December 2017 to near-unanimous support, which has quickly eroded. I’ve been hearing regularly from someone I’ll call Frost Is…
1/23/21 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost came back to Nebraska fresh off his 2017 national Coach of the Year season at UCF, which in retrospect, raised expectations in Lincoln higher than it should have. Cornhusker fans who thought they were getting someone ready to transform the team into a contender in a couple of seasons (I was one of those people) quickly learned their…
12/27/20 | Tad Stryker
Just a little over three years ago, Bill Moos hired Scott Frost as head coach at Nebraska. In that span, Frost has produced three sub-.500 teams, and appears to have aged about a decade. His lack of success on the field seems to be weighing heavily on him. The good news is that Frost can do a lot to change…
12/19/20 | Tad Stryker
I wasn’t privy to the pregame conversation between head coaches Scott Frost and Greg Schiano, but judging by the way the game went, I think it happened something like this: Schiano: “Yo, Scott! You up for a one-mile race? Frost: “Sure!” Schiano: “But you have to run with one shoe off, drag a 20-pound weight all the way, and give…
12/12/20 | Tad Stryker
Many years from now, when archaeologists sift through the rubble of Nebraska’s 2020 football season, maybe they’ll find evidence of improvement in what is commonly known as Scott Frost’s Nebraska offense. If those future scientists are determined and dig deep enough, they’ll find some. Just a week ago, there seemed to be a growing body of evidence. There are reports…
12/5/20 | Tad Stryker
By showing his younger teammates what playing with a short memory looks like, Cam Taylor-Britt stepped up and performed triage on a Cornhusker football season on the verge of spiraling out of control. The junior cornerback helped Nebraska grab a big early lead, then stabilized his team when it most needed steadying down the stretch. On a day when the…
11/27/20 | Tad Stryker
How long can Scott Frost keep spinning close losses as evidence that his team is almost ready to break through? For the third consecutive season, the Cornhuskers took Iowa to the wire before losing. Frost, who is 4-11 in one-score games at Nebraska, would be at least a .500 coach in Lincoln if his teams could close the deal in…
11/21/20 | Tad Stryker
The most valuable real estate in Nebraska, a place where the Cornhuskers once won 47 consecutive football games, looked a lot like a sandlot on a dreary day in November. Sandlot football. That’s what Scott Frost’s offense looked like Saturday as it scuffled between middle school-style mistakes, flashes of talent, and utter confusion. They’re frozen with indecision, missing key blocks,…
11/14/20 | Tad Stryker
Can you imagine the joyous outburst when an inexperienced team, hungry for clues on how to win in the Big Ten, finally experiences success? We’ll all have to imagine because almost nobody saw the response. After all, offensive coordinator Matt Lubick and about half of the disconcerted Nebraska coaching staff were ensconced in their designated room high above the West…
11/7/20 | Tad Stryker
Yards, but not points. That’s a deadly theme for a football team, and sadly enough, a familiar theme for an inconsistent, mistake-prone football team. Those are the themes of Scott Frost’s Nebraska offense after 26 games. Changing that theme will be the main goal of the rest of this virus-ridden 2020 season. If he can’t change the theme, Scott Frost…
10/29/20 | Tad Stryker
Wouldn’t it be something if schools actually acted in the interests of their student-athletes and took risks to act in their best interests, instead of just mouthing platitudes and virtue-signaling with politically correct statements? The University of Nebraska this week tried, once again, to do just that. Once again, it was slapped down by the Big Ten Conference. The Cornhuskers…
10/24/20 | Tad Stryker
A generation ago, Tom Osborne watched his team deliver a 50-10 beatdown to Michigan State, then walked across the field to shake Nick Saban’s hand. And he delivered a message: “You’re not as bad as you think you are.” I don’t think the 2020 Ohio State team will prove it is the equal of the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers, but the…
10/13/20 | Tad Stryker
From the president and chancellor, down to coach Scott Frost, the University of Nebraska spoke with passion about the upcoming football season and the reasons it should be held despite the threat of COVID-19. Most news involving Cornhusker football has been centered around that theme, and the NU top brass took a lot of heat for it — which has…
9/17/20 | Tad Stryker
It’s an opening. It’s an opportunity. That’s all that any self-respecting independent cuss would want, isn’t it? The belated but welcome decision by Big Ten’s Council of Presidents and Chancellors to reinstate football for 2020 — even under unnecessarily rigid conditions that could be considered a poke at schools like Nebraska who clamored for football through the whole convoluted process — will…
8/25/20 | Tad Stryker
Two weeks after Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren announced the cancellation of all his conference’s fall sports, I have a hard time understanding the critical thinking skills (or lack thereof) shown by the leaders of the Big Ten Conference. I know I’m not alone. An army of hot-blooded Husker fans immediately called for Warren’s firing. They criticized the Big Ten…
8/10/20 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska administrators, football coaches and players have been remarkably steady, effective and responsible throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and the concurrent racial unrest, one of the most volatile and confounding stretches in American history, and it culminated in an admirable media showing by coach Scott Frost and three of his players on Aug. 10. The Cornhuskers are galvanizing into a stronger,…
7/1/20 | Tad Stryker
Fear certainly sells, and the Covid-19 pandemic has given the national media plenty of fuel to ramp up its fearmongering efforts. Unfortunately, the upcoming college athletic seasons, including football, could be disproportionately affected, unless decision-makers see through the one-sided narrative. I’m not surprised that the media report sensational-sounding raw numbers without context, but I’m disappointed in the scientific community for…
5/25/20 | Tad Stryker
It’s not often that a football team returns to the field early and watches the marching band wrap up its halftime show. They’ve usually got more urgent things on their mind. But even with a rare victory in sight, at the end of the worst decade in Nebraska football history, coach Bill Glassford and most of his team were fixated…
5/1/20 | Tad Stryker
Nationally, the NFL Draft was a timely, agreeable oasis for a nation starved of meaningful sports news. At my house, it was equally welcome; I watched most of the first round, and about half of rounds 2 and 3, which means I tuned in for more of the draft this year than the past five years combined. Despite its socially-distanced,…
4/5/20 | Tad Stryker
Underrated does not necessarily mean underappreciated, at least when it comes to Nebraska football. Most Cornhusker fans know the two-deep lineup like the back of their hand, so it stands to reason they never let a solid performer escape their notice, even if he doesn’t get high postseason honors. This is my Husker All-Underrated Team, starting with 1962, the beginning…
3/8/20 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska’s baseball team won its first windy home series of 2020, by taking three of four from Columbia of the Ivy League March 6 through 8. In Friday’s opener, sophomore lefthander Kyle Perry allowed just one run and two hits over five innings as the Cornhuskers prevailed, 5-3. On Saturday, the teams split a doubleheader. In the opener, Nebraska took…
2/29/20 | Tad Stryker
Two arguments are swirling through the sports community of the Cornhusker State, and in the state legislature, whose current session recently passed its halfway point. One is part of a national debate on how amateur athletes should be compensated. The other is a statewide discussion on whether Nebraska should make it easier to bet on sports. Both have been the…
1/25/20 | Tad Stryker
College football fans nationwide worry about their teams and second-guess the head coach. Nothing newsworthy there, but nobody I know does it quite as well these days as observers of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Few people are as passionate as Husker football fans. Believe me, I hear from them, as does anyone else who writes about the program. I almost never…
12/28/19 | Tad Stryker
If you’re getting ready to flush the past decade of Nebraska football, I have two things to say to you: That’s not a bad idea, not bad at all. But before you flush, pause for a bit of historical perspective. There’s no reason to sugar-coat it: the 2010s were the third-worst decade in 120 years — 13 decades — of…
11/29/19 | Tad Stryker
A season-ending game against a rival with a bowl bid on the line is a great time to ramp up your performance in the second half and rally from a 14-point deficit to tie the game. It’s a lousy time to make bad decisions. But two boneheaded miscalculations — one by a coach, another by a player — made the…
11/29/19 | Tad Stryker
Some folks were a bit hesitant to answer this week’s Pregame Perspective question. Others gave it a great deal of thought. On a cold, drizzly Friday morning in downtown Lincoln, as the Cornhuskers prepared to play Iowa needing a victory just to become bowl eligible, I asked 100 Husker fans this question: “Which Husker assistant coach has done the best…
11/23/19 | Tad Stryker
A long flight to an unfamiliar venue did wonders for a Cornhusker football team trying to find its way. It’s amazing how depression disperses and demons disappear when you go out and smack another team in the mouth. And keep doing it again and again. It’s stunning how a 54-7 road win can change a team’s attitude, even if it…
11/17/19 | Tad Stryker
For more than a century, the University of Nebraska marching band has been closely identified with the Cornhusker football team. Its pregame warmup concert draws hundreds of fans before each home game. Starting with preseason band camp and continuing throughout the fall, band members put in countless hours of practice for the privilege of performing pregame and halftime shows at…
11/16/19 | Tad Stryker
Finally, we saw some definite progress in Scott Frost’s second season as head coach. Better late than never. Playing without freshman phenom Wan’Dale Robinson, Nebraska came out and hit Wisconsin in the mouth early. The Huskers made a superior Badger team scramble, but couldn’t sustain their effort as the game wore on. The Badgers got their own running game lathered…
11/2/19 | Tad Stryker
Back in August, Nebraska was a narrow favorite for the Big Ten’s West Division title, and Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez was one of the main reasons for that line of thought. Man, does that ever seem like a long time ago. The Cornhuskers’ gut-wrenching 31-27 defeat at Purdue — Scott Frost’s eighth one-score loss at Nebraska — was the latest…
10/27/19 | Tad Stryker
It was a day of black shirts. But not a day for the Blackshirts. The Huskers wore black jerseys Saturday to honor the Blackshirt defensive tradition, and there was a lot of black sprinkled through the Sea of Red in Memorial Stadium. But the Nebraska defense on the field could not hold up their end of the deal, squandering an…
10/26/19 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska football just missed another appointment — the latest in a series of very important missed appointments that could have set up the Cornhuskers with somewhere to go and something to do in December. The season is slipping away from Nebraska, which is 4-4 and floundering. The Cornhuskers are regressing in their defense and kicking game. The Huskers worked on…
10/26/19 | Tad Stryker
As the Nebraska football team comes off its first bye week of 2019, Husker Nation is faced with many more questions than answers. NU is 4-3 and has scored only one touchdown apiece in its last three games. Injuries and suspensions have reduced coach Scott Frost’s options on offense. Today’s Pregame Perspective question takes aim at the uncertainty. On a…
10/13/19 | Tad Stryker
Heading into a bye week, Scott Frost said he wanted his team to empty the tank. But I don’t think he meant before the opening kickoff. That’s pretty much what it looked like as Nebraska was beaten to a pulp on both sides of the line of scrimmage Saturday night in Minneapolis. With the Gophers coming in undefeated, I’d wager…
10/6/19 | Tad Stryker
A 13-10 win over a 1-4 Northwestern team keeps the Huskers on track for a bowl bid with a 4-2 record. Has this team improved, and what lies ahead? Tad Stryker assesses the team's outlook as it heads into a Saturday night game at Minnesota.
10/5/19 | Tad Stryker
It’s a long way for a quarterback from Wahoo, Nebraska, to go Orlando, Florida, then return to Lincoln to lead a game-winning scoring drive at Memorial Stadium. It’s a long-shot dream to go from placekicking for the Norfolk Panthers, to being a cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and then coming back to Lincoln to kick a…
10/5/19 | Tad Stryker
Coach Scott Frost urged his team to take the Ohio State game and flush it as quickly as possible. Since the Huskers were 3-1 before that game, and the Buckeyes had superior talent at every position, it's a legitimate course of action. So that’s what I did with this week’s Pregame Perspective. On a sunny, breezy day before Nebraska and…
9/29/19 | Tad Stryker
Lincoln was hopping the weekend of Sept. 27-28, as ESPN College GameDay and a major football facilities announcement provided optimism. Despite a one-sided loss to Ohio State, the weekend could be a foreshadowing of good things to come.
9/29/19 | Tad Stryker
Woody Hayes once made an astute observation about football and adversity. “There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you,” Hayes said. The Nebraska Cornhuskers today may have the cleanest souls in all of major college football, courtesy of Hayes’ old team, the Ohio State Buckeyes, who hammered the Huskers 48-7 under the bright lights…
9/28/19 | Tad Stryker
Today’s Pregame Perspective looks beyond the hype and immediacy of a big football weekend in Lincoln. As I mingled with Husker fans on a sunny, crisp autumn morning outside Memorial Stadium, I thought about the future. ESPN College GameDay came to Lincoln Sept. 28 for the first time in 12 years. Acknowledging that, I asked 100 Nebraska fans who were…
9/22/19 | Tad Stryker
Parents of adolescents, you’ve lived out this more than once, so the Nebraska-Illinois game must have seemed like a rerun of your latest excruciating late-night anxiety. I can see your deeply furrowed brows. I knew there was no way you’d nod off in front of your big-screen TV — not on this night. You sent more than a dozen text…
9/16/19 | Tad Stryker
One-sided Husker victories with second-string players getting valuable snaps have been rare lately. Fans enjoyed the opportunity during Nebraska's 44-8 win over Northern Illinois Saturday night, Sept. 14. Youngsters and players got to share the joy afterward.
9/15/19 | Tad Stryker
It may be a bit much to call it the “Big D Family Reunion,” but the Davis brothers and the Daniels brothers stood shoulder to shoulder to accomplish a rarity for a Husker defense these days — keeping the opponent out of the end zone all game long. Nebraska found a bit more more offense during the first-ever night game…
9/7/19 | Tad Stryker
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when quite a few people (including me) were optimistic about Nebraska’s chances in the Big Ten West this season based on the logic that the Cornhuskers had the best coach-quarterback combination in the league? Well, we don’t look so smart now. The Scott Frost-Adrian Martinez connection is off to an unexpected stumbling start in…
8/31/19 | Tad Stryker
The good news: there were no thunderstorms in Lincoln Saturday. The bad news: There was very little thunder or lightning in the Nebraska offense Saturday. So you were ready for a big opening-game statement. So you figured Adrian Martrinez and the Husker offense would slice up South Alabama and the second-team offensive line could get some much-needed work in the…
8/31/19 | Tad Stryker
It’s Scott Frost’s second season in Lincoln, but Nebraska football seems newer than ever, and excitement was at a high level on campus despite rainy Saturday morning weather. New faces bring new expectations, and my pregame question focused on Cornhuskers making their first game appearance. I asked 100 Husker fans this question before they entered the stadium for the NU-South…
8/11/19 | Tad Stryker
Hurricanes never blow in from the Great Lakes, and tornadoes are not on people’s minds in the Rust Belt as much as they are out on the Great Plains. For decades on the football field, the Big Ten has been comfortable with predictability. Ohio State and Michigan battle for top honors. It’s just expected, although Penn State and Michigan State…
7/21/19 | Tad Stryker
“Memories make us rich,” a wise old sportswriter once said. Cornhusker fans of a certain age have plenty of memories to draw upon. If you haven’t been around that long, I hope this column, and a rising tide of Husker excellence, inspire you to start your own list. Talk about a rich heritage. There are far too many significant Husker…
7/14/19 | Tad Stryker
Of all the biggest, most significant plays in Nebraska football history, it’s amazing how few of them have come in Memorial Stadium. Or so I thought, until I started digging into the research for this column (or rather two columns; the second will come next weekend), which give my list of the 50 most significant Husker football plays in the…
6/16/19 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost was baptized by fire in Year One. He is getting another baptism — by leisure — as he approaches Year Two. The events of this June are one reason why hardcore college football fans hate the off-season. Maurice Washington and Wan’Dale Robinson — two highly touted athletes who have the ability to make Frost’s offense explode — instead, made…
5/23/19 | Tad Stryker
I recently watched BTN’s “Big Ten Elite” football retrospective honoring the 1997 Nebraska team. The director did a good job playing up the strongest story lines — Tom Osborne’s final season, the Blackshirt dominance of Grant Wistrom and Jason Peter, the rise of linebacker-mentality quarterback Scott Frost. It was at least as good as the network’s piece on the 1997…
5/11/19 | Tad Stryker
The dogs of Lincoln showed up for “Bark in the Park” Saturday, May 11, as Nebraska faced Arizona State, a team with a lot of bite in its lineup. The Sun Devils’ highly touted offense smashed four home runs against the Huskers the previous night, but could not get any traction on this day against Husker starter Nate Fisher, who…
5/5/19 | Tad Stryker
On the road to creating a high-force offense with Oregon speed and Husker power, Scott Frost needs to find a way through a boggy valley. It’s not a long valley. On the contrary, in 2018, the problems often came on third-and-short. In general, with freshman Adrian Martinez running the offense, the Cornhuskers showed signs they’re on the way to becoming…
4/19/19 | Tad Stryker
It was a day for family April 13 at the annual Red-White spring game in Lincoln. Coach Scott Frost had an unexpected Husker family reunion with a former teammate, defensive back Michael Booker. Meanwhile, young Husker fans lined up under the North Stadium hoping for a handshake or a high five as they honored their heroes on the way to…
4/13/19 | Tad Stryker
Cornhusker fans are knowledgeable, and when the stakes are high, they are as intense as any in college football. But spring football is not one of those times. Spring football in Nebraska is a family reunion, a glorious picnic. It’s the time to see who the new sons, grandsons, nephews look like and what they can do. It’s the time…
4/13/19 | Tad Stryker
With a brutally cold and snowy winter finally in the rearview mirror, Cornhusker fans filled the streets, restaurants, bars and tailgate sites of Lincoln on a sunny but cool and windy morning before the annual Red-White football game. If today’s pregame survey is any indication, most share the sentiment, “It’s a good time to be a Nebraska fan.” Despite no…
4/6/19 | Tad Stryker
Military Appreciation Weekend and a Big Ten series against Purdue got underway Friday night, April 5, at Haymarket Park. Carter Cross got things going with a two-run single, and the Husker offense scored six in the first, never looking back on the way to a 17-0 victory over the Boilermakers. Cam Chick had a first-inning RBi single. Starting pitcher Mike…
3/29/19 | Tad Stryker
For most of a decade, the defensive line has been the Nebraska football program’s major on-field weakness. Those of us who saw Rich Glover, Larry Jacobson and Broderick Thomas terrorize opponents during the Devaney-Osborne era still have trouble coming to terms with that. Like a persistent cancer, perpetual unsoundness in the trenches has plagued the Huskers ever since Ndamukong Suh…
3/23/19 | Tad Stryker
Behind great starting pitching from Matt Waldron and Nate Fisher, the Nebraska baseball team opened its conference schedule by sweeping a doubleheader from Michigan State March 22. The Huskers won the opener 4-1, as Waldron threw a two-hit complete game, striking out six batters without a single walk. The senior righthander improved his record to 3-0 this season. He retired…
2/23/19 | Tad Stryker
It’s been about two weeks since defensive line coach Mike Dawson announced his resignation Feb. 11, a transaction that both creates a problem and opened new possibilities for the Nebraska football program. When Scott Frost was hired, it was widely expected that offense would be the strength of his team. That turned out to be true in Year One, and…
1/21/19 | Tad Stryker
Any team serious about winning the Big Ten must be solid at the line of scrimmage. But it’s doubly true for Nebraska. Any Cornhusker quest to rise to win the West starts with these two non-negotiables: run the ball well, and control the other team’s running game. The good news is that with a year’s worth of evidence on the…
1/1/19 | Tad Stryker
Is four enough? Would eight be enough? Would even 16 be enough? More than any other, major college football is a sport of endless disputes. For its millions of fans, this is an issue that will never disappear. Not if the College Football Playoff field remains at four until its current contract expires at the end of the 2025 season.…
12/5/18 | Tad Stryker
In Scott Frost’s first season, Nebraska barely missed breaking even with a team significantly lacking in size and strength. It’s just a benchmark — playing .500 football is not something for a Cornhusker team to get excited about — and it shows just how far behind the Nebraska strength and conditioning program fell during three years under Mike Riley. This…
11/23/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost served notice at Big Ten Media Days. "People better get us now," he said, "because we're going to keep getting better." Eight teams stepped up and took their shot, five of them beating Nebraska by less than a touchdown during Frost’s maiden voyage at his alma mater. A lost-turned-found-season finished on a bittersweet note on Black Friday, with…
11/17/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost did a decent enough job of adjusting to the Big Ten Saturday — just enough to enjoy a celebration run through the snow to the locker room with a Senior Day victory. There was plenty of adjusting to be done. Playing against the nation’s top run defense can humble even a high-powered offense, and Michigan State slowed the…
11/17/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost has dominated discussion of Nebraska football this season, which is to be expected. But Cornhusker fans — who are among the smartest fans in the nation — always keep their eye on the entire coaching staff. On a gray, cold, windy morning before the NU-Michigan State game, I spoke to red-clad fans as they put hand and foot…
11/10/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost is making the transition from frustrated father to a proud papa. No, I have no clue how his 1-year-old son is doing. I’m talking about who he deals with inside Memorial Stadium during Year One — the players he inherited and the players he recruited. In the relaxed atmosphere of his postgame press conference, just for a moment,…
11/10/18 | Tad Stryker
In the Northern Great Plains, inclement weather inevitably collides with football Saturday, although not as often as we might think. Before Nebraska hosted Illinois on a windy, wintry day, I departed from my usual pregame surveyor 100 Husker fans, and went out in search of their bad-weather game stories. Most years, Lincoln experiences temperatures in the 20s or 30s in…
11/3/18 | Tad Stryker
Ironically, on the day Nebraska lost its chance to qualify for a 2018 bowl game, it proved it is clearly a football program on the rise. The foundation is being built under a battling team that refuses to quit. The Huskers couldn’t quite beat Ohio State in the Horseshoe, but they likely knocked the Buckeyes out of the College Football…
10/27/18 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska players and coaches have kept their heads up after finding some brutally unexpected ways to lose games over the season’s first half. So after a baptism by fire, a little R&R and comfort food may not be a bad idea. That’s just what Nebraska’s football team and fan base got on a beautiful October afternoon. A picnic-atmosphere 45-9 win…
10/27/18 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska fans recognize that in freshman Adrian Martinez, they have a budding all-conference-caliber quarterback growing up before their eyes. But they also hope to see a local athlete make good as his backup. Noah Vedral, who played his high school football at Bishop Neumann in Wahoo, has a lot of fans anxious to see him get some playing time. He…
10/20/18 | Tad Stryker
As dusk settled over Memorial Stadium at the end of a gorgeous October day, the remains of a long nightmarish winter melted away, leaving the sensation of spring as it settled over the Sea of Red while the clock counted down the final minutes to Nebraska’s 53-28 victory over Minnesota Saturday. Long losing streaks aren’t supposed to happen at the…
10/20/18 | Tad Stryker
Devine Ozigbo has impressed Nebraska fans with excellent starts to back-to-back seasons, according to my surveys at the midpoints of the 2017 and 2018 seasons. On Saturday morning before the Minnesota game, I reprised my midseason survey of the previous year, with a slight twist. My question last season was, “Who was Nebraska’s most valuable player during the first half…
10/13/18 | Tad Stryker
As Nebraska’s football family battles its way through unprecedented self-inflicted pain and suffering, there are no shortage of opinions on the best way to end it. And not all Nebraska fans are handling it well. You already know that if you listened to the postgame radio call-in shows. Nebraska’s dirty laundry is being broadcast throughout the nation. Some people look…
10/7/18 | Tad Stryker
Two steps forward, one step back. That’s progress, right? Except when you’re playing in Madison, where there’s precious little room for missteps. Wisconsin played its usual brand of wear-’em-down football, and Jonathan Taylor scorched Nebraska for another 200-yard, multiple-touchdown game. So the beat goes on for the 4-1 Badgers, who rushed for 370 yards and have positioned themselves well for…
9/30/18 | Tad Stryker
Warriors and wild men look similar much of the time, but when a pressure situation hits, they respond differently. Scott Frost got an unpredictable mix of both when he came to Lincoln, and so far the results have been interesting — flashes of brilliance mixed with totally irrational behavior — but ultimately frustrating. Nebraska ended its 2017 season with a…
9/29/18 | Tad Stryker
The sun came up Saturday morning, although you couldn’t tell it for sure in Lincoln, where overcast skies and rain predominated. Yet despite the Cornhuskers’ current dismal seven-game losing streak, Nebraska fans continued their pilgrimage to Memorial Stadium to cheer for the Big Red as they have for decades. That’s the point in this week’s Pregame Perspective. I decided to…
9/22/18 | Tad Stryker
If the football gods smiled on Nebraska when Scott Frost returned, the start of the 2018 season shows they’ve also ordained he will be tested by fire to begin his career in Lincoln. The first two losses of the season could be considered a fluke. Not so Nebraska’s 56-10 loss at Michigan Saturday, which was a thorough beatdown in every…
9/15/18 | Tad Stryker
When Scott Frost played football at Nebraska, losing home games was unthinkable. When Frost graduated, NU had a 42-game home winning streak. A generation later, when Frost returned to the Cornhusker family, he and his coaching staff confronted a discouraging array of negative thought patterns, which today are playing havoc with Nebraska’s on-field performance. Frost inherited a four-game overall losing…
9/15/18 | Tad Stryker
A last-minute season-opening loss to Colorado was not the result of choice in Husker Nation, to be sure, but it showed a lot of promise. This week’s Pregame Perspective question attempts to discover what Cornhusker fans took away from the first game of the season, after the scheduled season opener against Akron was wiped out by a lightning storm. Early…
9/8/18 | Tad Stryker
And so the Scott Frost era begins with an unlikely double false start. Nebraska showed tremendous potential and made some absolutely killer first-game mistakes, while Frost became the second man in more than a half century to lose his first game as Cornhusker coach. CU came from behind in the final two minutes Saturday to edge the Big Red, 33-28,…
9/8/18 | Tad Stryker
This week’s Pregame Perspective looks back at some Big Eight and Big 12 nostalgia and forward to future Cornhusker football schedules, which include Colorado (2018, 2019, 2023, 2024) and Oklahoma (2021, 2022, 2029, 2030). I surveyed 100 Husker fans Saturday morning before the Colorado game, mainly north and west of Memorial Stadium and in the Haymarket. I asked them this…
9/2/18 | Tad Stryker
The long wait for the start of the Scott Frost era seemed to have ended — and then it didn’t. The Akron game will be remembered as the night the football team put in a lot less work than the event management staff. Frost led his team onto the field with the crowd at a fever pitch, the Cornhuskers won…
9/1/18 | Tad Stryker
I walked through Lincoln Saturday afternoon, talking to Cornhusker football fans several hours before Scott Frost coached his first Nebraska football game, and one thing immediately became clear: they’re virtually unanimous in their belief that Frost has started to do exactly what he said he would do — rebuild the culture of Nebraska football. Something else immediately became clear: Nebraska…
8/27/18 | Tad Stryker
Mario Verduzco provided vital input. Troy Walters gave his opinion. In the end, though, the only vote that counted belonged to Scott Frost, and he cast his ballot over the weekend. In the campaign that grabbed the attention of Nebraska fans all summer long — the battle for No. 1 quarterback — the margin apparently was narrow, but decisive. Adrian…
8/15/18 | Tad Stryker
Nothing looked less like Nebraska than the Cornhusker offensive line last fall. So it stands to reason that o-line coach Greg Austin had the most of any Husker assistant coach to accomplish when he moved to Lincoln last winter. Since media scrutiny has been limited, it’s hard to say with certainty just how far any position group has advanced, but…
7/28/18 | Tad Stryker
Many Midwestern football fans regard Big Ten Media Days in Chicago as the start of the football season. It’s a sign that the summer doldrums are nearly over, and every team from the top to bottom of the conference is infused with a renewal of hope. But when Scott Frost was first coach to the podium July 23, there was…
7/7/18 | Tad Stryker
Almost from the moment he was hired as head football coach Dec. 2, Scott Frost started talking about the need to improve Nebraska’s walk-on program, and beef up the roster. That quickly led to questions about how Title IX regulations would affect the process. Seven months later, those questions have yet to be clearly answered, but football roster numbers have…
6/3/18 | Tad Stryker
Some would say Scott Frost took a risk leaving Orlando for Lincoln. After all, he walked away from a place where he enjoyed quick and profound success to pursue deeper challenges doing battle in the Big Ten for his alma mater, where expectations will always be higher than at UCF. So it’s no surprise seeing Frost embrace risk in another…
5/17/18 | Tad Stryker
On Sept. 22, when Shea Patterson starts at quarterback for Michigan, he’ll see a former Ole Miss teammate on the other side of the ball. Breon Dixon will line up at outside linebacker for Nebraska in front of a full house in the Big House, likely as a starter. Patterson and Dixon are the most recent Southern players to head…
4/21/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost’s homecoming checked most, if not all, the boxes that Nebraska fans hoped it would. New offense on display. Energy and enthusiasm galore. No serious injuries. A bunch of 2019 recruits in the house. And Frost, the man himself, on the sidelines. Well, not exactly on the sidelines. Frost spent most of his day in the middle of the…
4/21/18 | Tad Stryker
A four-game losing streak to finish a dismal 4-8 season predicted a long, cold winter for Nebraska football fans, and that’s exactly what we got, although the hiring of Scott Frost infused enough energy into Husker Nation to prompt the first-ever sellout for the spring game. So to get a jump on what Cornhusker fans are thinking these days, I…
4/19/18 | Tad Stryker
It’s still too early to say Nebraska football is nationally relevant again. That has to be earned on the football field, something that cannot possibly happen for at least five months. And it’s premature to say the Cornhuskers are ready to contend for the Big Ten West title this fall. But it’s time to say that Nebraska will be taken…
3/27/18 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska football fans look back with fondness at the careers of Rex Burkhead and Ameer Abdullah, as well they should. Burkhead’s combination of toughness and versatility have been hard to recapture since he left at the end of the 2012 season. Abdullah’s ability to compensate for a subpar offensive line and make defenders dizzy with devastating jump cuts have been…
2/11/18 | Tad Stryker
Scott Frost is back in Orlando with his family this week, taking a long-deferred rest as his assistants also grab some well-earned time off. While Nebraskans shovel persistent February snow, Frost is digging out from all the “Coach of the Year” awards and accolades he earned at UCF. There was no time for that until now — certainly not while…
1/21/18 | Tad Stryker
There’s an old saying in sports that goes something like this: “It’s players, not plays, who win championships.” Scott Frost’s success at UCF — at least on the offensive side of the ball — challenges that wisdom. It’s certainly not the way it played out in Orlando last fall. UCF put together a 13-0 season while leading the nation in…
1/1/18 | Tad Stryker
I had almost forgotten how it feels to watch a Nebraska football coach cover himself and his team with honor during a big New Year’s Day bowl game. How about you? I sure could get used to this again. Wait, you mean that wasn’t a Nebraska game? Looking at UCF’s tremendously exciting 34-27 Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl win over Southeastern Confrerence…
12/25/17 | Tad Stryker
Decades from now, when sports historians sort through the early 21st century, they will view the end of 2017 and the 2018 football season as the turning point that ultimately pulled Nebraska football back from the brink. Two important hirings started healing the Huskers from The Slide — a low-grade fever that turned virulent, threatening to send the program…
12/3/17 | Tad Stryker
One dark December day, 60-year-old Tom Osborne called a press conference that nobody saw coming. It set into motion a chain of events that reduced Nebraska football to mediocrity. Almost 20 years later, another press conference that almost the entire state of Nebraska eagerly anticipated sent chills up the spines of most who attended, and signaled a reversal of…
11/26/17 | Tad Stryker
There’s too much political discord in the nation. I’m speaking of Husker Nation, of course, where pro- and anti-Pelini and pro- and anti-Riley factions have been at each other’s throats for a decade. The discord is largely the result of poor decisions made at a high level, resulting in a proud football program underperforming since 2001. This binary, two-party bickering…
11/24/17 | Tad Stryker
Ignorance and apathy are a toxic combination for any organization, and NU football is no exception. Either quality can be the death knell for a enterprise, but when they come as a package deal, there’s no way the thing can survive, especially when it affects the very heart of the institution. In the case of Nebraska football, the heart is…
11/18/17 | Tad Stryker
The 2017 version of the Cornhuskers, Mike Riley’s third and final go-round in Lincoln, will be remembered for its utter inability to run the ball and stop the run. Teams like that generally end up with sub-.500 records, something which Riley and the 4-7 Huskers are now guaranteed for the second time in three years. Penn State’s 56-44 win over…
11/11/17 | Tad Stryker
On the whole, Matt Davison would have rather been sitting courtside with Kent Pavelka at Pinnacle Bank Arena to watch the Husker basketball team open its season. Instead, the Husker Sports Network’s color commentator, who knows what a cohesive, well-led team looks and feels like, had to witness a Nebraska football team which has become convinced it belongs in the…
11/4/17 | Tad Stryker
Mike Riley’s last stand in Lincoln ended just the way you might have predicted it would. When one last push would have clinched a victory, when the Cornhuskers could have given themselves and their embattled head coach some late-season momentum, they could not deliver the blow. At crunch time, with shadows lengthening and the game — and Riley’s last realistic…
11/4/17 | Tad Stryker
This week’s Pregame Perspective reveals a Nebraska fan base that clearly was looking for something better than a .500 football season. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they are not satisfied with NU’s 4-4 start. Late Saturday morning, before the Cornhuskers played Northwestern, I talked to Husker fans along 12th Street, near the Nebraska Union on campus and around Memorial Stadium,…
10/29/17 | Tad Stryker
Can you beat a sub-.500 Big Ten team on the road without a rushing attack? It turns out you can — at least this time, anyway. In a game that typified the Mike Riley era as much as any, Nebraska got pushed around much of the night by the Purdue Boilermakers, but hung around thanks to four field goals by…
10/15/17 | Tad Stryker
Going into Saturday night, Ohio State had never won a game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, but it really didn’t take long to change that once the game kicked off. Within the first ten minutes of playing time, it was clear to anyone watching the game that Nebraska was a thoroughly beaten team, simply waiting for the inevitable outcome. It…
10/14/17 | Tad Stryker
With half the college football regular season behind us, this week’s Pregame Perspective focuses on which Cornhuskers have performed best thus far. On a cool, drizzly afternoon before the Nebraska-Ohio State game, I asked 100 people this question: “Who ws Nebraska’s most valuable player during the first half of the season?” Two clear leaders emerged, both on offense. In a…
10/8/17 | Tad Stryker
For the 20th anniversary of the 1997 Nebraska national championship team, the Wisconsin Badgers came to Memorial Stadium and played a tribute concert. Word on the street is that no Nebraska band could be found for the gig. It was the type of performance Nebraska fans have been waiting to see from their own team for almost two decades now.…
9/30/17 | Tad Stryker
Call it the Efficiency Special. Nebraska 28, Illinois 6. Considering what they’ve been through the past couple of years, Nebraska fans could learn to get used to this. Winning a game by three touchdowns on the road? Did that ever feel strange, relaxing in the second half of a Husker game. Considering the several predictions which had Illinois winning…
9/23/17 | Tad Stryker
It was not a jubilant crowd that filed out of Memorial Stadium in the Saturday evening twilight. It was more like a big, collective exhale. There was friendly banter here and there, but lots of furrowed foreheads and much quiet, purposeful walking. Don’t read too much into that. Nebraskans, after all, are a fairly stoic bunch. But they’re smart football…
9/16/17 | Tad Stryker
Endless Summer. That sounds like carefree days indeed. Were the Beach Boys thinking of Mike Riley’s Nebraska football program when they recorded that album? Unfortunately for Riley and his coaching staff, it’s September now and they have to play real football games. After a brutally disappointing 21-17 loss to Northern Illinois, the Huskers are 1-2 and reeling. A coach who…
9/9/17 | Tad Stryker
Weeks from now, we may look back to halftime of Nebraska-Oregon as the moment the Cornhuskers refused to give in to the darkness. And weeks from now, we’ll have a better idea of just how much that silver lining of a second half was worth. Nebraska won the second half, 21-0 and quite likely salvaged its confidence in the process.…
9/3/17 | Tad Stryker
Did you ever have one of those dreams where you’re almost safely home, but out of nowhere, a pursuing monster comes closer and closer, and the harder you run, the slower you move? Yeah, a real B-film climax. That’s what Nebraska-Arkansas State degenerated into. Luckily for Nebraska fans – at least the ones who stayed to the final play –…
3/27/17 | Tad Stryker
A quick look at the best ways to shorten the duration of major college football games As late as the Turner Gill/Mike Rozier era, relatively few Nebraska home games were televised. Non-televised games typically started at 1:30 p.m. and usually ended about 4:10, consuming about 2 hours, 40 minutes. Televised games ran longer, to be sure, but usually wrapped up…
12/20/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: A bad year for Pipelines Cavanaugh, punchless o-line dragged down Huskers with late-season swoon BY TAD STRYKER ON 12/30/2016 The long, slow improvement of Nebraska’s offensive line looked slightly ahead of schedule in September. But then something happened. Several things, actually, and almost none of them good for coach Mike Cavanaugh and his young pupils. After Terrell Newby broke a 63-yard…
11/19/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Fyfe gets a win on Senior Day Blackshirts shut down Maryland running game, clinch unbeaten home season BY TAD STRYKER ON 11/19/2016 It’s welcome back to the upper middle class for Nebraska, which made it back to the nine-win mark without Tommy Armstrong and without second-half drama. Breaking out of mold they’ve cast for themselves, Nebraska played three nice quarters of…
11/19/16 | Tad Stryker
Hawkeyes 40, Huskers 10: This one leaves a stench Collapse in Iowa City shows how Armstrong-dependent NU has become BY TAD STRYKER ON 11/19/2016 The Nebraska senior class of 2016 gave the Cornhusker State a lot of golden moments this fall. But Friday’s dismal performance at Iowa City has left a dramatically different taste on this season. Thankfully, gold cannot tarnish, but…
11/12/16 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska's senior quarterback overcomes ankle injury to lead game-winning 91-yard fourth-quarter touchdown drive against Minnesota BY TAD STRYKER ON 11/12/2016 You’ve complained about him on and off for four years now, but you’ll miss the Warrior when he’s gone. Thirty times, he has left the field a winner. No. 30 did not come easily, but when Tommy Armstrong Jr. walked slowly, painfully,…
11/5/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Devastating loss in Columbus starts with poor o-line play Huskers need someone to succeed up front — and soon BY TAD STRYKER ON 11/06/2016 A Nebraska football team with a fragile, paper-thin offensive line is a sad sight to behold. When an offensive line can’t stand and fight, all its playmakers are nullified, and soon it puts the entire team in…
10/30/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Huskers can’t break through in Madison Talent-depth deficit, lack of precision by Armstrong prove costly BY TAD STRYKER ON 10/30/2016 Grit and heart can carry you a long way, but as Nebraska found out Saturday night, eventually a lack of depth and talent catches up with you. Whether by a little or by a lot, Wisconsin continues its advantage in the…
10/22/16 | Tad Stryker
Ugly but undefeated: Huskers are stressed in win over Purdue Blackshirts shine, o-line struggles as NU prepares for Wisconsin showdown BY TAD STRYKER ON 10/22/2016 For Nebraska football, victories in October have been a precious commodity over the past decade. So for that reason alone, Nebraska’s unconvincing 27-14 win over a weak Purdue team is nothing to sneer at. But I can’t…
10/15/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Huskers keep believing, stay unbeaten at season’s midpoint Chris Jones leads strong performance by defensive backfield as NU wins seventh in a row BY TAD STRYKER ON 10/15/2016 What in the world is a new generation of Husker fans to make of their football team? A hang-on-by-your-fingernails 27-22 win over a talented and very respectable Indiana team that threw a lot…
10/1/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Steady Huskers figure out how to finish off Illinois Terrell Newby, beat-up offensive line spark another decisive fourth quarter BY TAD STRYKER ON 10/1/2016 I have to confess that near the end of the third quarter, when Illinois led Nebraska 16-10 and ESPN pulled out the graphic that showed the last time the Illini beat Nebraska in back-to-back seasons (1923 and…
9/25/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Armstrong helps Huskers avoid drama, beat Northwestern ‘Steady as she goes’ gets it done for Riley and the Big Red BY TAD STRYKER ON 9/25/2016 There was no drama. There was no last-minute comeback, no Hail Mary, no big-time controversy. And that was just fine, thank you. A Steady Eddie Big Ten road win is just fine. Especially when it comes…
9/17/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Riley, Nebraska grab their chance, break through against Ducks Big plays by Armstrong give Cornhuskers a pivotal victory BY TAD STRYKER ON 9/17/2016 Both the Nebraska football program and its head coach seemed to be running out of chances to break through to national relevance. Call it stage fright. Call it bad karma. Call it negative thought patterns. Call it lousy…
9/10/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Blackshirts’ five interceptions help finish off Wyoming Now Riley gets possibly his best shot at longtime nemesis Oregon BY TAD STRYKER ON 9/10/2016 It’s inevitable that Tommy Armstrong’s fingerprints were all over the wreckage of the Wyoming Cowboys after Nebraska’s 52-17 win Saturday. Armstrong deserves cheers for setting the Nebraska career record for touchdown passes (his 57 TDs eclipse the old…
9/3/16 | Tad Stryker
Stryker: Staying the course, Riley, Huskers find fourth-quarter benefits Positive signs in offensive line, I-backs, turnover margin to name a few BY TAD STRYKER ON 9/3/2016 All kinds of bad things happened to Mike Riley at the end of games last season, so it was a nice change of pace to see a bunch of things go his way in the fourth…
7/23/16 | Tad Stryker
Memorable moments are like cherished snapshots, and Husker football history is filled with them. As I look back at my favorite Nebraska football moments of all time, it quickly becomes obvious that not many of them took place last fall, but there’s one I’ll always remember. Although wins over Michigan State and UCLA were the highlights, and the Tommy Armstrong-to-Brandon…
11/27/15 | Tad Stryker
Never underestimate the value of a quarterback who doesn’t beat himself and a defense that does not allow big plays. They made all the difference Friday as Iowa won its 12th consecutive game and kept itself in the hunt for the College Football Playoffs with a 28-20 win over Nebraska. The Hawkeyes were impressive in their refusal to buckle under…
11/7/15 | Tad Stryker
If you’ve ever watched a late-night party at Memorial Stadium, it’s like nothing else you’ve seen. If you were there in the gigantic old concrete cathedral Saturday night, you won’t soon forget it. It was a scarlet soiree. The Red Sea pitched and rolled in time with the high-decibel music that echoed through the house. The student section rocked. The…
10/17/15 | Tad Stryker
Nebraska football fans still remember what a clean, consistent effort on offense looks like, and they were overjoyed to see one Saturday in Minneapolis. Making any conclusions beyond that would be premature, but there’s no denying that at least for one day, the Cornhuskers kept their focus, and took a step toward healing. Is this the new normal – this…
9/13/15 | Tad Stryker
With three starters standing on the sidelines, the Blackshirts’ health took an uptick Saturday night against South Alabama. Small wonder – they had their heart back. Nebraska’s 48-9 victory over USA went about as well as it should have. The offensive line showed some promise, springing Terrell Newby for 198 yards and three touchdowns. Sophomore placekicker Drew Brown made both…
