Husker Dan: Rodent revenge for the Huskers?

Everyday, it’s a gettin’ closer, 
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster.
–“Everyday” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets

 
“If I hit you and knock you down, that’s on ME.  If I come back the next day and you’re still lying on the ground, that’s on YOU.”
-Coach Ron Brown, current Director of Player Personnel for the University of Nebraska football team

 
There is a lot of truth to both messages.  But the question is, when will things turn around for the Husker football program?  When will the Huskers get off the mat?  I don’t think anyone envisioned an 0-6 start to this year or to ANY Husker football season.  Now we hear about Husker “fans” second guessing the coaches.  What’s going on here?

The truth can be found in the gradual, but inexorable collapse of the Husker football program.  What former Husker football players (and one former Husker assistant) told me in response to the question I posed to each of them about what Scott Frost needed to do to restore the Husker football program back to national prominence, revealed the essence of the problem.

The traditions that made a championship run like Nebraska enjoyed in the ’90s have eroded.  Almost every vestige of a once-proud program had been removed.  And an 0-6 record is what happens.

We’ve seen it in the business world and it’s no different from what we’ve seen with the Nebraska football program.  Dismantling traditions can lead to the demise of any team, company or even a nation.

In Nebraska’s case, the symptoms are the mistakes, the penalties, the losses and, at times, the lack of effort even by some players.

THE WEIGHT WAIT

Raise your hand if you thought the Husker strength and conditioning equipment was at a state-of-the-art level.

If you thought it was, you’d be wrong.  But help is on its way.  A remake of the weight room is underway, and of particular interest to the Husker football program are the machines players will use to do squat lifting.  I thought the Husker football program always had those.  Not so.  Inexplicably, the squat machines were removed during former Husker Strength Coach James Dobson’s tenure (2008-2014) at Nebraska.

Where were they moved?

To the volleyball team.

Yup.  You heard it right.  And during that time, which program has excelled while the other one has declined?  You got it.

MIRACLE WORKER?

Scott Frost inherited a program that for years had been dismantled little by little and he’s expected to turn this program around in one season?  As good as Coach Frost and his assistants are, they can do only so much.  Is Frost the Miracle Worker everyone thought he was gong to be?

You bet your sweet bippy he is.  (I know – that dates me.)  I completely understand fans’ frustration – and Saturday’s OT loss to Northwestern would test the patience of even the most ardent Husker football fan.  But Coach Frost is working the best he can with the hand he’s been dealt.

In Saturday’s loss, there were flashes of brilliance – a portent of things to come – but all too often, Nebraska couldn’t get out of its own way.  The OT was a classic example of how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. First of all, the game shouldn’t have come down to an OT – but it did.  And give credit to the Wildcats.  The scratched and clawed (!) their way to a much-needed win for them.  (This was their first home win of the season.)

As I said last week, NW had been inconsistent this year losing to Duke and the Akron Zips.  But unfortunately, Nebraska got the Northwestern team that earlier beat Michigan State and led Michigan 17-0 in the first half before eventually losing 20-17.

UPWARD AND ONWARD

This week, it’s the Rodents from Minnesota.  The Gophers lost last week to Ohio State, but by a “respectable” score of 30-14.  And as we all remember that last year, an average Rodent team destroyed a disinterested Husker team, 54-21, and ripped the Husker “defense” for 409 yards rushing.

That was the game that eventually got Mr. Rogers fired last year.  And this year, Husker players would like nothing better than to rub the Rodents’ noses in the fetid aftermath of that game.  If the Husker players have a pulse (and I think they do), the’ll come out snorting fire.  Let’s hope the Huskers can put a merciful end to the 10-game losing string.  Let’s not wait for Bethune-Cookman.

Since Minna-SO-tuh is coming to Lincoln this week, I thought it only proper to share with you some Ole, Swen and Lena yokes, er jokes with you.

DEESE ARE REAL KNEE SLAPPERS!

So Ole asked his friend, Swen, to help him check to see if Ole’s blinkers worked on his car.

“You go stand in front of da car and you tell me if da blinkers are verking,” he says to Swen.

So Ole turns them on.

“So Swen, are dey verking?”

Swen says, “Yes, no, yes, no,…”

OLE AND LENA YOKE

Ole comes home from work early one day and finds his wife, Lena, standing in their bedroom without any clothes on.

“So why aren’t you vearin’ any clothes?” he asks her.

“Because I don’t have a ting to wear,” Lena says.

So Ole goes over to her closet and says, “Well, what about dis yellow dress?  Or dis orange one? Or dis white one?  Oh, hello Swen.  Or, how about dis green one?”

 
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