H U S K E R D A N
HUSKER
HEADLINES:
"ELL CATS" HUMBLE HUSKERS, 38-9
WILDCATS TAME HUSKERS, 38-9
'CATS FEAST ON HUSKER ROADKILL, 38-9
LORD FLOORED, HUSKERS GORED, 38-9
'CATS END HUSKER HOME COOKIN',
38-9
PURPLE PACK ATTACK SACKS HUSKERS, 38-9
'CATS END 35 YEARS OF FUTILITY, AMBUSH 'SKERS,
38-9
ELL IS FOR ELECTRIFYING; 'CATS DOWN HUSKERS,
38-9
BIG WED
WAP-UP
Once again, it's time for "THE CHIP CHUCKLEY
SHOW".
(THE INCREDIBLY LOUD AND OBNOXIOUS THEME SONG
BLARES TO THE DB LEVEL OF A HARRIER JET TAKING OFF IN YOUR LIVING
ROOM)
BE-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!
BE-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!
BE-FAPPA, BE-FAPPA
BE-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!
STU-WAPPA, STU-WAPPA
OH BABY, OH BABY, OH, YEAH,
OH
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
(The theme music mercifully
fades....................)
"THE CHIP CHUCKLEY
SHOW"
Welcome everybody to tonight's edition of "Sports
Chat" with your host the Chip Man, himself, Chip
Chuckley!!!!!!!!
Chip: Goooood evening everybody and welcome
to another edition of "Sports Chat" with yours truly, Chip
Chuckley.
We want to know what's on your mind after this
week's thrashing by the K-State Purple Pack. They manhandled the Huskers
Saturday, giving Nebraska their worst home loss since 1958.
Do you think Bill Snyder ran up the score on
the Huskers? Do you think Joe Dailey should have played earlier
in the game? What do you think the Huskers need to do to regroup for the
last two games of the season and what do you think the Huskers must do to
get back on track for next year?
You can call us, tofu, er, toll free, at 800-SPORTS
CHAT. The lines are already lit up like Bob Devaney's nose on St.
Patty's Day. Let's go to Greg in North Platte. You're on "Sports
Chat".
Caller: Hello. Am I on?
CC: Go ahead.
C: Thanks for taking my call,
Chap.
CC: Chip.
C: Right. Well, anyways, man, what an
el-stinko game by the Huskers Saturday. I mean, I don't know where to
begin. All right, I DO know where to begin. Get rid of Solich.
NOW!! And thank God for the eligibility rule, otherwise we would have to
put up with another year of Lord. Why Solich sticks with this
guy, I'll never know. 8 for 26? You gotta be kidding!!!
Cripes, my grandmother could do better than that!!! The dude is terrible
and Solich needs to be held accountable. Our offense is so predictable
that my 8 year old son can tell what play we're going to run next. I
thought our offense was going to be better this year. What a joke!!!
We're worse!!! Our running game stinks. Can you imagine that?
A Husker running game that is terrible? And passing? We're the joke
of college football. If we don't change, we will end up like Kansas or
Iowa State. That's all I have to say.
CC: You make some good points. Let's go
to our next caller, Earl from Pischleville, Nebraska. Welcome to "Sports
Chat".
C: I'm a first time caller, but a long time
listener. I agree with that first caller. I think Frankie has taken
a great program and run it into the ground. We are NOT getting
better. Everybody we play who is any good, we not only lose to, but get
bitch-slapped in the process.
CC: You don't think the win over Oklahoma
State was good? Or on the road at Southern Mississippi?
C: We lucked out with the Cowboys. It
was our first game. They didn't know what kind of a defense we were gonna
run, so we caught them by surprise. As far as So-Miss.
So-What? Who the hell have they beaten, anyways? And thank God the
'Clones and Lions were down this year, otherwise, we could be 6 and 5
with a strong possibility that we'll lose our last two games and end up
6-7. Now that's an improvement over last year, ain't it!!!
I think Frank should go. That's all I have to say. I'll hang up and listen to
your response.
CC: You've made some good points. But
we aren't 6 and 5. We're 8 and 3. In this day and age of 85
scholarships, a win is a win, no matter how ugly or how bad we think the
opponent is. Just ask Wisconsin, UNLV, Colorado, Kansas State,
Texas. They lost to some of those so-called weak teams you
mentioned.
As far as Solich leaving, I don't think that's
going to happen. If Steve Pederson brings in a new head coach, the guy is
going to want to bring all his assistant coaches with him. The
program will not and should not bring in another new group of
assistants. If that were to happen, it would be disastrous to
recruiting. So it's not going to happen. Bo Pelini isn't ready yet
to be a head coach and I don't see anyone else in place right now being ready to
assume the role of head coach.
I understand your feelings, but let's enjoy all the
wins we can. Let's go to Dan in Torrance, California.
C: Am I on?
CC: Go ahead.
C: Chuck?
CC: Chip. You're on.
C: Am I on, Chuck?
CC: Chip.
C: Chuck?
CC: Let's go to Bill in Farnsworth,
Connecticut.
C: Wazzup, dog? Love your
show.
CC: Thanks.
C: What did you think of Bo Pelini gettin' in
the grill of Bill Snyder? Did he give him the "A" word for
piling on?
CC: I believe that was his
motivation.
C: Well, I don't know about running up the
score. Bo made the decisions to play his walk-ons and Snyder, being the
horse's ass that he is, decided to leave his first stringers in for the entire
game. So I don't see what the problem is. Both guys made
decisions. Snyder didn't force Bo to play his scrubs. I kinda dig it
that Bo dug into Snyder, but it ain't no big thing.
CC: I agree with you. Bill Snyder does
things his own way, but you have to wonder why he would endanger his starters
during the tail end of a game that was long in the bag for the
Wildcats.
Let's go to Manny in Port Arthur,
Texas.
C: I'm stuck down here behind enemy
lines. Man, what a terrible month this has been. First we get
slammed by Tex-ass and now we get walloped by Kanz-ass State. Man, and
everybody here knows that I bleed Husker red. I have to suffer
through this humiliation another year. And we won't be any better next
year.
CC: How so?
C: One reason is, our entire quarterback crew
next year won't have a SINGLE start in the group. That means, we'll start
out the year like we did last year. No experience and no depth. AND,
we play at Pittsburgh, at Oklahoma, at K-State. Plus we lose guys like
Demorrio Williams and Kyle Larson. It's going to get ugly. The good
news is we won't have Jay-Loss any more. Thank God for that.
CC: Let's go to Matt in Ames, Iowa.
You're on "Sports Chat".
C: Look, I'm not a Husker fan. Never
have been and never will. I'm a 'Clone fan until the day I die. I've
been listening to your callers and thinking, "These guys are leaked off at an
8-3 season?" Do you know how that sounds to us? You all have been
spoiled. We would LOVE to be 8-3!!!! We would be going to another
bowl game. Life would be sweet. But what do you so-called fans
do? You complain and want to run your coach out of town. Give me a
break!! That's all I have to say.
CC: Thanks for calling. Maybe we are
little spoiled. Let's go to Brian in Omaha. Welcome to the
show.
C: I'm a first time caller and I'm a little
nervous.
CC: No problem. Take your
time.
C: Thanks. I've been a Husker fan for
more years than I'd like to admit. I've seen this program when it couldn't
get a first down for the entire game. I've celebrated national
championships, conference championships, Heisman trophies, Outland
trophies. I've had my guts ripped out at the last minute by
teams like Miami and Oklahoma.
I've tried to put this year and last year in
perspective. I'll tell you what I think.
First of all, the Huskers have gone through similar
down years. Even the guy who saved the entire program in the modern
era, Bob Devaney, was almost run out of town after back to back 6-4 years in '67
and '68. And some of the wins were against not-so good teams.
Our recruiting slipped, play selection
was predictable and the fans weren't
happy with the results.
In '67 we beat Minnesota 7-0, edged K-State 16-14,
were shut out at Kansas 10-0 and lost to Colorado 16-21. The Huskers
didn't even go to a bowl game that year. And '68, things didn't any
better. We had to kick a last minute field goal to beat a so-so Wyoming
team in Lincoln, 13-10. We lost to a good Kansas team at home, 23-13, got
shut out at home by lowly K-State and were flattened at Norman, 0-47.
Again, no bowl game.
So what did Devaney and his staff do after those
two seasons? They recruited speed and got better talent. They signed
players like Jerry Tagge, Larry Jacobson, Jeff Kinney, Rich Glover and Johnny
Rodgers. Guess what happened? In '69, the Huskers went 9-2, beat
Georgia in the Sun Bowl. The next year, the Huskers won their first
national championship and the year after that, fielded maybe the best college
football team ever. We went 13-0 and demolished everybody we
played.
So in comes Tom Osborne in '73. We all
remember Osborne as the guy whose teams could never lose, right? Well, if
you go back to the 70s, Tom's record was always defined by his inability to beat
the mighty Sooners. 1973 a loss, '74 a loss, '75 a loss '76 a loss,
'77 yet another loss. About that time, Husker fans were calling for
Osborne's neck. "Osborne can't win the big games. Let's get rid of
him."
So coach TO goes to Colorado to interview for
the head coaching job. But thankfully, Ozzie decided to stay put in
Lincoln. In '78, TO gets his first win over the Sooners, only to find out
a week later, he'd have to face them AGAIN in the Orange Bowl! The
result? Another loss to the Sooners.
So what did Osborne do? He went out and
recruited better, stronger and faster players. Guys like Turner Gill,
Irving Fryar, Roger Craig, Mike Rozier and Dean Steinkuler. Guess what
happened. The Huskers returned to dominance. The Huskers beat
Oklahoma in '81, '82 and '83. The '83 team came within inches of winning
Osborne's first national championship-and should have had one the year before
had it not been for some horrendous officiating at the Penn State game
that year.
In 1985, began a series of bowl game losses (NU
lost 7 of 8 bowl games). The Huskers were starting to fade once
again. In '88, the Huskers were stomped by UCLA 41-28 (the game was NOT
that close), Miami beat us in the bowl game 3-23 that year. After the '89
season, Florida State beat on us in the Fiesta Bowl 17-41. In '90, we lost
at home to Colorado, 12-27, got throttled by Oklahoma,10-45, and got dumped by
Georgia Tech, 21-45 in the Citrus Bowl. The following year, we got punked
at home by Washington 21-36. The Huskers even led going in to the 4th
quarter of that game. And in the Orange Bowl that year, the Huskers were
embarrassed by Miami, 0-22.
So what did Osborne and his staff do? They
recruited differently. The defense was re-tooled. Speed, speed and
more speed was at the top of their shopping list. We went to a 4-3
defense. We got players like Tommie Frazier, Lawrence Phillips, Cory
Schlesinger, Terry Connealy, Brandon Stai, Ed Stewart, Rob Zatechka, Barron
Miles, Troy Dumas. But even with those players in the program, the Huskers
couldn't beat Washington in Seattle in '92 and were embarrassed in Ames by the
mighty Cyclones that same year. (And we had Tommie Frazier at
quarterback!)
But in '93, the Huskers played for a national
championship and if it hadn't have been for the "Phantom Clip"
called on Corey Dixon's punt return for a touchdown in the Orange Bowl
that year, we all would have celebrated Osborne's first championship.
Husker fans didn't have to wait very long.
The next year, the Huskers beat Miami at Miami and slammed Florida the next year
to win back to back national championships. The run lasted until Osborne's
last year as NU head coach in '97 winning yet another national
championship.
Look, I'm not a big fan of Frank Solich nor Jammal
Lord or any number of things with this year's team. I hate losing as much
as the next guy, but these down times have been going on for decades. The
competition is even greater now than it was through most of Osborne's
era. And there is the 85 scholarship limit. The Big
12 is MUCH tougher than the Big 8 conference we played in when Devaney and
Osborne were coaching. The Big 8 had Nebraska and Oklahoma and not much
else.
The Huskers have already begun the rebuilding
process. We are getting into homes we've not been able to get into
before. Our strength and conditioning is back on track. Our defense
will only get better with Pelini at the helm. Scott Downing brings a new
level of spirit and intensity to his position as recruiting
coordinator.
Now is not the time to point
fingers. I would encourage all Husker
fans to stay with the program. It will be back. That's all I've
got to say.
CC: Great call!!!! Nice take. You
make some very good points. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for
tonight's edition of "Sports Chat". Be sure to tune in next time.
Good night everybody and thanks for listening.
(THE ANNOYING THEME SONG BLASTS AWAY
AGAIN.)
LETTERS:
Mark Down (Manure Falls,
KY)
Dude, KU quarterback, Adam Barmann is from
Missouri, not Kansas.
Comment:
Of course, I knew that. From time to time, I
purposely make errors just to see if you readers are really paying
attention. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Charlie Horse (Redding,
CA)
You misspelled Eminem in your Carnac piece.
You ended it with an "n" and not an "m".
Comment:
See above.
Barry Lee Able (Well Springs,
FL)
You misspelled Brent Musberger's name in your list
of "Nuke 'Em Award" nominations.
Comment:
See above.
Derrick F. (Kennewick,
WA)
I nominate Husker Dan to your stupid, inane and
time-wasting "Nuke 'Em Award" list. You are an embarrassment.
Comment:
Husker Dan hates to tinkle on
your Wheaties but he will not run if nominated, and will not serve, if
elected. He does, however, thank you for your support. Have a
nice day...
You can write Husker Dan with your comments, takes
etc. to:
[email protected]. For
all the back issues of Husker Dan's stupid, inane and time-wasting columns, go
to: huskerpedia.com.
Scroll down toward the bottom of the home page to "Extras". Scroll to the
right and click on "Husker Dan". That will take you to all my stupid,
inane and time-wasting columns.