Your guide to Nebraska
Now that Nebraska's officially in the Big Ten, thought I'd offer a fairly comprehensive guide to Nebraska football tradition, lore, and history all in one post. Sorry if it's a bit long, but at least you have it all in one place.
You can pretty much summarize Nebraska football and fans this way: Long term excellence, devotion to team, knowledge and respect for opponents and the game. We love smashmouth football on both sides of the ball, a pounding rushing attack and hard hitting defense.
On gameday, Memorial Stadium becomes the 3rd largest population in Nebraska.
Since November 1962, the Huskers have had 304 consecutive sellouts, easily an NCAA record. EVERYONE wears red, giving our fans and stadium the "Sea of Red" moniker You'll soon learn that we release red balloons after the first score and play "Hail Varsity" after every TD.
Our fans are also famous for traveling well, there's the famous picture of the 2000 NU-ND game that shows the Sea of Red taking over Notre Dame's stadium, of all places.
Jim Delaney mentioned Nebraska's sportsmanship during the presser on one of the intangibles Nebraska brought to the Big Ten. Applauding the opponent--win or lose--is an end of the game tradition in Lincoln.
That's why when you enter Memorial Stadium, over every entrance you'll read, "Through these gates pass the greatest fans in college football."
Nebraska doesn't have the "little copper spittoon" trophy type rivalries traditional in the Big Ten. Although many think of Oklahoma as our rival from the old Big 8 "Game of the Century" days, that ended with the BXII formed. Nebraska and Kansas, though not considered a big rivalry, have the nation's longest uninterrupted series west of the Mississippi, playing each other every year since 1906.
Most Husker fans agree with our legendary coach Bob Devaney, who said about rivalries: “We have no rival. We are Nebraska.”
Another example of Nebraskans passion and devotion to the Big Red is the Walk-On program. Many non-scholarship players native to Nebraska have become starters this way, even giving up scholarships from competing programs for the chance to play for their home team. Notre Dame only had one Rudy but Nebraska gets a new crop of Rudys every season.
Some statistics and facts:
Winningest college football program over the last 50 years, both by winning percentage (77.98%) and number of wins (468). 8th all time inning % and 4th in number of wins
Five National Championships, 43 conference championships, three Heisman Trophy winners, nine Outland Trophy winners, five Lombardi Award winners, 107 All-American selections and nation-leading 64 First-Team Academic All-American football selections.
1994 and 1995 national championships are the only consensus back-to-back titles by a Division 1-A school since Oklahoma in 1956-57.
Nebraska holds the record for longest streak of bowl game appearances at 35 straight (1968–2003). Nebraska's 40-year streak of winning seasons, started in 1961, ended 2002.
This was accomplished running a clean program with no significant NCAA violations and a relatively high graduation rate for a top tier football program.
We've benefitted from a very loyal and stabile coaching staff, including two of the top 5 all time modern college coaches.
Bob Devaney (1962-1972, 101-20-2, 82.9%, 2 NC's) Devaney played at Alma College in Michigan, coached at 4 Michigan high schools, and was an assistant with Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State. Known as "The Bobfather".
Tom Osborne (1973-1997, 255-49-3, 83.6%, 3 NC's) never won less than 9 games in a season.
Frank Solich (1998-2003, 58-19, 0.753), fired after a 9-3 2003 team by Athletic Director Steve Pederson, because he would not "let Nebraska gravitate into mediocrity" and then hired Bill Callahan to "turn around" the program. Does that sound familiar?
Although known officially as the Nebraska Cornhuskers, we also go by 'Huskers, Big Red, or just NU (with all due respect to our more senior BT brothers at Wisconsin and Northwestern). We were once known as the Bugeaters. Official colors are Scarlet and Cream, the team traditionally wears red jerseys/white pants at home and white/red on the road. Main mascot is Herbie Husker, a big blonde farmboy in bib overalls, wearing a cowboy hat and carrying some ears of corn.
I mentioned our love of defense. So sometimes The Sea of Red is sprinkled with fans in black, honoring "The Blackshirts" the name for our 1st string defense. This tradition developed when Bob Devaney wanted separate practice jerseys to offset the red jerseys worn by the offense. Eventually the coaches referred to the top defensive unit by this name. The Blackshirts also have a black circle on the back of their helmet (we don't do helmet stickers). These players will often cross their arms in an "X" across their chests, representing the skull and crossbones, a longtime logo for the Blackshirts. This is called "Throwing the Bones".
Best fan sites: HuskerMax.com, BigRedNetwork.com
Oh, and last but not least:
GO BIG RED!
Already posted, but yours is in so much more detail. Wasn't their 309 consecutive sellouts?
Thanks,
Per official NU website,
"NU's sellout streak reached 304 games with a 17-3 win over Kansas State on Nov. 21, the final home game at Memorial Stadium in 2009."
On that note, bow down to us and hand over your fake 1997 National Championship trophy. Lose to Michigan every time we play and beat Ohio St. every time you play and all will be forgiven.
I love the passion and look forward to visiting Nebraska and coming home with a victory. This is exactly the kind of program/fans I'm proud to welcome to the Big Ten. Welcome and good luck!
they have a guy named Curenski Gilleylen(!)
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=4&SPID=22&DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=831202&Q_SEASON=2010
I'm psyched to go to Lincoln for games. I had a buddy in undergrad who was from Nebraska, and we'd have never-solvable arguments about game-day, '97, etc. Now that there's a reason to spend the money, I'm headed to Lincoln to experience it myself the first chance there is.
If you go there, I suggest going through the gates by the library. The reason, that is where Larry the Cable Guy parks and tailgates before every game. Get'r Done!!!!!
I see your Avatar in the statue on top of the capital building in Lincoln......
Good catch,
BTW,
very classy welcome on this and many other boards from Michigan fans. Exactly what I expected from the #1 college FB program of all time. Needless to say, Nebraska fans are very excited to be able to compete with your program on a regular basis.
I think there's a pretty decent rivalry brewing, been just enough "NU-MU moments" in the recent past to get things going.
...for the University of Michigan is U-M pronounced U of M.
what can you say? now he knows
Otherwise people might think you left out an "S" in MSU or something. and a lowercase "t" is to follow "OSU" because of their obsession with stressing "THE Ohio State University".
See how bad it can get, when you are not detail oriented.
Appreciate the correction,
and as I said UNL is fine indeference to the Wildcats
"Big Blue," or just "Blue," are acceptable references. As mentioned above, "M" is also acceptable.
Big Blue is UNACCEPTABLE.
This was the wrong time for sarcasm. It was also pretty unclear. Mea culpa.
ChicagoRed, you may be about to learn about the MGoBlog tradition known as the "negbang."
Those '94-'95 teams were straight ridunkulous. I remember thinking Nebraska was some legendary God-like program when I was a kid and was always so jealous of them in the early to mid-90's. I think it's going to be so cool to see them come into the Big House, Happy Valley, etc.
I'm going to have to go to Lincoln when Michigan plays there in the future. The football stadium seems pretty cool.
bronze statues on multiple sides, quotes all over the outside of the stadium
Glad to have you here, both in the Big Ten and at MGoBlog. We'll be happy to answer any questions you have about either.
You can find most of the stuff you'd need to know about Michigan Football and this here blog in the "Useful Stuff" Tab in the upper right hand corner.
Welcome to the Big Ten. Also, this means i get to breakout of the mothballs all of my old Nebraska chants/sayings/etc from my OU days -- sweet.
The other thing to remember about Nebraska is that the team really "belongs" to the whole state. There's no other big college program there. And there are no pro teams, either. Closest cities with pro teams (depending on where you are in the state) are Denver and Kansas City. As a result you have a lot of rabid fans all over the state, who feel a deep connection to the Huskers even if they haven't attended. Of course, the walkon program also plays a role here, because many towns can name some local boy who played at some point.
You will be amazed at how much Husker gear you will see worn while in the state of Nebraska. The other thing that amuses me is that it's not uncommon to hear the Nebraska game being broadcast over the PA in department stores on fall Saturdays.
Thanks for the info. If it were possible, I'd fill out the rest of the conference with 4 more Nebraskas but programs of that magnitude are few and far between. Hello Rutgers :*(
Somebody needs to lay off the sauce.