We Spent the Summer Debating Nebraska Football's Greatest Legends. Here's Where We Landed.

We spent much of the summer on the Common Fan Podcast attempting perhaps an impossible task: building the definitive Mount Rushmore of Nebraska football.

Over the course of seven episodes, we looked at quarterbacks, coaches, offensive players, defensive players, special teams players and walk-ons before finally attempting to narrow the long and glorious history of Nebraska football down to four players (for the final list, we let the coaches episode stand on its own, and only focused on players. That was hard enough).

We were joined throughout the series by Brandon Vogel of the Counter Read newsletter, along with a tremendous group of featured guests including Mitch Sherman, Henry Cordes, Brian Christopherson, Mike’l Severe, Gary Sharp and Mike Babcock.

From the beginning, this wasn't simply about identifying the four best players. When sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the actual Mount Rushmore, he wasn't simply selecting the four greatest presidents. The idea was to represent figures who were particularly important and consequential in the story of the country.

We tried to take the same approach with Nebraska football. That meant considering championships and individual accomplishments, of course. But also impact on the program, leadership, innovation, longevity, cultural significance and the moments and players that helped define the history of Husker football.

When you host a podcast, you’re constantly thinking about making sure the discussions you’re putting out into the world are interesting and relevant to the audience. As we went into this series, I wasn’t sure if seven “Mount Rushmore” episodes would be fun and interesting, or if it would start to wear thin.

It ended up being a blast. We said more than once, we wished we had time to look at more position groups, more categories, and to ultimately build more Mount Rushmores. It was a reminder of just how great Nebraska has been (and, in some ways, how hard the last decade-plus has been, but that’s an article for another day).

What exactly defines greatness at Nebraska? Is it championships? Individual awards? Statistics? Longevity? Cultural impact? Being the best player on a great team? Carrying a team that wasn't? The short answer: yes. And as we worked our way through the different categories, we were reminded that Nebraska has been great in an almost ridiculous number of different ways.

Here's where we landed.

Quarterbacks

The final four: Tommie Frazier, Eric Crouch, Turner Gill, and Jerry Tagge.

Frazier was the easiest choice of the entire episode. He went 33-3 as Nebraska's starting quarterback, won two national championships and was the driving force behind arguably the greatest stretch in college football history.

Crouch won a Heisman Trophy and played for a national title. Tagge quarterbacked Nebraska to its first two national championships. Gill helped transform Tom Osborne's offense and led the legendary 1983 Scoring Explosion.

Steve Taylor, Zac Taylor, Taylor Martinez, Adrian Martinez, and Tommy Armstrong Jr. were all mentioned. And yes, so was Scott Frost.

But in the end, there was surprisingly little disagreement on this one.

Coaches

The final four: Tom Osborne, Bob Devaney, Jumbo Stiehm, and Monte Kiffin.

Husker fans will not be surprised that two spots were over before the conversation even started. Devaney built modern Nebraska football. Osborne helped him do it, and then took it to even greater heights.

After that, the discussion became much more interesting. Jumbo Stiehm led Nebraska from 1911-1915, going 35-2-3 and establishing the Huskers as one of the country's early powers. Monte Kiffin represented the defensive innovation that eventually turned the defense into the Blackshirts.

The controversial omission — at least for this Common Fan — was Boyd Epley, whose pioneering strength and conditioning program helped reshape not only Nebraska football, but college football across the country. And it was instrumental in every one of the Huskers’ five national championships.

I've subsequently decided we got that one wrong. But democracy prevailed. Osborne, Devaney, Stiehm and Kiffin made the mountain.

Defense

The final four: Ndamukong Suh, Grant Wistrom, Rich Glover, and Lavonte David.

Perhaps no category better illustrated Nebraska's embarrassment of riches than defense.

Suh was the obvious starting point. His 2009 season remains one of the most dominant individual seasons by a defensive player in college football history.

Wistrom was one of the defining players of Nebraska's 1990s dynasty. Glover was, in many ways, the Suh of his generation. David packed an extraordinary amount of production into just two seasons in Lincoln.

But this was the category – perhaps more than any other – where it felt like about 20 different guys belonged on the mountain. Trev Alberts. Jason Peter. Mike Brown. Broderick Thomas. Neil Smith. Charlie McBride doesn't count because we put him in the coaches discussion, but you get the idea.

We could have kept going for another hour. The larger takeaway from that episode was simple: for much of its history, Nebraska wasn't merely good defensively. Defense was part of the program's identity.

Offensive Players

The final four: Mike Rozier, Dave Rimington, Johnny Rodgers, and Ahman Green.

How do you choose four offensive players from a program that produced three Heisman Trophy winners, an army of All-American offensive linemen and enough great running backs to fill an entire episode by themselves?

Rozier and Rodgers both won Heisman trophies. Rimington was so dominant at center that the award given annually to the nation's best center now bears his name. Green became one of the most productive running backs in program history while helping Nebraska win two national championships.

But similar to the defense discussion, it felt like so many other guys could make a case. Dean Steinkuhler. Will Shields. Aaron Taylor. Zach Wiegert. Irving Fryar. Roger Craig. Tom Rathman. Calvin Jones. And yes, we had a nuanced and, shall we say, interesting conversation about where Lawrence Phillips belongs in this conversation.

At one point Gary Sharp noted that Nebraska had multiple players in the discussion who literally have major college football awards named after them. That pretty well sums up the problem.

Special Teams

The final four: Johnny Rodgers, Kris Brown, Barron Miles, and Alex Henery.

I wasn’t sure if we should even do a Special Teams episode. It turned out to be awesome.

Rodgers was the easiest selection. He’s Nebraska’s first Heisman Trophy winner, possessive of one of the most unique skill sets in college football history. And the punt return in the Game of the Century remains one of the most famous plays in college football history.

Brown became Nebraska's all-time leading scorer during the championship years. Miles was one of the greatest kick blockers college football has ever seen. And Brandon Vogel mounted such an impassioned defense of Alex Henery that it’s possible he may currently be picketing outside the College Football Hall of Fame.

Rodgers, I’ll point out, also became the only player to appear on two of our category Mount Rushmores.

Walk-Ons

The final four: Jared Tomich, Langston Coleman, I.M. Hipp and Joel Makovicka.

This one was perhaps the most uniquely Nebraskan category of all.

Tomich became an All-American and second-round NFL Draft pick. Hipp became one of the most famous walk-ons in college football history and, at the time he finished his career, Nebraska's all-time leading rusher. Makovicka represented the long line of Nebraska fullbacks who became central figures in Osborne's offense.

And Coleman may have had the best story of the entire series: a Black player from Washington, D.C., who came to Nebraska in the early 1960s after being encouraged by JFK adviser and speechwriter (and Nebraskan) Ted Sorensen, eventually hitchhiking much of the way to Lincoln and helping establish what became Nebraska's legendary walk-on tradition.

The Final, Final Mount Rushmore

The final four: Tommy Frazier, Johnny Rodgers, Ndamukong Suh, and Dave Rimington.

We decided to let Osborne and Devaney have their own monument rather than consume half the available spots.

Still, this part seemed impossible. How do you pick only four? Two Heisman Trophy winners were left off the final list, along with countless All Americans and award winners at nearly every position.

Frazier represents Nebraska's greatest era and the mentality that helped create it. Rodgers was an electrifying player who helped turn an already excellent program into a national champion.

Suh may have been the most individually dominant Husker ever to play his position. Rimington represents both individual greatness and the offensive line tradition that became synonymous with Nebraska football.

Is it definitive? Absolutely. Final? Without question. Unless we change our minds. Which, given the number of legends who didn't make it, seems entirely possible.

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