A JERSEY GUY: When Did Nebraska Become CFB's Bad Boy?
Barry Switzer offered the perspective of history, mixed with reality.
The former Oklahoma coach, well into retirement, with his legacy firmly etched, was asked about one of his former rivals--Nebraska and the Huskers' current state of unhappiness with the Big 10, their home for the past 10 seasons.
"I don't pay that much attention to that stuff,'' said Switzer in a phone conversation on Wednesday afternoon, "They should have never left the Big 8 (12) to begin with. I guess they’re in a tough situation now.''
Switzer remembers the golden days of Nebraska and Oklahoma football. "A lot of time it was the big game of year, No. 1 vs. No. 2, with the Orange Bowl at stake and Top 10 teams,'' he said. " It was a good run.''
Oklahoma, under Bob Stoops and now under Lincoln Riley, has kept that tradition going.
Nebraska?
Not so much.
The Huskers have had 5 football coaches in the past 10 seasons, including Scott Frost, who stirred the pot this week with his comments that more than suggested the Huskers would go their own way no matter what the Big Ten ruled regarding the 2020 college football season.
The program which has produced what many observers regard as the top two teams in the history of college football, has had 16 seasons in which the Huskers have had four or more losses in a season.
They have had four losing seasons in the past five years and have not played in a meaningful CFB playoff bowl since losing the National Championship to Miami in the 2001 Rose Bowl.
More significantly, they have been more whiners than winners for more than a decade, dating back to their departure from the Big 12 in 2010.
Among the reasons, other than financial, the Huskers were upset by what they felt was a southern tilt--Oklahoma and Texas--in the Big 12, which made them unhappy.
And while switching to the Big Ten looked like a reasonable move when it was made, it has not produced happiness on either side. It now looks like an impending divorce after a decade long relationship, with neither side sounding like they want to continue.
With Big Ten football shut down for the fall, and with Nebraska and Frost, arguing they want to play--even if it is a 10 game independent schedule-- the waters are becoming more turbulent.
For Nebraska, even with Texas and Oklahoma still as powerful or even more powerful, the Big 12 suddenly doesn't look that bad.
There have been some mutterings from the Big 12 that the Huskers are damaged goodS and wouldn't enhance the product all that much.
At the very least, it is a situation which is constantly changing, with no obvious conclusion.