Five Reasons to Believe Matt Rhule Will Build a Long Term Winner at Nebraska
by T.J. Birkel Happy fall camp, Common Fans. It’s the first full week of August and the Nebraska football team already has a week of practice in the books. Thank God. The dog days of summer are coming to a close. The best time of year is once again upon us. Something is just missing […]
Nebraska’s Superman: How Tommie Frazier Changed Husker Football
It’s the summer of Superman. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the new movie, but haven’t seen it yet. No matter. I’ve already seen the real thing. Tommie Frazier was exactly what the doctor ordered for Nebraska football in the early 1990s. They needed a catalyst; a quarterback whose toughness embodied the physical style that Tom […]
How Tom Osborne’s Consistency Carried the Nebraska Football Dynasty
He was never a yeller. Even in an era when it was much more common for football coaches to cuss and scream, to berate players for making mistakes, Tom Osborne took the opposite approach. Through nearly three decades, 255 wins, 13 conference titles, and three national championships, perhaps Osborne’s most defining trait was consistency. It […]
The 1990 Season Ended in Disaster—Which Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Nebraska Football
At the end of the 1990 college football season, the beginning of the dynasty that would change Nebraska football forever was only about two and a half years away. From 1993 to 1997, the Huskers would go on one of the most dominant runs in the history of the sport, putting together a 60-3 record […]
What Steve Taylor’s Recruiting Story Says About Tom Osborne’s Nebraska
Steve Taylor says he won the lottery. He grew up in Fresno, California, and later moved to San Diego to increase his exposure. When his high school coach asked where he wanted to go, he had one answer: Nebraska. Taylor had watched the 1984 Orange Bowl, when the Huskers lost a heartbreaker to Miami in […]
Scott Frost’s Bitterness Toward Nebraska Makes No Sense
by T.J. Birkel We interrupt your regularly scheduled summer programming with an update from the Golden Boy. Scott Frost is a smart guy—but he could really use some media training. Every time he gets asked about his time as head coach at Nebraska, or references it in any way, he just makes things worse. More […]
That Time Tom Osborne Almost Left Nebraska for Colorado
My earliest memories of Nebraska football start in the late 1980s, early 1990s. It’s a little bit of a blur, given that I was 7 at the turn of the decade. I vaguely recall hearing something about Tom Osborne interviewing at Colorado at some point along this journey through Husker fandom. But truth be told, […]
Nine Wins, No Satisfaction: Tom Osborne’s Early Days as Nebraska’s Head Coach
by T.J. Birkel “I think Cornhusker fans are pretty smart about what the program has done over the last 60 years and Tom Osborne is a huge part of it. Taking over for Bob Devaney; I had the good fortune of playing two years for both of them. They are as good a coaches as […]
The Numerous Innovations Tom Osborne Brought to Nebraska Football
It’s funny. Growing up in Lincoln during the 1980s and 1990s, I saw plenty of successful Nebraska football teams, including, obviously, the three national championship teams of the ‘90s. Even with all of that success, I remember a distinct image of Tom Osborne being stoic, and his teams having a reputation for being…dare I say…boring. […]
What Bob Devaney Saw in Tom Osborne
If you wanted to make the case that God’s a Cornhusker, there might not be a better place to start than here: Tom Osborne arrived on Nebraska’s campus as a young graduate student in pursuit of a PhD within a month of Bob Devaney taking over as the Huskers’ head football coach. Call it luck, […]