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A Sobering Stat

Prairie Sage said:
Actually it began in 1998 two weeks apart. When Texas came into Memorial Stadium and showed there was nothing to be afraid of with the one-two punch of Williams and Applewhite. Then two weeks later we were finally beaten in Manhattan, Kansas. Two games that showed teams were no longer afraid of us.
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Prairie Sage said:
I'm just saying Texas showed everyone we weren't the same. The fear of playing Nebraska was never the same after that. As you said earlier, some teams had never had that fear, Oklahoma, Miami, FSU, but most of the Big Eight did. The Colorado loss just cemented it.
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Count me in as one who does not believe the '98 season showed the first signs of our collapse.

Let's remember -- those Texas and Kansas State teams were very good. Both finished in the top 15 in the polls. And neither destroyed Nebraska -- a loss by 4 to UT and by 10 to KSU.

Also, that '98 team was the most injured in Nebraska history. I no longer remember the exact numbers, but at the time, it was -- by far -- the most combined missed games due to injuries by starters in NU history.

And once we returned to health in '99, we were a powerhouse again. Beat #5 K-State 41-15. Avenged our only regular season loss by beating Texas in the Big 12 title game 22-6. Finished #2/#3 in the polls. A tweak in the BCS calculations a year or two later would have actually put Nebraska in the '99 season national title game. That 1999 Nebraska team was one of the 3-4 best Husker teams to not win a national title.
 

treeplanter said:
There is no doubt that Nebraska football has fallen down big time and I think that we can all agree, more or less, on the physical reasons for and why this having happened - that said, who agrees with me that there are significant psychological factors also at play?
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Me. I have wondered how to broach this. When I played HS and 1 year of Small College basketball, I had a coach who said we should all give up something during the season. I went to HS and College in the 1970s so I always gave up smoking weed. It killed you in the conditioning drills anyway. When I got to college I watched our seniors continually blow 20 point leads and lose. Then I went to one of their in-season parties and it was apparent to me right away. They were all smoking, no wonder they always ran out of gas in the last 10 minutes.

Given that we have had some arrests for this, and the fact that what they are smoking now is so much more powerful than what we were doing then, watching the team's performance at the end of games in the last two years has had me wondering... I know they test for it but still, the mental and physical breakdowns in the second half are suspicious.

By the way, I live in Georgia now and only rarely partake, like when I visited my brother in Oregon. If I lived in a state where it was legal I would definitely be using it for arthritis. Running up and down hardwood and cement courts for 6 years wearing Chuck Taylors left my feet in pretty bad shape.
 



Elwood von Kiowa said:
That was the best K-State team in maybe - ever, and they had been gunning for us for at least 10 years. And it took a near decapitation of EC to do it.

Everyone paying attention should have known that we'd have a drop-off in '98, even if TO had stayed. But we righted the ship in '99.

Black Friday 2001 was the turning point. It felt that way at the time, and still does today.
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Big 12 did us in. Why TO left couldn’t compete with more tough teams.
 




CrabHusker said:
It's been so long since Nebraska was a really good football team, I'm not sure the exact genesis of that overall slide is really important anymore.

The sobering stats to me are:

  1. No Conference titles since 1999
  2. No 11 win seasons since 2001
  3. No Division titles since 2012
  4. No 10 win seasons since 2012
  5. No winning seasons since 2016
  6. No bowls since 2016
  7. No ranked seasons since 2013
  8. No individual trophy winners since 2009
  9. No All Americans since 2011
Nebraska just hasn't been good for around a decade now. Hasn't been 'Really good' for twenty years.

It's been long enough.

Time to start a new string of positive stats.
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All the more reason to be patient my brothers. This ain’t a quick fix my friends. We can’t just snap our fingers and produce excellence. It has to be built from the ground floor .... the foundation had to be torn down and rebuilt. Scott has not even finished the tear down yet. (Although I think he is close there) For many of my brothers here the offensive and defensive lines are the most important part of this rebuild and from what I’ve seen from the hype, the o-line has some potential. And they are or will be monsters. Personally I think this is the key to EVERYTHING and really like where that is heading. Have faith my friends. GBR
 
Prairie Sage said:
I had a high school teammate (basketball) whose son was on the football team from 1994 to 1998 including his redshirt year. When the player visited after the 1999 season when he was a pro he told his father, the players now had no idea how much hard work you have to put in to be successful. Those guys in the 90s worked and pushed each other to the max. His son said the current players thought they were good because they had been recruited by Nebraska. They didn't realize how much work it took to be Nebraska. It was telling when Scott Frost had Wistrom and Peter talk to the current team but they obviously didn't impart to everyone what it takes.
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That right there is the intangible that has been missing. I don’t think you can teach that. It HAS to be from the players!!!! And it has to be from a good portion of the team.
 




p-ville husker said:
They split and only got it as TO retired and Frost. Cried on interview
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It may be arguable to some that NU didn't "deserve" to "share" the national title with Michigan that year,
but it is inarguable that NU had a damn good team that year.

Losing to AZ in 96 like we did hurt, but it was a far cry from "the beginning of the end"
 
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