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Social Media, Rabid Fan Base and Egomaniacs

Ogahusker

All Big 10
20 Year Member
Brace yourself...…...I haven't posted on the football board for a LONG time, but I had some thoughts knocking around in my head and thought I'd barf them up here for anyone who cares to endure my rant.
I want to preface this by saying I don't claim to have the answers as to why the Huskers are in this never-ending, prolonged funk. It's been almost 2 decades of watching a team that's underwhelming, overhyped and carrying the ghosts of Huskers past. There's been far more heartache than celebration. If we reset our trophy case around the turn of the century, it'd be a sobering reminder of the past 18 or so years. Instead, we have a museum, which is very impressive, but nothing current to hang our hats on.
So as I sat on my couch in the waning moments of the Minnesota game in that all-too-familiar numbing fog, I started to try to piece together what the hell went wrong......again. Well, there's the obvious. Our O and D lines are just terrible. Sure, you can blame recruiting, but can anyone really say that most of the teams we have faced so far recruited better? So is it player development? Coaching? All of the above? Then my mind went bonkers with all the other stuff. No downfield threat at WR. Play calling. Missed tackles (spearing, diving tackling instead of wrapping up), snaps from center, stupid penalties, on and on and on.
This is about the time I went down a road that I hadn't really thought about. Several have mentioned that this team lacks fire, motivation, heart and guts. I tend to agree, but WHY? We have seen a revolving door of coaches and nothing seems to have changed. There seems to be a reoccurring problem with the team and the culture. Another disclaimer: This theory may not be the problem, but it's a theory of mine, and maybe others, so I apologize if this has been discussed. I don't claim to be Yoda.
I firmly believe that our passion as fans may also be a detriment to our teams, especially since the advent of social media. We take great pride in our impressive numbers as a fan base. The sellout streak is now our biggest claim to fame and a huge recruiting tool. Ok, that's perfectly understandable, but we also have some of the largest following of recruits on social media.
Bear with me on this one.
When a recruit gets the kind of attention from a fan base like they do from Husker fans, does that take some of their motivation to win away? Do they hit campus as a rock star and have less motivation to win?
Think about it. The teams of the 90's didn't have this. Sure, they were recognized on recruiting visits and were awed by the numbers in and around the stadium on gameday, but they didn't have a massive "following" like these kids do this day and age. And I would say that the "following" they get from Nebraska fans is unmatched. Think the high school recruits don't notice this and eat it up? Most do and they use it as a tool. Ever see a recruit Tweet "Where's the love, Husker fans?" Instantly, they go from a few hundred followers to thousands of Huskers fans. I admire our passion as much as anyone, but now I am starting to think it's working against us.
I've seen players post game pictures of themselves in blowout losses, like they were proud of themselves. That seems to support my theory that a lot of players aren't here to win. A lot, not all, are here to make a name for themselves and that's it. In the 90's and long before, there weren't too many ways to get that instant recognition. Players were lucky to get their picture in the paper and most didn't care. Today, the competition isn't on the field, it's on social media. That's how they get their fame, gratification and recognition and no bigger stage than at Nebraska. No, it's not THEE problem, but it is A problem. With or without social media, a lot of these kids already have a bit of an ego. They'd almost have to and that's understandable. I think it comes with the territory of being a "star" and playing at a level worthy of a D-1 scholarship. But Nebraska fans feed that beast more than any other school and we are proud of it. My question to you is, are we stuffing these kids with attention giving them less to play for? So when we chastise them for lacking fire, are we partially to blame?

FIRE AWAY!! :)
 
You might be onto something Oga.... it's definitely between their ears. Dr. Jack Stark joined our program in 1991 and left in 2003, Scott knows this and it needs to be addressed.
 
I would completely agree with the OP if NU had the only players in D1 athletics on social media. To say that NU players have more followers and that makes them feel like superstars is a stretch, since many, many players who are on winning, NC type teams also have a large number of followers. I highly doubt starters at Bama or OSU have noticeably fewer followers than a new recruit to NU.
 
To me, one of the unfortunate problems is that every week is a referendum on the head coach, every assistant, the administration, and every player with increasing weight and angst. There was only a brief reset with the Frost hire, and that has now turned extremely ugly.

Fifteen plus years of cumulative angst and pressure doesn’t have the desired effect.
 



I wish I knew who the assistant was yawning on the sidelines, on national TV while we were getting our butt handed to us. Not a good look.
 
Great post and I agree with much of what you say. The fans of Nebraska football have been awesome over these 20 years.

A real winner sets his soul on fire 24/7 to win....its a mentality, a lifestyle. We have a few guys like that on this team... but far too many who are not. A real winner senses a bad performance coming and prepares even harder... a loser never sees it coming (see Minnesota game).
 
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Is it true that Nebraska fans are more fanatical than other fan bases when it comes to following recruits on Twitter? If so, that bothers me.

I've never followed, Tweeted, re-Tweeted, liked, or any other possible Twitter interaction with high school recruits. To me, that's bottom of the barrel behavior by an adult fan.

That said, I'm not sure if this is (or isn't) creating a problem when these recruits become UNL student athletes.
 



Brace yourself...…...I haven't posted on the football board for a LONG time, but I had some thoughts knocking around in my head and thought I'd barf them up here for anyone who cares to endure my rant.
I want to preface this by saying I don't claim to have the answers as to why the Huskers are in this never-ending, prolonged funk. It's been almost 2 decades of watching a team that's underwhelming, overhyped and carrying the ghosts of Huskers past. There's been far more heartache than celebration. If we reset our trophy case around the turn of the century, it'd be a sobering reminder of the past 18 or so years. Instead, we have a museum, which is very impressive, but nothing current to hang our hats on.
So as I sat on my couch in the waning moments of the Minnesota game in that all-too-familiar numbing fog, I started to try to piece together what the hell went wrong......again. Well, there's the obvious. Our O and D lines are just terrible. Sure, you can blame recruiting, but can anyone really say that most of the teams we have faced so far recruited better? So is it player development? Coaching? All of the above? Then my mind went bonkers with all the other stuff. No downfield threat at WR. Play calling. Missed tackles (spearing, diving tackling instead of wrapping up), snaps from center, stupid penalties, on and on and on.
This is about the time I went down a road that I hadn't really thought about. Several have mentioned that this team lacks fire, motivation, heart and guts. I tend to agree, but WHY? We have seen a revolving door of coaches and nothing seems to have changed. There seems to be a reoccurring problem with the team and the culture. Another disclaimer: This theory may not be the problem, but it's a theory of mine, and maybe others, so I apologize if this has been discussed. I don't claim to be Yoda.
I firmly believe that our passion as fans may also be a detriment to our teams, especially since the advent of social media. We take great pride in our impressive numbers as a fan base. The sellout streak is now our biggest claim to fame and a huge recruiting tool. Ok, that's perfectly understandable, but we also have some of the largest following of recruits on social media.
Bear with me on this one.
When a recruit gets the kind of attention from a fan base like they do from Husker fans, does that take some of their motivation to win away? Do they hit campus as a rock star and have less motivation to win?
Think about it. The teams of the 90's didn't have this. Sure, they were recognized on recruiting visits and were awed by the numbers in and around the stadium on gameday, but they didn't have a massive "following" like these kids do this day and age. And I would say that the "following" they get from Nebraska fans is unmatched. Think the high school recruits don't notice this and eat it up? Most do and they use it as a tool. Ever see a recruit Tweet "Where's the love, Husker fans?" Instantly, they go from a few hundred followers to thousands of Huskers fans. I admire our passion as much as anyone, but now I am starting to think it's working against us.
I've seen players post game pictures of themselves in blowout losses, like they were proud of themselves. That seems to support my theory that a lot of players aren't here to win. A lot, not all, are here to make a name for themselves and that's it. In the 90's and long before, there weren't too many ways to get that instant recognition. Players were lucky to get their picture in the paper and most didn't care. Today, the competition isn't on the field, it's on social media. That's how they get their fame, gratification and recognition and no bigger stage than at Nebraska. No, it's not THEE problem, but it is A problem. With or without social media, a lot of these kids already have a bit of an ego. They'd almost have to and that's understandable. I think it comes with the territory of being a "star" and playing at a level worthy of a D-1 scholarship. But Nebraska fans feed that beast more than any other school and we are proud of it. My question to you is, are we stuffing these kids with attention giving them less to play for? So when we chastise them for lacking fire, are we partially to blame?

FIRE AWAY!! :)
I've been wondering about this too; you have an interesting take on it. It boils down to celebrity. I hadn't thought of the social media aspect but the inevitable notarity of being part of a big time football team. Sign with NU and instantly you're a Big Man on Campus. Big fish in a little pond mentality. Instead of coming here with the passion and drive to become a champion, are a significant number of guys coming here to latch on to the past so they can merely act like champions? Do they see it as a stepping stone to the NFL? Pro Big Red, anyone?

Frost has said he likes guys who like to hit. More importantly, he needs more of those types of players, more than the handful we have. I think it was at halftime that Frost said the guys who keep making stupid mistakes need to stop or they won't be playing. The same needs to be said about the guys who aren't playing mean, tough, slobberknocker football. And the guys riding pine right now need to believe that's a sincere promise. If you're playing harder than the guy in front of you, you're going to get your shot.

Good OP.
 
i totally agree and i share the same sentiment. i've tried articulating this a number of times, but not as well as you did. i think this is why NU is in this perpetual funk. these other teams that resurrect could do it under less pressure, less attention, less everything. NU football is under so much pressure, all the time, even when there should be NO expectation, there still is. NU can never play as the underdog. the kids don't have to earn any attention, its given to them in spoonfuls. they come here, become gods, get to play in bigtime night games, with gameday on hand, for no reason other then they are at Nebraska. a place that was built through a lot of hardwork, by other people, many years ago.

i started a thread after the OSU game about how the program needs to just go dark. stop all the attention, all the twitter, and fanfare. stop slobbering all over these kids, and let them earn the respect they get. of course i got flamed and torched cause how we will recruit the 5 star kids if we don't show them love and attention and consume their every tweet. my response to that is who cares. NU needs to start at ground zero and by the way, Wisconsin and Iowa sure do OK without 5 star stacked teams.

what makes Nebraska so special, is IMO, the very thing that is making it SO hard to get back on track.
 
I too have not posted on this board in a few years and your thoughts are much like mine. I too have wondered how the same problems can continue from coach to coach at NU. My theory is similar to yours, but instead of the focus on social media, it is more about "the past" and "tradition" at Nebraska.

In 2019, Nebraska has more past glory than any other team in a "down cycle" and it is also the longest ago. We may be reaching a point, as others have hinted to, when our past glories may be too long ago to point to without seeming absurd.

A typical comparison is Minnesota. Minnesota was a powerhouse for decades. They the third most Big Ten championships, but their last was in 1967, fifty two years ago. Nebraska's last conference championship was, as we all know well, 20 years ago. Our last meaningful *wins* were in 2001, eighteen years ago. Eighteen years after Minnesota last had won the Big Ten was 1985, one year after a home-and-home series in which NU had outscored the Gophers 122-20.

Does anyone think that in 1985 anyone in Minnesota's program was pointing to their 1967 Big Ten championship trophy? Flexing about how many All-Americans they had in the 1930s? No.

We may still be ten or so years away, but there will come a point when announcers no longer talk about "will Nebraska be back?" any more than people wonder when Minnesota will be back. No one under 35 years old ever says things like, "College football is better when Nebraska is good." There will come a time when that saying dies because no one who matters will remember when we were good.

Like I said, this may be ten years away, but it is coming. How will we deal with it?

This was brought to mind in the recent articles about the new football facilities. Moos was quoted at length in all of them about how the facilities will emphasize the "history" of the program. He talked about how the pictures of All-Americans will hang on the wall so the coaches can say to a current defensive end, "Look at Grant Wistrom there. Do you want your picture on the wall one day like him?" You can do that with some authority with someone like Suh, but he's an outlier. Most of the other All-Americans on the wall at NU's facilities might as well be wearing leather helmets to a 16-17 year old recruit.

Yet NU's fans, administrators, and coaches talk about it today as the main thing the program can hang its hat on. And that may be true. But I think it has psychologically poisoned our players and recruits since 2011 or so. They see all the trophies and portraits from increasingly distant glory days and the buy into that. They get a greater sense of worth as players, they think--even subconsciously--by historical osmosis. They think that some of the greatness of those teams and players seeps into them from the walls and that one day, if they just get this one win, Nebraska will be "back" and they will get to bask in those same glories.

But it won't.

They have to earn it. It won't come to them from touching a dusty old Sears trophy, or a portrait of Dean Steinkuhler or Tommie Frazier or even Ndamukong Suh.

But I think this emphasis on history is part of what makes this team fragile. Part of what makes it soft, whether Callahan, Pelini, Riley, or Frost is at the helm. With every loss and every missed tackle, they take it harder because they think they've let down those past players, past teams, and past and current fans. With every mediocre season, they think the national championship that they *should* get to play for because they're at Nebraska is out of reach and they get let down, they lose confidence, they play slower. Because 8-4 isn't good enough. 9-3 isn't good enough. 10-2 isn't good enough. Sure as heck 7-5 or worse isn't. So when that is staring them in the face, I think they think--even if just in the back of their heads--why bother.

UCF does not have this problem.

Heck, guys at CLEMSON do not even have this problem. Back in 2008-09, you can be sure Dabo Sweeney was not playing hype videos with highlights from Clemson's 1981 season and leading players on tours of portraits of Danny Ford and Jeff Davis and Homer Jordan (yeah, I had to look them up). Sure, the trophy was in the case, but that was just about it. To point to it as some sort of glory and birthright would have been ridiculous.

Nebraska certainly had a much longer more glorious run than anyone else from 1970 to 2001. But it's over. And the longer 2001 is in the past the more ridiculous it is going to seem to keep reveling in those glories and using them as motivation, as something to get "back" to as if by divine right. It will just be ancient football history. Like Minnesota or Army's glory days.

Sure Florida State is down. And USC. And Tennessee. But no other "blue blood" program (and Nebraska still is one, as any perusal at Winsidpedia will tell you) has now been down for longer. I used to take comfort in our "down" period being 9-3 or 9-4 but even those days are long over. Every other blue blood who has been down has at least a flicker of more recent success to point to in addition to the "glory days." Some have had a lot more, or they have been on top again. Or they're making new "glory days" now! (Alabama, USC, ND, even Penn State to a large degree.)

Georgia is another example. Until recently, they had 1980 and Herschel Walker. That was great and some fans were delusional about it. But the AD and coaches were not using 1980 as a recruiting tool and acting like current players *JOB* was to engineer a time machine back to that year. No. And certainly not 1942. They used location and money to just hire coaches, get players, and get good. And they have a lot more players close by and just as much money and facilities as us, and guess what? They STILL have not won a national championship since 1980. But do you think their players care about that? Heck no. They are playing for the here and now. Let the old fans pine for the past. Georgia is not trying to get "back." They are here and are trying to make it all happen at once.

Nebraska almost was back. In 2009-2011, we had one of the best defenses ever, with NFL caliber guys all over at every level. Had we had a competent offense, we may very well have won a national title. We certainly would have won the BIg 12 once or twice in that span.

But you know, the guys on that team were around 10 when Nebraska won the national title in 1997. They were about 14, in high school or about to start, when Nebraska had a Heisman winner and played for the national title. To them then, Nebraska's past glories were still close enough to be a real memory. Getting "back" was still something to play for that had meaning. It wasn't getting a bit ridiculous, it was real motivation. Those were also the last *tough* teams we had.

Ever since then, through three coaches, we've gotten softer and worse in all the same way. The turnovers. The lack of effort. The emotional fragility. They lack of sideline intensity. All of it. Not coincidentally, after that point, Nebraska's past became increasingly distant and unrelatable to its current players.

Now? Most of our recruits were not born in 2001. Our freshmen were in infant-sized diapers. Playing for Nebraska to get "back" to its place among the "elites" is starting to get not just a little old, but a little sad, and a little ridiculous. But when Moos is still emphasizing how that past will be the primary decor and ambiance of the new facilities, it makes me wonder if we are now actively contributing to a psychological problem that has dogged us since 2015 if not 2012--we're living in the past.

And that constant emphasis on the past from all levels of the fans, the administration, the coaches (even if only by the fact that Scott Frost is from that past), I think is at least partially responsible for what has been wrong with this team for the past five plus years. It is still going on as is obvious from Moos's comments about what the new facilities will look like.

Don't get me wrong. Our past is valuable. It is, frankly, the only reason we have a coach like Scott Frost now. He came back from Stanford to Nebraska because of that tradition. Eric Crouch stayed in state because of that tradition. Even Suh and Amukamara and David and those guys still, on some level, could be swayed by that past because they still remembered it from their childhood. But those days are gone. They are too far in the past for any emphasis on that past to be beneficial, and, in fact, I think it is harmful.

I think the only way we are going to get past it, is to quit emphasizing it. Let the old players come talk if they want, but otherwise, let the past be the past, not the goal. I'm not saying empty out the trophy case until the teams start to earn those old trophies back, but maybe relocate it to somewhere less obvious, somewhere secondary, somewhere in the back, by the guys with the leather helmets. Same with the portraits of old All-Americans. Put it in a museum even, not in the actual football facilities. Instead, in the main atrium of the new facility, but an big, empty trophy case. Hang empty frames in the hallways for pictures of new All-Americans. Let's all start looking toward the future. It can start with Moos and the new facilities and even now.

Nebraska can win again. We can get the guys and the coaching and do it. It might look more like Utah or Wisconsin than the NU of old, but we can do it. But we can't get there with a focus on the past. It is messing with the psychology of our teams and players today.
 
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I would completely agree with the OP if NU had the only players in D1 athletics on social media. To say that NU players have more followers and that makes them feel like superstars is a stretch, since many, many players who are on winning, NC type teams also have a large number of followers. I highly doubt starters at Bama or OSU have noticeably fewer followers than a new recruit to NU.
the argument isn't that NU is the ONLY team who deals with celebrity....the argument is that Nebraska is the only place where the celebrity given isn't ANYWHERE close to matching reality. dudes at Bama earned the right. same for OSU. why in the world should anyone even care about what Darrion Daniels or anyone else on the NU teams says or thinks outloud on twitter? we shouldn't.

the fact that we're even talking about NU football right now proves the point. the fact that this very forum even exists, is a testament to what other people built, a long time ago. Nobody is on a Northwestern chatboard talking about their team, and there are maybe 12 gopher fans discussing their team. Yet i would take either of the grit of those teams any day, over what we have.

i think Frost can fix it. but its not gonna be easy. there is more going on then just x's o's football.
 



The fans have nothing to do with the product on the field. So much mone has been spent and their is nothing to show for it, yet if the fans didn't support the program the way they do the program would be even a bigger dumpster fire.

The team needs a killer instinct, they need to toughen the hell up.
 
I too have not posted on this board in a few years and your thoughts are much like mine. I too have wondered how the same problems can continue from coach to coach at NU. My theory is similar to yours, but instead of the focus on social media, it is more about "the past" and "tradition" at Nebraska.

In 2019, Nebraska has more past glory than any other team in a "down cycle" and it is also the longest ago. We may be reaching a point, as others have hinted to, when our past glories may be too long ago to point to without seeming absurd.

A typical comparison is Minnesota. Minnesota was a powerhouse for decades. They the third most Big Ten championships, but their last was in 1967, fifty two years ago. Nebraska's last conference championship was, as we all know well, 20 years ago. Our last meaningful *wins* were in 2001, eighteen years ago. Eighteen years after Minnesota last had won the Big Ten was 1985, one year after a home-and-home series in which NU had outscored the Gophers 122-20.

Does anyone think that in 1985 anyone in Minnesota's program was pointing to their 1967 Big Ten championship trophy? Flexing about how many All-Americans they had in the 1930s? No.

We may still be ten or so years away, but there will come a point when announcers no longer talk about "will Nebraska be back?" any more than people wonder when Minnesota will be back. No one under 35 years old ever says things like, "College football is better when Nebraska is good." There will come a time when that saying dies because no one who matters will remember when we were good.

Like I said, this may be ten years away, but it is coming. How will we deal with it?

This was brought to mind in the recent articles about the new football facilities. Moos was quoted at length in all of them about how the facilities will emphasize the "history" of the program. He talked about how the pictures of All-Americans will hang on the wall so the coaches can say to a current defensive end, "Look at Grant Wistrom there. Do you want your picture on the wall one day like him?" You can do that with some authority with someone like Suh, but he's an outlier. Most of the other All-Americans on the wall at NU's facilities might as well be wearing leather helmets to a 16-17 year old recruit.

Yet NU's fans, administrators, and coaches talk about it today as the main thing the program can hang its hat on. And that may be true. But I think it has psychologically poisoned our players and recruits since 2011 or so. They see all the trophies and portraits from increasingly distant glory days and the buy into that. They get a greater sense of worth as players, they think--even subconsciously--by historical osmosis. They think that some of the greatness of those teams and players seeps into them from the walls and that one day, if they just get this one win, Nebraska will be "back" and they will get to bask in those same glories.

But it won't.

They have to earn it. It won't come to them from touching a dusty old Sears trophy, or a portrait of Dean Steinkuhler or Tommie Frazier or even Ndamukong Suh.

But I think this emphasis on history is part of what makes this team fragile. Part of what makes it soft, whether Callahan, Pelini, Riley, or Frost is at the helm. With every loss and every missed tackle, they take it harder because they think they've let down those past players, past teams, and past and current fans. With every mediocre season, they think the national championship that they *should* get to play for because they're at Nebraska is out of reach and they get let down, they lose confidence, they play slower. Because 8-4 isn't good enough. 9-3 isn't good enough. 10-2 isn't good enough. Sure as heck 7-5 or worse isn't. So when that is staring them in the face, I think they think--even if just in the back of their heads--why bother.

UCF does not have this problem.

Heck, guys at CLEMSON do not even have this problem. Back in 2008-09, you can be sure Dabo Sweeney was not playing hype videos with highlights from Clemson's 1981 season and leading players on tours of portraits of Danny Ford and Jeff Davis and Homer Jordan (yeah, I had to look them up). Sure, the trophy was in the case, but that was just about it. To point to it as some sort of glory and birthright would have been ridiculous.

Nebraska certainly had a much longer more glorious run than anyone else from 1970 to 2001. But it's over. And the longer 2001 is in the past the more ridiculous it is going to seem to keep reveling in those glories and using them as motivation, as something to get "back" to as if by divine right. It will just be ancient football history. Like Minnesota or Army's glory days.

Sure Florida State is down. And USC. And Tennessee. But no other "blue blood" program (and Nebraska still is one, as any perusal at Winsidpedia will tell you) has now been down for longer. I used to take comfort in our "down" period being 9-3 or 9-4 but even those days are long over. Every other blue blood who has been down has at least a flicker of more recent success to point to in addition to the "glory days." Some have had a lot more, or they have been on top again. Or they're making new "glory days" now! (Alabama, USC, ND, even Penn State to a large degree.)

Georgia is another example. Until recently, they had 1980 and Herschel Walker. That was great and some fans were delusional about it. But the AD and coaches were not using 1980 as a recruiting tool and acting like current players *JOB* was to engineer a time machine back to that year. No. And certainly not 1942. They used location and money to just hire coaches, get players, and get good. And they have a lot more players close by and just as much money and facilities as us, and guess what? They STILL have not won a national championship since 1980. But do you think their players care about that? Heck no. They are playing for the here and now. Let the old fans pine for the past. Georgia is not trying to get "back." They are here and are trying to make it all happen at once.

Nebraska almost was back. In 2009-2011, we had one of the best defenses ever, with NFL caliber guys all over at every level. Had we had a competent offense, we may very well have won a national title. We certainly would have won the BIg 12 once or twice in that span.

But you know, the guys on that team were around 10 when Nebraska won the national title in 1997. They were about 14, in high school or about to start, when Nebraska had a Heisman winner and played for the national title. To them then, Nebraska's past glories were still close enough to be a real memory. Getting "back" was still something to play for that had meaning. It wasn't getting a bit ridiculous, it was real motivation. Those were also the last *tough* teams we had.

Ever since then, through three coaches, we've gotten softer and worse in all the same way. The turnovers. The lack of effort. The emotional fragility. They lack of sideline intensity. All of it. Not coincidentally, after that point, Nebraska's past became increasingly distant and unrelatable to its current players.

Now? Most of our recruits were not born in 2001. Our freshmen were in infant-sized diapers. Playing for Nebraska to get "back" to its place among the "elites" is starting to get not just a little old, but a little sad, and a little ridiculous. But when Moos is still emphasizing how that past will be the primary decor and ambiance of the new facilities, it makes me wonder if we are now actively contributing to a psychological problem that has dogged us since 2015 if not 2012--we're living in the past.

And that constant emphasis on the past from all levels of the fans, the administration, the coaches (even if only by the fact that Scott Frost is from that past), I think is at least partially responsible for what has been wrong with this team for the past five plus years. It is still going on as is obvious from Moos's comments about what the new facilities will look like.

Don't get me wrong. Our past is valuable. It is, frankly, the only reason we have a coach like Scott Frost now. He came back from Stanford to Nebraska because of that tradition. Eric Crouch stayed in state because of that tradition. Even Suh and Amukamara and David and those guys still, on some level, could be swayed by that past because they still remembered it from their childhood. But those days are gone. They are too far in the past for any emphasis on that past to be beneficial, and, in fact, I think it is harmful.

I think the only way we are going to get past it, is to quit emphasizing it. Let the old players come talk if they want, but otherwise, let the past be the past, not the goal. I'm not saying empty out the trophy case until the teams start to earn those old trophies back, but maybe relocate it to somewhere less obvious, somewhere secondary, somewhere in the back, by the guys with the leather helmets. Same with the portraits of old All-Americans. Put it in a museum even, not in the actual football facilities. Instead, in the main atrium of the new facility, but an big, empty trophy case. Hang empty frames in the hallways for pictures of new All-Americans. Let's all start looking toward the future. It can start with Moos and the new facilities and even now.

Nebraska can win again. We can get the guys and the coaching and do it. It might look more like Utah or Wisconsin than the NU of old, but we can do it. But we can't get there with a focus on the past. It is messing with the psychology of our teams and players today.
boom. you nailed it.

I think previous coaches have sort of picked up on this vibe, and probably went about trying to figure out how to separate the two. (past history from present reality). of course, we as fans would go bonkers about how a previous coach was "ignoring" our tradition. Bo Pelini seemed to foster an "us (the team) vs the world (fans, admin etc) and that was equally poisoning to the program. its complicated, and not an easy fix but I believe Frost can do it.
 

Is it true that Nebraska fans are more fanatical than other fan bases when it comes to following recruits on Twitter? If so, that bothers me.

I've never followed, Tweeted, re-Tweeted, liked, or any other possible Twitter interaction with high school recruits. To me, that's bottom of the barrel behavior by an adult fan.

That said, I'm not sure if this is (or isn't) creating a problem when these recruits become UNL student athletes.
There is nothing unique about nebraska fans or the nebraska fishbowl. It exists everywhere. Ask Jim Harbaugh at Michigan. OSU, Bama, OU, Texas. Fans are nuts everywhere.
 

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