I’m a born and bred Nebraska farmer and I was born in 02. As a kid I was told stories about the “great times”. My grandparents have been ticket holders since the early 70s and my uncle was a letterman LB in the 70s. My whole life this has been miserable. We need this so badly.
I was born in Nebraska in 1991 and have lived here all my life. I’m so glad you began the video by putting the state’s location/population into the proper context. I feel like it’s an often overlooked part of why the success they had for all those years was so special. There is truly no equal in the sport. A landlocked state with less than 2 million people ran shit for decades. There will never be a run like it again. I really wish people outside of the state would take the time to truly appreciate Tom Osborne’s tenure as head coach while he’s still with us. Who knows where we’d be without him.
A losing bowl record. Osborne had a losing record to 9 win teams. He could never win the biggest of games. Spurrier still owns the worst SEC championship loss in its 31 year history. 56-17 5-12 against Switzer, Never played a good OU team during the Skip Along. Blah, blah, blah. After the Big Easy crashed, Neb has been a shell. Solich and Pelini were 9 win coaches and got canned bec Neb did not want another Osborne. Pelini never won a game that mattered.
I'm an old man lifelong Michigan fan since 1970. So i saw Nebraska's dominance...the Bama of their day. I have tons of respect for the rich tradition of an old blueblood like Nebraska and hope that their program returns to something that their GREAT fans deserve. I think that Matt Rhule has a good shot at that.
Respect man. Congrats on the natty idc if you guys cheated or not. Last year Michigan was like the Nebraska teams of old. Michigan is a blue blood like us so I always root for you guys when you aren’t playing us.
The firing of Frank Solich was one of the worst administrative decisions in college football history. They were unreasonable and greedy and have been paying for it ever since.
You have no clue in what you are spewing. Forget about Neb for second. Look at his pathetic results at Ohio, where he was supposed to lite up the world and show everyone that Neb made a mistake. LOL. Total confirmation they were spot on in firing him.
@@mas5867 You fired a coach after a 10 win season. The AD at the time said he was not going to “let the program gravitate into mediocrity.” How did it work out for the Huskers? That’s what I thought…
@@toddhawk9921 Again you talk and stick your foot in your mouth. 42-7 followed by 16-12 with his players. Beat 1 team in that last 28 that finished ranked. McNeese State. There are several more stats that absolutely confirm that regardless of the future, Neb could not hold on to the drunkard.
The only time I ever rooted for the Huskers is when they played Florida in the Fiesta Bowl, Seeing Spurrier slamming his visor down over and over really made my day.
I've always pulled for Nebraska, even though I'm from NJ. The Huskers were the true champions in '97, should have jumped Virginia Tech and played FSU for the national championship in '99, and I pulled for them against Miami in the Rose Bowl, but that was just a bad match-up stylistically. Nebraska, like Florida, used to get the best players in the country. That's not the case anymore. Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, LSU, Texas, Alabama, etc. have been dominating national recruiting in recent years. Leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten wasn't the best decision either. The only way Nebraska will ever get back is through recruiting.
@@RobbieStacks90 Even after winning Nat Championships...NU ranked ONLY tenth in recruiting after the first Natty? Wow. Usually a Natty gives you more credibility. Most five stars, won't go to Lincoln. Four stars usually stay home. It's still an obscure part of the world (the upper miswest plains states). NU could get four stars and 3-3.5 stars. That's it...the rest was development. Iowa under Ferentz, has far outperformed anyone's expectations with less to offer.
It’s pretty inaccurate actually. Devaney never ran the option. Nor was Osborne’s offense a true option, but rather an element in a power run/play action pass based scheme. He also very inaccurately lumped Biff Jones as one of the bad coaches when he’s actually the first on the outside looking in on NU’s Mount Rushmore. NU’s problem the past quarter century was a combination of Osborne’s meddling and cheaping out when hiring coaches. The search that landed Rhule was the first real onesince the one that landed Devaney.
@@johnfahrer5038 A lot of your points are on point, but I think you attribute far too much to Osborne "meddling". Frank Solich helped Osborne win 3 🏆 and then continued on to have a HoF coaching career after leaving Nebraska. I have a hard time believing we wouldn't have competed for another couple championships with him at the helm. Osborne had zero intervention on either Callahan or Riley and both Pelini and Frost were obvious hires at their respective times. It was a coup based on legacy that even allowed us to land Frost. I think bad luck plays a far bigger role in the drastic demise of Nebraska than most give credit to. Callahan got commits from two multi-year NFL starter QBs who ended up going elsewhere and then we ended up with arguably two of the worst starting QBs in Nebraska's recent-ish history instead (Joe Dailey and Sam Keller). If Freeman or Gabbert had come to Nebraska I truly believe our recent history could be very different.
The thing is that Nebraska will be hard pressed to get back to the top but they really didn't need to do that to get 9-10 wins. They have (until this year) been in two historically bad divisions where Nebraska was the best program, statistically, and still struggled: Big12 North and B1G West. The major dogs of their league (OU and Texas in Big12 and Ohio State and Michigan in the B1G) are in the other division. Not sure how Nebraska can't compete. Wisconsin (at least Wisconsin 2-3 years ago) looked more like the Nebraska of old and I think that is a good benchmark for Nebraska.
You can blame the changing environment of college football all you want but the fact is that programs like Wisconsin and Iowa have still managed to be successful. A competent coach is worth his weight in gold and Nebraska hasn't had one since Solich.
@@NotaKamalaFan Exactly. Solich was beloved, but he was no Devaney or Osborne. He was the embodiment of the Peter Principle. There's a reason nobody hired him after he was fired. And after time off, all he could land was the Ohio gig. And even then, in the MAC, he was just another face in the crowd. Solich was killing recruiting, and Steve Pederson knew it.
It wasn't discussed in the video, but Nebraska's greatness came about right when national college TV broadcasts were taking off. With only a few national games every week, Nebraska was always on TV. As cable (and now streaming) became bigger, every school was on TV so kids didn't have to go to Nebraska just to be on TV.
My cousin played for Texas Tech back in the mid 90’s and he told me a story about when they played Nebraska. Zach Thomas was an All American linebacker for Tech at the time and on a run he just got rocked by a Nebraska lineman pancaked to hell and he said “get off me fat ass” to the Nebraska lineman, the lineman raised his jersey up while over the top of him with a muscled up 6 pack, and Thomas went back to the sideline and told Spike Dykes “Coach it’s about to be a long day” I think that’s how we all remember Nebraska during the 90’s. They just imposed their will they literally broke the most solid of teams.
Georgia fan here I remember those Nebraska teams of 94 and 95. GREAT! As a college football fan I hope they will return to that! Just makes college football the greatest sport ever! GO DAWGS!
I grew up in Denver and always hated Nebraska. Hated them because they were so good, I was intimidated by the home field advantage through the TV. All the linemen would get Peterbilt tatoos and thr Black Shirts was such a cool name for thr defense. As a Nebraska hater, I feel like college football is better when Nebraska is a power house. But if I was a 4 or 5 star recruit today, I do not think i would go there. Great video, great memories of this program in their prime.
Nebraska fans will have a lot to be happy about this year and the coming years. A resurgence of the program. UGA fan out here in Atlanta, a football fan in general. It's felt like yall have recently been right on the edge of turning the corner. You will be in the top 20 this year. Corner turned.
Callahan, threw the SUPER BOWL and then destroyed the HUSKER program. What a shame. I really miss the OKLAHOMA VS NEBRASKA SHOW DOWN, one of the greatest rivalries in college football history. I would get up at 2AM in southeast Asia to watch that game and i am from California. Tom Osborne is legendary. I loved how NEBRASKA recruited their lineman from those small high schools. I hope for their return to prominence.
For some reason, the teams of the 90s were cursed through the entire 2010s. Nebraska, Tennessee, Michigan, Florida State, Miami, and even Florida had a really rough time. Seems like when 2020s started, everybody dug themselves out of that hole except Nebraska.
@@Football__Junkie Nebraska has been in an ideological tug of war internally since Osborne retired. Frost failing so miserably may end up becoming a blessing.
A friend of mine from my teens, Lance Gray, walked on at Nebraska. It was kind of strange for a kid from upstate New York to end up at Nebraska but he showed up to one of their spring practices and gave his highlights to Coach Osborne. Osborne liked his tenacity and gave him a chance. He surprised everyone and started on their JV team his freshman year. They redshirted him his second year and then became a mainstay on special teams for the rest of his career. He earned the nickname Bullethead for his play on special teams.
@@dlowe4481 Not quite 50 but close enough (35 years), lol. They got rid of the JV team in Feb of 91 and his freshman year was fall of 89 so he was on one of their last JV teams.
Another thing that wasn’t mentioned was DeVaney was a pioneer of bringing black athletes into the program. Him and Bear Bryant were major programs that were early adopters of this.
56 year old Nebraska fan here, and you did a great job. A few things to add: 1) Osborne is the greatest offensive genius in the history of the game. Here’s why. a) He called every play from 1969-1997. He’s the only man to ever call the plays for Five National Championships, and I can’t remember how many times he called the plays for teams that made it to a NC game. b) he did NOT run the triple-option until much later than you realize. He ran what we’d call a Pro-style offense (look up Vince Ferragamo, Dave Humm). During those years they’d run the option about 3-4 times per game. You see, Osborne played WR in the NFL for a few years, and he wanted to spread teams out vertically. But after failing to get it done against OU for a good stretch, he COMPLETELY changed his O and switched to a Power-I that ran Wishbone concepts. He fired his throw-deep offensive coordinator (Tom Osborne), and hired the greatest Power-I, Option offensive coordinator in history (Tom Osborne). 2) Rule changes. There were several other rule changes that I will always believe were made in order to chop down Nebraska. a)Elimination of Freshman teams. Nebraska’s model was to run practice with four full 11-on-11 stations after individual/position drills. That’s 88+reserves going at it, getting more game situation reps for your underclassmen in a week than most programs got in two months. But that’s not all. They also had a Freshman team with their own coaches and staff. Those teams would play a 6-game schedule against teams like S. Dakota State. That’s a season of being a starter for your first year. Then you’d redshirt. Then you’d spend you R.Sophmore year on scout team. That makes one small season, then two years of 11-11 practices as an underclassmen. Then you’d play as Junior, maybe start as a Senior. This means they ran a complex offense requiring perfect timing, like clockwork. 3) Violence. Osborne was a nice guy. His coaches were not so nice. They’d famously take the starting o-line and d-line away from the rest of team, down under the south stadium stands, and in the dirt and I-beams they’d just fight, while practicing football. But mostly they’d fight - football was incidental. If you read a lot of the books produce about that time period, you’ll see that the players were often trying to injure opponent players, and would brag about it when they would. To be clear, I don’t mean hurt, I mean Injure. The book “Unbeatable” contains examples of this. Another example of the toughness: If a QB ran the ball out of bounds in practice, Osborne would have them running stairs until they decided it hurt less to just lower their shoulder into the safety. There’s more, but that’s about all my arthritic thumbs can handle. Great job on your video. GBR!
Great video! I watch it over and over, very interesting stuff about the UN program in the Bob Devaney-Tom Osborne era. I'm a UCLA fan, and enjoyed when UCLA played Nebraska several times between 1972 and 2013, the Nebraska fans and players were the best behaved. It didn't help that Nebraska lacked a modern passing game especially in the 1980's and 90's, though they totally destroyed Florida in the championship. Nebraska also had trouble with Oklahoma after that famous 1971 Game of the Century.
I'd add the increase in nationally televised games to this as well. From the 1960s-80s, the same handful of elite schools would have maybe 3 games a year total at most ever make it onto national TV- which was a lot for the time since 90% of teams got zero. For years, college football only had a "game of the week" format where ABC, NBC, or CBS would only air one big matchup a week. For example, you'd only get Michigan vs. Ohio State, Oklahoma vs. Texas, Alabama vs Tennessee, Notre Dame vs. USC as your only college football game that was broadcast anywhere in America that weekend. With this format, it made it easier for the few household names to continue recruiting great players to their schools. When ESPN hit the scene in the 1980s, then you started seeing more and more teams get national exposure, which made it easier for the recruiting hotbeds to not lose their best in-state players to the same handful of prestige programs elsewhere every year. This is about the same time when the Florida States, Miamis, Floridas, LSUs, Georgias, and Penn States started becoming major players in college football when they previously hadn't been. Simply because kids in Louisiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Georgia now had reasons to stay home and play for their home state schools instead of going to a Nebraska for the increased exposure. This erasure of the national television monopoly is also about the same time when Notre Dame started to lose it's grip on power in the sport too. Like Nebraska, no one who grew up in the warm weather Southern and West Coast states had a reason to attempt uprooting to frigid, faraway states like Nebraska and Indiana because it increased their likelihood of getting discovered by NFL scouts. With ESPN, now they could get discovered in their own backyards. I think the primary lesson to take from all of this is that if you want to remain consistently competitive, you need to be the top school in a recruiting hotbed. No matter how much your administration screws things up and makes bad decisions, as long as your home state produces enough talent to sustain you through lean years, you'll never really fall too far behind. Sure, Alabama, Texas, USC, and Ohio State have all suffered erosion in greatness for certain spells of time, but they never fall so far behind that they can't make big comebacks in just a year or two because their recruiting gardens are always ripe and abundant.
Wrong. The only reason those national games were like that's is bc the ncaa had a rule where a team could only have so many games broadcast. Uga sued them and won.this is why the games are seen everywhere now
Disagree about the weather reasoning. Winters in Lincoln are much milder now then they were in 80s and 90s. Ohio State and Michigan get national championship caliber talent.
Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns they were getting big in the year 2000's to the 2010 in the Big XII conference. That why Nebraska leaves the Big XII conference in 2011.
@@williamdiemert9866 I seem to recall that Tom Osborne was upset with Texas' political dominance of the Big 12, so Nebraska jumped at the chance to join the Big Ten.
Hey all. This is the first one of these we've made! We want to hear how you feel about it. And if you have suggestions for future Dead Letters or similar videos, we'd love to hear them.
Really good job. It's a story I've studied a lot myself. One correction is that Nebraska never ran "triple option." They ran double options and every power, gap, and trap scheme known to man, though!
@@hawkishOwl2020 Hey, thanks for listening! Alex here. I think you're right, but that's sort of what I was getting at with "version of the triple option." They certainly had many give/keep/pitch plays but were by no means doing it every play or operating a modern service academy flexbone.
@SplitZoneDuo Yeah, they created an illusion of 3 options, but they were never option keying two defenders like a wishbone team running inside veer or midline triple. Osborne taught the QBs to audible run plays better and more often than anybody. A huge percentage of their plays in the mid 90s were checks at the line.
Very well done.... early on, Osborne wanted to throw the ball, but was convinced otherwise by his assistants. Also - I believe the vast majority of Nebraska's problems of falling beyond mediocrity have to do with personnel decisions. What boob ever though hiring Mike Riley was a good decision?
We had a lot of butting heads within the Athletic Department and University and just about everywhere in between. The AD’s (Eichorst, and Moos) were so bad and almost self sabotaging. Had we just rectified the program and taken our time finding a proper candidate after Pelini, who realistically could’ve stayed here a few more years, had he just managed his emotions, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Pelini left the program 9/10 games every year, which was a staple in our history. He had Nebraska back on the National stage and one step away from being a title contender at times. However, when Nebraska decided to placate a small group of people and hire the “nice guy” to reverse the effects of having the “hot head” for the better part of a decade, they solidified the plunge of the program. Riley was a watered down and worse version of Frank Solich and when you compound the issue with satisfying a group of people again with the Frost hire, you almost inevitably fall into the abyss. That was all on the AD’s. Matt Rhule is about the only coach who could fix all of this. And he’s on the right track, in development, recruiting, building a staff and culture. The only thing left is to translate to wins. One season back at 10 wins and all of the country will be talking about us again. The brand is too big.
The Big 8 Conference should had never been dismissed or ended.Nebraska and Oklahoma were powerful in football for years.Colorado,Iowa State and Kansas State did well for a little while also.Kansas and Kansas State did well in Basketball.Some very Hall Of Fame Athletics were from that area.Gayle Sayers,Johnnie Rogers and Bob Gibson who played Major League Baseball.But i think that the coaches and the athletic director hires were the real reason why they lost games.
While I prefer the travel schedule of the XII, w/ UT always threatening to leave NU had to make solid business decisions or face the chc of being left in the cold. B1G financially was the place to go. XII will eventually be divided up btwn B1G & SEC.
This was incredibly well done. As a Husker fan it pains me to see where they are knowing where they have been. I really believe Matt Rhule can do this and make this a respectable program again. GBR!
I was actually the last recruit brought in for a visit under Solich. Watched the (at the time) worst home loss they had ever suffered against Kansas State and then he was soon fired with one of the main reasons being bad recruiting. So I think I was such a bad recruit that I brought down decades of Nebraska dominance!
You actually strike at the heart of Nebraska's demise, a point that far too many Nebraska fans refuse to acknowledge due to seeing everything through their Scarlet & Cream-colored glasses. Solich was killing recruiting, which is the quickest & most irreversible way to kill a program. Think about it, after Osborne has a team that goes 60-3 over five seasons, Solich takes over and in the first year fielding a team made up entirely of his own recruits, he goes 6-7, losing to every single ranked team they faced, and getting absolutely smoked 3 times. (Nebraska salvaged a .500 season and a bowl appearance thanks to the late addition of a home game vs 1-AA McNeese St.) You can talk all you want about the 10-3 record in 2003, but that was abetted by an unrepeatable 47 defensive turnovers. It also saw NU lose to the only 3 good teams on their schedule by an average of 23+ points. Pederson knew Solich had to be replaced. He was a great Assistant Coach. But as a Head Coach....he made a great Assistant Coach. Nobody wanted to hire him after he was fired. And even after a year off, all he could land was the Ohio job. And it's not like he went and dominated the MAC after that.
I was there in the 70’s. Perfection. Turner Gill, Roger Craig, Dave Rimington, Mike Rozier, Irving Fryer, Jamie Williams. I. M. Hipp ( greatest name ever). etc. etc.
Great video! I very much like the way you framed it: it's not about what Nebraska is doing wrong now; it's about what they were doing right before and everyone else caught up.
I just saw a documentary about Everett Case, NC State's basketball coach. I think you could tell the same story about him: he raised the bar with structural changes to the program, then everybody else caught up.
this is pretty good. i think Rhule has us heading in a more upward slope. Idk if the Huskers will ever be champions again but i do think they could be CFP eventually.
Great reporting and spot on for the most part. The only quibble I have is in the late 60s and early 70s, they ran power football w/ basic sweep plays and inside reverses mixed in, not the tripple option. When Osborne took over, he actually moved towards a passing offense (Vince Ferragamo) but found it didn't work well in Nov cold and wind. Since OU was beating us with the wishbone, Osborne added the tripple option to the I formation in the early 80s, then recruited to it - Turner Gill, Roger Craig, Mike Rozier. NU was off to the races for the next 20 yrs.
I really liked this. I’m more of an nfl guy but I love football history period. And I didn’t know a ton about the old college teams other than names. But this was really well done. I like the format a lot and your voice is good for narration. Well done. I’ll be following
I didn't take their comment to be classless. I'm a lifelong Huskers fan, and the comment made me smile. What do you expect from a fan of a rival school? He was just being honest. Schadenfreude is real. I know, because I was basking in it when Stanford erased a 29-0 deficit in Boulder last year to crush Buffs souls in OT. NU and CU have inflicted brutal losses on each other over the years. Reveling in the other's failure is how we coexist. Sort of like how Jimmy Johnson thanked all Cowboy-haters. It makes the rivalry so much more consequential.
Great video! As a georgia tech fan, I’d love to see a similar video about their change too, as we went from being one of the biggest powerhouses to being below average or worse
There were other reasons: much like the 1970s Steelers, NU was at the forefront of steroids to gain advantages in strength and size. Kansas State and Mizzou got their collective acts together and made it very difficult for NU to go into KC, St. Louis and Wichita metro areas to get nearby recruits. The fanbase wanted a "favorite son" to takeover the program and that resulted in the horrible Scott Frost period.
Frost had success in the AAC running an offense that was so effective and high flying that it didn't matter how bad the defense was. Then he went to Nebraska where Big Ten defenses don't allow you to just do whatever you want on offense. Completely unmitigated disaster.
I made a couple of trips to Lincoln when they were in the Big12. I was really impressed with the environment and the fans. I hope the Huskers can make a resurgence. It makes college football more interesting.
Yeah, I read something years ago about Prop 48. Osborne said the Big 8 went along with everything Texas wanted when meetings were held to admit the 4 Texas schools, rather than making those 4 realizing the Big 8 was inviting them but didn't need to. The SEC was the only conference that had added, and making extra $ from a December game. Without the SWC collapsing before their eyes after Arkansas left, the Big 12 wouldn't have happened for years. The Big 8 should have gone into meetings knowing the ball was in their court, instead there were "slurping" UT and went along with any demands about the "NEW" conference. They knew they could turn the tables, Nebraska would not be able to allow some poor performing students like before. But college is a bigger joke now than ever. Stories have been around forever about the academics, UNC-ChapelHill. Halfback James Brooks was one of my faves to watch with the Chargers and Bengals. If came out after his NFL career was over that he was still illiterate.
It blows my mind just how many younger folks have no idea of Nebraska’s blue blood pedigree. A lot of them scoff at the idea if you mention it, but the Huskers are really a storied program that deserves to be recognized. It’s like scoffing at Notre Dame because they went through some rough decades.
Nebraska has not even won a conference championship during the last 24 seasons. Shouldn't an alleged "blue blood pedigree" program win at least 1 conference title during such a long span?
Blue blood pedigree. LOL After 1973 when bowls mattered, * a losing bowl record * a losing record to 9 win coaches * 5-12 against Switzer * 2-6 against Bowden Blue blood. Right!
@@yeildo1492I think ND could come back with the right coach. I also think Rhule can bring Nebraska back to a Top 10 squad, but it depends if he is willing to stay for a good while.
The nail on the coffin was when they went to the B1G All those Texas kids they used to get didn’t want to play Wisconsin and MSU in November. They rather stay close to home because 1. Weather 2. Their families didn’t have to travel that far.
The Texas Recruiting Pipeline is a myth. A myth perpetuated by people who never followed Nebraska to know that California had always been a lot more important to Nebraska recruiting than Texas pre-2000s. The only coach that ever recruited Texas heavily for Nebraska was Pelini. Nebraska and Texas weren't even in the same conference until 1996. Their 1995 roster of 144 players was predominantly made up of Nebraska players with Texas having only 8 total and of that only 2 started. Texas was never a factor during their dominance and only became a bigger factor much later when they were in decline.
The Huskers are the college version of the Raiders. From the 60’s-90’s the Raiders were doing things nobody else was doing. Bending the rules stretching the rules and using them to their advantage, then everybody else caught up and the Raiders have been stuck in neutral ever since.
Delusional they are. I think there are many programs with an old hayday that's never coming back. We're in a new generation now and these kids weren't even born for that era. Nebraska football, Georgetown basketball, Miami football, Pitt football, etc. Even if they do, it's not going to be like it was. New day now.
@@bbryant9455 that’s valid like fans who grew up with the team good and watching them while they are bad slowly begin to realize that those long droughts that they thought only happened to other fans is happening to them like my dad was a pistons fan at their height and it looked like it would last forever and now it’s been like 16 years now since they were decent. Or like me growing up a warriors fan and now watching them really demonstrate why it took them 75 years to win again.
@@ContentVintageTypewriter-ut1vl fuuuuuckin A. Good call on that one. It's like I get it because we'll always be fans of the team but damn we gotta live in reality too. I'm a lifelong Washington fan and have never lived a time to see them as one of the best teams in football. But I also know and accept that the Redskins are never ever coming back. I can't bring myself to say our current name 🤣☠️
I grew up watching Nebraska with my father and they were my second favorite team until they joined the Big 10. The 90s teams were something to witness with their option offense and incredible defense. I hate how they ruined college football conferences.
So a lot of people don’t know this, but it was actually Tom Osborne who started the Strength and Conditioning program craze world wide. Osborne noticed that when a player came back from injury they were stronger and faster than they had been and in many cases became better than the player they were behind in the depth chart. He got with the rehab people and people at the University and they took some data, and and found that it appeared to benefit players to lift weights and all. He took that information to Devaney who thought he was crazy but told Tom that he would get one season to see if it worked, and if it didn’t… he was fired. The thinking back then was that muscle slowed you down. Osborne recommended Eply for hire and the rest is history. It’s a big reason as to why he was given the job after Devaney. Many people don’t know this in regards to Steve Peterson… Solich beat him out for a local high school coaching job, and then beat him out for an assistant coaching position at UNL. When this happened, Peterson decided to go into athletic administration instead of coaching. There’s rumors they had beef during a stint Peterson had as a Graduate Assistant at UNL as well. When Peterson got the AD job… it was only a matter of time before he fired Solich. The biggest problem was that he fired Solich after a 9-3 season (team went on to win the bowl game and go 10-3) instead of firing him the year before when he went 7-7. I believe it was Houston Nutt who was quoted as saying after he was offered the Nebraska job… “Why would I take that job? They fire a coach that wins 9 games. What happens if I win 8?” The next biggest mistake was doing this again with Pelini. When Pelini was fired he was one of 3 coaches to win 9+ games every season since he was hired in 2007 (7 years). The other two… Dabo Sweeney & Nick Saban. Pelini did a lot with very little. But the problem was once again… who do the Huskers hire because no one wants a job where you win 9 games and play for championships and get fired. We know Bill Callahan was the 8th person offered the Husker job when he was fired. There are rumors that 10 or more people were offered the job before Mike Riley took the job. I think they’ve righted the ship with their most recent hire, but the fan base is impatient and pressure will mount the longer it takes for them to play for a championship. In the new format for the Big Ten… that’s going to be tough. Gotta be top 2 out of 18 teams. Sadly, the fan base will eventually grow impatient and the pressure will mount because they are too concerned with keeping their sell out streak alive and when people threaten not to buy tickets… the coach is the first one to go.
No mention of jump to big ten? The ball had already started rolling downhill but that shot it out of a cannon. As they destroyed all the interest Texas high schoolers would have in going to Nebraska to play games away from friends and family and the region they grew up watching. In 2024 this doesn’t mean as much, but when Nebraska moved to big 10 it was a huge game changer.
Excellent video, this one of the greatest falls of grace in all of sports. Nebraska and the way they ran the option especially when Tommie Frazier was there and teams knew that 90-95% of the time they were going to run the ball and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. I am not a Nebraska fan overall except I am a fan of the 93-97 era of Husker football and especially the back to back national championship team led by Frazier.I won a ton of money when they steamrolled Florida. Also on NCAA Football 95-01 Nebraska was fun to use because they were always loaded on both sides of the ball.
Here's a Nitty Lion rooting for Nebraska. If was so heartening when Nebraska was drubbing Miami in the 90's? Hope to see Nebraska doing it again in the B1G.
It’s crazy for me as a Nebraska native to hear that modern football greats starting in the 90s modeled themselves off of Nebraska. We used to be cutting edge. As a 22 year Nebraska kid this seems crazy. My whole life I’ve always seen us as trying to play catch up.
My perspective on this has long been: With Regard to Nebraska: In the 1990s Nebraska had a huge facilities advantage that really helped in recruiting. Since the turn of the century, many if not most colleges have heavily invested in new football facilities. This has eroded a huge recruiting advantage that Nebraska had back in the day. To me, it really comes mostly done to the evaporation of the facilities advantage. If they still had that recruiting advantage, they'd be better able to recruit the QBs, WRs, and TEs for the elite passing game you need today. They could have evolved from a dominant running team to a dominant passing team. Since the evaporation of the facilities advantage killed their recruiting advantage and there's no other reason for elite players to prefer Nebraska they fell from their mountain top. But, if they get their act together somewhat, the expansion of the CFP actually increases their chances to win a future natty since it will no longer be necessary to be as elite in the regular season as it was in the 2 team BCS era or 4 team CFP era. Get in and get hot like the 2005 Steelers or 2010 Packers did at the NFL level.
Loved that you turned this into a video to tease my nom-subscribing friends with! This Dead Letters has been one of my episodes you did as it follows my Huskers.
I was born in ‘97, the last year they won the National Title. My whole life, my whole existence, has been waiting 27 years for them to just make it to the playoffs let alone win the whole thing.
1. Osborne's original offense was a pro style, as he had played wide receiver in the NFL for several seasons. Wasn't until later in Devaney's run, with Oklahoma and Texas's success running the wishbone that they switched to the I-form option. 2. What gets missed in the partial qualifier debate, and what was very misinterpreted in the original Nebraska Dead Letters Podcast episode, is that yes Nebraska would take these kids, but that qualification standard was only for freshman eligibility. Those that didn't qualify out of HS, couldn't play. Nebraska would take them, and because of the academic support made available to them, get them qualified through necessary *college* coursework and then they could play as upper classmen. Other schools could have done the same thing.
Agreed. The discussion completely ignored the NCAA Prop 48 rules, which meant that kids with shit grades and shit test scores couldn't play *anywhere,* but Nebraska took them and got them to pass college classes and become eligible.
Introducing Bo Pelini as the LSU Defensive Coordinator makes it sound like he was an outsider. He was a Nebraska Defensive Coordinator first, and was the Interim Coach when Solich was fired!
There are good people in Nebraska. I lived in Omaha for seven years. I didn't like it at the time, but I came to realize that it's one of the best places to raise a family.
I received recruiting materials from Nebraska when I was playing high school football back in ‘83…they sent me a workout manual and it was pretty impressive…(I was never offered a visit nor a scholarship from them though)
Unlike a lot of the dreck on her about CFB, your video is actually well researched and presented. Thank you! The importance of the strength coach in modern football cannot be overstated. Players spend way more time with strength coaches than FB coaches. Often, the strength coach is the last person to speak in the locker room before games.
Very fair analysis. In my estimation, restricted levels of scholarships for all conferences changed the landscape in college football. During much of the 60s and 70s, the Big Ten limited members to 30 scholarships per year and a max of 120 on a team. NCAA allowed 45 per year during that period. As the qualifications to play increased and the reduced scholarships took effect, things headed south.
Osborne also implemented the passing game for Devaney which help provided them with our first two National titles with dynamic players, like Johnny Rodgers at Rich Glover.
Outstanding report! I've always wondered what happened to them. Despite being a huge USC Trojans fam, I've rooted for Nebraska against Oklahoma since the early 70s. Again, nicely done. BEAT OSU Nd Michigan!
This video pretty much sums up the perfect storm of how to slip from a top position program in just a short while. 40 years to build it up, 8 to tear it down. Cutting walk ons-- bad hires-- and worst of all, a front office full of attorneys forcing bad decisions. It was digging our own grave. The Ace in the Hole is our NIL project-- and we are even or above that of the big names. Young players may not remember Nebraska, but their coaches and dads do. Everything cycles for all teams, and it just takes the right player or two to fire the engine back up.
I'm a 28 year old Nebraska fan so I've seen good Husker football but I have never seen truly great Husker football. Matt Rhule is proving himself to be the catalyst for the return of Nebraska's former spirit. He is here to help heal the wounds from our previous incompetent leadership under Frost. I am not talking about Riley, he was a good man, just not right for the job. Matt Rhule may or may not win us champions, but he is going to help return the tradition of excellence on and off the field to Nebraska and that is what sets the wheel in motion.
Matt Rhule hasn’t won anything at Nebraska so slow down. Don’t let the Nebraska media hype affect your judgement. They went and got the #1 kid out of North Dakota and everyone is making a big deal about it. North Dakota, which means he’d be the #457 kid out of florida who I’d rather have because that kid plays against other D-1 talent week in and week out in HS.
Honestly it is also an era thing. Your team can never be that dominate forever. Three decades of dominance, that is a long time. Very rarely does a team come out of a legend leaving and continue the way it was for decades. I am looking at you Alabama.
@@Denussy I understand that. But every empire must fall. They won't become the worst. But they will no longer be the best. Look at the Irish, Stanford I mean we could go on. ND and Stanford are blue bloods. How are they doing right now?
@@Denussy I hear this all the time. Over here in Sweden IFK Göteborg for like 80 years have dominated this region in football. Now they are near the bottom do the table and struggling heavily. This is just how things go. You can not be on top forever.
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OU fan and alum here. I miss the days of playing the huskers every year. They were great games. I hope they’re able to make a comeback.
I’m a born and bred Nebraska farmer and I was born in 02. As a kid I was told stories about the “great times”. My grandparents have been ticket holders since the early 70s and my uncle was a letterman LB in the 70s. My whole life this has been miserable. We need this so badly.
I was born in Nebraska in 1991 and have lived here all my life. I’m so glad you began the video by putting the state’s location/population into the proper context. I feel like it’s an often overlooked part of why the success they had for all those years was so special. There is truly no equal in the sport. A landlocked state with less than 2 million people ran shit for decades. There will never be a run like it again. I really wish people outside of the state would take the time to truly appreciate Tom Osborne’s tenure as head coach while he’s still with us. Who knows where we’d be without him.
Growing up in the 90's it was always amazing to see Nebraska in Big 8 games, just running wild, both offensively and defensively.
A losing bowl record. Osborne had a losing record to 9 win teams. He could never win the biggest of games.
Spurrier still owns the worst SEC championship loss in its 31 year history. 56-17
5-12 against Switzer, Never played a good OU team during the Skip Along.
Blah, blah, blah. After the Big Easy crashed, Neb has been a shell.
Solich and Pelini were 9 win coaches and got canned bec Neb did not want another Osborne. Pelini never won a game that mattered.
@mas5867 oh look the Husker troll is back with crap that don't mean anything.
@@mas5867 Dude goes to every Nebraska video hating, Nebraska owns your little mind. At this moment you arent even a hater, your just obsessed.
That's literally all the Midwest has is football. That would suck to suck!
I'm an old man lifelong Michigan fan since 1970. So i saw Nebraska's dominance...the Bama of their day. I have tons of respect for the rich tradition of an old blueblood like Nebraska and hope that their program returns to something that their GREAT fans deserve. I think that Matt Rhule has a good shot at that.
Nebraska is not an old blue blood. He describes it in the video. They were mediocre until the 1970s.
@@Denussythat’s a lot credit there even calling them mediocre
@@stout8807 One har-lot credit earned, cha-ching.
@@Denussylol...the cope of Nebraska haters is weird....did a Nebraska fan steal your mom?
Respect man. Congrats on the natty idc if you guys cheated or not. Last year Michigan was like the Nebraska teams of old. Michigan is a blue blood like us so I always root for you guys when you aren’t playing us.
The firing of Frank Solich was one of the worst administrative decisions in college football history. They were unreasonable and greedy and have been paying for it ever since.
You have no clue in what you are spewing. Forget about Neb for second. Look at his pathetic results at Ohio, where he was supposed to lite up the world and show everyone that Neb made a mistake. LOL. Total confirmation they were spot on in firing him.
@@mas5867 You fired a coach after a 10 win season. The AD at the time said he was not going to “let the program gravitate into mediocrity.” How did it work out for the Huskers? That’s what I thought…
@@toddhawk9921 Again you talk and stick your foot in your mouth. 42-7 followed by 16-12 with his players. Beat 1 team in that last 28 that finished ranked. McNeese State.
There are several more stats that absolutely confirm that regardless of the future, Neb could not hold on to the drunkard.
@@mas5867 Ohio can’t get the same recruits that Nebraska could.
@@HVACSoldier neither could the schools that Ohio faced. In the same environment, solich was a mediocre coach at best.
The only time I ever rooted for the Huskers is when they played Florida in the Fiesta Bowl, Seeing Spurrier slamming his visor down over and over really made my day.
I've always pulled for Nebraska, even though I'm from NJ. The Huskers were the true champions in '97, should have jumped Virginia Tech and played FSU for the national championship in '99, and I pulled for them against Miami in the Rose Bowl, but that was just a bad match-up stylistically. Nebraska, like Florida, used to get the best players in the country. That's not the case anymore. Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, LSU, Texas, Alabama, etc. have been dominating national recruiting in recent years. Leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten wasn't the best decision either. The only way Nebraska will ever get back is through recruiting.
Steve did that even when his team was winning by 35😅 I love Steve though. Go Gators!
My favorite Husker game of all time. The press had written us off. Spurrier was SO arrogant. The blowout couldn't have happened at a better time!
@@RobbieStacks90 Even after winning Nat Championships...NU ranked ONLY tenth in recruiting after the first Natty? Wow. Usually a Natty gives you more credibility.
Most five stars, won't go to Lincoln. Four stars usually stay home. It's still an obscure part of the world (the upper miswest plains states). NU could get four stars and 3-3.5 stars. That's it...the rest was development.
Iowa under Ferentz, has far outperformed anyone's expectations with less to offer.
As a Nebraska fan myself, you provided a fair and thorough analysis. Man, I hope they turn the corner and find innovative ways to win once again. GBR!
It’s pretty inaccurate actually. Devaney never ran the option. Nor was Osborne’s offense a true option, but rather an element in a power run/play action pass based scheme.
He also very inaccurately lumped Biff Jones as one of the bad coaches when he’s actually the first on the outside looking in on NU’s Mount Rushmore.
NU’s problem the past quarter century was a combination of Osborne’s meddling and cheaping out when hiring coaches. The search that landed Rhule was the first real onesince the one that landed Devaney.
@@johnfahrer5038 , those are fair points.
@@johnfahrer5038
A lot of your points are on point, but I think you attribute far too much to Osborne "meddling". Frank Solich helped Osborne win 3 🏆 and then continued on to have a HoF coaching career after leaving Nebraska. I have a hard time believing we wouldn't have competed for another couple championships with him at the helm. Osborne had zero intervention on either Callahan or Riley and both Pelini and Frost were obvious hires at their respective times. It was a coup based on legacy that even allowed us to land Frost.
I think bad luck plays a far bigger role in the drastic demise of Nebraska than most give credit to. Callahan got commits from two multi-year NFL starter QBs who ended up going elsewhere and then we ended up with arguably two of the worst starting QBs in Nebraska's recent-ish history instead (Joe Dailey and Sam Keller). If Freeman or Gabbert had come to Nebraska I truly believe our recent history could be very different.
I don’t I’m happy Nebraska is a bottom dweller
The thing is that Nebraska will be hard pressed to get back to the top but they really didn't need to do that to get 9-10 wins. They have (until this year) been in two historically bad divisions where Nebraska was the best program, statistically, and still struggled: Big12 North and B1G West. The major dogs of their league (OU and Texas in Big12 and Ohio State and Michigan in the B1G) are in the other division. Not sure how Nebraska can't compete. Wisconsin (at least Wisconsin 2-3 years ago) looked more like the Nebraska of old and I think that is a good benchmark for Nebraska.
You can blame the changing environment of college football all you want but the fact is that programs like Wisconsin and Iowa have still managed to be successful. A competent coach is worth his weight in gold and Nebraska hasn't had one since Solich.
Since Osborne
@@NotaKamalaFan Exactly. Solich was beloved, but he was no Devaney or Osborne. He was the embodiment of the Peter Principle. There's a reason nobody hired him after he was fired. And after time off, all he could land was the Ohio gig. And even then, in the MAC, he was just another face in the crowd. Solich was killing recruiting, and Steve Pederson knew it.
No offense Iowa and Wisconsin have not come close to Nebraska in its hay day.
Bc Nebraska is delusional about their actual status in college football. They think they’re above both of those schools when they’re not 😅
@@johnhallock2710when was that “hay day” again 😂
It wasn't discussed in the video, but Nebraska's greatness came about right when national college TV broadcasts were taking off. With only a few national games every week, Nebraska was always on TV. As cable (and now streaming) became bigger, every school was on TV so kids didn't have to go to Nebraska just to be on TV.
Nebraska was always on ABC or CBS, now they are on FS3.
You said that much more concisely than I did below. I should’ve read before commenting.
Fact
My cousin played for Texas Tech back in the mid 90’s and he told me a story about when they played Nebraska. Zach Thomas was an All American linebacker for Tech at the time and on a run he just got rocked by a Nebraska lineman pancaked to hell and he said “get off me fat ass” to the Nebraska lineman, the lineman raised his jersey up while over the top of him with a muscled up 6 pack, and Thomas went back to the sideline and told Spike Dykes “Coach it’s about to be a long day” I think that’s how we all remember Nebraska during the 90’s. They just imposed their will they literally broke the most solid of teams.
This was incredible. Golly if this doesn’t scratch an itch for every college football fan. Very well done
Georgia fan here I remember those Nebraska teams of 94 and 95. GREAT! As a college football fan I hope they will return to that! Just makes college football the greatest sport ever! GO DAWGS!
I grew up in Denver and always hated Nebraska. Hated them because they were so good, I was intimidated by the home field advantage through the TV. All the linemen would get Peterbilt tatoos and thr Black Shirts was such a cool name for thr defense. As a Nebraska hater, I feel like college football is better when Nebraska is a power house. But if I was a 4 or 5 star recruit today, I do not think i would go there. Great video, great memories of this program in their prime.
You structure and told this story in a very compelling and informative way. This is a very good video. Great job.
Thank you kindly!
Maybe consider an episode of Tom Osborne's many trick plays. There's probably a chapter in the NCAA rules book dedicated to just those.
Fumbleruski was great!
Will Shields was my favorite Husker ever. To this day, there are a lot of Huskers and Chiefs fans in Lawton Oklahoma. Great video
I lived in Nebraska during the beginning of the Huskers downfall. It was like watching grown adults beginning to realize Santa isn't real.
Lol. Good metaphor. Spot on! Now they hope Rhule is the new Santa.
Yeah but your mom still dresses up like Mrs. Claus and stops by every year and wont leave until dawn.
@@NotaKamalaFan all you nubs are so easily triggered. it's hilarious.
@@NotaKamalaFan 🎣
@@beebers99 he’s got the right physique, but is he jolly enough? That was obviously Pellini’s biggest weakness!
Nebraska fans will have a lot to be happy about this year and the coming years. A resurgence of the program. UGA fan out here in Atlanta, a football fan in general. It's felt like yall have recently been right on the edge of turning the corner. You will be in the top 20 this year. Corner turned.
I'm very glad I grew up watching the huskers dominate the mid 90s.
Callahan, threw the SUPER BOWL and then destroyed the HUSKER program. What a shame. I really miss the OKLAHOMA VS NEBRASKA SHOW DOWN, one of the greatest rivalries in college football history. I would get up at 2AM in southeast Asia to watch that game and i am from California. Tom Osborne is legendary. I loved how NEBRASKA recruited their lineman from those small high schools. I hope for their return to prominence.
For some reason, the teams of the 90s were cursed through the entire 2010s. Nebraska, Tennessee, Michigan, Florida State, Miami, and even Florida had a really rough time. Seems like when 2020s started, everybody dug themselves out of that hole except Nebraska.
@@Football__Junkie
Nebraska has been in an ideological tug of war internally since Osborne retired. Frost failing so miserably may end up becoming a blessing.
Florida won two NC and Nebraska the only school who kept giving coaches they 1st big job
Florida is hot garbage.
Miami Hurricanes football for the last 20 years has been humiliating.
Florida is staring in the face of their 4th straight losing season coming up.
Osborne did not install the option under Devaney. He did not go to the option until about 1978.
A friend of mine from my teens, Lance Gray, walked on at Nebraska. It was kind of strange for a kid from upstate New York to end up at Nebraska but he showed up to one of their spring practices and gave his highlights to Coach Osborne. Osborne liked his tenacity and gave him a chance. He surprised everyone and started on their JV team his freshman year. They redshirted him his second year and then became a mainstay on special teams for the rest of his career. He earned the nickname Bullethead for his play on special teams.
JV team? That had to have been 50 years ago
@@dlowe4481 Not quite 50 but close enough (35 years), lol. They got rid of the JV team in Feb of 91 and his freshman year was fall of 89 so he was on one of their last JV teams.
Another thing that wasn’t mentioned was DeVaney was a pioneer of bringing black athletes into the program. Him and Bear Bryant were major programs that were early adopters of this.
And Paterno at Penn State beat both.
@@lindencamelback2305 only two nattys tho
@@lindencamelback2305 Bear had 6, DeVaney had 2 and then Osborne elevated them to more
And Switzer @ OU.
This was soo great to watch! I really enjoyed this and great breakdown, keep it up
Hey, thanks a lot!
56 year old Nebraska fan here, and you did a great job.
A few things to add:
1) Osborne is the greatest offensive genius in the history of the game. Here’s why.
a) He called every play from 1969-1997. He’s the only man to ever call the plays for Five National Championships, and I can’t remember how many times he called the plays for teams that made it to a NC game.
b) he did NOT run the triple-option until much later than you realize. He ran what we’d call a Pro-style offense (look up Vince Ferragamo, Dave Humm). During those years they’d run the option about 3-4 times per game. You see, Osborne played WR in the NFL for a few years, and he wanted to spread teams out vertically. But after failing to get it done against OU for a good stretch, he COMPLETELY changed his O and switched to a Power-I that ran Wishbone concepts. He fired his throw-deep offensive coordinator (Tom Osborne), and hired the greatest Power-I, Option offensive coordinator in history (Tom Osborne).
2) Rule changes. There were several other rule changes that I will always believe were made in order to chop down Nebraska.
a)Elimination of Freshman teams. Nebraska’s model was to run practice with four full 11-on-11 stations after individual/position drills. That’s 88+reserves going at it, getting more game situation reps for your underclassmen in a week than most programs got in two months. But that’s not all. They also had a Freshman team with their own coaches and staff. Those teams would play a 6-game schedule against teams like S. Dakota State. That’s a season of being a starter for your first year. Then you’d redshirt. Then you’d spend you R.Sophmore year on scout team. That makes one small season, then two years of 11-11 practices as an underclassmen. Then you’d play as Junior, maybe start as a Senior.
This means they ran a complex offense requiring perfect timing, like clockwork.
3) Violence. Osborne was a nice guy. His coaches were not so nice. They’d famously take the starting o-line and d-line away from the rest of team, down under the south stadium stands, and in the dirt and I-beams they’d just fight, while practicing football. But mostly they’d fight - football was incidental.
If you read a lot of the books produce about that time period, you’ll see that the players were often trying to injure opponent players, and would brag about it when they would. To be clear, I don’t mean hurt, I mean Injure. The book “Unbeatable” contains examples of this.
Another example of the toughness: If a QB ran the ball out of bounds in practice, Osborne would have them running stairs until they decided it hurt less to just lower their shoulder into the safety.
There’s more, but that’s about all my arthritic thumbs can handle.
Great job on your video. GBR!
Thanks a lot for giving it your time!
Great video! I watch it over and over, very interesting stuff about the UN program in the Bob Devaney-Tom Osborne era. I'm a UCLA fan, and enjoyed when UCLA played Nebraska several times between 1972 and 2013, the Nebraska fans and players were the best behaved. It didn't help that Nebraska lacked a modern passing game especially in the 1980's and 90's, though they totally destroyed Florida in the championship. Nebraska also had trouble with Oklahoma after that famous 1971 Game of the Century.
Nebraska was possibly the greatest player development program of all time especially on the offensive and defensive line .
''ORALS & INJECTABLES '' !
@@michaelkraus4135 True they just did it better than everyone else
that was a fair and balanced analysis. this is getting a share. great work!
Hell of a video man. definitely deserves more views
I'd add the increase in nationally televised games to this as well. From the 1960s-80s, the same handful of elite schools would have maybe 3 games a year total at most ever make it onto national TV- which was a lot for the time since 90% of teams got zero.
For years, college football only had a "game of the week" format where ABC, NBC, or CBS would only air one big matchup a week. For example, you'd only get Michigan vs. Ohio State, Oklahoma vs. Texas, Alabama vs Tennessee, Notre Dame vs. USC as your only college football game that was broadcast anywhere in America that weekend. With this format, it made it easier for the few household names to continue recruiting great players to their schools. When ESPN hit the scene in the 1980s, then you started seeing more and more teams get national exposure, which made it easier for the recruiting hotbeds to not lose their best in-state players to the same handful of prestige programs elsewhere every year. This is about the same time when the Florida States, Miamis, Floridas, LSUs, Georgias, and Penn States started becoming major players in college football when they previously hadn't been. Simply because kids in Louisiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Georgia now had reasons to stay home and play for their home state schools instead of going to a Nebraska for the increased exposure.
This erasure of the national television monopoly is also about the same time when Notre Dame started to lose it's grip on power in the sport too. Like Nebraska, no one who grew up in the warm weather Southern and West Coast states had a reason to attempt uprooting to frigid, faraway states like Nebraska and Indiana because it increased their likelihood of getting discovered by NFL scouts. With ESPN, now they could get discovered in their own backyards.
I think the primary lesson to take from all of this is that if you want to remain consistently competitive, you need to be the top school in a recruiting hotbed. No matter how much your administration screws things up and makes bad decisions, as long as your home state produces enough talent to sustain you through lean years, you'll never really fall too far behind. Sure, Alabama, Texas, USC, and Ohio State have all suffered erosion in greatness for certain spells of time, but they never fall so far behind that they can't make big comebacks in just a year or two because their recruiting gardens are always ripe and abundant.
Yeah, interesting point here
Very accurate assessment.
Wrong. The only reason those national games were like that's is bc the ncaa had a rule where a team could only have so many games broadcast. Uga sued them and won.this is why the games are seen everywhere now
Disagree about the weather reasoning. Winters in Lincoln are much milder now then they were in 80s and 90s. Ohio State and Michigan get national championship caliber talent.
Good take
The Wishbone was great. I always enjoyed watching teams that used it to perfection.
Nebraska never ran the wishbone….do you understand football?
Leaving the Big 12 sealed it forever.
I definitely concur, the Big Ten had more teams playing at a higher level than the Big 12. Nebraska just couldn't keep up.
They had to get out, the stability of the conference was in check
At the time, it wasn't a good decision, but Nebraska is blessed considering what the Big 12 has become today.
Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns they were getting big in the year 2000's to the 2010 in the Big XII conference.
That why Nebraska leaves the Big XII conference in 2011.
@@williamdiemert9866 I seem to recall that Tom Osborne was upset with Texas' political dominance of the Big 12, so Nebraska jumped at the chance to join the Big Ten.
Love the Dead Letters episodes, and I think these shorter video episodes are great. Keep up the great work! GBR
Glad you liked it!
Hey all. This is the first one of these we've made! We want to hear how you feel about it. And if you have suggestions for future Dead Letters or similar videos, we'd love to hear them.
Really good job. It's a story I've studied a lot myself. One correction is that Nebraska never ran "triple option." They ran double options and every power, gap, and trap scheme known to man, though!
@@hawkishOwl2020 Hey, thanks for listening! Alex here. I think you're right, but that's sort of what I was getting at with "version of the triple option." They certainly had many give/keep/pitch plays but were by no means doing it every play or operating a modern service academy flexbone.
@SplitZoneDuo Yeah, they created an illusion of 3 options, but they were never option keying two defenders like a wishbone team running inside veer or midline triple. Osborne taught the QBs to audible run plays better and more often than anybody. A huge percentage of their plays in the mid 90s were checks at the line.
Very well done.... early on, Osborne wanted to throw the ball, but was convinced otherwise by his assistants. Also - I believe the vast majority of Nebraska's problems of falling beyond mediocrity have to do with personnel decisions. What boob ever though hiring Mike Riley was a good decision?
We had a lot of butting heads within the Athletic Department and University and just about everywhere in between. The AD’s (Eichorst, and Moos) were so bad and almost self sabotaging. Had we just rectified the program and taken our time finding a proper candidate after Pelini, who realistically could’ve stayed here a few more years, had he just managed his emotions, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Pelini left the program 9/10 games every year, which was a staple in our history. He had Nebraska back on the National stage and one step away from being a title contender at times.
However, when Nebraska decided to placate a small group of people and hire the “nice guy” to reverse the effects of having the “hot head” for the better part of a decade, they solidified the plunge of the program. Riley was a watered down and worse version of Frank Solich and when you compound the issue with satisfying a group of people again with the Frost hire, you almost inevitably fall into the abyss. That was all on the AD’s.
Matt Rhule is about the only coach who could fix all of this. And he’s on the right track, in development, recruiting, building a staff and culture. The only thing left is to translate to wins. One season back at 10 wins and all of the country will be talking about us again. The brand is too big.
My opinion. Should have stayed in the Big 8 (12), keep its relevance and remained a power.
Big Eight conference should say no to the 4 Texas schools(Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) back in 1992.
@@williamdiemert9866 More TV sets in Dallas than the entire Big 8 had and TV money was what counts
Nubs haven't won a conference championship since the 1990s. Not sure how leaving Big12 in 2011 changed that fact.
The Big 8 Conference should had never been dismissed or ended.Nebraska and Oklahoma were powerful in football for years.Colorado,Iowa State and Kansas State did well for a little while also.Kansas and Kansas State did well in Basketball.Some very Hall Of Fame Athletics were from that area.Gayle Sayers,Johnnie Rogers and Bob Gibson who played Major League Baseball.But i think that the coaches and the athletic director hires were the real reason why they lost games.
While I prefer the travel schedule of the XII, w/ UT always threatening to leave NU had to make solid business decisions or face the chc of being left in the cold. B1G financially was the place to go. XII will eventually be divided up btwn B1G & SEC.
This was incredibly well done. As a Husker fan it pains me to see where they are knowing where they have been. I really believe Matt Rhule can do this and make this a respectable program again. GBR!
I was actually the last recruit brought in for a visit under Solich. Watched the (at the time) worst home loss they had ever suffered against Kansas State and then he was soon fired with one of the main reasons being bad recruiting. So I think I was such a bad recruit that I brought down decades of Nebraska dominance!
You actually strike at the heart of Nebraska's demise, a point that far too many Nebraska fans refuse to acknowledge due to seeing everything through their Scarlet & Cream-colored glasses.
Solich was killing recruiting, which is the quickest & most irreversible way to kill a program. Think about it, after Osborne has a team that goes 60-3 over five seasons, Solich takes over and in the first year fielding a team made up entirely of his own recruits, he goes 6-7, losing to every single ranked team they faced, and getting absolutely smoked 3 times. (Nebraska salvaged a .500 season and a bowl appearance thanks to the late addition of a home game vs 1-AA McNeese St.)
You can talk all you want about the 10-3 record in 2003, but that was abetted by an unrepeatable 47 defensive turnovers. It also saw NU lose to the only 3 good teams on their schedule by an average of 23+ points.
Pederson knew Solich had to be replaced. He was a great Assistant Coach. But as a Head Coach....he made a great Assistant Coach. Nobody wanted to hire him after he was fired. And even after a year off, all he could land was the Ohio job. And it's not like he went and dominated the MAC after that.
@@dantheman5745 Ok you caught us. At least they are 3D
never too late to start steroids
@@dantheman5745great analysis. A lot of people forget how bad Solich looked at times. You could see the talent level drop in my opinion.
Remember how much they loved Josh Davis and insisted he was the solid number one with Cory Ross as the backup?
When Dr. Tom Osborne retired and UN moved into the B1G things really when south quick.
Russell Wilson and Melvin Gordon put generational beatdowns right at the start of the hopeful Big Ten entrance.
Fantastic stuff. Well done guys.
I was there in the 70’s. Perfection. Turner Gill, Roger Craig, Dave Rimington, Mike Rozier, Irving Fryer, Jamie Williams. I. M. Hipp ( greatest name ever). etc. etc.
Great video! I very much like the way you framed it: it's not about what Nebraska is doing wrong now; it's about what they were doing right before and everyone else caught up.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I just saw a documentary about Everett Case, NC State's basketball coach. I think you could tell the same story about him: he raised the bar with structural changes to the program, then everybody else caught up.
This was a really thorough rundown on the rise of the program, and autopsy of their downfall. Well done.
Many thanks for saying that.
this is pretty good. i think Rhule has us heading in a more upward slope. Idk if the Huskers will ever be champions again but i do think they could be CFP eventually.
No reason it couldn't happen in a 12-team playoff era some year.
Great reporting and spot on for the most part. The only quibble I have is in the late 60s and early 70s, they ran power football w/ basic sweep plays and inside reverses mixed in, not the tripple option. When Osborne took over, he actually moved towards a passing offense (Vince Ferragamo) but found it didn't work well in Nov cold and wind. Since OU was beating us with the wishbone, Osborne added the tripple option to the I formation in the early 80s, then recruited to it - Turner Gill, Roger Craig, Mike Rozier. NU was off to the races for the next 20 yrs.
I really liked this. I’m more of an nfl guy but I love football history period. And I didn’t know a ton about the old college teams other than names. But this was really well done. I like the format a lot and your voice is good for narration. Well done. I’ll be following
Seeing Nebraska fall off and watching them for the past 7 years it’s been a struggle but 2024 maybe we can have a bowl game
As a CU alum, this is the feel good video of the year.
Can’t wait for this guys story on CU. Should take about 2 1/2 minutes and half of it will be Nebraska dog walking their sorry asses.
Why be so classless? You represent the University of Colorado.
I didn't take their comment to be classless. I'm a lifelong Huskers fan, and the comment made me smile. What do you expect from a fan of a rival school? He was just being honest. Schadenfreude is real. I know, because I was basking in it when Stanford erased a 29-0 deficit in Boulder last year to crush Buffs souls in OT.
NU and CU have inflicted brutal losses on each other over the years. Reveling in the other's failure is how we coexist. Sort of like how Jimmy Johnson thanked all Cowboy-haters. It makes the rivalry so much more consequential.
Some of the best games I went to as a kid with my dad were the Huskies vs Huskers…..physical games. I miss old football.
Great video! As a georgia tech fan, I’d love to see a similar video about their change too, as we went from being one of the biggest powerhouses to being below average or worse
Great point, I've always been curious about how GT fell from Elite Program status. Of course one obvious fact was Bobby Dodd retiring
Great point, I've always been curious about how GT fell from Elite Program status. Of course one obvious fact was Bobby Dodd retiring
There were other reasons: much like the 1970s Steelers, NU was at the forefront of steroids to gain advantages in strength and size. Kansas State and Mizzou got their collective acts together and made it very difficult for NU to go into KC, St. Louis and Wichita metro areas to get nearby recruits. The fanbase wanted a "favorite son" to takeover the program and that resulted in the horrible Scott Frost period.
Frost had success in the AAC running an offense that was so effective and high flying that it didn't matter how bad the defense was. Then he went to Nebraska where Big Ten defenses don't allow you to just do whatever you want on offense. Completely unmitigated disaster.
GREAT ROIDS FROM CANADA.
As an Alabama fan the game was better when Nebraska was good. I hope they come back good for the sport.
I made a couple of trips to Lincoln when they were in the Big12. I was really impressed with the environment and the fans. I hope the Huskers can make a resurgence. It makes college football more interesting.
As an OU fan who hates Nebraska, it’s crazy how fast their downfall happened.
As a CU fan, I agree
The loss of partial qualifiers was the beginning of the end.
I thought it was the loss of county scholarships when the NCAA told them that they would count against their total scholarship quota.
Yeah, I read something years ago about Prop 48. Osborne said the Big 8 went along with everything Texas wanted when meetings were held to admit the 4 Texas schools, rather than making those 4 realizing the Big 8 was inviting them but didn't need to. The SEC was the only conference that had added, and making extra $ from a December game. Without the SWC collapsing before their eyes after Arkansas left, the Big 12 wouldn't have happened for years. The Big 8 should have gone into meetings knowing the ball was in their court, instead there were "slurping" UT and went along with any demands about the "NEW" conference. They knew they could turn the tables, Nebraska would not be able to allow some poor performing students like before. But college is a bigger joke now than ever. Stories have been around forever about the academics, UNC-ChapelHill. Halfback James Brooks was one of my faves to watch with the Chargers and Bengals. If came out after his NFL career was over that he was still illiterate.
Great informative video. A lot of those 'rise and fall' videos barely contain any reasoning as to the why. So thanks for that.
Very welcome! Thanks for giving it your time
I always wondered what happened to my Colorado's nemesis. Thanks for a job well done explaining it
This is exceptional!
Just subscribed. The editing/production value on this was excellent 🤙
Thanks! Editor Brian Torres and producer Ryan Nanni did an excellent job bringing it together.
Excellent analysis and production.
It blows my mind just how many younger folks have no idea of Nebraska’s blue blood pedigree.
A lot of them scoff at the idea if you mention it, but the Huskers are really a storied program that deserves to be recognized.
It’s like scoffing at Notre Dame because they went through some rough decades.
Raising Nebraska awareness
Nebraska last won a Nat Champ in 1997. ND last won in 1988. So for lots of 25 year olds, this is ancient history.
Nebraska has not even won a conference championship during the last 24 seasons. Shouldn't an alleged "blue blood pedigree" program win at least 1 conference title during such a long span?
Blue blood pedigree. LOL
After 1973 when bowls mattered,
* a losing bowl record
* a losing record to 9 win coaches
* 5-12 against Switzer
* 2-6 against Bowden
Blue blood. Right!
@@yeildo1492I think ND could come back with the right coach. I also think Rhule can bring Nebraska back to a Top 10 squad, but it depends if he is willing to stay for a good while.
The nail on the coffin was when they went to the B1G
All those Texas kids they used to get didn’t want to play Wisconsin and MSU in November.
They rather stay close to home because
1. Weather
2. Their families didn’t have to travel that far.
The Texas Recruiting Pipeline is a myth. A myth perpetuated by people who never followed Nebraska to know that California had always been a lot more important to Nebraska recruiting than Texas pre-2000s. The only coach that ever recruited Texas heavily for Nebraska was Pelini. Nebraska and Texas weren't even in the same conference until 1996. Their 1995 roster of 144 players was predominantly made up of Nebraska players with Texas having only 8 total and of that only 2 started. Texas was never a factor during their dominance and only became a bigger factor much later when they were in decline.
@@Arvaduil Yup. Old Nebraska was all about player development. The NDSU Bison at FCS level are what Nebraska football should be.
The Huskers are the college version of the Raiders. From the 60’s-90’s the Raiders were doing things nobody else was doing. Bending the rules stretching the rules and using them to their advantage, then everybody else caught up and the Raiders have been stuck in neutral ever since.
Them heading to the Big 10 also made them lose their main recruiting pipelines.
Telling Joe burrow that he wasn’t good enough was a devastating blow
Delusional they are. I think there are many programs with an old hayday that's never coming back. We're in a new generation now and these kids weren't even born for that era. Nebraska football, Georgetown basketball, Miami football, Pitt football, etc. Even if they do, it's not going to be like it was. New day now.
@@bbryant9455 that’s valid like fans who grew up with the team good and watching them while they are bad slowly begin to realize that those long droughts that they thought only happened to other fans is happening to them like my dad was a pistons fan at their height and it looked like it would last forever and now it’s been like 16 years now since they were decent. Or like me growing up a warriors fan and now watching them really demonstrate why it took them 75 years to win again.
@@ContentVintageTypewriter-ut1vl fuuuuuckin A. Good call on that one. It's like I get it because we'll always be fans of the team but damn we gotta live in reality too. I'm a lifelong Washington fan and have never lived a time to see them as one of the best teams in football. But I also know and accept that the Redskins are never ever coming back. I can't bring myself to say our current name 🤣☠️
@@bbryant9455 you’ll always have the hogs though they can never take that away from you
When I was growing up throughout the 90s Nebraska was awesome they were one of the top programs in the country
Great video! Never knew about the strength coach factor
Excellent work young man you have a million dollar voice, great work ethic, your very talented . Keep doing what you're doing 💪✌️
So nice! Thanks for watching.
This is the first time I've heard of your channel. I'm now a subscriber!
Welcome aboard!
I grew up watching Nebraska with my father and they were my second favorite team until they joined the Big 10. The 90s teams were something to witness with their option offense and incredible defense. I hate how they ruined college football conferences.
So a lot of people don’t know this, but it was actually Tom Osborne who started the Strength and Conditioning program craze world wide.
Osborne noticed that when a player came back from injury they were stronger and faster than they had been and in many cases became better than the player they were behind in the depth chart.
He got with the rehab people and people at the University and they took some data, and and found that it appeared to benefit players to lift weights and all.
He took that information to Devaney who thought he was crazy but told Tom that he would get one season to see if it worked, and if it didn’t… he was fired.
The thinking back then was that muscle slowed you down.
Osborne recommended Eply for hire and the rest is history. It’s a big reason as to why he was given the job after Devaney.
Many people don’t know this in regards to Steve Peterson… Solich beat him out for a local high school coaching job, and then beat him out for an assistant coaching position at UNL.
When this happened, Peterson decided to go into athletic administration instead of coaching. There’s rumors they had beef during a stint Peterson had as a Graduate Assistant at UNL as well.
When Peterson got the AD job… it was only a matter of time before he fired Solich.
The biggest problem was that he fired Solich after a 9-3 season (team went on to win the bowl game and go 10-3) instead of firing him the year before when he went 7-7.
I believe it was Houston Nutt who was quoted as saying after he was offered the Nebraska job… “Why would I take that job? They fire a coach that wins 9 games. What happens if I win 8?”
The next biggest mistake was doing this again with Pelini.
When Pelini was fired he was one of 3 coaches to win 9+ games every season since he was hired in 2007 (7 years). The other two… Dabo Sweeney & Nick Saban.
Pelini did a lot with very little. But the problem was once again… who do the Huskers hire because no one wants a job where you win 9 games and play for championships and get fired.
We know Bill Callahan was the 8th person offered the Husker job when he was fired.
There are rumors that 10 or more people were offered the job before Mike Riley took the job.
I think they’ve righted the ship with their most recent hire, but the fan base is impatient and pressure will mount the longer it takes for them to play for a championship.
In the new format for the Big Ten… that’s going to be tough. Gotta be top 2 out of 18 teams.
Sadly, the fan base will eventually grow impatient and the pressure will mount because they are too concerned with keeping their sell out streak alive and when people threaten not to buy tickets… the coach is the first one to go.
He really wanted Boyd Epley for Nebraska!
No mention of jump to big ten? The ball had already started rolling downhill but that shot it out of a cannon. As they destroyed all the interest Texas high schoolers would have in going to Nebraska to play games away from friends and family and the region they grew up watching. In 2024 this doesn’t mean as much, but when Nebraska moved to big 10 it was a huge game changer.
Excellent video, this one of the greatest falls of grace in all of sports. Nebraska and the way they ran the option especially when Tommie Frazier was there and teams knew that 90-95% of the time they were going to run the ball and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. I am not a Nebraska fan overall except I am a fan of the 93-97 era of Husker football and especially the back to back national championship team led by Frazier.I won a ton of money when they steamrolled Florida. Also on NCAA Football 95-01 Nebraska was fun to use because they were always loaded on both sides of the ball.
Here's a Nitty Lion rooting for Nebraska. If was so heartening when Nebraska was drubbing Miami in the 90's? Hope to see Nebraska doing it again in the B1G.
It’s crazy for me as a Nebraska native to hear that modern football greats starting in the 90s modeled themselves off of Nebraska. We used to be cutting edge. As a 22 year Nebraska kid this seems crazy. My whole life I’ve always seen us as trying to play catch up.
Well said! As a '90s kid, I feel similarly (though I grew up with Pitt, not Nebraska)
@@SplitZoneDuo I was at the game last night vs Colorado. Memorial was crazy man.
My perspective on this has long been:
With Regard to Nebraska: In the 1990s Nebraska had a huge facilities advantage that really helped in recruiting. Since the turn of the century, many if not most colleges have heavily invested in new football facilities. This has eroded a huge recruiting advantage that Nebraska had back in the day. To me, it really comes mostly done to the evaporation of the facilities advantage. If they still had that recruiting advantage, they'd be better able to recruit the QBs, WRs, and TEs for the elite passing game you need today. They could have evolved from a dominant running team to a dominant passing team. Since the evaporation of the facilities advantage killed their recruiting advantage and there's no other reason for elite players to prefer Nebraska they fell from their mountain top. But, if they get their act together somewhat, the expansion of the CFP actually increases their chances to win a future natty since it will no longer be necessary to be as elite in the regular season as it was in the 2 team BCS era or 4 team CFP era. Get in and get hot like the 2005 Steelers or 2010 Packers did at the NFL level.
Loved that you turned this into a video to tease my nom-subscribing friends with! This Dead Letters has been one of my episodes you did as it follows my Huskers.
Watching the Sooners break their hearts in the closing seconds are my best memories of Nebraska football.
I was born in ‘97, the last year they won the National Title. My whole life, my whole existence, has been waiting 27 years for them to just make it to the playoffs let alone win the whole thing.
Great presentation. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching!
1. Osborne's original offense was a pro style, as he had played wide receiver in the NFL for several seasons. Wasn't until later in Devaney's run, with Oklahoma and Texas's success running the wishbone that they switched to the I-form option.
2. What gets missed in the partial qualifier debate, and what was very misinterpreted in the original Nebraska Dead Letters Podcast episode, is that yes Nebraska would take these kids, but that qualification standard was only for freshman eligibility. Those that didn't qualify out of HS, couldn't play. Nebraska would take them, and because of the academic support made available to them, get them qualified through necessary *college* coursework and then they could play as upper classmen. Other schools could have done the same thing.
Agreed. The discussion completely ignored the NCAA Prop 48 rules, which meant that kids with shit grades and shit test scores couldn't play *anywhere,* but Nebraska took them and got them to pass college classes and become eligible.
No, other schools couldn't do that. There's a reason Nebraska was voted out of the AAU in 2011 by its members.
@@Denussy2011? That’s not at all relevant to the time period being discussed.
Love the video. Wish you would’ve thrown Shawn Eichorst in there too lol. He fits with Pedersen. GBR
Outstanding video! So impressed
Thank you very much!
That California pipeline in the 90s was big. Especially the Juco pipeline. Kansas State started doing it as well and did real well for a while.
This was really well done
Thanks a ton!
“No one will win a championship running the ball”
A wild Michigan appeared
True, but you also didn't see Frazier, Frost, or Crouch getting drafted in the first round.
Introducing Bo Pelini as the LSU Defensive Coordinator makes it sound like he was an outsider. He was a Nebraska Defensive Coordinator first, and was the Interim Coach when Solich was fired!
Correct. Frank Solich hired Bo from the NFL in 2003.
If you look at Pelinis record at Nebraska it’s actually pretty good. He never lost more than four games in a season.
Yeah i always thought pelini was better than all rhe flack he got
Good video, I remember being excited back in 2009-10 heading a good Nebraska team was coming to the Big 10. I think they will be good again
There are good people in Nebraska. I lived in Omaha for seven years. I didn't like it at the time, but I came to realize that it's one of the best places to raise a family.
Places like Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis are all fantastic for families
I received recruiting materials from Nebraska when I was playing high school football back in ‘83…they sent me a workout manual and it was pretty impressive…(I was never offered a visit nor a scholarship from them though)
It’s tough to compete against teams like Bama who pay their players
Unlike a lot of the dreck on her about CFB, your video is actually well researched and presented.
Thank you!
The importance of the strength coach in modern football cannot be overstated. Players spend way more time with strength coaches than FB coaches. Often, the strength coach is the last person to speak in the locker room before games.
Very fair analysis. In my estimation, restricted levels of scholarships for all conferences changed the landscape in college football. During much of the 60s and 70s, the Big Ten limited members to 30 scholarships per year and a max of 120 on a team. NCAA allowed 45 per year during that period. As the qualifications to play increased and the reduced scholarships took effect, things headed south.
Osborne also implemented the passing game for Devaney which help provided them with our first two National titles with dynamic players, like Johnny Rodgers at Rich Glover.
Outstanding report! I've always wondered what happened to them. Despite being a huge USC Trojans fam, I've rooted for Nebraska against Oklahoma since the early 70s.
Again, nicely done.
BEAT OSU Nd Michigan!
LOL at the "a whole family died" music at the end.
This video pretty much sums up the perfect storm of how to slip from a top position program in just a short while. 40 years to build it up, 8 to tear it down.
Cutting walk ons-- bad hires-- and worst of all, a front office full of attorneys forcing bad decisions.
It was digging our own grave.
The Ace in the Hole is our NIL project-- and we are even or above that of the big names.
Young players may not remember Nebraska, but their coaches and dads do.
Everything cycles for all teams, and it just takes the right player or two to fire the engine back up.
On the NIL project: Buffett? Don't know if he has an interest in football.
I'm a 28 year old Nebraska fan so I've seen good Husker football but I have never seen truly great Husker football. Matt Rhule is proving himself to be the catalyst for the return of Nebraska's former spirit. He is here to help heal the wounds from our previous incompetent leadership under Frost. I am not talking about Riley, he was a good man, just not right for the job.
Matt Rhule may or may not win us champions, but he is going to help return the tradition of excellence on and off the field to Nebraska and that is what sets the wheel in motion.
Matt Rhule hasn’t won anything at Nebraska so slow down. Don’t let the Nebraska media hype affect your judgement. They went and got the #1 kid out of North Dakota and everyone is making a big deal about it. North Dakota, which means he’d be the #457 kid out of florida who I’d rather have because that kid plays against other D-1 talent week in and week out in HS.
Honestly it is also an era thing. Your team can never be that dominate forever. Three decades of dominance, that is a long time. Very rarely does a team come out of a legend leaving and continue the way it was for decades. I am looking at you Alabama.
Difference is Bama is a true blue blood with a century of success and located amongst rich football talent.
@@Denussy I understand that. But every empire must fall. They won't become the worst. But they will no longer be the best. Look at the Irish, Stanford I mean we could go on. ND and Stanford are blue bloods. How are they doing right now?
@@Denussy I hear this all the time. Over here in Sweden IFK Göteborg for like 80 years have dominated this region in football. Now they are near the bottom do the table and struggling heavily. This is just how things go. You can not be on top forever.