How we should want it to be

How we remember undeniably great teams that come up short.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Of the 10 best Nebraska football teams of all time, only four of them won a national title. By the Simple Rating System¹ (SRS) the top three in order are 1971, 1970, 1995. The 1973 and 1980 teams round out the top five. The Huskers lost two games each of those seasons—the ’73 team also tied one—and finished No. 7 in the AP poll both years, but by SRS they’re two of the five best at one of the best programs in the sport.

The 1997 national champions rank eighth—behind 1972, 1983 and all of the above—the 1994 champs don’t show up until 18th. Yes, the team that finally got over the hump and changed the entire narrative of Tom Osborne’s career was maybe his 11th-best team. By one system, at least.

It’s easy to quibble with anything that doesn’t have champions at the top, but I view it as a sign a system is based in reality. The best don’t always come home with the trophy saying they’re the best.

The 2025 Nebraska volleyball team was—is—in the best-ever conversation at a program with plenty of competition.

“This team actually played at the highest level of any team I’ve ever coached, statistically and how we measure things,” coach John Cook said after Nebraska’s five set loss to Penn State in the NCAA Semifinals.

I don’t know exactly what those measures are. Doesn’t matter really. How the Huskers won, on their way to a 33-3 record, told the story well enough. It was often stunning.

Maybe not as stunning, however, as how the season came to end. No need for a blow-by-blow four days after it happened, but maybe you saw the graphic ESPN flashed on the telecast that the Huskers hadn’t lost an NCAA Tournament match when leading 2-0 since 1982. That made the Nittany Lions’ reverse sweep of Nebraska a twice-in-a-lifetime match for me. I was 3 the previous time it happened.

Given what football has managed of late, Husker fans may never want to see a win probability chart again, but I’ll risk it. This one stands out because it’s a) volleyball, and b) even more eye-popping than the two dozen or so football charts that may forever dance in my head.

Nebraska out-hit Penn State in both losses this season. Obviously, that’s not the only number that matters, but if you took a post-match win probability approach and threw the stats from every set the two powers played this season into one group, I guarantee it doesn’t show the Huskers coming away 0-2.

But that’s how it did happen.

“Hats off to Penn State,” Cook said. “They beat us twice this year, so they deserve it.”

And they did. Sunday the Nittany Lions won the national title, beating Louisville 4-1 and denying former Husker and Cardinals coach Dani Busboom Kelly her first national title.

So how do we remember undeniably great teams that come up short? Not as fondly as slightly worse teams that finish slightly better is probably the shortest answer.

Sometimes context can prevent that, and I’ll return to football here as it’s likely easier to recall for most people. The ’83 team probably gets champions-level credit collective because Osborne did the right thing going for two and, not joking, an iconic poster with numbers to match its bold claim. Both are hard to forget individually and, taken together, they keep that ’83 season alive.

But when’s the last time someone asked you about 1980 Nebraska, the fifth-best team in program history by SRS? That team went 10-2, losing by four to Florida State and Oklahoma, and played in the Sun Bowl.

Or about the 1996 team? It’s still the last Husker squad to be shut out, infamously losing 19-0 to Arizona State in the second game of the season, and then lost its only other game that year while dealing with rampant illness in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Both those teams were good enough to win it all. Neither did, and that comes with a cost when it comes to nostalgia. Nebraska football has probably had about 20 teams with the underlying quality of a national champion. Only 20% of them actually were. Breaks happen, bold decisions go bad, there’s still enough randomness involved to drive everyone mad.

But that’s how we should want it to be. It’s why nothing fabricated to produce drama can ever be as dramatic as sports, where you can never truly know what will happen next.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

This year’s team was the best Husker volleyball team I’ve seen. It would be convenient if we could call them national champs instead of co-Big Ten champions and a national semifinalist. Practically speaking, there’s no difference between the two. Nebraska is as good today as it was entering Thursday’s match.

Historically speaking, there’s a difference that gets a little wider as time passes. I’m going to try to remember the 2024 team for what it was. I’ll probably fail eventually, but that’s how I should want it to be.

1. SRS is indeed simple, using just scoring differential and strength of schedule in its calculation.