This might change everything about how you view the last 90 years of Nebraska football
Or maybe it won't. But it changed my view on the clichéd blue blood debate.
Every power football program has its dark ages.1 You might accept this as anecdotally true just based on broad observations of the sport. Oklahoma had the ‘90s, when it lost more games than Mississippi State. Alabama and Notre Dame had the 2000s, when they won fewer games than Maryland. The 2010s for Texas weren’t as good as they were for Temple.
Nebraska has had a rough 21st Century. No conference titles since 1999. No wins over a top 10 opponent since 2016, which was also the last year NU cracked the AP top 10. There have been 99 AP polls this decade, and the Huskers have appeared in three of them, never higher than 23rd.
But you knew all that already. It’s recounted here because, during the low tide of college football summer, I’ve been wondering if this current Husker fade is something we haven’t seen before. If all great programs get a little lost at some point, have any of them gotten this lost.
And I still don’t know the answer to that question (yet) because I got distracted by something I found more interesting about Nebraska football’s recent past and its legacy.
