I welcome Nebraska to the Conference. I will someday hope to attend a game in their stadium. I will look forward to meeting a few fine, old-time Nebraska Fans who might remember Dennis Claridge (a Robinsdale, MN athlete who quarterbacked one of their teams a LONG time ago and then was a back-up qb for the Packers.) I wasn't around back when the Gophers used to dominate Nebraska. I do remember when our games with them were hard-fought battles...low scoring...mostly defensive struggles between two tough, hard-nosed teams. I watched as the fortunes of the programs passed in the night and Nebraska embraced college football and continued to build their program...a program that their entire state loves, is proud of, celebrates and identifies with. And, I watched as the administrators at the University of Minnesota neglected the football program, distanced themselves from the Big Ten elite position that Minnesota once shared with Michigan and Ohio State...for all too brief a period of time. By the early to mid 1960's the Gophers had their last great hurrah...and Nebraska was really just getting started. The last games that the Gophers played against Nebraska were humiliating defeats...thrashings...totally uncompetetive games. It was with a real sadness that I watched that happen. At the same time, the same thing was happening to the Gophers at the hands of Michigan...Ohio State...even Michigan State. By the 1970's the Gophers could compete with wisky, iowa, Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, sometimes Purdue, but NEVER any longer our most frequently played Out of Conference Rival, Nebraska. By 1982, the University of Minnesota had all but abandoned Big Ten Football. They actually abandoned MEMORIAL STADIUM and went to play in the house of the twins and the home of the vikings as the third tenent of the Metrodome. The 1984 84-17 debacle was devistating as well as a completion of the destruction of our once proud Golden Gopher self-percetion. (That WAS a GREAT Nebraska football team...and...it could have been much worse. I still remember the sea of red that took over the damn dome that evening...it was almost totally despiriting to this long-time Golden Gopher Fan.)
I'm worried about not being able to compete with Nebraska, just as I am worried about not being able to compete with Ohio State, Michigan (They WILL be back with a vengence), and eventually Penn State will be the BEAST of the EAST again. Yet, I do welcome Nebraska to the Conference because they bring so much tradition, so many loyal fans and such a great football tradition to the Big Ten Conference.
And, as strange as this may sound, I do look forward to a time when my Gophers can find a way to compete once again with Nebraska on the football field. It will be a real challenge and a real honor to strive to reach that time and that place...but...I honestly do beieve that it CAN happen. At least, right now I WANT to believe that my team can compete with your team again in the future! It really is pretty humbling and it really is hard to see how it will happen (there really are some pretty tough places to play in the Big Ten Conference...and I KNOW playing at your house in Nebraska will be just like adding another Camp Randall...Kinnick...Horshoe in C-bus or Big House in Ann Arbor or like making the trip to State College, PA when they are doing a "white-out" for a night game...
And, there should be battles of the TITANS that occur on given Saturdays in Big Ten play. Nebraska vs. OSU...(Not Oklahoma State University...), but the OHIO STATE Universtiy...PSU...the CORN-BLUES of Michigan in Ann Arbor...wisky in madtown...and you just never know what will happen after two...or three...or four pretty tough games and you go into East Lansing...or Evanston OR Minneapolis! Some of these schedules in Big Ten play are going to be BRUTAL.
Welcome Nebraska...you have helped change the WHOLE nature of the Big Ten Conference!
So, I'll stay a pretty humble Minnesota Golden Gopher Fan. I'm an old guy. I have seen a Gopher National Championship. And, I have also wandered through the Wilderness with my Gophers through the decades...sometimes it has felt like almost forever. Right now, it seems like the job of building this old program got a LOT tougher with the addition of Nebraska. But, it is perhaps just exactly what this University of Minnesota and it's leadership NEEDS to get off it's dead butt and to get to work and to start building a program that can in it's own way begin to compete again with a Michigan...an Ohio State...a Penn State...a Nebraska and, of course the iowa...wisky border-battle rivals we have and the rest of the Big Ten.
Welcome Nebraska.
But, I did not welcome Nebraska because I want anything to do with HuskerMax, the Nebraska web site. I am in no way, shape or form interested in writing on some other board. I don't like to either trash-talk, talk fantasy high school football recruiting talk or "represent a "Golden Gopher Point of View..." to folks on another board. I'll just stick to saying what I think, what I see and of course, keeping the mobbers and bashers over here on GOPHERHOLE well contrasted! Many Gopher Fans on this board don't like me...and that is really a GREAT thing. Quite frankly...there are some on this board I don't think too highly of, myself... ; 0 )
So, I have NO interest in this membership thing. Don't worry mobbers and bashers who love to try to trash me here on GopherHole. You dudes and dudettes can have the honors...or...in some of your cases can present your dishonor as you compete for one of those six memberships to the Nebraska Board. I'm having too much fun right here!!! ; 0 )
But, I really do welcome Nebraska to the Conference. In a paradoxical sort of way, it may be just what the Unviersity of Minnesota Administrators need to get this football program off dead center and moving in a POSITIVE way. The passion that Nebraska will bring to this conference can ONLY be a GOOD thing...it might SHAME the dispassionate administrative leadership at the University of Minnesota to FINALLY start showing some PRIDE in their revenue sports and ESPECIALLY in the football program after all these decades of neglect and apathy. In fact, having Nebraska come into town every other year...and...travelling into Lincoln, along with travelling to Columbus, Ann Arbor and State College, PA, madison, iowa city, and a few other places just might give the tired old administrators a few NEW, creative, energetic and EXCITING ideas for Big Ten Game Day Saturday. It will be good to get to know you Nebraska!!!!!
PS Nebraska: I almost bought a shirt last year in honor of the Corn Huskers moving to the Big Ten in the Creighton University Book Store that simply said: "Creighton Football"
I thought that was a GREAT shirt... and might have made a few Big Red fans smile a bit...or...maybe not? (I think they gave up on football there sometime in the 1950's...)
; 0 )
