The first Husker game I can vividly remember took place on September 5th, 2014; it was a cool day in Lincoln, watching the first game of the season for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. It was a new era for Husker football with Oregon State Head Coach Mike Riley taking over for his first game. I watched the game over at my grandpa's house for my mom's birthday. It was a fun day of celebration, with a Cornhusker win against a middling team from Utah. I didn’t know much about this team other than they weren’t as good as the Utah Utes (I was still fairly young). The QB, Taysom Hill, had gotten hurt earlier in the game, and they had a backup, Tanner Mangum, in to play for him. They had one final play at the NEB 42-yard line with 1 second on the clock. Tanner Mangum steps back in the pocket; no hooks and ladders today, he takes a step forward and launches… the ball floats for ages… the score is 28-27… the game ends 28-33. Nebraska starts a new era 0-1!

 

      Nebraska Football, a powerhouse in the football landscape for decades, loses its head coach, Tom Osborne, after 24 years as head coach and 33 total years with the program. The 1997 season was mired in controversy as it finished with dual national title winners, with Michigan and Nebraska never having played, leading to a disagreement among the coaches and AP polls. This disagreement in national title winners led to the creation of what people would come to know as the BCS (Another flawed system, but that is for another day). Tom Osborne would leave the Nebraska Cornhuskers, naming his replacement, the RBs coach Frank Solich.

 

1998:

      This season was a back-to-earth moment for the program. They kept the winning going for five weeks into the season until meeting #18-ranked Texas A&M in Texas and losing by just a single touchdown. This would end the program's 19-game win streak and derail the season. 2 weeks later, Nebraska would lose at home to a rival Texas team, which would be led by 1998 Heisman winner Rickey Williams. The 1998 season would end with the Huskers being 9-3 and qualifying for the Holiday Bowl, which was a disappointment to a lot of Husker fans at the time. This disappointment would be increased when they would lose this game by 3 to the Arizona Wildcats, who were ranked 5th in the nation. A 19th place finish in the polls was not what Nebraska expected from a program which had dominated the 1990’s with 3 titles. Solich was not off to a hot start.

 

1999:

      The Huskers seemed to figure it out… and with a new all-star at QB. This season would start with 6 straight wins against unranked teams at the time by blowout margins until a meeting with Texas in the Longhorn state. 3 vs 18, and Nebraska looked to get there get back from last season. The game would not go as they wanted, as Texas QB Major Applewhite (No, I am not joking; this is an all-time name right here) would toss a 17-yard pass to Mike Jones in the 4th to put away the game and give Nebraska their first loss of the season. This time, the team would rebound around the strong play of Big 12 touchdown leader and sophomore QB Eric Crouch and finish the season undefeated in the rest of Big 12 play, including a blowout win against #5 Kansas State and a huge win against #12 Texas in the Big 12 Championship. At 11-1, they would fall just short of the national title game, which would end up featuring 2 undefeated teams, Virginia Tech and Florida State. This team would instead get a shot at a Tennessee team led by Tee Martin in the Fiesta Bowl. They would be able to take care of this team very easily and take home a strong bowl title. The 2nd season of the Solich Era showed a lot more potential and continued the strong legacy of Osborne's name. One concerning thing for Husker fans at this time was the Texas issue. 1-2 record since Osborne left has left a bad taste in a lot of fans' mouths. Rivalries matter, and wins mean even more!

 

2000:

      Finally, a year that is going right and the first year Solich gets to experience the truest Nebraska rivalry in the Big 12; Oklahoma vs Nebraska. Both teams came into the week 9 matchup undefeated. Nebraska would come out hot and score 14 in the first quarter and jump out to an early lead in Norman. This win would send the program forward and give them a straight path to the National title game… The door would slam in the 2nd quarter. 24 points scored by Oklahoma and would later put on another one to beat Nebraska by 17 points. Nebraska would also go on to lose against a #16-ranked Kansas State team and get blown back down to earth with a bid to the Alamo Bowl. Solich must have said something to his team. Described the glory of the former Osborne teams and how they were disappointments to the Nebraska name. This Nebraska team would come out against a Northwestern team in a spot which they had never really been in and beat the breaks off them. Nebraska set a bowl game record of 66 points scored to Northwestern's 17. It was looked at as a message to the rest of college football: Nebraska is back!

 

2001:

      This season was truly special for the Cornhuskers. Eric Crouch would lead the Cornhuskers in his Senior season to a 11-1 record and himself to a Heisman Trophy. They would be 11-0 going into the final game of the season against Colorado. This included a win against #2 at the time, Oklahoma, in a huge win at Memorial Stadium. This Colorado team had not done anything super special all year but had played solid enough to be the #14-ranked team in the country. The Husker that day, November 23rd, would learn 1 name… Chris Brown (Not that one, but like another one). Brown would have 24 rushing attempts for 198 yards and 6 TOUCHDOWNS!!! This would drop the Huskers down to 4, but by some miracle would still allow them to make the National Title game.

      A date with destiny as the Huskers were back in the promised land and in Pasadena to play in the Rose Bowl. The Huskers had the Heisman winner and a promising team with 1 small hiccup. They had to get it out of the way and now had everything in front of them to try and beat the number 1-ranked team in the nation. Nebraska had been 2 or 3 most of the season, but no one could crack 1 for some reason. Who was the #1-ranked team? Let me tell you a little about the 2001 Miami Hurricanes. This team is widely regarded as one of, if not the greatest, college football teams ever assembled. They beat every team by double digits except Virginia Tech in the final game of the season, where they only won by 2. This team, featuring 41 players that would go on to play in the NFL, included future Hall of Famers Ed Reed, Andre Johnson, and Reggie Wayne. They also had Sean Taylor, Frank Gore, Jeremy Shockey, and Vince Wilfork. This team truly broke football with the level at which their offense was able to perform and the way the defense was able to suffocate an opposing team.

      Nebraska would come into this game with hope and optimism to return to the mountain top and start the 2000’s and get back to the promised land they reached 3 times in the 90’s… This would be the last grasp at relevance for a team searching to find the way again.

      Miami would go up 34-0 by halftime… Nebraska would never get this close again to this day.

 

2002:

      Nebraska would go on to have a very bad next year. The Huskers would go 7-7 in a season in which they would finish 3-5 in the conference and have their worst record since 1961, the final year of William Jennings, the coach before Bob Devaney. Nebraska would struggle to have a real offensive identity and fall out of the top 25 in week 6 for the first time in 348 weeks. The season would see the Huskers go to the Independence Bowl and lose to an Ole Miss team that they matched up well against on paper. The team struggled wildly, and it truly changed the fan base. The questions began to swirl in Lincoln around whether Solich was the man for the job. How would Nebraska fare in the future of College Football?

 

2003:

      This year started much better than the prior year with 5 straight wins heading into a big matchup against Missouri in Missouri. The Huskers would be ranked number 10 in the nation going into this game and would lose to the Wildcats in a close matchup. This was the story of the season, where big matchups would be lost in close, hard-fought matchups. This included another loss to rival Texas in a matchup which would send the Huskers back down to 19, and they would not recover. Solich would finish with a 9-3 record and get his team to the Alamo Bowl versus Michigan State. The difference for this bowl game would be that Solich would not see his men play, as on November 29th, a day after the final regular season game, Steve Pederson would announce a move to fire Solich as Nebraska was “gravitating toward mediocrity.” Bo Pelini (maybe a name to remember) would take over from his defensive coordinator role and coach the team to a win in the bowl game against Michigan State. The next question was who was next for the Nebraska Cornhuskers… rumor has it they were looking at the pros.