Something RateGame doesn’t have is music functionality in the app. For me, music has always been a key part of college football. Whether it be Enter Sandman during the Virginia Tech walkout, Mr. Brightside in Ann Arbor at Michigan Football games, or Mo Bamba during the infamous 2019 Penn State White Out game where the crowd somehow got louder after the delay of game against Michigan, music affects the way you remember College Football. For me, this is no clearer than the memories I have with Nebraska Football. For most people, when they hear Sirius by The Alan Parsons Project, they think of the 90’s Bulls teams coming out and hearing “ANNND NOW… YOUR STARTING LINEUP FOR YOUR WORLD CHAMPION CHICAGO BULLS!” 

For me, this song doesn’t associate with that at all; instead, it goes to a crisp fall evening. The lights at Memorial Stadium are bright, and you can smell the Runzas from inside the concourse. You hear a rock on the western part of the stadium, “HUSKER!” “POWER” back and forth as the stadium gets ready, and the beat drops, and you cut to a camera in the tunnel. For me, leading the pack is a man we are gonna be talking about today. Today, our coach would not only be walking with his player and the state of Nebraska, but he would also be walking out with his cat. This story is a long way down the road, so I'd better get to telling you about my favorite coach in Cornhusker history, the one, the only, the hotheaded Mr. Bo Pelini.

2008:

The first year of the Pelini era, but not the first game. 4 years prior and in Part 1 of this series, we covered Mr. Pelini and him coaching the Huskers to a victory in the Alamo Bowl against Michigan State. He would lose the head coaching battle in 2003 when they would go with Bill Callahan for the role. He would then leave the program and go to be the Co-Defensive Coordinator and DB coach at Oklahoma, and after 1 year, leave to go be under Les Miles as his Defensive Coordinator from 2005-2007. This LSU defense would boast a load of talent with Glenn Dorsey, Laron Landry, and Craig Steltz all playing under Pelini. After the 2007 season, the University of Nebraska would let go of Steve Pederson, the AD up to that point, and hire a familiar face to the school… Tom Osborne to be the AD of the program. Tom Osborne’s first move was to fire Callahan, and after 9 days would go back and hire Pelini for the role.

Pelini had a load of talent on this first-year roster, with a lot of Callahan’s recruits finally entering difference-making years, including our Diamond in the rough talked about in the last part; now is as good a time as any to introduce you to him… his name is Ndamukong Suh, and he will eat your QB. The 6’4, 313-pound monster of DT would put most QBs in a frenzy trying to prepare for him. This season was his first breakout season, having 7.5 sacks and 16 TFLs. He also would score the only touchdowns of his career, having 2 INTs taken back to the house.

This season, led by Suh and Roy Helu Jr., the sophomore RB with 1069 yards and 7 TDs, the Huskers would go 8-4 in the regular season. The main struggle with this team came against ranked opponents. The Huskers would play against 3 ranked teams and lose by a combined 75 points to these teams in mostly blowouts, other than their game against Texas Tech, which was a loss by just 6 points. The other loss came to Virginia Tech at home in the first of the home-and-away games they would play. For the Bowl Game, the Huskers would matchup with Clemson and ACC leading passer Cullen Harper in the Gator Bowl. They would snag a 26-21 win off the foot of Alex Henery, kicking 4 FGs

 

2009:

This was a season of close games for the Huskers, mainly led by there All Star defense keeping teams close enough. For the offense, Zac Lee, Junior QB, and Roy Helu Jr. led the pack. The defense was a showcase Nebraska had not seen in a minute, led by Suh. Ndamukong Suh this season was an unstoppable force, and there was no immovable object for him. He recorded 12 sacks, 20.5 TFLs, and had 1 FF.

The season started strong with 2 wins before taking its first loss at Virginia Tech in a 1-point loss. We would then pick up 2 big wins, including a ranked win on the road in Missouri, reaching No. 15 in the AP poll. The Huskers then would take 2 losses, both at home to Texas Tech and Iowa State, the latter half being a 9-7 final score. The Huskers sat at 4-3, reeling for what was next… what happened shocked most fans of the Huskers. The Huskers would win 5 straight games, including a 10-3 ranked win over No. 20 Oklahoma and a rivalry win over Colorado. Due to a strong performance and a lack of a true contender in the North Division of the Big 12, the Huskers would fall into a Big 12 title game against Colt McCoy and the No. 3-ranked Texas Longhorns.

The game would start with 2 long field goals in the first quarter by kicker Alex Henery from 45 and 52 yards before late in the second where Colt McCoy would bulldoze into the end zone to give the Longhorns a 7-6 lead at halftime. Zac Lee would enter the locker room with 2 INTs, and his day would only get worse as the 2nd drive he would throw another INT, making that the fifth INT by both QBs combined. It was clear from the start, though, that this wasn’t a game for the offense as Suh was the one who would take this over. He would end the game with 12 Tackles (7 for loss), 4.5 sacks, and a school record after this game. The only score in the 3rd would be a 39-yard FG by Hunter Lawrence.

The Huskers only kept fighting, and after a punt and quick 3-and-out by the Huskers, they would drive down and kick a 28-yard field goal before forcing another INT by McCoy and kicking another FG this time from 42 yards out, leaving just 1 minute and 44 seconds for Texas to get a score.

We have reached the climax of the story, the mountain top, the epicenter of the Huskers. The Longhorns would drive the ball up only a few yards in the given time. Suh created chaos in the backfield. 3rd and 13 from the Nebraska 29-yard line. McCoy drops back and the clock ticks. He launches the ball out of bounds; the clock ticks. The ball hits the ground, and the clock hits zero at the same time. 12-10 Nebraska wins the Big 12; they knock off No. 3-ranked Texas in a stunner that puts Nebraska back into contention for being a national powerhouse.

Except there is one thing the Longhorns want: a replay. Was the ball out of bounds… is there time? The refs consult. The weight of the state of Nebraska teeters on the call of 1 referee, 1 second, and he walks out to make the call…

“After further review, there is 1 second left on the game clock, 4th down!”

With this call, the Longhorns have enough time to snap the ball to the holder Jordan Shipley to give Hunter Lawrence the 46-yard kick to give the Longhorns a 13-12 nailbiter win. The door slams just as fast as it opened.

A bowl doesn’t matter, a Heisman finalist doesn’t matter, a season to remember doesn’t matter

This 1 second will haunt the team, the university, the state of Nebraska forever.

 

2010:

In June of 2010, there were rumblings that the Big Ten Conference wanted to expand and add more teams. This was coming at the time of some large unrest within one of the most dominant divisions in college football for the ages, the Big 12. At the time, the Pac-10 and its new commissioner, Larry Scott, were on a tour pressing to steal away 6 of the biggest schools (Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Colorado) to form the first mega conference, the Pac-16. This was never a true idea that would materialize, knowing the Big 12 would never let go of its golden geese. This angered a lot of ADs at schools in the Big 12 due to the lack of true TV rights for each of the larger programs and the overall lack of compensation they were getting.

This whole pot boiled over the summer of 2010 when the Big Ten reached out to then Conference runner-ups, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, to join the conference on a 6-year phased revenue plan ramping them up to a member of the conference by the 2016-2017 season, giving them TV deals and other major securities as a program. Nebraska would announce June 11th, after a board meeting in 2010, that they would be moving to the Big 10 effective for the 2011 season. This would mean this would be the final season for the Huskers in the Big 12, where it had spent its entire existence from 1907 till this point. Soon after, rival Colorado would also announce its departure to the Pac-10, leaving the Big 12 reeling.

The 2010 season felt like a farewell tour for the Huskers with only 2 losses in the regular season and getting as high as No. 5 in the AP poll. With the imminent departure, it felt like this was one last moment for Nebraska to shine. They would walk into the Big 12 title game on the back of first-year QB Taylor Martinez and Senior RB Roy Helu Jr. for a date against their old foe, Oklahoma. In the game, they would only lose by 3 after scoring zero points in the second half. In the final game as a member of the Big 12, the Huskers would lose in the Holiday Bowl to a Jake Locker-led Washington team in a final score of 19-7 to finish an all-too-familiar 10-4 under Pelini

Effective July 1st, 2011, the Nebraska Cornhuskers would join the Legends Division with new rivals in Northwestern, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, and Minnesota being divisional foes. A new era was upon us for the Huskers. A new era in which Nebraska could create a new identity for better or for worse.