Thius will more of a football post. I have been to well over a hundred of Husker games over the years. They won 5 national titles, won 9 games a year at least and then came 2003. An egomaniac named Steve Pederson became AD and wanted his own stamp on the program. So he fired a coach with a 58-17 record over 6 years and hired a fired NFL coach. Look, the rest is the last 23 years. Disappointment, crushing defeats and my eventual descent into indifference. Yeah, I go but when they lose I move on. It's pure entertainment now.
Road trips are what I actually enjoy. Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Illinois, Oregon. Getting out of Nebraska. The games are irrelevant anymore.
Eugene, Oregon is a quintessential college town. Animal House showed Eugene in its glory. It hasnt changed much. It is a beautiful town scenery wise and racked up zero parking fees. However, due to capitalism, and the fact Husker fans travel like lemmings, a $295 hotel, no a motel, a drive up to the door motel. Yeah, $295 cuz the damn game started at 8pm local time, 10pm my time, and didn't end till 11:30 or so traveling back to Portland was out of the question.
Nebraska football is a joke. They can beat the shit out of bad teams, but when they face adversity, they fold up in a fetal position and hold on for dear life and lose. This has happened for years. Nebraska has blown 18 games in the last 7 years while leading in the 4th quarter. This is unprecedented. It's a streak of choking that puts Nebraska #1 by far in losing like that. In fact, Nebraska has not beaten a ranked team in 10 years. That also is tops for mediocrity.
Oregon was ranked 25th in one poll so the opportunity to break this streak was right there. Oregon was playing a walk on quarterback who was as incompetent as they come. Former Husker Dylan Raiola had stunk the place up the week before and was benched.
Yeah, we've all seen enough Disney flicks to know what was coming. Nebraska led 14-9 with about 6 minutes to go. Oregon had the ball and had done nothing offensively the entire game. In comes Dylan Raiola, ex Husker quarterback. Max exclaims to Ducks fans, Dylan Raiola game winning drive coming up. Not sure if he bought it but I did. We all knew what was going to happen. At least us Husker fans did.
Game winning drive by ex-Husker Dylan Raiola. Less than a minute to go? Oregon TD. 17-14 Ducks. Max storms off down the steps as we say bye to our very cool Oregon fan neighbors. What's the point? It's entertainment, right? Right?
Another choke job, two weeks in a row. Blowing a two-score lead against Indiana the week before. I saw it live. Now blowing another lead in Eugene in the fourth was under our belts. Leaving the stadium back to the shuttle bus was a sobering affair. Like I said, we are so used to this it's expected.
The Oregon stadium is unique. Weirdly shaped, holds 54,000 and really not a bad seat in the house. It's also modernized a bit with handrails for us olds to climb steps. It was a pleasant experience as Oregon fans are so cool. The loss of the game? Yeah, who cares. The way it was lost? Right out of a feel-good movie about redemption. All that was needed was a PA announcer calling play by play (Oregon has a guy who's been there since 1967 and won't retire per Ducks fans. He has the energy of a sloth).
The game was a great story. I don't care who won, this was a tremendous story of a kid who stunk up the place the week before who came off bench to beat his former team. Cmon man, win or lose, this was legendary.
Again, no parking fees. Parking carnage holding steady at $336.
Go Big Red always!
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