The Nebraska Cornhuskers are getting a new basketball arena. A sparkling gem of modernity that, university officials hope, will spark a resurgent interest in the much maligned program. It’s a fresh, sparkling start for a team that desperately wants to put the past few seasons behind them. So, even though the Bob Devaney Sports Center held many a fond memory, a good deal of people are excited to see it fading into the rearview mirror as the team moves down to their brand-spanking-new digs. The floor design for Pinnacle Bank arena was just released yesterday. Here’s what it will look like:
Personally? I love it. I love the state logo in the middle, replete with the proud Husker “N”. It’s part old school, part new school, and every bit the splashy, interesting new look that should help cleanse the collective palate.
Is it weird that another bank is sponsoring the floor, even though it’s located inside Pinnacle Bank Arena? Kind of. Will some people think the colored three point lines and state outline at center court are making the court a little too busy? I suppose. But, on the whole, I think this floor could be home to some of the best Husker basketball memories yet.
But what did the other floor plans look like? What were some of the designs that didn’t make the cut? Burnpoetry has obtained an exclusive look at some of the other floor plans for the Pinnacle Bank Arena that were rejected, for one reason or another (*Author’s note: some obvious, others not so much) along with a brief explanation of what the general idea was behind the plan.
#1. Ghost of Sadler Past. . .Court
Spooky.
Replete with a ghoulish 101-89 record, the Ghost of Sadler Past is a haunting reminder of the last coach who came along and briefly provided us the same kind of hope that Tim Miles has done. Sadler, too, was a charismatic man. He, too, was from a smaller school that he took to the NCAA Tournament in spite of the staggering odds and lack of funding/basketball tradition.
While the plan was ultimately rejected, due to the fact that Sadler is A) still way too alive to technically be a ghost, and B) coaching for the KU Basketball powerhouse at the moment, the pasty mask of anguish that was set to haunt center court has been forever burned into my consciousness.
#2. #suckitIowa Court
This idea is fairly self-explanatory. Designed by legendary artist, and Omaha native, Frank Lloyd Wrong, this stirring, emotional, anti-tribute to the state directly to our East is a visceral blitzkrieg on your senses. Designed after having a fever-dream, brought on by grain alcohol and four helpings of corn on the cob, Wrong allegedly created his masterpiece overnight.
Coupling his artistic genius with the University of Nebraska’s desire to modernize and branch out onto social networking sites, they were able to create a one-of-a-kind court design that, ultimately fell just short of approval. Damn you, Shawn Eichorst. Damn you.
#3. Starbury Court
College athletics is big business. It’s a simple truth in 2013 that schools want to make the largest amount of money that they can, be it from Ad revenue, ticket sales, or merchandising. Nebraska is no exception. In a secret, underground auctioning process, the Husker athletic staff attempted to sell off the rights to naming the court to a shoe company.
After Nike bailed, Reebok pulled out, Adidas balked, Skecher Shape-Ups fell through, Timberland boots canceled, and FILA didn’t return Nebraska’s calls there was only one last option on the table.
Starbury.
The creation of legendarily head-tatted Stephon Marbury (*Author’s note: AKA “Starbury”), this shoe brand rose to infamy in 2006 despite the fact that he hadn’t been worth a damn on the court in at least two years, due to its $15.00 price tag.
The Huskers ultimately decided to pull the plug on this particular line of endorsement since Stephon is currently playing in China for a team called the Beijing Ducks.
#4. Wait, we have a basketball team in this state? LOLOLOLOLOL. Court
Created by famous Husker tailgate aficionado, Hammered Jerry, after drunkenly staring at ‘Lil Red’s balloon-face for 25 minutes during the pre-game festivities at Memorial Stadium this tribute to Husker football is a monument to one man’s belief that it will always be stunningly hilarious to ask, “Wait, we have a basketball team in this state?” anytime anyone mentions the Nebraska Men’s Basketball team.
Hammered Jerry, known for slurringly shouting this catchphrase at the TV in his parents’ basement during Nebraska basketball highlights on the local news, became so overcome with his own high-brow, intellectual humor that he felt compelled to send in this artist’s rendering of what the court should look like at the new arena.
In the end it received zero votes, no praise, and only Jerry was left laughing. Alone. In his parents’ basement.
#5. Timmenator Court
No one knows for sure where this court design came from. Legend has it that a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in a ball of lightning, drew this sketch on a white board in Shawn Eichorst’s office and then walked out to the tune of “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood, never to be seen again. Until they release The Expendables 3: Expendable Harder.
The athletic department eventually decided that this logo was too intimidating, too darkly brilliant to be allowed to sit at center court of the new arena. The cost of hiring more floor wipers, to sop up the inevitable urine of the opposing team as they repeatedly peed their pants in fear of the Timmenator, was deemed too immense.
Not wanting to waste such sublime beauty, however, the University sent this piece to the Louvre where it was immediately hung up over the Mona Lisa, blocking out the now-less-famous piece. Not even Tom Hanks with a terrible haircut has been able to decipher the complexities of this piece, but you will now have to go to France to see it in any non-digital format.
Taylor Martinez had a story come out on CBS Sports’ web page a few days ago. It was, to be perfectly honest, a fairly un-noteworthy piece. It wasn’t particularly revelatory, incendiary, or chalk-full of candid talk from the soon-to-be-fifth-year senior at Nebraska. It was mainly just a brief piece that attempted to give us a little insight into an enigmatic, mysterious player that is constantly rumor-mongered about in the state of Nebraska. I don’t think that it did any of that. There was one piece of the story that did jump out at me. One stunning, eye-opener, that was casually atom-bomb-dropped on us as though it was of lesser significance.
In case you didn’t want to stop over and read the article. Here’s what the headline looked like:
What?!?!?
And here’s what I saw when I read the headline:
!?!?
The article, which was fine in the same way that eating Vanilla ice cream tastes good (*Author’s note: nothing against the author. Martinez seems more guarded than Guantanamo Bay around media types and I truly don’t blame him.) didn’t really touch too much on the App part of the headline but that was what intrigued me.
The article briefly alludes to Martinez’s enjoyment of playing the stock market and of his hobby of creating iPhone apps within the first 3 paragraphs. He went from a monotone, unintelligible purveyor of clichés to The Most Interesting Man in the World. Suddenly the possibilities were endless for what Martinez could be doing in his free time.
What if he was actually a savant? A boy-genius that was misunderstood? What if he was not going to be playing on NFL scout teams to simulate Colin Kaepernick next year, but kicking it with Gordon Gecko on Wall Street or hanging with Mark Zuckerberg in a tech lab?
Before I let this sled dog team of inane thinking run away with me, however, one key piece of this article kept sticking out. Taylor Martinez was a creator. Of phone apps. The only one they mentioned in the article was a puzzle-type game involving pattern repetition called, “Follow the Pattern.” That got me thinking. . .
What other games might Taylor Martinez have invented for iPhone? He’s had some free time this offseason. In between trying to hold off the on-rushing tidal wave of co-eds and working on his throwing motion, here are a few of the games I found on iPhone’s App Store that appear to have been created by none other than Taylor Martinez.
Chasebook
Sleeve Tats, Red Hair, and social networking. . .
This relatively new app is a terrifically entertaining game, based on the highly regarded life and times of former Husker Chase Rome, that allows you to choose from these hilarious options the moment you open it up:
If you select “no.” Here’s what pops up on the next screen:
Tough one, right?
It goes on like this for roughly 256 levels. The fun never stops. That’s the whole game. You see, the fun part is quitting, changing your mind, and then quitting again. It’s great!
For Whom the Bell ‘Fros
Shout out to Hemingway!
This game, based incredibly loosely on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, is all about ‘Froing people Kenny Bell style. You have a teacher that’s driving you wild? ’Fro ‘em. Parents won’t get out of your room, tweenagers? ’Fro those misunderstanding parents. Not only will your parents look like they had their hair styled by a soul train dancer, but they just might develop into the best wide receiver Nebraska’s seen in years.
Check out defensive coordinator John Papuchis after he got Bell ‘Fro’d:
As you can see, this one’s still in Beta.
The fun never ends. As you can see from the terribly placed ‘Fro, this one’s still in Beta.
T-Magic The Gathering
Like a card game. . .but on your phone.
This one appeals more to the fantasy nuts out there. As the cards in the deck are played, using up your Martinezmana, you attack your opponent. Based on what kind of deck/cards you have, you are then able to either Oklahoma State 2010 someone or they will Wisconsin 2011 you. It’s kind of complicated, but just know this: phonecardgames are about to taste the majesty of a T-Magic revolution.
And finally, the Magnum Opus of Martinez’s iPhone App creations:
Angry Bos
Run, piggies. Run!
This game has gone totally viral. In it you bombard your pig-like nemeses with none other than the angriest of all birds, Bo Pelini. Each bird has a different colored crewneck, as well as a different Bo-Pelini-is-probably-going-to-murder-you-than-cannibalize-your-dead-body Pelini face. You play through various levels, attempting to destroy, explode, and bomb everything in your way. You know, just kind of treat the pigs like the referees that are constantly out to destroy your team and everything that’s good and just in the world.
These are just a few of the marvelous Apps that Martinez has developed. The future looks bright for this budding young techno-whiz.
“. . .all these woes shall serve forsweet discoursesin our time to come.” - Friar Lawrence, Romeo and Juliet
“I sure as hell hope so.”
- Chris Hatch, eternally optimistic Husker basketball fan
About midway through the first half, with Nebraska trailing by double digits and Iowa fans cheering so loudly they were drowning out the Husker fight song, I turned to my wife, shrugged my shoulders and said the only thing I could think of, “Sometimes . . .it’s just really tough to be a Nebraska basketball fan, isn’t it?”
You see, I love Nebraska basketball. I’m a proud season ticket holder. I have about 4 Red Zone student section shirts and I still wear them more than I should, both due to the inherent need to suck in the post-collegiate gut and the fact that those free-with-ticket-purchase shirts aren’t exactly made of high-end material and have started to fall into a state of disrepute.
But the simple fact is, being a Husker basketball fan is a little masochistic. It’s a little neurotic. It’s a little like being an enormous Scorsese fan even though you know his movies can be breathtakingly, violently, depressing. But, damn it, I just love the team. I take pride in supporting a team that has no choice but to “effort” through games. I take pride in standing to clap along to the fight song in a near-empty arena. Maybe it’s the contrarian in me. Who knows. Maybe I am a masochist.
Whatever the reason for my devotion, as I found myself struggling to justify an early deficit to a team equally crappy to my own, I was rewarded on Saturday. Not with a program-changing win. Not with an NCAA “w” or a Cinderella run through a post-season tourney. No. I, and many other like me in this small club of pain-junkies that more closely resembles a cult following of an underground rapper or a director of ultra-gorey horror movies than a fanbase for a basketball team, was rewarded with a small victory.
And at Nebraska, after a season of slogging through tough losses and ugly wins? It’s the small victories that taste the sweetest.
As we walked into our seats, ROW 32 Stand up!, I noticed that the crowd wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. The game had been rescheduled due to Thursday’s blizzard and I had erroneously believed that this would help bolster attendance numbers. A sellout crowd it was not. The crowd, officially listed as 12,000+ on ESPN’s website was only slightly above average.
There was an oversaturation of Iowa fans (*Author’s note: read: more than one) and so what would normally have just been too sub-par Big 10 teams battling it out in a meaningless February game took on an air of us v.s. them. Normally I can keep my fandom at arm’s length from the rest of my mental faculties. With Iowa? Things are different.
They’re felt deeper. The sparks of my caring-too-much are fired with a quick-pumping bellows and, against my better judgment, things get personal. With no other fan base have I so quickly developed a detestation. Even the pony-tailed, hackey-sacking masses from Boulder, Colorado never drew my ire quite like the Hawkeye fans. I believe it has to do as much with proximity as anything else, and my time in Omaha where I frequently encountered Hawkeye fans who crossed the border to move to The Good Life or commuted over to just catch a glimpse of how the other half lived certainly cemented these beliefs, and so the black and gold die-hards were out in pretty healthy numbers.
The Hawkeyes came out hot. Riding a wave of loyal road-fans and a wave of angry Nebraska taunts, especially savory booing was had by all when the opposing team announced Nebraska native Mike Gesell. Gesell seemed to relish his role as villain and promptly got off to a scorchingly hot start. Very early on Iowa threw down a two-handed dunk and Gesell hit a couple tough shots and the Hawkeye contingent picked up steam.
At this point, two things happened at nearly the same time.
1. It became personal. I began cheering wildly. Not wanting to take the bait and get involved in verbal fisticuffs with some random guy who’d made sure to cram in a few bloody Mary’s before the game, but not wanting to let some Coucil Bluffian blowhard come in and out-cheer my team on our homecourt, I made sure to stand and loudly clap during the timeouts. I made sure to gleefully leap to my feet and whoop like a bad “Indian Extra” in a John Wayne movie when we made a big play. I was desperately trying to serve as a one-man counterweight for the Iowa bums who had somehow scored tickets to our section.
2. A pair of Husker fans we refer to as the “Negative Nancies” climbed up onto their soapbox and fired into their completely unfunny and brutally obnoxious stand-up act. Or was it their deeply scientific and insightful look into the world of Collegiate athletics? They groaned. They moaned. They attempted to be bitingly sarcastic but only left me hoping that they would get bitten by a rabid street-dog. They tried to be offensively, caustically hilarious, but they were more battery acid-ear drops.
The first half went badly. The Husker couldn’t break Iowa’s press. They couldn’t make their free throws. The Iowa fans were giddily firing up their foreign chants and things were spiraling. Nebraska was down 41-25 at the half. An already frustrated fan base was wringing their hands instead of clapping them. The Iowa fans two rows down to our left were acting as if they had just found out that LeBron James was going to come back to school and use some of his un-utilized eligibility to play for their squad. At this point, things looked bleak.
As halftime began we kicked into our second favorite Husker side game. The Time Miles Tweet Prediction game.
Quick side rant:
My wife and I have several side-games that help us get through some of the longer dry-spells that occur during a Husker basketball game. I highly recommend using them when you suddenly find yourself in a lengthy T.V. timeout with only the dance team to watch and the Huskers down by 20 points.
1. The Gallegos game:
This game is where I set a 3-point shot attempt total prior to every game tipping off for Husker shooting guard/small forward/for the love of God, why don’t we have any height player Ray Gallegos. It’s been set as high as 14 (*Author’s note: my wife correctly took the over. I’m not kidding.) and as low as 11 (*Author’s note: my wife took the over and was just off.) but it illustrates the insanity of Ray Gallegos getting a perpetual greenlight from three-point range from Tim Miles.
2. The How Late Will Those Two Girls in Row 31 Show Up Game: Where we attempt to predict whether the two girls in the row in front of us will arrive. Lately they haven’t showed up at all, and I have personally theorized on anything from Alien abduction to Taken 3 plotlines.
3. The Tim Miles Tweet Prediction Game: Tim Miles has attempted to utilize social media like no coach before him. He’s embraced Twitter. He’s released short videos and he even stood in as the Student Section made their own Harlem Shake Youtube video. Every game, after the halftime talk in the locker room Miles tweets out some thoughts on the first half. We find that attempting to predict what Miles will tweet keeps us occupied during the Elderly Clogging/Anything with a unicycle halftime shows that the University mercifully abandoned about halfway through the year. **Spoiler Alert** He doesn’t use as many F-Bombs as I would hope.
Alright, back to the story.
As the second half began the Huskers began fighting. And I’m not talking about the keep-it-respectable-so-we-can-lose-by-10 kind of fighting. I mean they were pushing. Clawing. Desperately, frantically attempting to salvage their pride. They were trying to make a comeback.
The Negative Nancies behind us were fully content to keep their standup act going. The Iowa fans shouts were still loud. But something was happening. The Huskers were starting to come alive. My already too-loud screams starting getting a little wilder. I started standing up a little more for little things, like a high-flying rebound by David Rivers. Nebraska was chipping away. Not to make a masterpiece, no, this wasn’t the kind of delicate, craftsman’s touch, they were chipping away recklessly; a rescue team trying to remove the rubble of the first half.
Iowa had gone cold. Our starting five, who would play the entirety of the second half, were rejuvenated. They were fighting their way out from the corner and off the ropes and it certainly wasn’t pretty. It certainly wasn’t elite. It was ugly and bruising and knuckle-bleedingly tough. They would take a leap forward, two steps back, then you would look down on the court and they were suddenly moving forward again.
Dylan Talley was hitting leaners and runners. Tough shot after tough shot. Bailing out a dysfunctional offense along with freshman Shavon Shields heady play. We were down 10. And then 8. And then 6. And then, suddenly we were within four points of the Hypothermically cold Hawkeyes and their fans were sitting down and we were the ones standing and screaming maniacally. We were the ones relentlessly screaming as our defense and our team tried to defend our home turf.
Talley hit a jumper. Iowa came down a bricked two shots and Shields knocked down a two. The game was tied.
The guy in front of me, wildly searching for someone to high-five made the mistake of offering his hand to me and I crash-landed my palm to his with forearm stinging fury. Normally I have the wherewithal when high-fiving strangers to pull my punches but, at this point, all wherewithal had been looted and pillaged and left looking like a store-front during a riot.
Gesell, the Husker born Iowa chosen Public Enemy #1 of the Student Section, missed a shot with two minutes and change to play. Brandon Ubel rebounded the ball and was rewarded on the other end by hitting a two-point basket.
Nebraska had the lead.
The Devaney Center, earlier a tomb of morosely quiet zombies had been systematically brought back to life. Layer by layer. Piece by piece. Ubel’s jumper to tie the game exploded into auditory confetti. Screams, shouts, and wild war-whooping cascaded down onto our fired up players. The building was electric. There was life in “The Bob” yet. This group of basketball fans, replete with chips on shoulders, that often times feels more like being a fan of a particularly deep underground rapper than a big time college basketball program, was suddenly desperate for a win that didn’t mean much to anyone outside of that arena or this state.
(*Author’s note: When you’re a Nebraska basketball fan, even “meaningless” games in February mean a lot. Saying that a conference win “isn’t important” is a lot like a starving person saying, “What, were you out of steak?” when they were just given a hamburger.)
Moments after Nebraska had snatched away a 2-point lead, Iowa responded. Aaron White nailed a three pointer. Just like that, the Huskers were down by a point. Nebraska’s next possession ended after a slow, agonizing process of perimeter passing and dribbling that gained us not an inch towards the basket. Talley launched a shot that caromed off the rim. It was Iowa’s ball. There was less than a minute left.
Iowa milked the clock on their next possession. Husker fans were nervously screaming, myself putting a banshee to shame in decibel-counting, and Iowa was unable to score. Nebraska ball. The Huskers would have a shot, but the shot clock would expire before the game clock.
Again the Huskers went into a facilitated stall-ball. Husker fans were antsy, and rightfully so, about their team needing a huge basket with no truly defined “go to guy” at the end of games. The Huskers, long plagued by stretches of withering incompetence on the offensive end, did what they normally do: they dribbled around, didn’t attack, and ended up stuck with no dribble on the fringe of the perimeter.
They were going to have to call a timeout. There was minimal time left on the shot clock to make a play. Since this post is already far too self-indulgently long, I’ll let you watch what happened next.
Talley hit the long range 3-ball with 9 seconds left and the Bob Devaney Sports Center, in its second to last game as the home to the Nebraska Cornhusker basketball program, Richter Scaled. I know that’s a term that only loosely makes sense, but that’s also the best way I can describe it. There was a cannon-shot of joyful explosiveness. In a game attended by too few and watched by even fewer (*Author’s note: since the game was rescheduled it was only available on BTN to Go) the Huskers had their best moment of the year.
The Hawkeyes inbounded the ball and rushed up court, hoping to catch the Huskers off guard but Gesell’s 3-point attempt to answer clanked harmlessly off the rim. Nebraska rebounded and a free-throw by Gallegos iced the game.
Sure it was against Iowa. Sure it wouldn’t qualify as a “signature win” that so many people are anxious to slap on any big-time victory in college sports. Sure it was in February and the Huskers will be lucky to somehow snag an NIT invite. But on that day it was a win. And a win, especially one against the despised, force-fed rivals one state to our right on a U.S. map, is surely good enough for me.
As we exited the building I could overhear an Iowa fan, wearing black and yellow-striped overalls no less, turn to her husband and say, “Well. . .that F—-ing sucked.” It was definitely a good enough win for me.
We’ve covered it extensively. Manti Te’o's fake-dead, fake-girlfriend was fake. He might have been Catfished. He might have been Moby Dicked. Whatever the case may be, the weight should be off the shoulders of other college football players/coaches. Why don’t we all just open up our closets, drag those skeletons out and parade them around like it’s Weekend at Bernie’s 3? C’mon, college football. It’ll feel really good.
Who’s first at trying out this whole “truth” thing? Anyone?
- Bo Pelini
“I’m actually a really nice guy. When you see me yelling things at my players on the sidelines I’m not f-bombing them. I’m shouting out things that look exactly like the F- word. I’m a big hockey fan. I also have several years of undiagnosed head-trauma from my time playing saftey at Ohio State. This has led me to having a lot of very real, very serious outbursts about how frustrated I am with the National Hockey League’s lockout. I find myself shouting out about how much I miss the pucks. I also love Nintendo. My favorite game? Duck hunter. You’d see that I’m saying “Duck hunter” if the ‘hunter’ part wasn’t always blurred out too. Truck. Chuck. Luck. See what I mean?”
- Lane Kiffin
“I’m not actually that awesome. I know, I know. It’s hard for you to believe, too. I get that. It’s tough for anyone to believe that, considering how terrifically, mountain-peak, marble-statue great I appear to be at everything. But take if from my athletic director. . .I’m really not 100% awesome. I’m hovering somewhere in the 99th percentile, with you mere mortals.”
- Johnny Football
“My last name’s actually Manziel. What, you mean you knew that? Well, shit, that was my only revelation.”
Jon: ”And that’s because I’m actually two people. We are identical twins.”
Ken: ”Coach Kelly has been using us to keep opponents off balance. We wear the same jersey number and look almost exactly the same. No one has noticed.”
Jon: ”Thank you, Manti. For allowing us the freedom to come forward.”
- Mack Brown
“I’m through denying it. I’m actually from New Hampshire. This southern drawl? It’s all an act. I learned how to speak like this by watching hours and hours of Slingblade.“
- Montee Ball
“I’m not sure how to pronounce my own first name. It’s a serious affliction that affects only 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 star running backs. I will, henceforth, be changing my first name to Sohard, in the hopes that dyslexics everywhere will get the joke. A gamble, I know. But that’s a risk that, frankly, I have to take.”
- A.J. McCarron
“Two days after the National Championship game, Brent Musburger started dating my girlfriend.”
- Bill Snyder
“I am 2,000 years old. Kansas State University has discovered the way to keep me immortal. Sure I may look exactly like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons but, hey, when you consider the fact that I was Jesus’ Pop Warner coach, I think I look pretty good. All the university has to do is supply me with the fresh brains of living humans and a nice, cool, cryogenic chamber for me to retire to every night after feasting on human flesh and I can coach forever. Do you hear me?!?! FOREVER!!!!”
- Brady Hoke
“Artie Lange and I routinely switchlives throughout the season and no one knows. Some nights, when I feel like I’ve honed my standup act enough, I’ll just call him up and we’ll swap. Other times, if he thinks he’s got a couple good play calls, he just shoots me a text and then, kaboom!, he’s the head coach at Michigan.”
- O.J. Simpson
“I did it.”
(*Author’s note: Whoa, wait a minute. . .how did that find its way into this post?)
- Collin Klein
“I really have nothing to hide. Oh, did I mention that my head coach is a 2,000 year old almost-zombie that we have to unfreeze and give human blood just so that he can survive? There’s that, I guess.”
At what point does a cliché become too cliché to even write about? We still have countless Rom-Coms that feature an emotionally fragile girl who is uncharacteristically drawn to a just-below-the-surface equally damaged bad boy and they both teach each other how to love, to feel human, and to laugh while crying. We have hundreds upon hundreds of bitingly sarcastic, hacky, sports blogs that attempt to hate on everything in humorous, pop-culture laden ways (*Author’s note: uh-oh).
It’s taken me a long time to drum up the necessary resolve to try to write my yearly “Husker Season in Review” column. The simple fact is, I could have written the same thing this year as last year. I could have copied and pasted what I wrote in 2011 for 2013 and no one would be the wiser. Here’s what I wrote in 2011:
I still believe that Bo’s the man for the job. I aways have. But this season Bo’s “growing pains” as a head coach seemed to be far too much “pain” and not enough “growth.” Do I expect Nebraska to ever get back to the gilded era of the 1990′s when we treated other teams like railroad stakes and we were John Henry? Do I expect a coach/politician that can deftly win 3 national titles then seamlessly transition to Capitol Hill? No and no.
But at some point Bo Pelini is going to have to realize that here at Nebraska, a place where football is law, we need a judge not a bailiff; someone who’s more Osborne than Charlie McBride. To do so he’ll have to deal with the local media, in spite of their pestering questions about things as inconsequential as his birthday presents. He’ll have to turn his boiling rage at blown officiating calls down to a simmer. And, finally, he’ll have to deal with his coaching staff — including canning an ineffectual offensive coordinator and realizing that sometimes loyalty can quickly turn to stubbornness if unchecked.
Here’s what I wrote in 2012, after our season ended in the Capital One Bowl with a loss to an SEC team:
After a good deal of group therapy, introspection, drinking, and aromatherapy I have finally come to terms with the season that was. It was a rough year for my fanhood. Coming in, we didn’t want to see the wheel reinvented. We just wanted four wheels all rolling in the same direction.
The 2011 season was a 15-year-old learning to drive a stick-shift for the first time. We got spastic, jumpy leaps in the right direction. We got a program that was lurching forward, then dying, then lurching, then slamming on the brakes. What was the most disappointing part of the 2011 season? The fact that it was more of the same.
More uninspired home losses to lesser opponents. More blowouts on big stages. More issues with Bo getting testier and testier to the point of detest. In a year we were looking to take a big step forward, instead we got on the treadmill. We ran. We jogged. We worked up a pretty good sweat and got in a decent workout. But when we stepped off? We were in exactly the same place.
It’s tough to figure out something new to write, when your subject matter just stays the same. I feel like I’m a much, much sexier version of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I’m sure I’ve written that about 134 times in the last 3 seasons of football. It’s starting to feel like square one is actually just a prison fence keeping us in and there’s no Morgan Freeman around to help us carve our way out to freedom.
There’s a perpetual glitch in the Matrix that causes us to see the same damn thing over and over again. The most frustrating thing is that it’s really, really hard for us to keep caring. And even those of us who care a little too much, we’re starting to lose that iron-fisted, white-knuckled grip on our constantly positive outlook. This was one of the stranger seasons in Husker football memory for me, and certainly the strangest since 2007 B.C. (*Author’s note: Botched by Callahan).
Husker fans seemed listless. They seemed ground down and emotionally vulnerable. Husker fans struggled to support our team, full-bore, and we wore it on our red and white sleeves. Our glasses were half-empty this season and, right from the very UCLA-tanking start, we were too worn down to even try to signal a bartender to fill it back up.
Nebraska fans are knowledgeable. We know that 10 wins is good, but that each chapter in the Pelini Novel that features 9-10 wins in bold print comes with 12 pages of footnotes and annotations talking about the 4-5 losses and multitude of missed opportunities. We know that we’re in the North and the best football being played is in the south. We know that, on a national stage, we’re no longer contending for Oscars but are actually just extras in many scenes.
Where does the fault lie? There’re fingers pointing all around. Many of them, the middle ones. As we continue walking up the down escalator, there aren’t enough question marks in the world to express our confusion; our exasperation. Do we need better players? Coaches? Schemes?
Whatever happened to the vaunted Pelini defense? To his masterfully crafted defensive game plans? And what, in the name of all things holy, happened to our Blackshirt defense?
(*Author’s note: I feel like now is as good a time as any to address our Federal Government to try to get some answers to the last question above.
Dear The Government,
Now that the fiscal cliff thing is over, now that the infighting and political logjam of negotiations has just gone back to its brutally stagnant waters of incremental movement, maybe we can have the Blackshirts back.
I know what you did, the Government. I know you’ve been performing mass mind-control experiments on our entire state, messing with us by switching out our entire defensive unit for a Division II school’s squad in a scientific study to better gauge the effect of mass hysteria during psychological warfare.
Well, trust me, it’s worked. We’re ready to give up. I’m waving the white flag for all of us. Now please, just move the F- on to North Korea and give us back our Blackshirt defense.
Sincerely,
Chris
P.S. I’m sure you already knew that since my computer, phone, and house are all undoubtedly bugged as part of your experiment. Sorry for swearing so much, the Government.)
So, when breaking down another season of sameness, the question isn’t really “where did we come from”, anymore. It’s “where are we going?” Tom Osborne’s gone. He’s riding towards a prairie sunset on his trusty white stallion and our little town needs a new sheriff. Who’s it ‘gonna be? Eichorst? Pelini? Somebody needs to step up, strap on, and jam their feet into the enormous shoes that Osborne’s left to fill. If it’s a two-man, two-feet-per-shoe job, that’s fine, but we need leadership and guidance in the worst way.
Bo needs someone to challenge him. He needs someone to keep him on his toes and constantly make him adjust his philosophy, scheme, and recruiting ideology. We need better players and a we need a coach who is committed, willing, and even zealous in his approach to bring them to our great state. We need a coach who enjoys every part of coaching.
Seasons of similitude are breeding grounds for discontent. Eventually even the most devout treadmillers are going to want to run in a road race. Dejectedness, turns to discontent, turns to disinterest. Earlier this year I wrote that, for a major college football program, apathy is a fate worse than death. Could we be in a worse situation? Sure. But do we deserve to be in a better situation than the one we’re in now? Yes.
Bo Pelini is heading towards the gallows of predictability — on the field and off it — and he’s slowly, painstakingly, taking our fanhood with him. I keep desperately hoping we’ll get a last-minute pardon, but at this point? I feel like we’re dead men walking.
I’ll always bleed die-hard Husker Red, but it would be nice if I didn’t feel like such a hemophiliac.
Someone cue the Adele music. I’ll be eating a quart of Ben and Jerry’s in my pajamas if you need me.
See you next season. Same time. Same place. Different script. I hope. . .
The Nebraska Cornhuskers’ 2012 football season is over.
RIP, yo.
With the Huskers’ loss to Georgia in the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day, a stunningly, jarringly wild journey has finally come to an end. We can take off our seat belts and our carny friends in their grimy, pit-stained polos can take off the lap bars jammed down on the tops of our thighs. We can climb shakily up from our deeply bucketed seats and try to find our footing on solid ground. The ride is over.
The season ended with a tough loss to the University of Georgia. While I will still crank out my “Season in Review” column, I’ll seek to touch on the bowl game itself today.
When I was a kid I used to watch MadTV for the half hour or so that it was on before Saturday Night Live came on. It had a few skits that I really enjoyed and one of them was about a terrible dating service called “Lowered Expectations.” As you can probably guess by the title, “Lowered Expectations” was a dating service that provided any number of losers/whack-jobs/strange characters a chance to try to find true love. The introduction for the bit had two obese people, walking hand in hand near a drainage ditch with barbed wire.
I feel like Husker fans went into this bowl game like they were submitting a tape to the “Lowered Expectations” dating service. We didn’t expect much. We knew we weren’t quite in the same class as Georgia, talent-wise, and that if we did pull off a win it would be a pretty good-sized upset. But we still wanted to see how things would play out.
I turned off the T.V. weirdly satisfied with a 14-point loss. Maybe that’s what repeated curbstompings will do to you. Maybe I’ve been so traumatized by losing by 35 and 40 points that – aw, shucks – if we can hang in there long enough against a good opponent, I’ll end up feeling like our boys should get a participation ribbon. Capri Suns for everyone! I know that a lot of Husker fans didn’t share my strangely-okay-with-it feel to taking our 4th loss of the season, and our third straight bowl loss, merely because it seemed that our effort was there, but that’s what I’ve been reduced to.
All the deficiencies of the regular season were still there on Tuesday, in various forms. Although the Husker defense played very well at times, their inability to stop the Bulldogs from racking up big plays ultimately spelled their demise.
Often times the Husker defensive back was in the right position, at the right time, but simply couldn’t make a play on the ball when it was in the air. Oh-so-close-but-really-so-far. **MICROCOSM OF THE SEASON ALERT**
Taylor Martinez was good at times and frustratingly bad at others. In an age of advanced statistics and Sabermetrics, nothing can quite quantify the type of impact Martinez has on the game.
The best way to describe what Martinez can do us in an advanced statistic I like to call “Taybermetrics” (*Author’s note: hiiiii-ooooohhhh!”). This cutting edge, revelatory process pulls back the curtain on the enigmatic Husker QB just a enough to try to put his good/bad qualities on display.
The key to Taybermetrics hinges around the f- word, and its use once Martinez has the ball in his hands. While in the past, we have only been able to determine the total number of F- words used to describe his play, now we have developed a key +/- stat to better capture what he actually does.
What Taybermetrics does, is balance out the times you drop F- Bombs at the amazing play he has just made (*Author’s note: the 92-Yard run against Wisconsin, where he looked like his blood could be distilled into pure rocket fuel) against the times you drop an F-Bomb about a terrible, game-altering decision to throw it into double coverage off his back foot (*Author’s note: read, every Huskers loss).
For instance he had a +5 Taybermetric rating from the home opener against Southern Miss, a game in which he threw for 345 yards and 5 touchdowns. Against Ohio State, he had a Taybermetric rating of -9. Unfortunately for Nebraska fans, too often this season Martinez’s Taybermetric score on Tuesday was a solid 0. He was good-not-great and had some poor decisions. The loss, though, didn’t fall solely on his shoulders.
Other items of note from the self-glossed #caponebowl:
- The Capital One Bowl’s MVP? It should’ve been the 2nd buffest referee in history(*Author’s note: Long live Hochuli!).
Every time this guy signaled a first down it looked like he was hitting his money pose at Mr. Olympia. Each holding call was like watching a juicehead ripping through a set on the delts machine. I thought he was going to ask someone to spot him when he signaled that it was halftime. I couldn’t tell if he was signaling a first down, or telling us, “The Gym is THISSSSSSSSSSSSS way!.” After the game was over someone should’ve dumped a Gatorade cooler all over this guy that was full entirely of protein shakes. Also, does he have any eligibility left?
- I know we know live in a society where everything has #s in front of them but shouldn’t the crew at ABC have realized that they were going to be confusing a bunch of people by shortening up the Capital One Bowl to the #caponebowl? Did they really want to be associated with the kind of organized crime, corruption, and murder of Al Capone? It left me wondering, what exactly would the winner of ‘The Capone Bowl’ get? Federal Racketeering charges? Kevin Costner hunting you down with the help of the Canadian Mounties? Syphilis so bad that it literally rots your brain? Maybe it’s a good thing we lost the Capone Bowl. Just a #thought. #sorry. #lastone.
- It is strange to think that 2 of the biggest cult heroes of Husker Football for my generation will be gone next year. The Rexbox 360 will finally get unplugged and Cornhusker Jesus is retiring as the AD at Nebraska. Both will be sorely missed, not forgotten, and wildly, recklessly cheered anytime they’re shown on the bigscreen at Husker home games from now on. Adios, and happy trails to 2 of the classiest Huskers we know.
On Saturday night history was made at the Heisman Trophy Celebration. Something momentous happened. Something grand, beautiful and impressive. Someone reached the pinnacle. I am, of course, talking about Mike Rozier. Rozier is the beloved Nebraska Cornhusker who won the 1983 Heisman trophy. A man who I thought had climbed every mountain, achieved every bit of recognition he possibly could. Then this happened:
History in the making. . .
I’m sure you already deduced this, but he’s the guy in the middle.
Here is just a brief account of what immediately ran through my mind when I saw Rozier rocking this suit.
- That’s a suit-mullet: business down below and a party up top!
- In an effort to distract everyone from Doug Flutie’s hair, Mike Rozier takes one for the team.
- In his defense, there is a little-publicized, international plaid shortage and he didn’t want to take more than his fair share.
- He looks like a heroin dealer who panicked during a police raid and tried to hide his torso underneath the family tablecloth.
- “Excuse me, this is the Soul Train Dancer’s reunion, right?”
- I hope he’s pointing that finger accusingly at his designer.
- Stylist: Buck Nasty.
- That outfit is 2 cocaine lines short of American Gangster.
- I had heard Rozier was stuck in 1983, the year he won the Heisman, but I didn’t know they meant his wardrobe was too.
- Stylist: Tim Burton. On acid.
- This suit would be perfectly normal and acceptable. . .if he was wading through chest high water like an extra in Titanic
I think the lifeboats are THIS way!
- Damn you, 1080p. Damn you.
- Bless you, 1080p. Bless you.
- I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why Rozier would wear this suit. For instance, I’m sure that he probably was going to a magic show after the ceremony and was hoping that he could volunteer to be cut in half.
- Stylist: Michael Jordan.
- The only thing missing was Eric Crouch showing up in an f-ing Husker Snuggy.
- His hat’s saying Indiana Jones while his suit is saying Shaft.
- Why, oh why, didn’t Manti Te’o just give him some of this stuff to wear to cover the suit up?
- Stylist: bath salt hallucinations.
- Rozier looks more like a Dick Tracy villain than a former Heisman Winner.
- It looks like Martinez won’t be the most talked about Tailor in Nebraska anymore.
1. He is spotted taking the Huskers’ 1997 Orange Bowl Trophy out of its case and packaging it in a box labeled, “To Peyton, With Love. You were robbed!”
2. He starts calling his t-shirts “Tee Martins.”
3. He repeatedly says that his focus for bowl season will be “Volunteer-ism.” Then winks directly into the cameras.
4. He suddenly starts saying the word “Execute” with a Southern drawl.
5. He eschews Big Red for Jack Daniels flavored chewing gum.
6. He’s overheard on the phone asking his personal tailor, “Do you have any of those crewnecks in orange?
7. He laughs a little too loud when he overhears Taylor Martinez telling a girl “. . .’cause you’re the only Ten I see!”
8. He is spotted wearing this in front of his full length mirror in the coaching office.
9. He Challenges a recruit to a dueling banjos battle during an in-home visit.
10. He Starts off a press conference by saying, “Howdy, ya’ll!”
(*Author’s note: to former Wisconsin head coach, Brett Bielema, who was hired yesterday as the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, let me offer this heartfelt and sincere message)
Have you ever drank an unhealthy amount of Barton’s Vodka – you know, the black labeled fiend that costs a mere $8.99 — and made the foolhardy mistake of passing out before getting a chance to brush your teeth? When you wake up, your mouth tastes like a firepit after a wild summer bonfire, your mind is tilt-a-whirling so crazily you’re sure your head is pulling an Exorcist and spinning 180 degrees. You’re fully ready to slap your signature on a bloody contract with the devil if he’ll just make the cremation of your taste buds stop.
That’s what losing by 39 points in the biggest game your program has had in 2 years tastes like. That’s what giving up 539 yards to a 7-5 team tastes like. That’s what botching a golden opportunity to win a league that was giftwrapped for you by a bizarre string of completely fortuitous circumstances tastes like.
Quick, does anyone have a chaser?
In the last 8 years, we Husker fans have had to swallow a lot of our pride. Saturday night we were beer-bonging it down like a Frat Boy going for the record. There are painful, scarring losses. There are Rodney King-ings of the first degree. And then there was Saturday night. At some point, I found myself laughing like a lunatic, clapping my hands scornfully like The Joker in The Dark Knight and pouring myself as tall a glass of beer as I could find.
I didn’t know what else to do.
Montee Ball ran for 50, Mon-tee Ball Ran for 150, and Mon-tay Ball pitched in another 50 to cap the night off. At one point, I grabbed my X-Box 360 controller and desperately tried to “Ask Corso” for help. When that didn’t work, I just tried to reboot the whole damn game. The points kept piling up. Video game stats were flashing across the screen and Facebook was suddenly a place to share own iteration of the f- word. The Indianapolis 500 was playing out on turf, right before our very own, hub-cap-sized eyes. And we were riding on a horse and buggy, watching the cars go zooming past us.
So what went wrong? Why did the Huskers come in, ranked 12th in the BCS standings and riding a miraculous 6 game win-streak, and leave feeling like we’d just gotten Brett Mahered in the crotch? How did a team whose defense seemed to be improving steadily get backhanded by a team that finished 3rd in their own division and backdoored their way into a title game?
We couldn’t quite seem to wrap our minds around it, as fans. The players looked mystified. Bo Pelini didn’t have the answers either, or so he said in his postgame presser.
I have written throughout this year that my approach to this season has been different from most years. My fanhood came into this season as damaged goods. It had been mistreated in the past, loved too deeply, trusted too soon. This year would be different, I told myself. I would come into this season determined to keep the Huskers at arm’s length; to be-fan them casually, instead of immediately jumping into a committed relationship and looking for one-bedroom apartments to share. But things just kept going right. The Huskers kept sending me flowers. They kept surprising me with spontaneous wins and with sweet, love-letter comebacks. As the Big Ten title game neared, I felt myself starting to fall for this team.
But then I caught myself.
What was really different this time around? We had a suspect defense, a brilliant-at-times but turnover prone offense, and a head coach who seems to fluctuate between excellent and sub-par in such wild swings that it’s never easy to identify which Bo is rocking the crew neck on what particular Saturday. Sure, it seemed like we were finally “all grown up.” That we had “matured” into a legitimately good partner for my fanhood. But we’d seen this before. I had willfully put myself in harm’s way. I quickly threw together some bricks, some mortar, and cobbled my wall back up.
And it wasn’t a moment too soon.
See, it turns out that Mr./Mrs. Right? The stunningly good-looking, witty and seemingly reformed-to-marriable-perfection Huskers? Yeah, they were still a bed-wetting, heroin addict, that was wanted in multiple states for felonies. They weren’t ready. Not for what we wanted. Not for the big time.
Those weren’t wedding bells we heard in the distance, they were police sirens.
The game’s singularly awesome Husker play came from quarterback Taylor Martinez early on in the first quarter. Had this run come during a Husker victory, or had the ensuing 3 quarters not turned into the football version of Rocky Balboa’s face post-Apollo Creed-ing, than maybe this would have turned into one of the football plays of the year. They did. And it didn’t. But, we should give it it’s just due, since we really have nothing else to cheer about.
Here’s the play:
Just like Tim Beck drew it up right?
In fact, we here at Burnpoetry have obtained an exclusive look at what the playcall looked like when Bo and Tim Beck put it up on the chalkboard before the game.
And suddenly the Huskers find themselves playing in the Capital One Bowl Game. Again. Against a pretty good SEC team that could spell trouble for a Husker squad whose identity was ripped from them and tossed against the wall, shattering like an empty beer bottle. Again.
Have you ever drank an unhealthy amount of Barton’s Vodka – you know, the black labeled fiend that costs a mere $8.99 — and made the foolhardy mistake of passing out before getting a chance to brush your teeth? We have a month to wash that taste from out mouths and then we find ourselves facing a Georgia team that will easily be our toughest contest of the season. A Georgia team with boatloads of NFL players on both sides of the ball. A Georgia team that was 10 mismanaged seconds away from being in the BCS National Title Game. Somebody pass the Colgate. Let’s get to scrubbing.
On December 1st, in the year of our lord 2012, the Nebraska Cornhuskers will have a chance to win a conference championship. After a cocaine roller coaster of manic highs and depressive lows, it has come down to this. Another chance to hoist a trophy as the best team in their conference. Bo Pelini needs this. The Huskers need this. Nebraska needs this. We need this.
As I think back to the season that was, I can still recall watching Braxton Miller depants the Huskers, leaving jockstraps and morale strewn about the field in a pile of imploded rubble. I can still remember that fateful night in early October where the Huskers were Custer and Columbus, Ohio was transformed into Little Bighorn. I remember thinking, then, that we had no chance in hell of standing where we are now. I remember that sinking, first drop on a carnival ride sensation, as I realized that we might be destined for another season of treading water while we watched other program’s swim laps. It felt like our water wings were deflating.
But something happened after that Ohio State game. A slow, rolling, groundswell. Like a timpani crescendoing ever so slightly at the back of the orchestra. The Huskers won a game. Then they won another. And another. And suddenly we had ourselves a bona fide win streak. They battled and fought and scrapped for last second victories at home and on the road. Suddenly what had seemed destined to be just another bombed out, tired-ass sequel, what had seemed to be Saw 5 in football terms, started to take shape into something else.
Getting to the Big 10 Title game wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t flashy. It was inherently flawed and chaotically run. At times the Huskers appeared to be an onfield recreation of various scenes from Animal House. They fumbled and we gasped, and they fumbled and we shook our heads, and they fumbled and we just nodded like a burned out parent who’s seen it all and is ready for their angsty 17-year-old to hurry up and go to college. Martinez looked like “T-Magic”, then Ron Weasley on back to back possessions. It didn’t matter. Nebraska kept winning. Husker fans went en masse to their local retailers and picked up alcohol, Tums, and Just for Men Gel, just to make it through another Saturday watching the most precarious show on turf.
Along the way we lost Rex Burkhead: Football Legend and gained Rex Burkhead: off-field legend, philanthropist and maybe nicest guy ever.
Along the way we’ve watched Eric Martin turn himself from the guy all his teammates called “Caveman”, that played so hard he ended up taking himself out of plays, to a legitimately good pass rusher and we’ve seen a secondary and linebacking corps continue to develop and adapt and show flashes of what makes Bo Pelini a special defensive coach.
Along the way we’ve watched Bo Pelini scream, howl like a rabid wolf at a full moon, and get into various verbal scraps with his players. There was even a few moments where this nasty clip was exploded all over ESPN and any other news outlet drooling for a story.
But what was really said in this incident? We at Burnpoetry were able to obtain a top-secret manuscript of what the conversation between Stafford and Bo Pelini looked like. Here it is. The names of the parties involved have been changed to protect their identities.
Honey Bo-Bo: Hey, man! Hey! How come dreads like yours look so cool on black guys and when white dudes try to grow them, we just look, like, dirty and stuff? Huh?!? Answer me that! Hair racism!
Raisin’caneian Smafford: Coach! You’re balding anyway! I know a good weave guy, though, if you need some help!
Honey Bo-Bo: Who you calling bald? Besides, eagles are bald and they’re ferocious birds of prey! They live in huge nests and kill stuff with their talons all the time!
Raisin’caneian Smafford: I’m callin’ you bald. You! Now I’m going to sit down on the bench!
Honey Bo-Bo: Oh, yeah? Well Stafford loans suck! In fact, the entire Higher Education Act of 1965 was completely stupid!
Raisin’caneian Smafford: Watch me point the finger and not the thumb! Watch me point the finger and not the thumb! Boom!
Nebraska’s football program is like that gigantic, amazing muscle car that your Dad used to own in the ‘60s and ‘70s that fell on hard times and has been buried in the back of the garage, desperately in need of repair. We’ve tinkered with it. We’ve dusted it off and polished it and worked on that engine for 5 years now and we’re about to hop into the driver’s seat and try to fire that baby up for a drive.
The Huskers have been in this situation before. We’ve been here before. On the cusp of something big, something that has the chance to propel us once more down the road to that distant place we still talk wistfully about: the top.
Two other times we’ve tried to start this burly, brawny cage of whoop-ass on four wheels and each time before it’s fired roaringly up. We’ve let out a gigantic whoop of joy, started blasting White Snake music and pulled out of the garage. Then the wheels fell off, the steering wheel came out into our hands, and the engine caught on fire. Our joy exploded and we found ourselves staring at a smoking, broken down wreck that would near repairing once again.
After the Big 12 Title game was yanked out from under us like some kind of referee-approved faux-floor booby trap in 2009 and after we squandered a 17 point lead against Oklahoma in our final F- you game to the Big 12 on our way out the door, Husker fans are once more staring down the barrel of a chance to win their first conference title game since 1999.
We’re about to turn the key once more and fire the ignition. It’s a nerve-wracking time to be a Husker fan.
Many years and many, many pounds ago, when I was a distance runner in high school I was rarely nervous at the big meets where I knew the competition would be fierce. I usually knew going in about where I stood against the other runners and knowing that I was competing against guys who were as fast or faster than me didn’t worry me. It was the small meets. The ones where I knew going in that I had faster times than any of the other runners that used to make me nervous. Being in a situation where you’re supposed to win can add pressure.
That’s how I feel about Nebraska playing a Wisconsin team that is 4-4 in the conference and basically slept-walked their way into the title game because of all the scandalousness of Ohio State and Penn State. We should beat them. We’re better than they are. We’ve beaten them once, after spotting them 17 points, and they’re having a bad year. The whole league has been weak. The clear-cut best program in the Big 10 pulled a Cheddar Bob from 8 Mile and shot themselves in the foot.
There’s never going to be a better time for an almost-good-but-still-not-great team like this to win a conference title.
It’s time. It’s our time.
And I don’t care how awesome it was to come from behind and beat Wisconsin at home in our I can still taste the sour, coppery taste of Russell Wilson’s backhand from last year. Beating Wisconsin once was business. Beating them twice would be pleasure.
It’s Osborne’s last year at the helm of the athletic department. Karmically, fate-wise, whatever you believe in. . .that has to mean something, right? We have an inherent need, as fans, to see our favorite sports personas go out on top. I can think of no better way to send T.O. towards that beautiful prairie sunset of wherever he chooses to retire to, than by winning.
So all that’s left now? Finish. Finish out a championship game by making that one great play, that extra step in the right direction or hanging onto the football. On this tumultuous, barebacked, Nantucket Sleighride of a season we just need to finally reel in the big one. We’ve had our fair share of luck. Now it’s time to take the Big Ten Trophy and wrench it from the bony, rigor mortising fingers of our defeated adversaries and hold it aloft.
