It is finally here. Game Day Eve. The most hallowed of fictional holidays. The day before a Husker Game.

And it is about time. For the past eight months we have had nothing but practice footage, recruiting discussions and depth chart analysis as we have waiting anxiously for the beginning of another football season for the Huskers.

With the positive and happy feelings left over from the end of last season, people have been gleefully looking forward to the commencement of this season.

We have seen our program partially rebound from the Bill Callahan experiment and start to re-insert itself into the consciousness of the collective college football world. The Huskers are working their way back to the world of the other relevant programs.

Will they be better this year? Probably. Will the record be better than last year? That is a large question. Even though the team is more prepared for the systems that they are going to face and, more importantly, prepared for the systems that they are running, the record may not reflect that. The schedule has more than a few potential pitfalls but also more than a few opportunities for that huge win the Huskers have so desperately looked for the last few years.

But as we prep for this new season, I have to admit something. A thought has been stuck in my head for some time and I have been waiting for this day to unleash it on the world.

I have seen a number of great Husker teams play in Memorial Stadium but I have only seen the team play angry twice. And by ‘angry’ I mean ‘absolutely pissed off and furious about something that was on their minds.’

Yes, the team and the crowd (amazingly enough considering the number of people that tell you to sit down and stop making so much noise) have been electric on a number of occasions.

Such as against Oklahoma in 1993 on a very frigid day, when Trev Alberts destroyed his elbow. Such as against Kansas State in 1997 during a night game, which tends to bring out the crazy behavior. Such as against Texas in 1998, even though the Huskers lost, that Halloween crowd was in a frenzy.

But there are two games that I can recall a kind of energy from both the team and the crowd that I have rarely seen.

Both games that I recall, I was actually in the stadium for these moments and there was just an air about the game, a swagger about the team and a fervor in the crowd. There was an emotion ripping through the stadium that I’ve never seen before.

The two games?

1995 against Arizona State.
1997 against Akron.

Allow me to explain why these games will always stick in my mind.

1995 Arizona State…
Just after all of the fiasco with Lawrence Phillips and the wrongly accused Damon Benning, this team had been blasted by the media and ripped by opposing fans on the still burgeoning internet.

For a solid week, all ESPN and other sports outlets had done was crucify this team and the coach, Tom Osborne.

And then came Saturday.

The crowd was in a frenzy, not only because this team had the makings of being the best ever, but because they, the players and coaches and fans, were tired of the slandering of the program.

I still recall where I was when the first play happened. Beneath the stadium. Waiting for the jackholes in front of me to find their seats. So I watched the first play on the television monitors but what I saw was this…

Clinton Childs, a man who probably ran the 40 yard dash slower than most defensive ends, takes a pitch and heads around the left side. And there was nobody there. Not a soul. Because they were all on their backs trying to figure out what train had just hit them. Childs would sprint 65 yards for a touchdown in a game that wasn’t even as close as the 77-28 score would indicate.

It was the perfect beginning to a game that said to the nation, you can mock and accuse us all you want but we are by and large a good group of kids and we are tired of it.

This was one of those days where Nebraska could have hung 100 on them if they had wanted to. After 686 yards of offense and 63 points in the first half, there was little doubt this team was going to play with a little bit of a chip on their shoulders for the remainder of the season.

And just in case you forgot how good that team was…


1997 Akron…
It was the opening game of the season and Nebraska was coming off of, God forbid, an 11-2 season in which they didn’t get a chance to play for the National Title after a loss to Texas in the inaugural Big Twelve Championship Game.

It was 95 degrees that day and the heat around the Astroturf of the field was something like a billion degrees. People were getting carted off with heat stroke left and right.

I even watched an Akron linebacker hork what had to be gallons of Gatorade all over the field. His coaches must have been telling him to hydrate in the heat. They probably didn’t expect him to rehydrate the synthetic grass of the field.

Anyway, the crowd was electric. I’ve never been to a game where the crowd was that vocal and ready before a game even started. And it was against Akron, hardly a national power. The crowd was so into the game from the very start that you could have sworn the Huskers were playing the National Title that day. It was as if everybody wearing red in the stadium that day wanted to expunge the memories of the previous season in a single game.

And I saw Eric Piatkowski sitting a few rows in front of me. I occasionally hollered a random ‘Pike’ just to see if he would turn around.

This was a Husker team that wanted to announce it was back on the National Title Stage and that they did. From the 644 yards of total offense to the iconic touchdown run by Joel Makovicka, this team started the season with a bang. And just in case you forgot that run…


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But it is memories like those that keep us coming back. The thoughts that every team has a shot when the season begins. The thoughts that your team will be someplace special at the end of the year.

Will this Husker team be the team that brings us back to the forefront of collegiate football? Who can tell.

With road games at Virginia Tech, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and Baylor (I know…gasp) and home dates against Oklahoma and Texas Tech, the schedule is not one that is particularly cushy for the Huskers. And with a team that has more than its share of Juniors, Sophomores and Freshmen ready to contribute significant amounts of time, this program could still be a year away.

But for now, everybody has the warm and fuzzy feelings that we could be special this year. And that is what makes college football so much fun. Until you take the field, you have no idea what can happen.

This is Pete…

Over and out.