Nebraska

The Rise & Fall of the Nebraska Football Dynasty

Published

2 years ago

July 22, 2024

The Rise & Fall of the Nebraska Football Dynasty

First in a series of six articles was written by long time Husker fan Chris Fort. Here is a little background on Chris.

I was born and raised in Illinois and currently reside in Chicago. I have no ties to the university, unless you count an uncle with a degree from Colorado and a hatred for all things Husker. I was initially intrigued after Black 41 Flash Reverse, but after learning about the sellout streak, Brook’s story, Osborne going for two, etc. I was infatuated. My first game as a fan was the 2001 Buffaloes game – clearly, I’m the bad luck charm. Still, I’m a diehard fan who wholeheartedly believes Nebraska is what college football should be.

In late October 2001, the Nebraska Cornhuskers met their old foe Oklahoma on Tom Osborne Field under a clear blue sky. It was their 80th time lining up against one another and this time promised to be a classic for the ages. Oklahoma came in the reigning national champions and winners of twenty straight, a number two ranking in the Associated Press poll. Nebraska, too, came in undefeated, winners of their last nineteen in Memorial Stadium and ranked number three in the country. ESPN’s College Gameday crew set up shop outside an endzone, extolling the virtues of each team to a national TV audience and playing clips from classic OU-NU games. Fans filed into the stadium early in their scarlet and cream with signs that said, “Vote for Crouch,” echoing chants of ‘Go Big Red’ from North Stadium to South. The stage was set.

A defensive struggle ensued, the clacking of pads and the grunts from the trenches being picked up on the ABC broadcast. With the Huskers clinging precariously to a 13-10 lead in the 4th quarter, thoughts turned to “Big Game” Bob Stoops, the hot young coach who presided over a title in just his second year and boasted an 8-0 record against top ten opponents. How would he work his Sooner Magic to break Husker hearts? On the other sideline stood the diminutive Frank Solich, in his fourth year as head coach, with questions hanging over him as to whether he’d ever be a worthy successor to Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne. The coach who once fudged his weight as a player always did struggle measuring up.

Solich bucked his conservative reputation and sent in a trick play. You know the one – Black 41 Flash Reverse. Quicksilver quarterback and Heisman hopeful Eric Crouch hiked the ball from under center and handed it to Thunder Collins, who was motioning from the left side of the field on an end around. Converted wideout Mike Stuntz had rolled from his receiver post to the backfield and took the pitch from Collins. He twisted the ball in his hand to get the laces without breaking step, cocked back his left arm, and lofted a beautiful spiral to Crouch, who had snuck out of the backfield undetected and was now striding down the sideline. The Nebraska bench went wild, players leaping high into the air, shouting themselves hoarse as an elated crowd of 78,000 woke the dead with their deafening cheers. Crouch rumbled to the end zone untouched to secure the victory, the Heisman Trophy, and a berth in the fabled Rose Bowl. To date, it is the last time the Cornhuskers have defeated a Top 5 opponent.

2001 is a demarcation line in Husker annals: there is before and there is after. In the 40 years immediately preceding 2001, Nebraska recorded forty winning seasons and, for thirty-three consecutive years spanning 1969 to 2001, won no fewer than nine games each season—a remarkable feat during an era when eleven-game seasons were the norm. Aside from a combined three weeks of absences (1 in 1977 and 2 in 1981), Nebraska appeared in every AP Top 25 poll released from week 7 of 1969 until week 6 of 2002. They finished in the top 10 of either the AP or Coaches poll in 30 of those 40 years; three quarters of the time, fellow coaches or journalists thought the Huskers among the ten best in the country. During this period, Nebraska won twenty-two conference championships and five national championships (and left several others unclaimed), amassing a total of 398 victories, 44 more than Penn State and 46 more than Alabama, who rank as second and third place, respectively, during the same period.

The Huskers did this despite their inherent recruiting challenges and despite the ground shifting throughout the decades – scholarship limits squeezing tighter and tighter, recruiting scandals at neighboring schools, and changing academic requirements by the NCAA.

How did Nebraska, a state with a small population and limited recruiting base, achieve such dominance in college football? The answer to the big red riddle lay in the very fabric of the state’s origins, whose residents embodied the rugged spirit of their pioneer forebears. Nebraska cultivated excellence on the gridiron much like the early settlers cultivated the state’s tough farmland: with stubborn determination and a daring to do what hadn’t been done before. This mindset, coupled with the strategic brilliance of coaches Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne, created the “Big Red Machine,” a finely tuned enterprise engineered for unparalleled success, designed to demoralize opponents and calibrated to punish.

But the end came as swiftly as the rise. Post-2001, Nebraska’s football program saw a precipitous decline in its play on the field. The signs of decay were visible before 2002, but the Huskers were still cloaked in their aura of invincibility. The fall from grace was marked by the end of their prized streaks and the dismantling of a coaching staff whose roots traced back to the 1960s. Fans who had grown accustomed to dominance were left in shock, their pride replaced with bewilderment and frustration. Reasons for the Big Red breakdown have been bandied about barstools and internet forums for a generation but never definitively stated. Until now.

To get to the end, we must first start at the beginning. Prior to legendary coach Bob Devaney’s ascendance to the head role in 1962, Nebraska was mired in two decades of middling-to-below-average play that yielded just three winning seasons, a slide that started at the onset of World War Two when students went off to war and only programs with robust military training programs were able to assemble competent teams. Things became so bleak that in 1960 beleaguered Husker coach Bill Jennings told an Omaha crowd, “I don’t think this state can ever be great in anything .”

Nebraska was not devoid of traditional excellence prior to Devaney’s arrival and the start of the 40-year dynasty. This was a program that stymied the great Red Grange, that dealt the mythical Four Horsemen of Notre Dame their only collegiate losses, that didn’t incur a defeat for three straight seasons (1913 – 1915), and that, until the forties, averaged better than a sixty-eight-win percentage in every decade. Nebraska had a rich history that was all but forgotten by the time JFK took office.

Devaney instilled belief in the thirty-eight Huskers who suited up in Ann Arbor his first year against the heavily favored Michigan Wolverines. They heard laughs rain down from the Wolverine faithful. And why wouldn’t they? Nebraska had lost 125 games in the last 20 years, second most in the country, and only managed a single finish in the AP Top 25 poll. But a de-cleating hit by Bill ‘Thunder” Thornton let the Wolverine faithful know that this Husker outfit was different. Thunder cracked several more ferocious hits and rolled for two touchdown runs, propelling Nebraska to a lead they’d never relinquish and a victory that registered across the country. “The Cornhuskers of Nebraska chugged along like a well-oiled threshing machine,” read the Detroit News the next day.

And under Devaney and his protégé Tom Osborne, it rarely stopped chugging. In eleven seasons as head coach, Devaney went 101-20-2, winning eight conference titles and two national championships. The sellout streak began later that first year when Missouri visited Memorial Stadium. Nebraska would finish the season winning the Gotham Bowl in frigid Yankee Stadium against the University of Miami, the school’s first ever bowl win and the cap to the first of forty consecutive winning seasons.

But it all started with the ’62 Michigan win, Devaney’s biggest according to the man himself. A spark had been lit in the state of Nebraska. The machine had ignition.

2004 Bill “Thunder” Thornton interview

1962 Nebraska vs. Michigan game page

Next up: Recruiting and Development Rise

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, following HuskerMax on X, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.

Source link

Nebraska

Omaha woman fighting for medical debt relief in Nebraska

Published

4 hours ago

March 28, 2026

Press Room

Omaha woman fighting for medical debt relief in Nebraska

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – For many families, beating a cancer diagnosis isn’t just about physical recovery. One Omaha cancer survivor is now using her voice to fight for medical debt relief across Nebraska.

Diana Gleisberg Meredith thought she had an upper respiratory infection in January 2024.

“In January of 2024, I felt like I had some kind of upper respiratory – maybe Pneumonia, RSV…” Meredith said.

She was sent from her primary care doctor to the emergency room to a hospital by ambulance in a five-hour span.

“The ER doctor identified that it was cancer, likely lymphoma,” Meredith said.

Diagnosis came as new mother started treatment

The diagnosis came as Meredith became a new mom. She knew she had to immediately start treatment.

“It’s life changing. You go from not having a care in the world to thinking you’re going to die and how is that going to affect my baby. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through emotionally, physically and mentally,” Meredith said.

Meredith said there’s an invisible burden that comes with the diagnosis.

“Not everybody is lucky to have the financial support or the human support to help them,” Meredith said.

Treatment costs could add up to millions

Meredith had 12 chemo treatments. Each used four medications, with one of those costing more than $130,000. For one family, this could add up to millions.

After Meredith entered remission, she began fighting for medical debt relief for other Nebraskans.

“Nebraskans all throughout the state and right here in Omaha – they’re having to make those decisions about should they save their life, or how do they care for their family,” Meredith said.

Advocacy group plans Washington trip

She works with Blood Cancer United alongside other Omaha mothers whose children are cancer survivors. They hold fundraisers like “Light the Night,” collecting thousands of dollars and supporters.

In May, they’ll travel to Washington, D.C., for training on how to push for change at the federal level.

“Our office of public policy gets together to help train these volunteers, help them get to know each other better and develop familiarity with what it means to go to a lawmakers office in Washington DC,” said Dana Bacon, senior director of government affairs for Blood Cancer United.

Meredith is fighting for lower interest rates on medical debt, no foreclosures on homes over medical debt and paused interest rates.

“It’s probably the most stressful thing that you’re going to go through, and then having to add medical debt on top of it? To be honest it’s hell,” Meredith said.

Other states are already protecting families from medical debt. Meredith said Nebraska should be next. Iowa is one of the states that limits liens and foreclosures when a family is drowning in medical debt.

Source link

Nebraska

Red Flag Warnings in place as Nebraska faces dangerous fire conditions and record warmth

Published

16 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

Red Flag Warnings in place as Nebraska faces dangerous fire conditions and record warmth

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Red Flag Warnings are in effect across Nebraska as dangerous fire conditions develop heading into the weekend, paired with unseasonably warm temperatures and strong winds that could quickly spread any flames.

Red Flag Warnings are in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. Friday night. The warning area expands significantly on Saturday, covering the entire state from throughout the entire day Saturday.

Friday: Moderate Fire Danger, Drying Trend

Friday’s fire concerns are lower than Saturday’s, but still significant. A Red Flag Warning remains in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. tonight as northerly winds pull in drier air throughout the afternoon. Dewpoints are expected to fall between 0° and 10° this evening as wind speeds taper.

The strongest winds and driest air won’t occur at the same time Friday, which is why confidence in Red Flag conditions is lower than normal today. By sunset, winds will become light and shift to the south as a surface high pressure system moves through the area.

Red Flag Warnings are in place through 9 PM Friday for eastern Nebraska.(KOLN)

Saturday: Extreme Fire Danger

Saturday brings the most critical fire weather conditions of the period. The Red Flag Warning expands to encompass the entire state as relative humidity values plummet to 8-15% — dangerously dry levels that will allow fires to spread rapidly.

Winds will be the primary concern. Southerly winds are expected to be sustained between 20 and 30 MPH for most — with gusts between 40 and 50 MPH possible at times. These powerful winds combined with extreme dryness create a recipe for rapid fire spread.

Red Flag Warnings are in place across the state all day Saturday.(KOLN)

Winds gusts could reach as high as 45 MPH into Saturday afternoon.(KOLN)

Temperatures will warm into the 60s and low 70s on Saturday — warmer in the west — but the heat is secondary to the wind and dryness threat. Relative humidity values will fall below 30% as early as 9 a.m. when the Red Flag Warning begins.

Temperatures warm into the 60s and 70s on Saturday with strong southerly winds.(KOLN)

Generally sunny skies are expected on Saturday with some passing clouds from time to time. No... — Generally sunny skies are expected on Saturday with some passing clouds from time to time. No moisture is expected.(KOLN)

Sunday: High Fire Danger, Lighter Winds

Fire danger remains high to very high Sunday as an upper ridge moves overhead. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s to upper 80s. The good news: southerly winds won’t be as strong, with gusts peaking at only 20 mph. This provides some relief from the most critical conditions, though fire danger will still be elevated.

Highs will reach the upper 70s to upper 80s on Sunday.(KOLN)

Record Heat Monday

Monday will be the week’s warmest day, with mid- to upper-80s and low 90s forecast across Nebraska. Records are within reach — for many areas across the state. Lincoln’s forecast high of 88 degrees would tie the 1917 record.

Highs reach into the upper 80s and low 90s on Monday.(KOLN)

Record and near record high temperatures are expected again on Monday.(KOLN)

Pattern Change Ahead

A cold front will slice through the area Tuesday morning, bringing cooler and cloudier conditions back to Nebraska. Highs will fall back to the 50s and 60s — a dramatic 30+ degree temperature drop from Monday. Winds will remain gusty from the north.

Precipitation chances will increase by early to mid-week. Tuesday through Thursday will see low chances (~20%) for light precipitation, with a mixture of rain and snow possible at times. No winter impacts are expected. Better chances are forecast for Wednesday night and Friday night as a wholesale pattern change develops, bringing southwest flow and surface moisture back to the region.

Warming temperatures are expected into the weekend and early next week before cooler, wetter... — Warming temperatures are expected into the weekend and early next week before cooler, wetter weather is expected into next week.(KOLN)

Click here to subscribe to our 10/11 NOW daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

Source link

Nebraska

What Iowa coach Ben McCollum said after defeating Nebraska on Thursday

Published

1 day ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

What Iowa coach Ben McCollum said after defeating Nebraska on Thursday

Iowa coach Ben McCollum met with the media following his team’s 77-71 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Sweet 16. The Cornhuskers led by three at the half but Iowa was able to outscore Nebraska 34-25 in the second half.

Pryce Sandfort led all scorers with 25 points while shooting 8 of 13 from the field and 6 of 10 from the 3-point line. Bennett Stirtz led the Hawkeyes with 20 points and played for all 40 minutes.

Iowa shot 52% (27-52) from the floor, 43% (13-30) from beyond the arc and 83% (10-12) from the free throw line. Nebraska struggled shooting 41% (24-58) from the field, 34% (13-38) from the 3-point line and 91% (10-11) from the charity stripe.

The Hawkeyes’ head coach acknowledged that his team had a poor start but a great finish and said that his team will need to play better to advance beyond the Elite Eight.

Yeah, I think to start we weren’t fantastic to start. They had an elite game plan to start. They played with elite pace. They adjusted their defense quite a bit. I think a lot of people will talk about the rivalry. I was around it when I was in Iowa, you know, and grew up in Iowa and understand the rivalry and whatnot. It’s nice to have — I guess if you would a call it rival that runs such a class program.
I think Coach Hoiberg, they have got great kids. They completely turned everything around from the previous season, and they have absolutely nothing to hang their heads about or anything. I have the utmost respect for them, all their players, and especially Coach Hoiberg. Heck of a season. I know it’s no consolation, but we still want to beat ’em every time and they want to beat us every time.
But from and internal perspective, there’s not a lot of bad blood there. It’s actually a lot of respect. I was really pleased with our second-half performance. I thought we actually decided we were going to try — not try. They had a lot to do with it, but kind of. Yeah, they’re smiling over there because they saw me break my marker.
And I thought our kids did a good job of executing offensively in both halves. We spent a lot of time trying to make sure that we could score, and you saw the result of that. We didn’t defend. But we were able to score, so we were able to stay in the game long enough and then get enough stops and had some big possessions down the stretch. Really good program win for everybody, coaches, managers, everybody included.

Iowa advances to the Elite Eight with the victory. Nebraska’s season ends with a record of 28-7.

Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes and opinions.

This article originally appeared on Cornhuskers Wire: What Iowa coach Ben McCollum said after defeating Nebraska on Thursday

Source link