Tuesday, August 11, 2020

If

If the University of Nebraska is bound and determined to play football this fall and if the Big 12 conference is bound and determined to do the same then I'm ready for the Cornhuskers to return to the fold.  Of all the schools from the original Big 12 conference, Nebraska is the one institution that I enjoyed competing against the most.  Oh, it really wasn't much competition for Nebraska when it came to football and the same could be said for the University of Kansas when it came to basketball but here's the thing.  I respect Nebraska and its fans.

My first college football game was watching Nebraska dominate the Jayhawks in 1967.  The wildest moment I ever saw at a Kansas basketball game was in the mid-70's when Cornhusker head coach Joe Cipriano lost his mind and picked up two quick technicals ending his frustration with his jacket thrown to the mid-court at Allen Field House.

Nebraska is one of three major college football stadium I've ever watched a game in besides the Jayhawks' Memorial Stadium and Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium.  I will never forget watching the great Tommy Frazier dismantle a good Kansas team in the mid-90's.  I will never, ever forget watching Kansas end Nebraska's long football winning streak in 2005.  Even during those dreadful drubbings we took during the 70's and 80's... Nebraska fans were classy.

I loved going to Lincoln for the Big 8 indoor track meet.  The facilities in Lincoln were second to none 40 years ago and they have only gotten better through the years.  I miss Nebraska.  I want them back in the Big 12 conference.  I want a counter-balance to the overly immense power that the University of Texas welds.  Nebraska won't budge that balance of power much but it would be a start.

Completing the transition would to bring Colorado back into the fold.  It's ridiculous that the Buffaloes are so geographically out of sync with the rest of the Pac 12.  And no, I don't want Missouri back.  They turned their back on the best football/basketball rivalry in the NCAA.  The Tigers let money cloud history and now they are getting their payback.  Their football program can't compete in the SEC and their basketball is just as sorry.

Money ruined the conferences as we knew them.  COVID may ruin college football as we know it.  But if it gets Nebraska back into the Big 12 permanently, I'm all for it.

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