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Each of them weighs heavily on the bar, whether the game is played on Vine Street or Piscataway, New Jersey, or a Hobby Lobby parking lot where we should have assembled the 1997 Nebraska-Michigan teams a few years ago. to settle business. So I understand why Scott Frost isn’t particularly interested in delivering a sonnet on the subject of protecting your backyard.
“We’re not talking about it specifically,” the Nebraska head coach said last week during a locker room discussion about the home win. “I want the guys to be as ready as they can play for every game.”
Point received. It’s one of those Captain Obvious topics, you might say. Of course, you have to win at Memorial Stadium, McFly. You have to win everywhere.
But as the Huskers roamed campus last week on a new Unity Walk route wearing their best Sunday sons, and the pieces came together to put a blow on a hard-working Northwest team, and like a light show before the fourth quarter captivated an energetic crowd who for the most part hadn’t left despite the lopsided affair, I wondered how Nebraska, saving an old line from Dan Devine, could certainly rewrite this season’s Husker script. .
Not the real Dan Devine, mind you. Fiction in the movie “Rudy”. In fact, they unfairly make Devine a real jerk in the movie, but they give her a memorable moment in the locker room before the game Rudy is playing. “Remember, no one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around,” he told the team with some authority. (I know him as well from my old CD “Jock Jams , Volume 4 ”only from the film itself. Well done to the teenagers of the 90s!)
Unfortunately for Nebraska, heading into this year there have been too many solemn departures from the stadium by the Husker loyalists while watching the other team let off steam on their team’s turf.
While Nebraska has never been worse than 5-2 at home in any season in the Pelini era and 40-9 overall in those seven years, they were 12-9 at Lincoln for the Riley era and 8-9 at Memorial Stadium in the Frost era. coming this season. Riley’s team in 2016 were 7-0 at home, but his other two teams were a miserable 5-9.
Frost’s 2018 team have won their last four games at Lincoln 4-3 at home, but their 2019 team were 3-4, and last year’s team were. from 1-2 in the familiar stadium with no fans in the stands.
There’s a reason we always bring fondness to the intense atmosphere around a 2014 Nebraska-Miami game. The other big parties were hard to find in Lincoln. The Huskers knocked out a Michigan State Top 10 team in 2015, and a win over Oregon in 2016 produced one of the loudest crowds in the final minutes I’ve heard on a match. AKA the game “Let me clear my throat”. But just flashes of pleasure. No consistent ownership of your space.
The best home win of the Frost era so far, I would say, is either the 9-6 snow game against Michigan State or a win over a talented but struggling Penn State team last year. The problem was, no one was in the seats to yell about the latter.
But there weren’t many opportunities like this on this Saturday. Nebraska are 0-3 against seeded teams at home during Frost’s tenure, with all of those games to come in 2019: the 48-7 loss to Ohio State, the 37-21 loss to Wisconsin, the 27-24 last-second loss to Iowa.
This is the old news. The story so far is that THIS Nebraska team are 3-0 at home, with a few big hitters up front to try to prove the old truth is valid: winning at Lincoln for the opponents is really tough. . That’s what the other teams still think. Saturday is one of those times to cement this idea.
After last week’s win, Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez spoke about the special night-time environment surrounding the win. “I remember saying to someone on the sidelines, He said, ‘Why are there still so many people here?’ And I said, ‘Well, one, there’s one thing of pride, there’s still a lot of people in the stands. Two, I know there’s going to be a big light show in the fourth quarter.’
The light show and the energy that night was really, really cool. But put it together on that stage this week, and I have a feeling last week will look like a high school kid’s birthday party in comparison.
Let’s jump on some other numbers to know to prepare the ground before they turn on the big lights.
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