Burn it to the ground.
All of it.
The only way to recover from two consecutive beat downs under the Memorial Stadium lights (not to mention 15 years of WTF) is to scrap the whole damn thing and rebuild the Husker football program from the ground up.
Last week’s Badger buggering should have been enough to make the current staff and team gather in a circle of trust and vow to do whatever it takes to ensure something like that never happens again.
Well, it continued to happen against Ohio State from the opening kickoff to the final whistle. The only merciful thing about last night’s pummeling is that the Buckeyes didn’t wait until the second half to take the Huskers to the woodshed. They were Mike Tyson in the ring against Michael Spinks. This game was over the moment it began and it was a welcome relief. With the Huskers getting their ass kicked from the get go, I was able to fully enjoy our evening at Dodger Stadium instead of having to obsessively check on the Huskers every 10 seconds like I did during the Wisconsin game.
And that really sucks because for as long as I can remember, every Husker loss has been a brutal gut punch that has left me sick to my stomach for days after.
Last night was the first time I’ve ever felt a sense of relief that the Huskers lost. That didn’t even happen in the dregs of the Bill Callahan era.
BREAKING UPDATE
Since I started writing this, the University of Nebraska announced that Washington State Athletic Director Bill Moos has been hired as the new AD.
Well Bill, if you happen to read this while you’re getting up to speed on all things Huskers, here’s are five things you need to do.
1. Reassign Mike Riley to Head Coach of Righteous Good Times and Other Fun Stuff. Riley’s body language sideline demeanor during this season’s blowouts clearly says he’s over it. While he still has some gas in the tank, Riley can be the cuddly grandpa that the players turn to when the coach you inevitably hire is being too much of a hard ass on their fragile psyches. He can spend his newfound free time organizing field trips and hooking the team up with Kendrick Lamar tickets and continuing to be the coolest old guy in football.
2. Ditch the social media department until the Huskers start winning. The goddamn easiest job in the athletic department without question belongs to whoever runs the Huskers’ Instagram account. With the team in the shitter they’ve all but stopped posting so what’s the point of having #OnBrand #Content when the team is so bad there’s nothing worth sharing?
2b. Whoever the next coach is has to go out there and find guys on each side of the ball who could care less about social media. The players who will be the foundation for turning the program around are the kind of psychos who have better things to do than spend their free time tweeting their recruiting offers and fishing for likes and retweets from thirsty adult fans. Oh, and find a QB who can run the ball and throw the ball.
3. Close the Ndamukong Suh Center For Enhanced Athletic Excellence (or whatever it’s called) until the players earn the right to workout on fancy and clean exercise equipment. Go steal a stack of hay bales from East Campus and poach some cinder blocks and rebar from a construction site and pile everything up behind the stadium and tell the players to bulk up prison style. If they really want to get bigger, faster, and stronger, they’ll find a way to make it happen without the Ivan Drago Signature Series line of weights.
4. Find coaches on both sides of the ball who understand simpler is better in the college game. No scheme should take years to implement. It’s football. You run the ball, you throw the ball, you tackle whoever has the ball, and sometimes you kick the ball. The dynasty era Husker playbook was easy enough for anyone to understand and execute and it worked pretty good.
5. WIN.
MIKE RILEY’S BALLOON WATCH™
It’s going to be hard to get any worse than it is now.
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