Tag Archives: huskers

Bo Pelini, Huskers, Mike Riley, scott frost

Nick Allen Presents: Go Big Dread

I’m a lifelong Husker fan. So are my kids. My oldest is 19 years old and just started college. Nebraska Cornhuskers football has been a shell of a program for his entire life, even more so for my 17 and 14-year-old kids. While I’m glad football is on the brink of being played again, I’m having a hard time mustering up much excitement. 

My blood bleeds Scarlet but is flowing at an alarmingly low rate. It’s either early onset erectile dysfunction or the deadening realization that this year will be another mundane slog to mediocrity for Dear Old Nebraska U.

The past two decades have shown glimmers of hope at times but nothing sustainable or decent ever materializes. Woof. I’m reminded of some poor  kid hoping this is the year dad finally gets his shit together.

In that spirit, here’s what kind of father figure every coach since Osborne has turned out to be.

Fearless Frankie Solich

The man who was supposed to maintain the glory of the Mighty Big Red exposed holes in the hull. Much like Osborne, Frankie had 70’s dad vibes. Reluctant with compliments but when they came they meant something. Could have been able to make it work but he might have fucked one of your aunts and was never at Thanksgiving again. Heard he went on to a very happy life with an uglier wife.

Bill Callahan


The smooth talking salesman who tried to talk your mom into butt stuff. Hated his previous wife so much you thought he might settle for your family. Never really fit in but was fun to make fun of around the house. Bought you some shiny toys but you knew he’d never last.

Bo Pelini

A fiery, rust-belt, take no bullshit but will have a beer with you dad. Almost made it work but blew it when it really mattered. Too many Coors Lights and wrecked the Buick on the way to your birthday party. Shouting matches with Grandma and Grandpa at Christmas. He’d have your back in a fight but he probably started it to begin with. Why are mommy and daddy fighting? Had to go.

Mike Riley

Hip-hip golly gee whiz! Could have been the one to ride it out with mom into retirement. Hopes you’re doing ok and really sees you going places, kid. Tried to move his family into town but they never really wanted to be here. Still sends you birthday cards. Never made mom wet. When the lights were off, she imagined he was Bo.

Scott Frost

The Golden Boy. The Chosen One. THIS guy HAS to be it. Instead he’s stubborn, selfish and somehow a young guy stuck in the nineties. Keeps talking about how Grandpa got it done. Wonders why everything around the house sucks. Surely can’t be him. Mom knows she should leave but suffers from low self-esteem and isn’t sure she could do any better. 

Nick Allen is a proud dad and standup comic who lives in Omaha. Catch him weekday mornings on the Todd N Tyler Radio Empire and see him live onstage Thursday, September 1 at The Red Lion Lounge in Omaha. Follow him on Twitter at @NicksAllens.

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College Football, Huskers, scott frost

Nick Allen Presents: Excuses Scott Frost Can Use

The past few years have been rough for Husker fans. And the few before that. And, for good measure, the few before that. Watching fourth quarter leads dwindle away or a team in scarlet and cream looking like they’d rather be anywhere else has become the norm.

While I will eternally root for the dudes, the excuses after yet another ugly or unnecessary loss have become more interesting than the games themselves in the past couple of years.

In that spirit, here are some prefabricated excuses to help Scott Frost through the year should the ball not bounce the right way.

Hopefully none of these are needed. But if they are…

@ Illinois 8/28

Man, we almost had them there. I like where the team is at though. They had some wrinkles we didn’t really anticipate. No way to know what a new coach at a new school was going to throw at us. Took us some time to get used to playing in a game again after a long offseason. Hotel didn’t do us any favors with no waffle machine.

Fordham 9/4

Frankly I thought this game was a joke and we wouldn’t actually end up playing it. By the time we all stopped laughing there wasn’t really any time to put any game plans together. We’ll get them next year. They agreed to come to Lincoln instead of Oklahoma. We have their number now.

Buffalo 9/11

They really play with some grit. We were out of sorts after some bad BBQ last night. That on top of the fans and media making everyone nervous really did us in. Looking at Buffalo Bills game tape instead of this really, really tough team we played here today is on me.

@Oklahoma 9/18

Look, there was a reason I tried to get out of this game. Frankly we shouldn’t even have been here today. Plane being delayed didn’t help anything. Yes I personally delayed it but still, another sign this never should have happened in the first place. They’re a tough team and it’s even harder to concentrate knowing they’ll be in a different conference soon. Luckily, we will never play them again.

@Michigan State 9/25

Two road games in a row really isn’t fair. It would have been much easier if they just showed up in Lincoln at the same time as Michigan in a few weeks and they could have played each other at our place. We could have gotten some extra practice in. Chalk this up to scheduling.

Northwestern 10/2


Nobody cares about football in their town so it’s easier for them to focus without all of the distractions. They don’t have a zealous fanbase or prodding media to worry about. We can probably just tell everybody we won because nobody will pay any attention anyway. They also have new facilities. Hard for us to compete with them while ours are still under construction.

Michigan 10/9

To be honest, the winged helmets threw us off. Some of the guys thought they would make their team actually start flying. Hard to recover from that. I’d also like to point out that Michigan has been good at basketball in the past as well. So much easier for a football program to relax when the basketball team can carry some of the weight for the athletic department.

@ Minnesota 10/16

Not going to make any excuses other than it’s a lot easier for kids to focus on coaches who have initials for a first name. They’re not caught up in how and why he was named ‘Scott’ or whatever his first name might be. Easier for his players to spell it too. Other than that and getting out-coached again, we really had a shot at this one. 

Purdue 10/30

Trains are heavy and fast. If you really pay attention, they’re everywhere. Think that got our guys off rhythm throughout the week as everywhere they went there seemed to be a train. Intersections, horns at night, you name it. That really effected our preparation this week. Didn’t help at all being on a train in Minnesota last week. That’s on me.

Ohio State 11/6

It’s really not fair we even have to play them sporadically. We’ve been in contact with the league and are hoping for a favorable outcome.

@ Wisconsin 11/20

This was a tough one. Really hard for us as Nebraska to go up against a team who does what we used to do well for so long. They develop players, are fundamentally sound, don’t beat themselves and play with a nasty edge on offense and defense. Think we were thrown by looking in a mirror and seeing a distant, aging reflection of what we used to be.

Iowa 11/26

We couldn’t tell if it was our fans or their sideline clapping throughout the game. We’re also still pretty tired from Thanksgiving. They should really consider moving this to another day or scrapping this series entirely. Next year I’ll have more of my players here and won’t have to keep cleaning up the culture the last guy shit out. 

Nick Allen is a stand-up comic who lives in Omaha. Catch him every weekday morning on the Todd N Tyler Show or see him live in Lincoln this Saturday night at the Storm Cellar. Follow Nick on Twitter at @NicksAllens. 

 

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Huskers

Colorado: Game Day Pep Talk

It’s 22 minutes until the clock strikes midnight in the Cornhusker State and game day officially arrives. By the end of the afternoon, another chapter will be written about Nebraska’s history with Colorado.

Here in Los Angeles, the Dodgers are trying to battle their way back against the Giants. We live close enough to Dodger Stadium to see a quartet of palm trees that line its outer perimeter from the top of our backyard. The tickets we had for tonight’s game were sold on StubHub last week because seeing a battle between the National League’s fiercest rivals does nothing to get my pulse racing when Nebraska and Colorado is on-deck for Saturday afternoon.

Plus, I need my Big Red beauty rest.

To say that Husker fans are excited for this reckoning is an understatement. I’m still hobbling around from playing tennis three days ago but am so jacked for this game I know I could run through a brick wall should the need arise.

This is the day we’ve all been looking forward to since Colorado pulled a W out of Ralphie’s butt last year in Lincoln. How differently things would have gone if last season had started off with a win for the good guys is irrelevant now but BS penalties and injury inducing cheap shots on a quarterback’s knee will always linger in a fanbase’s craw.

It goes without saying that confidence would be a lot higher heading into kickoff had the Huskers trounced South Alabama the way we expected them to last week. Starting the year off with the shitty win of the season (hopefully there’s only one) can be a good motivator for the team. Plus, it makes things a lot more exciting for all of us.

Soon we’ll find out if those week one miscues were a fluke (I think they were) and we’ll get to see if Wan’dale Robinson is the real deal. (I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but I have a suspicion he was used just enough last week to get his feet wet and give Colorado enough film to be nervous about what he’s capable of.)

More than anything though, game day in Boulder is going to be an afternoon for Husker Nation to show the college football world the Big Red is on the way back to where it belongs. If you’ve been following the mass migration by land and air into Colorado, you know the scene is already lit. Seriously, Husker fans drank a Pearl Street bar dry by 8pm on a Friday night.

The three dozen or so Colorado fans that didn’t sell off their tickets are going to be in for a rude awakening tomorrow when Folsom Field is transformed into Memorial Stadium West.

Colorado had their chance last year but it’s time for the Buffaloes to get a stern reminder about who wore the pants in the conference rivalry that was never really a rivalry. Yes, they got in a few shots and damaged a few childhoods in the late eighties and early nineties (Eric Bieniemy was right behind the Boz in my book) but when you look at the historical win/loss record, you’ll notice Colorado has won only 8 times in the last 43 meetings. That’s hardly a rivalry. Colorado is annoying neighbor at best.

And later today that annoying neighbor will be put in his place.

The Huskers got this one and let’s enjoy every minute of it.

GBR.

 

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College Football, Huskers

Breaking Down Mark Kiszla’s “Hug a Husker” Column

It wouldn’t be game week against Colorado if some highfalutin sportswriter from the Denver Post took a pot shot at Husker Nation.

With Woody Paige being put out to pasture by the Post in 2016, this year’s honor falls to Mark Kiszla, a sportswriter who looks like he keeps more than one bootleg Phish CD in his trusty Subaru, which he takes up into the mountains every summer for an annual pilgrimage to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Red Rocks.

In his column, which you can read here, Kiszla kicks things off with a joke – a smart move, and one right out of Tom Osborne’s playbook during his weekly press conferences back in the day.

Hey, Buffs. It won’t be easy. But as the Bugeaters return to Folsom Field for the first time since 2009, kindly refrain from the Nebraska jokes. 

Here in Colorado, we’re better than this: “How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Nebraska? Anywhere else, it would’ve been called a teethbrush.”

I think Kiszla is trying to say that Colorado fans are better than making jokes at Nebraska’s expense. The kind of jokes that are such an embedded part of the public domain that you can google toothbrush teethbrush joke and get 11 million results.

I know the robber barons running the Denver Post these days don’t provide the most lavish budgets but surely Kiszla isn’t under such sweatshop like conditions that he doesn’t have time to pop an edible and think of an original joke.

But there’s no time to wait around for that gummy to hit, we gotta move right into the crux of his column:

…I humbly suggest a new theme to honor this rivalry:

Give a Husker a hug.

Yep. That’s it. Right there. Give a Husker a hug.

When you think about it, Kiszla’s idea isn’t so far fetched. There are going to be thousands of hugs handed out at Folsom Field this Saturday.

And they’re all going to be happening between fellow Husker fans.

If you’ve paid any attention to the lead up to this game, it sure sounds like there won’t be anyone inside the stadium affiliated with Colorado aside from the team itself and the Coors Light vendors. (BTW, did you know the nickname “Silver Bullet” was coined by a University of Nebraska student?)

Then we get to the best paragraph of Kiszla’s piece:

And that’s fine by Colorado athletic director Rick George, who crowed the renewal of hostilities between the Buffs and Huskers will be the biggest revenue producing game in school history. 

Holy buffalo chip! You mean a hosting a game against Nebraska is going to be an economic benefit to the University of Colorado? Shut the front door. Maybe the university would have more money if it didn’t have to go all Crazy Gideon and slash ticket prices by 40% in a sad attempt to lure students through the gates.

And after a little more word salad to make his word count, Kiszla pulls off his game plan to start strong and finish stronger with his most outlandish whopper yet…

Give the Huskers a hug. 

Goodness knows, after the embarrassment of losing to CU two years in a row, they’re going to need it.

OK. Maybe he did take an edible and it kicked in by the end. That’s the only way you can explain an ending like that.

GBR.

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Huskers

South Alabama: Game Day Pep Talk

Husker Fam,

Well, we did it. We made it to game day.

The day that we never thought would get here after nearly ten long and lonely months has finally arrived.

A little later today, 2018’s best 4 – 8 team will be taking the field to kickoff their 2019 campaign against South Alabama.

It’s not the Alabama any of us want but it’s a start. If the Huskers can get the ball rolling and knock off the South Alabama Jaguars tomorrow (and let’s face it, it’s not much of an if), that will be a good first step on a journey towards a bigger goal that will eventually end with a face-off against Alabama. You know, the one that’s a dynasty reminiscent of Husker teams from the days of yore.

Since the whistle blew in Iowa City last November, all of us have endured zingers and insults from friends and foes aligned with other colleges.

“How can someone endure back-to-back 4 and 8 seasons?” they ask.

“How can we not?” we reply.

We’ve all been patiently waiting and biding our time as the light at the end of the tunnel grows bigger and brighter.

We’re going to get there eventually but until then, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

It’s about to become a lot of fun.

GBR and LFG

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Huskers, Uncategorized

Nick Allen’s Bold Husker Predictions for 2019

It’s almost football season. THANK GOD IT’S ALMOST FOOTBALL SEASON. The Nebraska Cornhuskers start the season Saturday. Scott Frost and a bunch of kids, many of whom are not old enough to legally purchase alcohol, embark on a season full of high hopes and exceeded expectations.

They deserve both.

Of course hopes are high. It’s Nebraska. It’s almost football season. Fucking Huskers baby. BLACKSHIRTS. Go for two. You get it. Football’s the best. And Nebraska can be too. Has been before. Will be again. This year? Who knows. Probably not but they’re lifting weights now. Have been for a couple of years. Some coaching and some weight lifting?? Shiiiiit. Watch out. BIG RED BABY. The offense will be good/great. ADRIAN MARTINEZ. The line will be better. Young dudes figuring it out. Better every week. The BLACKSHIRTS, led by a band of brothers up front, will begin to assert dominance and lay waste by the end of the year. Playoffs. Championships. Wins. Soon. But now?? Time will tell.

Here’s the best case scenario: ???

8/31 – South Alabama – Finally a football game. Huskers by 40.

Photographic evidence that the South Alabama Jaguars have fans.

9/7 – @Colorado – 62 – 36. Never forget. Frost remembers. NU by three scores.

These ladies will be the only Colorado fans inside Folsom Field when the Sea of Red comes to town and that’s only because they their Jitterbug Phones couldn’t download the StubHub app.

9/14 – Northern Illinois – Ooof. Bad memories. Huskers get caught taking it for granted early but pull through before halftime. Second half uncomfortably close. Huskers by 13.

True Fact: When Northern Illinois played at San Diego State in 2017, their entire traveling fanbase was able to fit one van with plenty of room to spare.

9/21 – @Illinois – They’re no Northern Illinois. Love Lovie but Illinois football blows. Huskers beat the spread.

Do you think those fans sitting away from the crowd are farting or making out?

9/27 – Ohio State – Well, well. Guess who has a coach now?? NOT OHIO STATE. Fuck Urban Meyer. Fuck the new guy. Fuck Ohio State football and everything it claims to stand for. Huskers make it hurt somehow. A demoralizing play early in the third that makes them cave or a dagger at the end. Either way, Huskers win.

There’s a good chance this photo is Photoshopped and there’s a good chance it isn’t.

10/5 – Northwestern – Not today. Northwestern has had its way with NU before but that stops now. Fuck purple uniforms. Fuck a big ten school pretending it’s Ivy League. NU by 10.

This is the #2 photo on google when you search: Northwestern Football Fans Nerds.

10/12 – @Minnesota – Have the wheels fallen off of PJ Fleck by now? Scott Frost will never lose a football game to PJ Fleck. Frost builds foundations, Fleck puts oars in water. Land of losses. Huskers by a bunch.

10/19 – BYE – UNDEFEATED AT THE BYE WEEK  – FUCK YEAH

10/26 – Indiana – Yay! Who cares?? Would rather be playing Kansas. Fuck basketball schools trying to play football. Huskers by 40.

In the wake of Andrew Luck’s retirement, the Indiana Athletic Department expects game attendance to increase by up to five fans.

11/2 – @Purdue – Choo choo!! A fucking train mascot?? Good god. Makes you miss the Big 12 (again). Fuck Purdue. Let’s play the Cyclones. Huskers by 14.

This young Purdue fan is well prepared for a lifetime of misery.

11/9 – TWO BYE WEEKS?? Still undefeated though……

11/16 – Wisconsin – At home. Home of the real big red. Fuck Wisconsin pretending to be Nebraska football. Nebraska gets some pride back tonight. End of regulation. They go for two. Run it right up the gut. Huskers by one. It’s beautiful.

Her hair might be dyed but that neck tattoo is real.

11/23 – @Maryland – THREE BYE WEEKS??? NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS 11-0.

Not even these guys can explain the symbolism behind Maryland’s confusing state flag.

11/29 – Iowa – It’s over. Iowa has been lifting weights for a looong time and Nebraska just stared last year. And THAT game was close. Frost took it personally. Made his players feel the same. From here on out, Nebraska wins 80% of its games against Iowa. We’ll still wave to the kids though. Want a Runza?? It’s all in good fun, right??? NU by 6.

REALLY!?!

UNDEFEATED. Best. Case. Scenario. They make the playoff. Realize they’re a year or two away. It hurts but they made some hay, right? Get it? Hay? Farms?? Cornhuskers??? Haha. Playoffs? Who would of thought?? THIS GUY. Fuck, they win the whole thing. Why not? HUSKERS BABY.

Nick Allen is a standup comedian who lives in Omaha. Follow him on Twitter. You can see him perform regularly at the Funny Bone.

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College Football, Huskers

It’s Getting to be About That Time

This past Monday was a little different than the three dozen or so Mondays that preceded it.

I was wide awake 20 minutes before my first alarm and in the mood to run through a brick wall.

And that can only mean one thing.

Game week is finally here.

And what a magical week it has been.

Long dormant group texts have returned from the dead, buddies who are alumni of other colleges have reached out from far and wide to get a read on how things are looking for the Huskers in 2019, and most importantly, plans have been made to meet friends I haven’t seen since last November at a bar at 8:30am on a Saturday morning.

There’s nothing like the anticipation and excitement leading to a season opener. It’s as if you’re stuck in Groundhog Day but instead you’re eight-years-old and living the night before Christmas for an entire week.

My personal It’s a Wonderful Life moment happened in the back of an Uber on Tuesday afternoon. The driver asked if I was a football fan. I said college. Then he asked what school and I said Nebraska. And then he said oh, damn the Huskers are gonna be good and launched into rant about USC that lasted for five miles. The only time he pumped the verbal brakes was when I interrupted to ask if he had time to drive me to Iowa so I could have some in-person words with the Hawkeye fan who talking smack to me on Twitter at that exact moment. Then we both had a laugh and wished each other good luck.

It feels so good to be back.

Enjoy the latest Big Red Fury pump up video and we’ll be back soon with some real content. GBR.

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College Football, Huskers

A Thanksgiving Appreciation for the Best 4-7 Team in the Country

Happy Thanksgiving Husker Fam, 

As I plop down on the couch to write this on Thanksgiving Eve, the Michigan State game is playing on the TV for the second night in a row for no better reason than it’s my favorite Husker game in years. 

A couple seasons down the road, this game won’t even be a blip in college football history but in the annals of Husker lore, it will be forever remembered as the one where the Big Red ship was finally righted. 

It takes a special group of fans to pack a stadium on a bitterly cold November morning to see their 3-7 team play a meaningless game but Husker Nation showed up like they’ve done for the past 56 years. On this particular Saturday, our never ending loyalty was rewarded by watching a team with nothing to play for put it all on the line and find a way to win. 

And what a team win it was.

When the final whistle blew, never have I felt so proud of a 4-7 team in my life.

PHOTO CREDIT: Omaha World-Herald

The Big Ten’s most explosive offense suddenly couldn’t score?

No prob. The Blackshirts had their back.

Need a true freshman kicker to set not one but two personal records for career long field goals in the span of five minutes off the clock?

It’s cool. The kid transformed into a sure footed sniper.

No matter how the season ends tomorrow, this team is always going to hold a special place in my heart because these guys proved they truly wanted to be Huskers and put in the work on and off the field to prove it. Even in the unlikely event of a loss, we’re going to have a coach who won’t spend the postgame press conference challenging the media to a fight or daring his boss to fire him. And he certainly won’t make worn out excuses for why his team came up short on the scoreboard.

Today, let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the better days that are ahead for Husker Nation.

GBR 

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Huskers

An Open Letter to Colorado and Iowa Fans 

Hey there Husker neighbors to the east and west,

I just wanted to drop a quick note to share how delighted I am with the interest that your respective fanbases have shown towards @BigRed_Fury this season.

Every week without fail, fresh rounds of zingers (some of them are almost funny even) get lobbed into @BigRed_Fury’s mentions following the Cornhuskers’ latest miscue on the field.

How y’all found @BigRed_Fury I’ll never know, but I’m flattered that y’all take the time to write to show that you care.

Because I sure don’t care about either of you.

Even if the Huskers find a way to do the impossible and lose to Northwestern to move to 0-6 on the year, it’s not going to bother me because this season is a down to the foundation rebuilding project. And if we go down the road a few years and discover Scott Frost isn’t the chosen one, big deal. There will be a new coach and I will still be a Husker fan.

Like Bane being born into the darkness, I was born into Husker Nation. I was molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man.

You know what my earliest Husker memory is?

Seeing them lose the 1984 Orange Bowl and a National Championship to Miami. In one night I fell in love with the Fumblerooski and endured the heartbreak of my team coming up short on the biggest stage. When you’ve experienced your team suffering the worst possible outcome before even getting the faintest whiff of what a victory feels like, it fundamentally changes a person.

But that’s not the only Natty I’ve seen the Huskers lose.

Nearly 10 years to the day later, I got to watch the Huskers lose another National Championship at the Orange Bowl. This time around Florida State was the opponent and the game was even more of a heart breaker thanks to a Seminole TD that should have been ruled a goal line fumble and a missed last second field goal that would have won the game for the Big Red and left Bobby Bowden soaking wet.

Then eight years after that I got to see the Huskers lose yet another National Championship at the dastardly hand of the Miami Hurricanes. I was in the third row, straddling the 50 yard line on the Huskers’ side of the field of the Rose Bowl for that one and it remains the most disappointing game of my life. 

So what’s this all add up to?

In my lifetime I’ve seen the Huskers LOSE more National Championships than Iowa and Colorado have played for combined during the same stretch.

And I’ve also seen them win three titles, which according to my math is exactly two more than the Colorado Buffaloes and the Iowa Hawkeyes have won.

When you come at me to heckle me about the Huskers losing to Troy, please know that a game like that doesn’t even make a ripple in my pool of Husker heartbreak. It means nothing to me.

Your tweets can’t hurt me because I’m already dead inside.

Your College Football Buddy,

Todd


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College Football, Life Advice

The Big Red Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption opened in theatres September 23, 1994. 

The following afternoon, the Huskers rolled Pacific 70-21 in front of the hometown crowd. 

While we all know how that year turned out for the Big Red, Shawshank was mostly overlooked at the box office and during award season as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction took home most of the hardware. 

It wasn’t until a few years later that it began to receive the acclaim it missed the first time around. Thanks to nearly daily showings on basic cable that are still running strong today, The Shawshank Redemption has cemented its status as very arguably one of the greatest films ever made and currently occupies the number one spot on IMDB’s list of the top 250 movies. 

“Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

But we’re not here to do a dissertation on the legacy of Shawshank.

We’re here to talk about a theory.

It’s called the Shit Tunnel Theory. 

I can’t tell you exactly when I came up with the it but I can tell you I was on the couch watching Shawshank for probably the 100th time and was faded enough to have an epiphany that changed my outlook on life.

Allow me to set it up. 

According to Shawshank lore, Andy started tunneling his way to freedom with his tiny rock hammer two years into his 19 year stretch. That’s 17 years of chipping through the concrete wall of his prison cell piece-by-piece. An estimate from someone a lot smarter than me put Andy’s progress at 1/64th of an inch per day, or about the thickness of your fingernail. 

So after 17 long years Andy final breaks through and has to face one final crucible-The Shit Tunnel. In a film that’s full of cruel moments, this was the cherry on top of a turd sundae. 

But Andy give up?

Not a chance. 

He grabbed a rock, broke through that pipe, and dove right in. He charged through that “river of shit,” to quote Red, like he was a plumber named Mario on a mission to save a princess. It was 500 yards to freedom and after all he’d been through he was not going to stopped by a Shit Tunnel.

Now if we can go back to me on the couch for a moment, it was during this breakout scene that I realized no matter what goal you’re working towards, there’s always, without fail, going to be an unexpected obstacle that pops up when you have the finish line in sight. Even if it’s not a literal Shit Tunnel, the concept is the same. If you have something you want to achieve, you gotta pay the price by conquering the Shit Tunnel.

Husker fam, if Memorial Stadium is our Shawshank, we have just entered the Shit Tunnel. 

So what if the Huskers leave Wisconsin with an L and an 0-5 record for the first time since who knows when? It’s already been a miserable decade and half, what’s another year at this point?

All this losing now won’t mean shit if hang onto the hope and belief that better days are ahead. Sometimes you just gotta hold your breath and barrel down that Shit Tunnel towards where the light should be. 

Go Big Red. 


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