Huskers 411

Sideline Report

By Josh Sumner

Now that there seems to be harmony once again in the college football galaxy (at the time being, at least), I’m taking time to reflect on an article I wrote in June in which I predicted how the NCAA conference shakeup would shake out.

In my report, I prophesied that Nebraska and Missouri would wind up in the Big Ten Conference. Alas, only half my prognostication came true.

The Huskers understandingly made the move to the Big Ten (which will consist of 12 teams), while Mizzou was left behind at the mercy of Texas to carry on what’s left of the Big 12 (which will consist of 10 teams).

Of course, none of that happens until after the coming season — a season with cataclysmic implications for both schools.

2005 was the last time a team other than MU or NU won the Big 12 North, and I’m sure both teams would love nothing more than to grab the division title in its last year of existence (the Big 12 will have no divisions starting in 2011, with every team meeting once in conference play).

Here’s more fuel for the fire: the Huskers and Tigers are projected as the best two teams in the north this season.

This year’s game in Lincoln will almost certainly be one for the ages. It’s the culmination of a rivalry between two teams that have played one another since 1892. It could be the last matchup between Big Red and the black and gold for a long time.

And even though the rivalry spans centuries, it’s only really heated up in the last few years.

Missouri hadn’t been relevant in football for decades before Gary Pinkel and Brad Smith showed up to revive the pulseless program. I was there in Columbia, Mo., in 2003 when Missouri beat Nebraska for the first time in 25 years. It was a big deal to not only the townspeople, but people from every corner of the state.

Pinkel used that marquee win to continue to steer the program into unchartered water. What followed for Missouri was six bowl game appearances, a 50-27 record and a brief appearance as the No. 1 ranked team in college football near the end of the 2007 regular season.

Meanwhile, Nebraska tried to figure out how to put the Callahan era behind them and return to the championship caliber football Husker fans expect.

While Missouri’s stock rose, Nebraska searched for answers. All the while, the rivalry boiled.

Remember when Husker cornerback Kellen Huston cold-cocked the celebrating Missouri fan after that 2003 Nebraska loss? Or when quarterback Blaine Gabbert — as well as his brother Tyler — decommitted from Nebraska to play at Missouri? Or when Ndamukong Suh willed his team to a fourth quarter comeback against the Tigers in a storming Columbia just last season?

Or how about the time Nebraska got invited to the Big Ten and Missouri didn’t?

Make no mistake — there’s no love lost between these two schools.

You bet both teams will have extra incentive to win their match-up this season. I’d go so far as to wager that there’s a calendar with October 30 circled hanging somewhere in the shadows of the Memorial Stadium basement.

But there’s more to this than who gets the last laugh before parting ways as conference foes. These teams are trying to set their respective trajectories as they voyage into a new college football landscape that consists of unknown territories and new conference power balances.

Nebraska desperately wants to take the Big 12 title this season and show the world they have graduated to taking on Big Ten competition. They want to send a message to Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan and the rest of the Big Ten Conference elite that they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Missouri will in the meantime be trying to prove something to the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the rest of the world. They want Jim Delaney to see that it’s actually their football program that is on the upswing, not Nebraska’s. The Tigers want respect from Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the remaining Big 12 members. They want to restore their now blemished image in the national media.

Coming off a season in which they were one second away from their third Big 12 Championship — a season in which they crushed Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl 33-0 — the Huskers feel they have their swagger back. Conversely, Missouri wants to show critics that its disappointing 35-13 loss to Navy in the Texas Bowl was a fluke.

Nebraska is the pre-season favorite for winning the Big 12 North, but Missouri has shown they can win in Lincoln after running up the score there 52-17 in 2008.

What could be the final battle cry for the Victory Bell for a long, long time might turn into a back-alley brawl as these teams assert themselves in a crusade toward football dominance. Bo Pelini and Gary Pinkel both want to lock up bragging rights, and there might be bloodshed as they lead their troops towards victory in what will possibly be the most important game ever played between these two schools.

I, for one, can’t wait.

Quite honestly, I hate to see this rivalry end...

Just when it was starting to get good.

<a href="http://www.waunetanebraska.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2062:nebraska-missouri-seek-vindication&catid=30:sports&Itemid=54tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.waunetanebraska.com/index.php?option=com_content">SIDELINE REPORT: Nebraska, Missouri seek vindication

KU chancellor asks Nebraska to stay The Nebraska-Kansas rivalry in football, lopsided as it is with the Huskers holding a 90-23-3 all-time mark, is a survivor.

The teams played in 1919 during the influenza epidemic. They met in 1920 when every team in the old Missouri Valley Conference refused to schedule the Cornhuskers because Nebraska wanted to play its home games in Omaha. The Jayhawks stood by their neighbor and played to a rare nonloss — a 20-20 tie that helped inspire fund-raising for Memorial Stadium in Lawrence.

Now, Kansas is asking Nebraska to keep alive the relationship as conference members.

Kansas chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little told the Associated Press that she had reached out to Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and planned to do the same with Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton, urging them to remain in the Big 12 and spurn a potential offer from the Big Ten.

Meanwhile, Baylor president Kenneth Starr — yes, the same attorney who investigated Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky — spoke with reporters on Monday and said he “emphatically supports” the Big 12.

KU, Baylor urge status quo The Kansas City Star

Where is the Big Ten going with all this expansion talk?

Well, it seems like they're determined to get at least one and possibly as many as three, but not five, new members to even out the league in east and west divisions to stage a conference championship football game. Although nothing's probably going to happen until December at the earliest.

The Big East and Big 12, by virtue of their location to neighboring Big Ten states, have been the focus of the Big Ten's search.

Sure, the Big Ten woud like to be a presence on the Eastern seaboard, especially in the New York City metropolitan area. But Pitt is not their target, because Penn State is farther east already. Syracuse is upstate, not coastal, New York, so they're not necessarily on the Big Ten's radar.

So who does that leave from the Big East the Big Ten might be after? It's not Notre Dame; they've made it clear they'd rather stay a football independent. That narrows it down to either Rutgers and/or Connecticut - both more in the NYC metro loop. Adding both or even one, possibly paired with Syracuse if the other balks, could be a cable TV bonanza for the Big Ten Network. And that my friends is the name of the game - money. The Big Ten dishes out more money yearly to its member schools than any other conference, a fact I'm sure not lost on any of the schools the Big Ten has shown interest in, especially a couple of unhappy ones in Big 12 territory just itching to change conferences.

If the major eastward move doesn't pan out - or even if it does for the Big Ten - westward expansion might be even more favorable with both Missouri and Nebraska hungering for a change of scenery.

In the Tigers, wholly disgruntled with their lot in the Big 12, the Big Ten could probably get a reknowned academic program plus add more than two million cable households by just asking for Mizzou's hand in marriage. And Missouri-Illinois would be a great conference rivalry.

For Nebraska, the Cornhusker brass, including athletic director and former head football coach Tom Osborne, are just waiting for someone else to offer them a better deal, that they ''would consider any opportunity that would advance the interests of the university." A Nebraska notch in your belt also gives the Big Ten not only more credence with another national football name on board, but also enables the conference to continue to spread its own cable network even more over an ever-increasing portion of the country.

If all this pure conjecture actually comes about, then the really intriguing part of the expansion scenario begins in seeing how the other major conferences respond in reaction to the Big Ten's moves, and change the college sports scenery even more for the future.

Discussing Big Ten expansion