NOTE: This is a column I wrote on July 30, 2008, prior to LAST college football season. In another piece, I proposed that the governors of Nebraska and Colorado get together and create a traveling trophy, "The Plate River Cup" that can be awarded annually to the winner of that football game. 
This is for all the CU fans that think all I do is bash the Buffs.
There are an estimated 25,000 Nebraska football fans living along the Front Range in Colorado. Like everyone else, they’re anxious for the start of the new college football season that’s less than a month away. But before the first kick-off, this group of Husker supporters needs to relay a message back to Lincoln. It’s time for Nebraska to accept the University of Colorado as their one true, natural rival, complete with all the contempt and name calling that goes with it. 
The reason is simple. Rivalries make college football tick. You don’t think of Ohio State without Michigan. Hard to imagine Oklahoma without Texas, or Florida without Florida State. USC may be on top, but their backers get the most worked up for the annual bash with UCLA.
As things stand right now, Nebraska does not have a true rival. Husker fans still point at Oklahoma, but the two teams only play twice every four years. You can’t have a true rival that isn’t on your schedule every year. It’s sad, because NU vs. OU was every bit as good as Ohio State – Michigan and the others, but expansion and the emergence of the Big 12 squelched it a decade ago.
With Oklahoma only a semi-regular foe, the Huskers are in need. Quick, name a great college football program that DOESN’T have a rival? Didn’t think so.
Colorado fans have been aiming at the Nebraska game for decades now. It’s the Cornhuskers who’ve refused to buy in. CU fans have long had the necessary hatred for Nebraska, and the game means more to most Buff fans than any other on the schedule. Look no further than last season, when most Colorado fans took far more pleasure in beating a downtrodden Nebraska team than they did in a monumental upset of the highly ranked Sooners.
On the other side, Nebraska fans would rather say nice things about Barry Switzer than admit that CU was a true ‘rival’ for Nebraska. And it takes two to tango, as they say.
So will this, can this, mind set change among those wearing red? It needs to, for Nebraska’s sake.
It’s a little ironic. Even though they’ve been the one’s pushing a rivalry with Nebraska that has not been reciprocated, it’s the Buffs who don’t really need the Huskers right now. Colorado has a built in rivalry building with Colorado State (whether CU fan wants to acknowledge it or not.) Over the past decade, CU leads the series 6-4, and the teams have split the last eight meetings in Denver. The games have had all the elements of a great rivalry, and if they were in the same conference with any sort of title on the line, no one would argue that CU-CSU was among the nation’s great rivalry games.
But CU has never really wanted the CSU rivalry; much like Nebraska has disdained the Buffs. They want Nebraska. It was back in the early 1980’s when new CU coach Bill McCartney tried his best to create this border war with Nebraska. He failed for two reasons. One, at the time, Nebraska was still on top of the college football world, and every other team in the Big Eight conference felt the same way about the Cornhuskers as CU did. They all aimed to take down the top dog. And to top it off, McCartney beat Nebraska only three times in 13 seasons.
Secondly, and more importantly, Nebraska still had Oklahoma on the brain. In those years, the Huskers and Sooners would annually end the Big Eight season with a titanic clash the day after Thanksgiving, the winner moving on to the Orange Bowl and possibly a shot at the National Championship. The two schools played numerous epic battles, the kind of games where legends were born.
When the Big 12 came into existence, the Huskers and Sooners were dispatched to difference divisions, and the rivalry died. Oklahoma was not been left wanting. The Sooners rivalry with Texas only intensified. It’s Nebraska that suffered.
Certainly Nebraska – Colorado does not come close to measuring up as a rivalry…yet. Despite some success for the Buffs in this decade, the all-time series remains very one-sided. But you have to start somewhere, right? If you only go by the games since the Big 12 was born and they started playing the day after Thanksgiving, Nebraska leads the series just 8-4. That is more like a rivalry. There have been snippets of what this rivalry could someday be, like in 1994, when the two teams met in Lincoln ranked second and third in the polls. Nebraska prevailed and won the National championship – with a big boost from CU’s miracle win at Michigan. (That CU win made unbeaten Penn State's win over the Wolverines less important than Nebraska's win over CU.) One-loss Colorado finished third.
With the exception of 2001, when the Buffs drilled then-unbeaten Nebraska and both teams went to the BCS, the games between the two have not held a lot of national meaning this decade. That could be changing soon with the emergence of Dan Hawkins as the head man of the Buffs and the ability his team showed last fall to rise to almost any occasion. Nebraska has not been Nebraska for several years now, but optimism is running high in the heartland with the arrival of new Coach Bo Pelini and the omnipresence of new Athletic Director and legendary coach Tom Osborne. Still, if Nebraska is going to ever get back to the pinnacle of college football, they need the one thing only CU can give them, a rival.
So suck it up, Husker fan. It’s time to embrace the rivalry that the Big 12 worked so hard to create. It turns out they, and McCartney, were right all along.
Comments
For Nebraska to get back on top, they don't need a "rivalry." They just need to beat whoever it is they're playing in any given week.
Furthermore, you can't manufacture rivalries, like CU has tried to do with NU, or, as you put it, like the Big XII has tried to do. Rivalries form over a long period of time because of deep histories between two programs and states and cultures - you can't just create a rivalry out of thin air.
Finally, when a rivalry has been formed, the fans on either side won't hesitate to tell you. If you ask a Cornhusker fan who their rival is, 90% of them will have to think about it. If you ask a Kansas or Mizzou fan, they don't have to think about it. Same with Texas-OU, OSU-MICH. The Yankees don't have to debate whether they're really rivals with Boston or not, it's just how it is. That's why Nebraska-Colorado isn't a rivalry. At least not yet.
P.S. It may not be long before Nebraska is playing OU every year again, in the Big XII championship...
And by the way, the last time Nebraska was at the pinnacle of college football (1997), they beat their arch-rival Oklahoma 69-7. In 1995, the year of Osborne's second championship, the final year of the Big 8, and when Nebraska and Oklahoma still played the day after Thanksgiving, the Cornhuskers triumphed 37-0. You don't need a great rivalry to be a great football team.
A good article. Nice theory. I think the 90's were as much a rivalry (between CU/NU) as it could get. Why? Because it had National Championship implications. With CU and NU both in the top 10, their meetings had major repercussions. That was how the OU/NU rivalry started. Remember, how the OU/NU rivalry lost it's luster during the 90's because OU would stink it up on national TV? It is why NU hates Miami. their games in the Orange Bowl really meant something. Being last on the schedule is the start but both teams need to get their act together and start winning a lot of games and when they meet it will mean something. Undefeated CU against undefeated NU will mean "rivalry" if it's more than once every 10 years. Every year for ten years, I'll have me some of that. thanks.
Paul, I was at the last Big 8 game ever, NU's shut out over Howie Schnellenberger's Sooners. You don't have to give me any sort of lesson on NU football. However, please name a powerhouse college program other than maybe Penn State (since they stopped playing Pitt) that does NOT have a rivalry game, with a name and/or a trophy of some sort? Aren't you sick of ESPN, et all ignoring the CU - NU game? On that Friday night SC, they talk about every game BUT CU - NU. The games with the trophies, etc get all the attention, even if one or both of the teams aren't great (Georgia - Georgia Tech, etc). Having that rival would go a long way toward helping rebuilding the NU progam in the eye's of the rest of the nation.
Hey Mark,
I think ESPN doesn't care about the CU-NU game because for the past few years, the game has not had any national significance. If Nebraska and Colorado are ranked #2 and #3 again, they'll cover it like crazy, whether Nebraska considers Colorado their rival or not.
What I've been trying to say is that you don't need a rival to get national attention. You have to be good. Harvard and Yale is a great rivalry, but no one really cares, because they suck at football. Missouri-Kansas truly is one of the greatest rivalries in sports, given the history with the Civil War and all, but no one really cared about that in football until each team was good, and that's when ESPN decided to give a damn.
By the way, Nebraska does have a rivalry with Missouri that has a trophy, the "Victory Bell." It has a deep history, going all the way back to 1892 (the third oldest rivalry west of the Mississippi). However, no one really considers Mizzou a "rival" of the Cornhuskers, trophy or not. Throwing a trophy or something like that into the NU-CU matchup will just make it seem even more manufactured.
Finally, I'm not sure that Nebraska wants a rivalry built on hatred, which is what Colorado seems to really want. Nebraska's rivalry with Oklahoma was one built on a foundation of considerable respect, and at least the old-school fans still yearn for something like that. They don't want to see a team come in and jump up and down on the red N in memorial stadium like Colorado did 10 or so years ago. That's classless, and disrespectful, something you wouldn't have seen between OU and NU. Same thing with the CU student section getting thrown out of the stadium. Husker fans aren't interested in tha
Oops, I got cut off. I meant "Husker fans aren't interested in that."
If the two teams simply go out and play hard-nosed football in meaningful games year in and year out, that's what will make it a rivalry in the long run. Not the theatre, and not one side just deciding to change their semantics. It has to be natural.
I doubt that Nebraska / Colorado will ever be a rivalry. I recall many Nebraska Oklahoma games and I always had respect for Oklahoma, even when they were on hard times. Colorado has been good in the past and will be good again but I don't believe they (fans or players) will ever have the character displayed by Nebraska or Oklahoma. Without mutual respect, it's just another game.
Must say, nice article, I read it back in '08. I am proud to be a husker mostly based on watching the buff's student section get kicked out for half their games. I would so much rather see NU be battling powerhouses like OU then settling for CU.
You asked to name one powerhouse college program that doesn't have a rival. The fact is that NU isn't a powerhouse program. When we do ascend back to that position, OU and UT will be spoken again by the national media and all will be well once again in the rivalry world. In the meantime, we don't need to create rivalries with teams that are built on hatred and lack of respect. Why lower ourselves to that level? I'm with the other people that have commented. We're better than that.
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