Steven M. Sipple: For fans, NU, passion has returned
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Bo Pelini was about to begin the Drug Free Pledge at halftime Saturday.
“It’s a beautiful day in Husker Nation, isn’t it?” the first-year Nebraska head football coach shouted into a microphone.
It was a gorgeous day for Nebraska fans, a cathartic day to be sure. It was perfect, really, in so many ways. It seemed everybody was using the word passion. Passion, passion, passion. The passion’s back. The program’s back. It’s Nebraska again. The Nebraska way, and all that jazz. We keep hearing that. It’s trite. It’s corny. It’s a tad arrogant. But it’s OK if you bleed Husker red.
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Red-White highlights
A record crowd watched NU's 2008 Red-White scrimmage, which the Red squad won 24-14. (Michael Mason-D'Croz / JournalStar.com)...
A crowd of 80,149 — the second-largest ever to attend a spring football game at any school — told you it was OK. All those ex-Huskers wearing smiles told you it was OK. Those smiles told you the passion was as real as a crack-back block, as opposed to the contrived and colossal mess that the program became in the last few years.
“Sometimes you don’t know how bad things are until they come back around,” Johnny “The Jet” Rodgers said in reference to the Bill Callahan years, a dark age in program history that seems to become darker as the days pass and people gain a clearer realization of all that was lost, or at least temporarily suspended, during four brutally tough years when a program seemingly lost its soul.
People tend to be resilient. Even in dark periods, many people search hard for light. For hope. They make the best of tough situations, and they do such a good job that the hard times don’t seem so horrible at the time they’re actually occurring.
When people look back, when Husker fans look back, that’s when they cringe and say, “Criminy, that was awful.”
We’ve known for the past four months the program’s soul was on the mend. We’ve felt the passion returning ever since Tom Osborne took charge and hired Pelini. But here, on a 62-degree sun-splashed day in a full house, you finally witnessed Nebraska’s collective football passion heaped together in a large red bowl of springtime cheer.
Nebraska fans deserved every ounce of that cheer, for they’ve suffered quite a bit.
“It increases my sense of responsibility toward the state,” Pelini said of the huge gathering.
It is indeed a gigantic responsibility for a first-time head coach, or for any coach.You know it’s a gargantuan responsibility because we watched a former NFL head coach crack at times under the weight of Nebraska fans’ expectations and passion and the program’s tradition.
That tradition, of course, stirs fans’ passion. You heard passion Saturday in the crowd’s reaction to the pregame video highlights: Mike Rozier pulverizing a defender, Demorrio Williams swooping into a backfield, Tommie Frazier breaking loose, Bo Pelini celebrating a big play in 2003. Everyone roared.
Nebraska fans’ collective passion might have waned in some quarters in recent years. But you saw passion in full bloom Saturday. You saw it and heard it as you strolled to the stadium, as you watched the stands fill, as you watched Nebraska players warm up for probably the most important unimportant event they’ll ever experience.
It felt like an honest-to-goodness game day, with no game in sight.
The crowd was the thing. The atmosphere was the thing. Plenty of people paid big money (single tickets went for as much as $125) to feel the passion again. There was tons of energy leading to the scrimmage, which quickly felt anticlimactic.
But it still gave fans plenty to think about, plenty to gnash their teeth about, but ultimately plenty to feel optimistic about.
Quarterback Joe Ganz was sharp and in command. He even sneaked into the game late in the first half when it was supposed to be Beau Davis’ turn. No harm, no foul. It was just Joe being his ultracompetitive self.
“I think it’s obvious Joe Ganz is our guy,” Pelini said.
Nebraska has a gifted group of I-backs that run behind a strong and deep offensive line. It’s nice to have the passion back, but a little fire up front also helps.
“We have a long way to go, obviously, and it’s a process,” offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said. “But I really like our offensive line. We’re 10 deep, maybe more. We’re going to be pretty good there.”
Still, you wonder who will replace Maurice Purify as a go-to wide receiver, as a consistent big-play threat. Maybe it’s redshirt freshman Curenski Gilleylen, who made the play of the day on that 77-yard touchdown pass from Ganz.
“Anytime you have a guy who can run 10.2 seconds (in the 100 meters), he can break the game open,” Watson said of Gilleylen. “You’d better get back (if you’re a cornerback), because if you mess up, he can change a game.”
The most encouraging signs on defense? How about senior linebacker Tyler Wortman showing up big at a position rocked by graduation. How about four forced turnovers (NU forced a total of 11 in 2007). How about some strong defensive line play.
I recently wrote that I remain skeptical of Nebraska’s defensive line, which struggled so mightily last season and returns all four starters. Defensive coordinator Carl Pelini, who doubles as d-line coach, says my skeptical blog entry hangs over his desk.
“I read it every day and I have it hanging in our meeting room,” Carl Pelini said. “No offense taken. That’s the attitude a lot of people have. We use it as a motivator. We love that position, being an underdog group, and we’re going to fight to prove everybody wrong.”
All this talk sounds wonderful in springtime. And don’t get me wrong, passion is important. But come fall, other “p” words will take precedence — like pressure to produce.
But Saturday clearly was a cathartic moment for Nebraska fans.
It was a moment for the program’s loyal and fervent fans to savor, for they have their program back.
Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.
