Many NU fans ready for looong offseason to end
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BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
The man and his wife had just finished golfing when they looked up at the clubhouse televisions.
Soccer was showing. Bowling was on.
“What country do we live in?” Jamie Martin said. “Where’s football?”
He’s a man. He’s 40. Certainly Martin knows it’s July and the first Husker football game is still, dreadfully, a month away. But forgive him for venting. It’s been about as long an offseason as many Nebraska fans can remember.
And if you think it’s been an excruciatingly long drought without football here in Nebraska, try living in La Grange, N.C., like Martin does.
“I get a lot of crap because everybody knows about Nebraska football,” Martin said. “All my friends and even people who just met me are always asking: ‘Are they going to be any good? Who you get for a coach?’ Blah-blah-blah.”
Martin gets his fix by reading Husker blogs and whatever news comes out about the team.
Others allow the pursuits of the Cubbies, Sox or Yanks to distract them through the summer. Recruiting news helps some. Taking the Huskers to championship glory on PlayStation aids a few. And then there are those who paid the $249 to attend the Football 202 clinic in Lincoln on Friday. It was a chance to hear from Bo Pelini himself, a good way to help scratch that football itch.
August can’t get here soon enough.
One Husker fan wrote that he’s searched YouTube high and low in hopes of finding anything involving Nebraska football.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every Husker play available on the Internet,” he wrote. “Ten times.”
Another said he has watched the 2003 Alamo Bowl … “five times.”
While some could make it without football talk until the season starts, others need to know the latest Husker news every day, which often doesn’t bring a whole lot of meaningful information in July, which means July needs to get lost.
“I remember the hunger for information that there was,” said Martin, who worked in NU’s sports information department from 1989 to 1991.
Of course, there have been plenty of stories written about Pelini since he became the head coach in December, but there comes a point — never so evident as right about now — where whatever is written or said about Pelini and the new staff was most likely written or said before.
He’s spoken. The people like what he says. Now they need a game.
E-mailed Jerrod Atkinson, a customer service representative from Sioux Falls, S.D.: “Coming off the poor season last year, some people like myself have somewhat of an empty feeling inside that won’t be filled until we see them Huskers crackin’ heads again like the teams of the past. No one expects miracles, we just can’t wait to see a Husker team playing hard every play, and it just seems like it is taking forever to get here.”
Wrote another Husker fan, apparently blogging from the backseat of his dad’s car: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
Of course, it actually has taken longer to get here than about any Husker season in the past four decades. Given that NU failed to make a bowl game for just the second time since 1968, there was an extra month without a Husker game to appease the masses.
“For me, the length has been overpowered by the anxiousness to see what’s around the next bend,” wrote Steve Ruhd, a 32-year-old from Woodstock, Ga. “In past seasons I would get on the Internet periodically every week or so to see if there were any new injuries or sudden losses of personnel. But this offseason, I have checked daily to see what Tom (Osborne) or Bo are up to and what new things are happening.”
It hasn’t been so bad for the players.
Busy with workouts, classes and watching film, Husker senior quarterback Joe Ganz said the offseason has “flown by.”
And there is the occasional fan who will say the excitement that surrounded the new coaching staff has actually made time seem to go faster.
“For the last four years under (Bill Callahan), there has been very little to look forward to,” wrote one fan. “Now every little bit of info that comes up just gives more reason for hope. It seems like just yesterday that (Steve Pederson) and Bill got (fired), and all of a sudden, we’re only a couple weeks away from fall practice!”
Actually, it’s just eight days until Husker players report for fall practice. But who’s counting?
Well, probably Earl.
Earl Jamison is a 56-year-old from Spring Hill, Tenn. SEC country. Tough to get anyone to talk Husker football there.
“The last two times I flew my Husker flag were the day they hired T.O. and the day they hired Bo. But aside from my wife, those were very private moments, with no one to share a toast.”
To Jamison, it feels like years since “the meltdown” against Colorado — a 65-51 loss in November that marked the final game of Callahan’s tenure.
Time for the next chapter, please.
“I am as pent-up as I have ever been,” he wrote. “Line ’em up.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at bchristopherson@journalstar.com or 473-7439.
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