Caleb's Paper

Caleb Caboth
Rachel Robson
1-19-09

The nation’s team, there the crimson and white, this team hold the most consecutive sold out home games in the nation. They have five national championships and forty six Big Twelve North conference championships. The Nebraska Cornhuskers is known as one of the greatest teams to ever play in division 1 football history according to huskernation.com. The one thing the website does not post is their accomplishments in the past five years. America’s favorite college football team in the last five years has done nothing but failed. Husker’s football is going down and down year after year and don’t see any hope to become back on top.
I myself grew up watching Nebraska football, even though not being a big huskers fan I was always told that this was America’s team and I should watch them. The Iowa Hawkeyes is the team of my choice and even though the Hawkeyes are rivals with the Huskers I do believe the huskers are the most overrated team in the nation today. The last good season the Huskers had was the 2002 season led by Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch. In 2002 was the last time the Huskers were ranked in the top 20, even though they have had winning seasons in the past years they have not had that tough schedule, having most of their wins coming from teams from the top 45 or higher in the national rankings. It is hard to believe a team being “the best” or “nations favorite” could have that week of schedule, it’s not like Nebraska is a USC or a playing the in SEC which is the strongest ranked conference and teams with the strongest schedule in the nation in the latest polls. (Sports) Joel Nixon a student at Morningside College, and a loyal Husker fan comment on my question when I asked him “Do you think Nebraska should be considered one of the nation’s best, Joel came back and said “I do think they are one of the nation’s better teams but they have not had that strong of schedule in the last couple years so maybe they shouldn’t be one of the best.”
Statistically, teams that have a coach that stays for longer than eights on that same team will have a stronger and a team that wins. Tom Osborn was the last coach to make something out of the Huskers serving twenty five seasons with them, and winning three national championships, including their last one in 1997. According to Nebraska’s own website, they put out a graph showing their accomplishments since the start of Husker football in 1890, showing us that since the retirement of Tom Osborn no other coach has been able to get the job done such as he had. To me this graph tells it all proving a point that America’s team is no more.
Yes, Nebraska has some of the more impressive statistics such as being one of the only schools to win 800 games, having the record of the most sold out consecutive games in the country, but when it all comes down to looking at all those stats, when was it all done? (Sports) That was all done when the teams were faster, the Big Twelve Conference was weaker, and the coaching staff was better. In the last five years, there have been no All-Americans, and only nine since 2000, (Nebraska). No matter what argument people have saying that they still deserve to be Americas team, people need to realize it’s time for a new and better team to step in and take over because the era of Nebraska Cornhusker football is no more.

Work Cited
1. Husker Football All-Americans." Huskers.com. Ed. NU Media Relations. July-Aug. 08. Nebraska University. 17 Jan. 09.
2. King, Kelley, and David Sabino. "21 Nebraska." Sport Illustrated 16 Aug. 2004: 115-15.
3. Joel Nixon, Student at Morningside College, Originally from Nebraska

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