You might say Nebraska football plays the most important game of the season Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium against Michigan State. And you wouldn’t be wrong, taken in context. The game is more important than any the 3-1 Huskers have played because those games...
Mike Babcock
Hail Varsity Historical: Nebraska Football Tops Colorado, Wins North Big 12 North
Defense was the difference for fourth-ranked Nebraska. “I thought the defense played awfully well,” Tom Osborne said following the Huskers’ 17-12 victory against Colorado in the final regular-season game at Memorial Stadium, the day after Thanksgiving 1996. Consider...
Hail Varsity Historical: Nebraska Football Faces Heisman Candidate in Iowa State Victory
It was a showdown of sorts for the Nebraska football defense at Iowa State’s Cyclone Stadium/Jack Trice Field on a rain-soaked, 50-degree afternoon in mid-November 1996. The Husker defense was matched against Iowa State running back Troy Davis. The Blackshirts ranked...
Disappointment — and Butterflies — for Nebraska Football
Maybe it was the “butterfly effect," where a small change in the past can alter major events. After all, a butterfly did flutter just outside a press box window a couple of hours before kickoff for the Nebraska-Michigan game at Memorial Stadium Saturday afternoon....
Nebraska Football Opens Big Ten Play Against Michigan
For many outside the Nebraska football program, Saturday’s game at Memorial Stadium against 21st-ranked Michigan will be something of a defining moment. Are you among them? A Husker victory would reinforce the belief Matt Rhule definitely has things moving in the...
Hail Varsity Historical: Defense and Special Teams Dominate for Nebraska Football
Another offensive onslaught, right? Fifth-ranked Nebraska football defeated Missouri 51-7 at Memorial Stadium on Nov. 9, 1996. The victory was the Huskers’ seventh in a row. But the score could be misleading on how it was achieved. Special teams accounted for nine...
Nebraska Football Can Now Look Ahead
Archie Wilson, Nebraska’s much-publicized punter from Australia, made his first appearance at Memorial Stadium against Houston Christian Saturday. But he didn’t punt. Wilson came in with time running out as the deep man in victory formation for the final kneel-down....
Nebraska Football Can’t Let Up, Regardless of Opponent
Former Husker Mickey Joseph, now the head football coach at Grambling State, included in his comments before his team’s game at Ohio State last Saturday the fact that among reasons for scheduling the game was the money Grambling State, an FCS program, would receive....
Hail Varsity Historical: Yes, Nebraska Football Scored that Many Points
Neither team scored in the first quarter when fifth-ranked Nebraska football played Oklahoma in Norman Nov. 2, 1996. The Huskers managed one first down, minus-7 yards rushing and 7 total yards. The Sooners out-yarded Nebraska with 19 yards, 15 of them rushing. “When...