[Husker] (no subject)

[Roger Beverage]

Steve Stone said, among other things:

 

"Though NU went on to play in the Big XII championship game (in 2001)
and the national championship game, it was no longer the same team that
had bashed #1 Oklahoma only a few weeks previously. It had lost
something important, namely, that supreme self-confidence that a
championship team must have."  (my emphasis)

 

Exactly.  In my view, this is at the heart of the matter that has us all
scratching our heads.  My sense - and that's all it is - is this team
doesn't believe - in themselves, the program, their teammates, or their
collective ability to succeed.  

 

When I posted yesterday about the fan that shook Ruud's hand and was
quoted as saying these young men play AT Nebraska, not FOR Nebraska, I
thought it was evident what he was really saying:  these fine young men
don't believe in all that has become Nebraska football over the past 45
years, almost all of which I've witnessed first-hand.  

 

In that simple word, "for", lies the difference between what I saw at
the Nevada game and what I saw Saturday.   Wake Forest may have been a
scrimmage, as Steve Stone suggested, but I thought then there was
something "missing" with this team and I said so at the time.

 

It's what Jason Peter was talking about:  playing for the name on the
front of the jersey in college; playing for the name on the back of the
jersey in the NFL.  With an NFL mindset from the head coach, an "I'll
get you ready to play at the next level if you come here," I'm not sure
this team ever had a chance to understand the difference between "AT"
and "FOR".

 

Roger Beverage

Oklahoma City

'67, '70