Kansas vs. Nebraska

The Kansas-Nebraska football series was the oldest continuous "rivalry" in college football. I place quotes around the word "rivalry" because the games played between these two schools have hardly resembled anything like a rivalry--the Huskers have dominated the series, 91-23-3 (including tonight's game.)

The series between these two schools ended this evening with another Nebraska win--20-3. And, yet again, we were exposed to a classless act by the Huskers. Nebraska was up by 17 with less than a minute left in the game...and passed the ball.

To review, this is the program who announced their departure from the Big 12 this past July by holding a press conference with their university's chancellor and athletic director arrogantly defending NU's academic and athletic superiority while calling out the alleged conference realignment misdeeds of schools like Texas and Missouri. And, this is the same program who, once when playing Kansas, went for two at the end of the first half, even though the score was Nebraska 33, Kansas 0. Head coach, and now athletic director, Tom Osborne's comment was "we were concerned about Kansas' explosive offense."

So, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised that the series ending in this manner--with head coach Bo Pellini instructing his quarterback, Taylor Martinez, to pass with 45 seconds left to play. (Yes, this is the same Martinez who was in the game with less than a minute left, even though he was questionable going into the contest due to injury. Why was Martinez still playing? Apparently, the boos by some Nebraska fans suggested they were wondering the same thing.)

When asked after the game about the call, Gill said, "They did what they felt they needed to do." To me, it felt like it was Pellini's way of saying, "Welcome back to Lincoln, Turner." It's too bad that Pellini won't be on the sideline when Kansas plays Nebraska in basketball--January 15 in Lawrence and February 5 in Lincoln. The record in that series? Kansas leads 168-71 and has won 15 straight against NU.