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A Stroll Down Memory Lane – Nebraska
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Last weekend, we took a look at CU’s history with the new-and-improved Big 12 (“Welcome Back! CU’s Return to the Big 12“). Along with the stats (CU has a losing record against only two teams in the reconfigured conference), I posted my favorite Game Story for every team in CU’s new world (with the exception of UCF, which will face the Buffs for the first time this September).
This weekend, we’ll take another look Back to the Future.
As Fall Camp approaches, we are (thankfully) getting closer and closer to the end of the long off-season. But, before we get bogged down in the dark world of two-deep roster debates, I wanted to spend a little time reflecting on two series which will be in our rear view mirror very soon.
After this September, Colorado – barring a bowl game matchup – will not face its two most hated rivals, Nebraska and Colorado State, until at least 2029, when CU will make a return trip to Ft. Collins (with the Rams traveling to Boulder in 2030).
To be sure, we will spend some quality time during game weeks in September basking in the glow of CU’s three-game winning streak against Nebraska, and CU’s six-game winning streak against Colorado State. In the meantime, though, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the more memorable games of these series, both to give you a smile, and to help stir your dislike/hatred/loathing of these two programs as the season draws near.
This weekend, we’ll have some fun looking back at games against the hated Huskers, with a little brother CSU retrospective next weekend.
Nebraska …
The over/under on how many times during the week of September 14th that you will hear that it has been around 5,000 days since Nebraska last beat Colorado …. 11.5.
CU has a three-game winning streak in the series, tying the longest such run by the Buffs in the 126-year history of the rivalry (three wins from 1956-58 being the other three-game winning streak).
Colorado fans haven’t had much to cheer about in the 14 years since the Buffs last played in the Big 12, but CU’s 33-28 victory over Nebraska in Lincoln in 2018, the 34-31 win in Boulder in overtime in 2019, and then the second half rout culminating in a satisfying 36-14 victory last year at Folsom, have been welcome respites from all of the frustration.
As Buff fans dream about riding off into the series sunset with a four-game winning streak, I am going to highlight a number of CU victories over the Bugeaters.
But, for starters, let’s look back at the last three wins …
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September 8, 2018 – Colorado 33, Nebraska 28
Game Story … Steven Montez hit Laviska Shenault for a 40-yard touchdown with 1:06 to play, giving Colorado a 33-28 come-from-behind win over Nebraska in Lincoln. Montez went 33-for-50 passing, going for 351 yards and three touchdowns. Shenault collected ten of those passes for 177 yards and a touchdown … also scoring on a three-yard run in the first quarter.
The game went back and forth all afternoon. The Buffs raced out to an early 14-0 lead, only to watch the Cornhuskers dominate play for the remainder of the first half. Nebraska led 21-17 at the break, having posted 243 yards rushing to CU’s nine. The Buffs steadied themselves in the second half, overcoming two missed field goals before securing the winning points in the final minute of play.
Nebraska had 565 yards of total offense against the Colorado defense, with freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez completing 15-of-20 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown (one interception), while also leading the Cornhuskers in rushing (15 carries for 117 yards and two touchdowns). For the Buffs, other than the Montez-to-Shenault combo, there was little offensive production (395 total yards of total offense). Kyle Evans and Travon McMillian each had 25 yards rushing, while no Buff other than Shenault was over 50 yards receiving (though Jay MacIntyre had eight catches for 45 yards and two touchdowns).
… Continue reading Game story here …
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Game Essay … “We have to beat them. It’s the only thing they understand” …
The Colorado/Nebraska rivalry means something different to every Buff coach, player, and fan.
For the players, most of whom were in elementary school the last time the Buffs and Cornhuskers played, having Nebraska on the schedule didn’t carry with it a great deal of extra meaning.
“A lot of the guys on the team know about the history. They have been playing all of the highlights and the clips around the Champions Center this whole week now”, said quarterback Steven Montez before the game. “To us, we just treat it like another game. They are just another team wearing a different color than us. We have to go in and do what we do best, play our game, and hopefully it will work out for us in the end.”
… Continue reading Essay here …
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September 7, 2019 – Colorado 34, No. 25 Nebraska 31 OT
Game Story … James Stefanou hit a 34-yard field goal in overtime to give Colorado its first lead of the game, and the defense made it stand up, as Isaac Armstrong’s 49-yard attempt for Nebraska sailed wide right, giving the Buffs an unlikely 34-31 overtime win over No. 25 Nebraska.
The Cornhuskers dominated play for most of the contest, taking a 17-0 lead into halftime before 52,829 fans in CU’s first sell-out since 2016. The Buffs didn’t score until only 1:42 remained in the third quarter, when a Jaren Mangham 11-yard run made it a 17-7 game. Mangham’s score touched off a frenetic fourth quarter, in which the teams combined for 38 points. A Steven Montez 26-yard touchdown pass to Tony Brown with 46 seconds remaining in the game set the stage for CU’s dramatic win in overtime.
Steven Montez had a sluggish start to the game, but finished 28-for-41 for 375 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception. K.D. Nixon led the receiving corps, with six receptions for 148 yards and an electrifying 96-yard touchdown – the longest touchdown in CU history – in the first minute of the fourth quarter.
The win gave the Buffs back-to-back wins over the Cornhuskers, with Scott Frost falling to 0-2 against his “ex-rival”. CU head coach Mel Tucker, meanwhile, not only posted a victory in his first game in Folsom Field as head coach, but did so by beating a ranked opponent.
… Continue reading Game story here …
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Game Essay … “Trust the Process”
I had forgotten how much I hate Nebraska.
Now, don’t get me wrong, my hate for Nebraska never actually went away. Every game of every season over the past decade since the Buffs and Cornhuskers went their separate ways, I always knew who the Cornhuskers were playing, and, consequently, which team I would be cheering for … their opponent (I do the same for Colorado State and the University of Montana). But without the Cornhuskers on the CU schedule, the blood-pressure raising hate for Nebraska subsided.
And since CU left for the Pac-12 and Nebraska left for the Big Ten, I haven’t found a new opponent for which the dislike is as visceral. The Utah rivalry is contrived, and my dislike for USC and Oregon, while real, hasn’t reached the gut-churning level of hate I have reserved for Nebraska since Bill McCartney scanned the Big Eight landscape in 1982, pronouncing Nebraska to be CU’s rival.
The game last year in Lincoln helped restore the hatred to a degree, but I wasn’t at the game in Lincoln. It was supposed to be a game which ushered in the next era of greatness for the Cornhuskers. It was the first game for their new savior, Scott Frost, and the Buffs were just window-dressing for the coronation – the designated sacrificial lamb. The outcome was a (very) pleasant surprise, but it was still a Mike MacIntyre team, so even the celebration for the Buff Nation was tempered.
This fall, however, the rivalry was brought back to a full boil. The Husker Nation had a more difficult time looking down their crooked noses at the Buffs, what with CU beating their team in Lincoln and all. That made the vitriol out of Lincoln louder and more emotional.
Head coach Scott Frost, while declaring that Nebraska should have won the 2018 game, called Colorado an “ex-rival”. JoJo Domann, a Nebraska junior outside linebacker from Colorado Springs added: “I took (a visit to CU during my recruitment) and I came here. Thank God I came here.”
… Continue reading Essay here …
If you don’t have as much time, here is a 15-minute highlight package …
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September 9, 2023 – No. 22 Colorado 36, Nebraska 14
Game Story … Colorado defeated rival Nebraska for the third straight time, overcoming a sluggish start to pull away for a 36-14 victory. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders completed 31-of-42 passes for 393 yards and two touchdowns, also posting a rushing score. Xavier Weaver had ten receptions for 170 yards and a touchdown, while Auburn transfer Tar’Varish Dawson had a 30-yard touchdown reception and an eight-yard scoring run as the Buff turned a 13-0 halftime edge to 36-7 lead before the Cornhuskers scored a consolation touchdown on the game’s final play.
“Great win,” Coach Prime said after the game. “We started off slow, played like a lot of garbage in the first half. But we started picking it up quite a bit and doing what we’re capable of doing. Hats off to the defense and how they were steadfast today. They atoned for the disappointment that we were last week defensively (in a 45-42 win over TCU). To just think that we played like we played and we won by that margin, that’s a pretty good feeling for any coach, and I think you all can see what we’re capable of doing.”
The Buffs had 454 yards of total offense, keeping the Cornhuskers under 300 total yards until the final drive of the game. Nebraska turned the ball over four times, including an interception by Buff safety Cameron Silmon-Craig.
… Continue reading Game Story here …
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Game Essay … “It’s Personal”
The current Buff roster can forgiven for not being fully immersed in the dislike Colorado fans have for all things Nebraska. And it’s not just because the current Buff roster has 68 new scholarship players. Even if Coach Prime had retained all of the 2022 roster, there still would have been only a handful of players left from the team which defeated the Cornhuskers, 34-31, in overtime in 2019.
It’s understandably hard for players to fully comprehend the hatred Buff fans have for a program which CU rarely plays, but changing conferences in 2011 hasn’t mended many fences between the fan bases of Colorado and Nebraska. If the message board and twitter battles of recent weeks are any indication, the rivalry is as heated as ever.
While the rivalry may mean little to the new Buffs, they surely have brought with them their own histories of high school and college rivalries with which they have experience. And it’s not like they didn’t get an earful about the hated Huskers during the week leading up to Saturday’s home opener.
“This is the game that everybody wants to win,” wide receiver Jimmy Horn said this past week. “We could play 1,000 games, we could go to bowl games and all that, but this rivalry game, even hearing from fans, they’re like, ‘I don’t care if y’all lose 100 games, as long as y’all beat Nebraska y’all will be good.’ I know people take this one serious. As players, we’ve got to take it as serious as them.”
… Continue reading Essay here …
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Other epic games in the Colorado/Nebraska series …
November 23, 2001 – No. 14 Colorado 62, No. 2 Nebraska 36
Game Story … The Colorado Buffaloes exorcised a decade’s worth of demons in one afternoon as the Buffs demolished the Nebraska Cornhuskers, 62-36, before a raucous crowd of 53,790 and a national television audience. No. 14 Colorado scored early and often against the nation’s No. 2 ranked team (No. 1 in the BCS standings), posting the highest point total ever allowed by a Nebraska team.
Chris Brown rushed for 198 yards and a school record six touchdowns to lead the long list of Buff heroes. Bobby Pesavento completed only nine passes, but they went for 202 yards, including a 21-yard touchdown pass to tight end Daniel Graham. To compliment Chris Brown, Bobby Purify rushed 20 times for 154 yards and a score. In all, Colorado put up 582 yards of total offense, including 380 yards on the ground against a defense which had been allowing only 93 yards/game entering the contest.
… Continue reading Game Story here …
In case you only have 15 minutes, here are the video highlights:
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October 25, 1986 – Colorado 20, No. 2 Nebraska 10
Game Story … The Buffs entered the 1986 game against Nebraska 2-4. Wins against Missouri and Iowa State had Colorado 2-0 in Big Eight play, but this was as much due to scheduling as to any improvement by the Buffs. Nebraska, ranked third in the nation, was not impressed by Colorado’s unblemished conference record.
The Cornhuskers were also 2-0 in conference, but were 6-0 overall, having won their first six games by an average score of 41-16. If that wasn’t daunting enough, the Buffs were faced with the fact that no Nebraska squad had lost to Colorado since 1967. The last time the Buffs actually beat the Cornhuskers in Boulder had come way back on October 22, 1960, when Dwight David Eisenhower was packing up the White House, concluding his second term in office.
I had been in Boulder for six of those losses to the Cornhuskers. Now a third year law school student, I was not confident that this would be the year that things would change.
Nor was the media.
Hard as it is to believe now, there was a time when not every game was televised. Far from the public eye, the 1986 CU/Nebraska game was not on television anywhere. Not in Denver, Lincoln, or anywhere else. (ABC was showing the game between 6th-ranked Penn State and 2nd-ranked Alabama).
No one foresaw the history which was to unfold.
… Continue reading Game story here …
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Other significant games in the series …
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1989 … No. 2 Colorado 27, No. 3 Nebraska 21 … “Things Have Changed”
— 1990 … No. 9 Colorado 27, No. 3 Nebraska 12 … Bieniemy goes for four fourth quarter touchdowns
— 1991 … No. 15 Colorado 19, No. 9 Nebraska 19 … CU’s “Ice Bowl”
— 2002 … No. 13 Colorado 28, Colorado 13 … Brian Calhoun brings a Red Sunset to Lincoln
— 2004 … Colorado 26, Nebraska 20 … Nebraska finishes 5-6; numerous records fall
— 2007 … Colorado 65, Nebraska 51 … Win sends Buffs bowling; Cornhuskers packing
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What will 2024 bring to the rivalry? …
It’s been a fun ride for Colorado since the CU/Nebraska rivalry was renewed in 2018, giving the Buff Nation some joy in a span of years which have otherwise been mostly unpleasant.
According to Las Vegas, Colorado is about a touchdown underdog to Nebraska for this year’s game in Lincoln.
Then again, CU was about a touchdown underdog to Nebraska this time last year as well …
If you are a long time Buff fan, you know that beating Nebraska is, as Coach Bill McCartney said in the locker room after the 20-10 win in 1986, “This is as sweet as it gets!”.
A four-peat would be very sweet indeed …
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3 Replies to “A Stroll Down Memory Lane – Nebraska”
2001-The Tombstone Game.
The game where delusional Nubs national championship hopes died forever.
hard to diminish one by picking another but I especial relish the last one. Ruhle opened his mouth and had his snark shoved back down his throat in a domination. I am hoping all the negative BS by all the over paid and pandering sports “writers” is mounting up as massive bulletin board material.
Almost forty years after having been in Folsom as a CU sophomore on 10.25.1986 and having borne witness to the 20-10 upset, I still smile just thinking about it. What an extraordinary day. Score got kept up on the scoreboard in Folsom for a week afterwards.
Huck the Fuskers!