Mellinger: Nebraska fans’ anger mars Huskers’ Big 12 farewell

[KcMizzou]

This seems pretty spot-on.

Mellinger: Nebraska fans’ anger mars Huskers’ Big 12 farewell

SAM MELLINGER COMMENTARY

Nebraska football fans won’t like this column. Cold truths are hard to take, and a lot of Huskers fans are spending this farewell football season deflecting and misdirecting cold truths.

Too many of them just don’t understand why people in what’s left of the Big 12 are annoyed at them, the school, the fans and the coach. So they won’t like reading what’s to follow.

That’s OK. Folks in the rest of the Big 12 might not like this column, either. Because their truth is easier to explain and harder to take than Nebraska’s — with much worse potential consequences.

Let’s start with the part that Huskers fans won’t like.

They’re too self-important to see what’s going on in the lead-in to the final Big 12 championship football game between Nebraska and Oklahoma on Saturday night.

Huskers fans are imagining conspiracies against their team, convinced that anyone else’s dislike is code for jealousy of all Nebraska’s awesomeness. They’re completely oblivious that it’s not necessarily the decision to leave for the Big Ten that ticks people off.

People are ticked at how it’s happening.

“The ‘how’ situation is a fair thing,” says Tom Ruud, inducted to the school’s Hall of Fame as a linebacker.

The arrogance came from the very start. Nebraska folks hate it when that word is tied to their school, but it’s true. If history is any indication, Huskers fans will lash back at being called arrogant by e-mailing about how great they are.

Nebraska self-importance comes in constant references to past success, in seeing Big Ten acceptance as license to slam a group that’s been good enough for them for decades, and, most of all, in the inability to recognize that the whole thing is wrecking a reputation of class and dignity that took so long to build and promote.

For decades, Nebraska football and its fans stood for something. The rest of us mostly admired them, a program succeeding in a place it shouldn’t, a remarkable consistency and very real bond between players and the citizens who rooted them on. In so many ways, that’s ruined.

When asked if he cares, Nebraska booster Roger Brown said, simply: “No.”

With all respect, he knows that’s hard to believe.

Being a Huskers fan is engrained in that state’s DNA and personality in a way unlike any other place in the country.

They applauded the other team after games — win or lose — set an ongoing NCAA record for consecutive sellouts, and even if the narrative became exaggerated, Nebraska fans became thought of by many as decent people. Well-liked, even, in a way that Kansas and Missouri and Kansas State will probably never know.

That’s often a very good thing, but it’s also true that through all their winning and cheering, Nebraska fans never received much pushback. Now that it’s here, they have no idea how to handle it.

First, the administration blamed Texas and conference leadership. Then some fans blamed Mizzou and, in the last month or so, have come close to losing their collective sanity. They see the league’s suspension of a backup linebacker as proof of conspiracy, harass referees, flood the conference office with threats of violence, then whine when nobody shows up to present the North Division trophy.

Every school has some nutjobs, but c’mon, this is college football’s classiest fan base?

In other words, they’re not who they claimed to be. They’re a whole lot like everyone else.

Most of the rest of us aren’t mad they’re leaving. We’re annoyed they’re acting like jerks on the way out. We understand wanting more money. But don’t pretend there’s some higher calling that the rest of us just can’t comprehend.

In six months, they’ve changed how we’ll think of them forever. Forty million people live in the five states that make up the remaining league. We can’t all be wrong.

Those are the words Nebraska fans won’t like. Now, for the truth that makes the rest of us uncomfortable, the one with potentially terrible consequences:

Even after all this, we’d totally take the Huskers back.

Because without them, this is a lesser league that nobody can be certain will exist beyond the near future.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/02...ans-anger.html

[LiveSteam]

Originally Posted by Spott

Sissy.

I have a girls name to. Swear