Riding With the Devil

Quietest Husker week ever?

Well…it was until the evening newscast broke into programming to report that one of you decided that you needed to dial up Kevin Cosgrove’s voice mail and tell him you were going to kill him. I mean…don’t’ get me wrong…sometimes that stuff is pretty tame. Hell you guys send me that stuff from time to time. But if Federal investigators are being brought in…it’s probably serious.

So why is this a story then?

Because it’s usually rare for the same group of people who consider themselves the “Classiest fans in the nation” to get accused of sending a threatening VOICE mail to one of your coaches. Hmmmm….who WOULDN’T want to come work for you? I mean seriously, if I was some hot shot coordinator or successful lower-level coach…there is no place I’d rather be than the middle of flippin nowhere, with a boring campus, ugly co-eds, a hideous stadium, ridiculously idiotic media members and….oh yeah…the fans want to kill you if you screw up.

You’re not Arizona State. You’re not UCLA. You’re at a grey and dull ag school in the middle of the country that has absolutely NOTHING going for it but your name. Don’t get me wrong…I call you out for being hypocritical jackasses all the time…but when stuff like this starts to hit the news? It’s more trouble than you think.

So to sum this up...you fired a 9-3 coach, and now your fans want to kill the d-coordinator who took them to the Big 12 title game last year, while they taunt his kids at school and mock every word he says…before the season is even over?

Well hell…sign me up.

* I know many of you are shocked to learn this…but Nebraska isn’t the team I hate the most on earth. “But crazy blog guy…what about the blog? The rants? The years you spend on it? The vulgarity?” This is what I’ve been trying to say to you for years and years: Hating Nebraska is personal…it’s in my face…it’s between me and all of you. Hating Kansas is bound by blood…by family and tradition. I would love to start a blog about the Beakers….but quite frankly:

a) Nobody else would care outside those two schools.
b) KU has usually either sucked so bad in football it doesn’t matter….or their basketball team is choking against (Insert MAC team that starts with 'B' here).

But with all of that said, I’m not going to sit here every day to tell you why you should hate Jayhawk fans. (Even though you should). I’m also not going to sit here day in and day out and pound my chest about my own team. Anybody can do that..and there are plenty of people out there who can break things down much better than I.

Either way, you can bet I will discuss this more in detail after the games on Saturday….but next week is going to come down to the most violent and blatant display of hatred between two fan bases, EVER seen in College Athletics. You think I'm kidding? You can give me South Carolina vs. Clemson…you can give me your lame ass Duke vs. North Carolina. You can give me the ULTRA overrated Michigan vs. Ohio State crap….

All of that is BABY stuff compared to the hate and rage felt between Missouri and Kansas fans. Do Michigan fans refer to Ohio residents as “Slavers"? Do Ohio residents walk around with t-shirts depicting the Civil War Era raid that killed over 100 people…when a band of freedom fighters burned a Kansas cowtown to the ground? I doubt it.

The rivalry is not about t-shirts or yelling real loud or photoshopping funny pictures on a random message board of the other teams’ players. These two fan bases went to war over their hatred for one another. Not a war of words. Not a war of wills. A war with hot lead and death and gunpowder.

Normally….in fact…pretty much NEVER would I mention all of this in this blog. But considering the once-in-a-lifetime implications looming next week…I am forced to educate you on them. With that in mind, let me remind you that in no way am I conceding a Missouri victory on Saturday….God knows I’ve been kicked in the gut for less in years past….but on Saturday afternoon…if the Tigers win and the world is looking at a showdown next week of such proportions…then Lord only knows I will not be able to hold back…and give you a one-week window into the last true great rivalry throughout all of mankind. (Perhaps second to the 3-way battle between Christians, Muslims and Jews).

If you’re a KU fan reading this…Blow me. I hope your next Zima is fermented and stale. I hope the blue and red cashmere sweater you get for Christmas has a small rip in the seam. I hope your grandmother is sexually assaulted by a toothless band of chlamydia-infected circus midgets with open sores that ooze green.

Kiss my black and gold ass redleggers…and see ya next week.

The rest of you…buckle up and enjoy the ride. You don’t get to see a display like this very often.