Everything Changes - Yet Nothing is Different

How do you hold a funeral for somebody who is already dead? How do you shovel dirt on the grave of someone long since buried? How do you mock the downtrodden or taunt the defenseless? If a program falls dead in the woods, does it make a sound if nobody is there to hear it?

Last evening on a stage of green, surrounded by dull grey walls and even duller fans in red, the Missouri Tigers delivered the unnecessary final death blow to the anti-Husker movement. Three whopping plays into the game, much of the world learned what the readers of this blog have known for quite some time. Predictions of 10-3 seasons are as ridiculous now as they were in May. Shouts of “Bo will get them to play harder and that is all that matters” are no more kool-aid stained and delusional than they were during the off-season.

I know many of you are visiting today to read fire and brimstone rain down verbally upon the quintessential bullies of the Big 12. And although they certainly deserve every bit of venom and then some, I simply find it difficult to really care that much. Seriously, did anything you saw last night really shock you?

For you see, your once great program is no more worse off than it was last year. Your pathetic defense and ridiculous lack of anything resembling speed is just as prevalent today as it was 364 days ago on a night much like last night in a swirling cauldron of hate in Mid-Missouri. If anything however, you should be at peace with the big steaming pile of reality that has become your program. In other words...you asked for this.

Everything is as you requested. Your beloved Tom Osborne sat on his throne high atop the stadium last night. Your former thugs and criminals roamed the sidelines without restraint as they witnessed today’s version of themselves trudging back to the sidelines gasping for breath after giving up yet another 80 yard Missouri drive. Leading your effort is your beloved defensive mastermind, who despite his ability to restrain his precious “passion”, still looks like an out-manned and out-classed high school equivalent.

But in the big grand scheme of things, besides all that, the world is really no different than it was last season, or really much after the season before that. However, your indifference and growing apathy does hide the fact well that you truly are further up the proverbial creek than you realize for one reason and one reason only:

There is nobody left to fire and nothing more you can do.

The team in red and white and the fans who cheered for them that surrounded me last night did not look like the machine that once dominated the college football landscape. What I saw was a pathetic facsimile of a storied program in love with itself and completely unable to turn the page into the 21st century. If you people spent half as much time worrying about your complete and total lack of talent and coaching as you did worrying about when Chuck Liddell was going to make an appearance, you’d probably be in far less of a hole today than you are.

The man you entrusted to (and then bragged to the world about) is a complete joke. The sloppy and inconsistent play I saw last night rivaled that of an Xbox game set against the Computer with the sliders set to zero. The whole “mystery defense” that Husker linebacker coach and head douchebag Mike Eckler was bragging about on Friday morning now seems even more hysterical than it was at the time. (Unless the plan was to simply let Missouri score at will...in which case they did a great job). But even worse than the multitude of mental mistakes, the blown assignments and late hits (nice helmet to helmet cheap shot by the way) is the complete and total inability of these men to lead.

If all you wanted to do was “pump your team up” and get them to "play hard" before every game…why the hell didn’t you save the money and just rent a copy of Rocky II? Why not play some AC-DC in the locker room if all you wanted was some clown in a four dollar sweatshirt to yell and look like a fool for 60 minutes? At least then you wouldn’t have to answer questions about an unproven hothead who’s team is very quickly taking on the personality and tempo of an undisciplined and erratic underachiever.

Come to think of it...are you sure it was your LAST coach that came from the Raiders organization?

But most pathetic in all of this is you, the fans who apparently are too ignorant or naive to realize that you’ve been sold a lemon by smiling Tom the car salesman. Then again, perhaps you had plenty of time to realize this when your student section was trying to start the wave while your team was down 45-10 in the 3rd quarter?

Now I will admit, there were several Nebraska fans who greeted me with a “welcome to Lincoln” or a nice smile. But for the most part, your overrated and self-indulgent reputation has worked against you all these years. Gone are the days of swarming conference foes within a sea of intimidation and kindness. Here are the days of half-empty stadiums, players spitting on the opposition and entire sections of your stadium being overrun by enemy fans who let’s face it…never really liked you that much to begin with.

So where does this lead us? What does this complete and total blind miscalculation do to the evolution of the Anti-Husker movement?

The correct answer is nothing, because the movement began to die a long time ago.

Like a carnival tent packing up and leaving town, the husker hating movement and eventually this blog will match your tradition and simply cease to exist. The glorious events of last night, culminating with 60 minutes of piper paying simply solidifies every single little thing that I’ve said about you in the past two years. (Go to my game-by-game preview back in August, and tell me what I said the score would be) Do you really think we as Husker haters can be any more right? Are you ever going to understand and comprehend the fact that what you had and held so dear is long gone like a whisper in the wind?

I actually somewhat felt a bit sad sitting in my 10 inch slab of wood in section 15 last night. As I looked around, I saw a confused, desperate and beaten people. One by one, as they shuffled past by me, I lightly clapped…told them to keep their chin up, and that they will soon be back in contention to fight another day.

Of course all of this was a lie.

There will never be another day and you will never ever be what you once were, let alone what you have built up in your own mind. Because of your complete and total inability to think outside of the big red box, your world will look like this for years, as other programs and other fan bases race by…not really caring whether or not you’re able to get back up and dust yourself off.

You are a complete and total afterthought that has been knocked from your perch and beaten to a unrecognizable pulp. Your condescending ways and your gigantic egos have surpassed your previous reputation, and there simply is no going back now.

So what does the future hold for those who hold such disdain toward you?

Nothing. The clock has struck 0:00 and the band has packed up and gone home. The movement is over and nature has once again set things right with the world.

The Big Red is truly dead.

Let freedom ring throughout the land.