2025 Nebraska Offseason Thread

[Gigem]

https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1942665154031935866

[Mdot21]

oh he really said that, but that is who scott frost has always been- a drunken jackass. 

[FearlessF]

and took too many hits to the helmet back in his playin daze

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 50: Dave Rimington, Center, 1979 - 1982

TO: Troy Dannen, Director of Athletics, University Nebraska - Lincoln
FROM: Dave Feit (on behalf of Husker Nation)
SUBJECT: Dave Rimington

Troy,

I know you're a busy man, so I'll get right to the point:

It is time for Nebraska football to permanently retire the #50 that center Dave Rimington wore during his extraordinary Husker career.

Dave Rimington is one of the greatest student athletes to ever play for Nebraska - regardless of sport. The namesake of the Rimington Trophy (given annually to the nation’s best center) deserves to have his number* permanently retired.

Dave Rimington is in an entirely different category. Among the many, many bullet points on his résumé, these stand out:

The only two-time winner of the Outland Trophy (1981, 1982).
One of just 14 players to win the Outland and Lombardi Award in the same season (1982).
1981 Big Eight Offensive Player of the Year. In the long history of the Big Eight, this was the first and only time a lineman won that honor.
First Nebraska student-athlete (regardless of sport) to be inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-American Hall of Fame. For a school that rightfully touts its nation-leading number of Academic All-Americans, Rimington is still at the head of the class.

We’ve focused primarily on his playing career and academic success, but Rimington’s achievements after retiring from football (president of the Boomer Esiason Foundation, former interim Nebraska athletic director, and namesake of a major college football award) are also the stuff of legend.

Fans and media members tend to toss around “GOAT” labels freely. But Dave Rimington is a true GOAT.

It is time to permanently retire #50.

Respectfully,

Dave (on behalf of Husker Nation)

***
I would wager that we have reached the point where the majority of Husker fans have no recollection of Dave Rimington's career. Sure, we know who he is, and can list some of his many accomplishments and accolades. But how many of us have ever seen him play?

I'm right on that dividing line. When Rimington was a senior in 1982, I was an 8-year-old kid. At 8, I had never been to a Nebraska game and probably didn't pay too much attention to the couple of times a year they were on TV. I definitely didn't know who Dave Rimington was.*

*My best friend invited me to go with him and his family to Fan Day in 1982. They wanted to get autographs from the Husker players. Honestly, that really didn't interest me. I just wanted to hang out with my buddy. 

When I asked my dad for permission to go, he said yes - but with a very specific instruction: "Be sure to get an autograph from Dave Rimington, #50. He's their best player." You got it, Dad!

When we got to Memorial Stadium, that plan went completely out the window. I think we spent the entire afternoon running around on the field. I have a vague memory of trying to sneak up into the balcony, but the tunnels were closed. Suffice it to say, I did not get anybody's autograph, let alone Dave Rimington's signature. I doubt my dad was disappointed - or surprised - when I came home empty-handed.


A year or two ago, I was working on a project that had me watching videos of old Nebraska games on YouTube. There was one game that really stuck out: the 1980 Sun Bowl against Mississippi State.*

*That game is wild. Husker players are wearing two noticeably different jersey styles. One is what they wore all season (with "N" on the sleeves), and the other says "NEBRASKA" across the chest. The legendary Pat Summerall does the play-by-play. And the coin toss was performed by the San Diego Chicken. The Chicken, for reasons that are never fully explained, arrived at midfield locked in the trunk of a Cadillac. 


In the 1980 Sun Bowl, Dave Rimington is at the end of his sophomore season. He's not yet at his Ndamukong Suh-esque level of dominance, but you can see the flashes. On NU's first touchdown, he pulls and knocks down a defensive back in the open field. Speaking of flashes, Rimington is a lightning bolt coming off the ball. In one rapid movement, he snaps the ball to Jeff Quinn and is immediately blocking a defensive player across the line of scrimmage. Even the announcers note that he's so fast it looks like he's offsides. You have never seen anything like it.

But as a senior? Wow. Rimington still explodes off the ball, but that raw, 250-pound sophomore is now 290 pounds of muscle and experience. The Huskers are averaging 395.5 rush yards per game, and their all-everything center is a big reason why.

Watch Rimington against 11th-ranked Oklahoma in 1982. On some plays, he goes power, blasting Sooners out of the way. On others, he crab blocks, shooting into the legs of defensive lineman like a wrestler going for a takedown. In pass pro, he's a brick wall.

On fourth-and-one, Tom Osborne calls a play right over the top of Rimington. Mike Rozier gets the carry, but you or I could have picked up the first down. On another fourth-and-one, Rimington pulls to the right and opens a lane for a Turner Gill touchdown run. NU's next two touchdowns were right behind Rimington as well. Why do anything else?


Seriously, if you've never watched Dave Rimington play, pull up any Nebraska game between 1980 and 1982. You don't have to be a student of offensive line play to appreciate how dominant he was.

Which makes the next sentence the most unbelievable thing you'll read today:

According to Tom Osborne, Dave Rimington played his "whole (Nebraska) career with a torn (anterior cruciate ligament)" in his knee.

As Osborne told Huskers.com writer Randy York, during Rimington's career, the surgical procedure for repairing / replacing ACLs had not been perfected, so Rimington got by largely on the strength he had in his legs. As you would expect, that injury ultimately impacted Rimington's seven-year pro career.

[FearlessF]

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 49: Monte Anthony, I-back, 1974-1977

One of the great misconceptions about Tom Osborne is that his Cornhuskers ran the same offense for all 25 years of his head coaching career.

That could not be further from the truth.

Yes, Osborne ran the majority of his offensive plays out of an I-formation (quarterback under center, a fullback behind him and an I-back at the top). But what he was looking to accomplish evolved dramatically over his first decade as head coach.

Osborne took over Nebraska’s offense in 1969, shifting from Bob Devaney’s T-formation to the I. In his four seasons calling plays under Devaney, Osborne’s offense was fairly balanced. Jerry Tagge was an accurate passer, Jeff Kinney and Joe Orduna were good backs, and Johnny Rodgers could tear ’em loose from their shoes from anywhere on the field. In 1972, Nebraska’s offensive output was almost perfectly split – 2,426 yards on the ground and 2,431 through the air.

When Osborne took over as head coach in 1973, he picked quarterback Dave Humm to run the offense, as he had in ’72. Humm was an excellent passer and set numerous records that stood for over 30 years. In Humm’s senior year (1974), I-back Monte Anthony joined the team, winning the starting job as a 17-year-old true freshman. Anthony ran for 587 yards and seven touchdowns, the most ever by a freshman at the time (and still seventh in school history). Humm led the Big Eight in passing with 130.5 yards per game.


Despite the success of his young back, Osborne still liked to throw it around. Humm was succeeded by Vince Ferragamo, a transfer from Cal. In 1975, Monte Anthony ran for 817 yards as Ferragamo settled into the offense.

In 1976, Ferragamo had a great senior season, earning All-America honors and leading the conference with 172.6 passing yards per game. His 20 passing touchdowns in 1976 set a school record and is still seventh-best all time. The offense was still very balanced as 53.7% of NU’s yards came on the ground. Anthony and Rick Berns split the carries, with Anthony racking up 594 yards.

But in 1977, Nebraska’s offense shifted. Ferragamo was off to the NFL, where he would become Nebraska’s most successful NFL QB. In his absence, the Cornhuskers focused more on RTDB: run the dadgum ball.*

*You know Tom Osborne is not going to say “damn.”

Why the change? Osborne came to several realizations:

Passing yards are the football equivalent of ice cream sundaes for breakfast – a lot of fun, but not a great foundation for success. “I always felt,” Osborne once said, “that a rushing yard, in terms of winning, probably was worth more than a passing yard because you can accumulate a lot of passing yards, but it doesn’t necessarily get the ball in the end zone.”
In a state where the climate is best described as “all four seasons, sometimes in the same afternoon,” a ground-based attack is more reliable than trying to throw when it there’s a frigid 25-mph wind out of the north.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In Osborne’s first four games against Oklahoma (1973-1976), the Sooners were 6-of-17 passing for 145 yards and no touchdowns. COMBINED. In the 1974, ’75, and ’76 games, OU quarterbacks threw a total of seven passes, completing three. Oklahoma beat Nebraska in those first four games by an average of 18 points per game.
And while I have never seen it cited as a reason for the switch, I believe Osborne understood the advantages he could have by utilizing NU’s strength and conditioning and walk-on programs – both of which are more suited to a physical, grind-it-out attack.


In 1977, Monte Anthony’s senior season, Nebraska’s total offense (415 yards per game) was about the same as it had been in 1976 (408 ypg). But Nebraska – for the first time since the 1950s – averaged more than 300 yards rushing per game. A whopping 73.5% of the Huskers’ yards came on the ground. Quarterback Tom Sorley – who split duties with Randy Garcia – ran for 180 yards. In their Husker careers – spanning five seasons – Humm and Ferragamo combined for 42 rushing yards. I-back Isaiah Moses (I.M.) Hipp burst onto the scene with 1,301 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Nebraska was a running team now.

Listed at 6-foot-3 Anthony is one of the tallest running backs to ever play for Nebraska. He looked like a deer running through (and over) defenses. But his long frame was not a hinderance to his production. Anthony’s 2,077 career rushing yards were the fourth-most in Nebraska history when he graduated (currently 31st all time).

Anthony won the Tom Novak Award as a senior and was an eighth-round draft pick by the Baltimore Colts.

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 48: Scott Livingston, Kicker/Punter, 1983-1984

What is the easiest job in football?

How about punter for a prolific offense? That seems like a pretty stress-free gig.

That was Scott Livingston in 1983. With the “Scoring Explosion” averaging 52 points a game, Livingston did not have a heavy workload as a punter. There was a two-game stretch (Colorado and Kansas State) where he punted just one time. He probably didn’t even break a sweat in some games. When he was called upon to punt, Livingston was pretty darn good. His 42.1-yard average in 1984 led the Big Eight and earned him all-conference honors.

Since he wasn’t getting much action as a punter, Livingston also worked as a placekicker. Even splitting attempts with Dave Schneider, Livingston had more PAT makes (35) than punts (34). He led the 1983 team in field goals made (two) and attempted (three).

And yet, Livingston’s most famous kick is the one he never got to attempt: a potential PAT at the end of the 1984 Orange Bowl that would have tied the game. A make would have given Nebraska at least a share of a national championship.

Instead, Livingston watched from the sidelines as Tom Osborne elected to go for two points and the win.

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 47: Charley Brock, Center, 1936-1938

Before Nebraska joined the Big Ten, the Huskers and Gophers faced off 51 times. Overall, the two teams have met 64 times. For comparison, Nebraska has played longtime Big Eight/Big 12 conference foes Oklahoma State 43 times and Colorado 73 times.

The Golden Gophers claim seven national championships in football, five under legendary coach Bernie Bierman (1934, 1935, 1936, 1940 and 1941). A not-so-fun fact: Minnesota defeated Nebraska in each of its national championship seasons.

1904: 16-12 road loss
1934: 20-0 road loss
1935: 12-7 home loss
1936: 7-0 road loss*
1940: 13-7 road loss
1941: 9-0 road loss
1960: 26-14 home loss
*Long before there was Sooner Magic there was Gopher Magic. Tied at 0 with a minute to go in the game, Nebraska punted. Bud Wilkinson (who would go onto become a legendary coach at Oklahoma) fielded the kick at the 25. Hit almost immediately, Wilkinson turned and lateraled to Andy Uram. Uram raced 77 yards for the game winner.

The 1936 loss was a stinger, as Minnesota went on to win its third straight national championship. A chance for revenge would come in the 1937 season opener in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers would be without their successful head coach Dana X. Bible, who had left Nebraska for the University of Texas.

Lawrence “Biff” Jones started as Nebraska’s head coach and athletic director in 1937. Jones, a major in the U.S. Army, had previously coached at Oklahoma, LSU and Army.

The 1937 Minnesota game took place on an unseasonably warm 82-degree day in October. Minnesota did not appear to be affected, going 63 yards for a touchdown to take a 6-0 lead in the first five minutes of the game.

Nebraska’s game plan was to be extremely conservative on offense and rely on its defense. The Huskers punted often, sometimes on first or second down. That strategy seems odd, but it paid off. Early in the second quarter, a Husker punt was muffed by the Gophers. Junior center Charley Brock jumped on the ball at the Minnesota 22. On a fourth-and-inches play, quarterback John Howell followed Brock’s block into the end zone. Nebraska led 7-6, and the defense continued to deny the Gophers through three quarters.

However, the first play of the fourth quarter was a Minnesota field goal to retake the lead, 9-7. The rejuvenated Gopher defense forced a Husker punt on the next possession. The kick was fumbled and Nebraska’s Bill Callihan recovered it at the 40. Temporarily turning off his conservative plan, Biff Jones called a series of passing plays, including a 20-yard strike to Callihan that he carried into the end zone. Nebraska retook the lead, 14-7.

From there, Nebraska’s defense took over. Mighty Minnesota struggled to move the ball, and the Cornhuskers intercepted two Gopher passes in the fourth quarter.

They had done it! As the 1938 Cornhusker yearbook staff wrote: “it was on that day that a stout-hearted band of red shirts defeated the supposedly unbeatable Minnesota team.”

One of the MVPs of the game was Charley Brock. “Brock … gave an exhibition of all-around playing that will live long in the memory of the crowd that watched his efforts Saturday. He was all over the field,” wrote George Barton of the Minneapolis Tribune.

Brock was a three-sport athlete at Kramer High in Columbus (Neb.). In Lincoln, Brock found immediate success. He started every game from 1936-1938, playing center and linebacker. Brock earned All-Big Six honors all three years and was a first team All-American in 1937.

I love this write-up on Brock from the Daily Nebraskan in 1936: “Brock doesn’t confine his offensive play to merely snapping the ball back from center, but also beats the ball carrier down the field, blocking as he goes.”

Brock was drafted in the third round by the Green Bay Packers, where he excelled as a linebacker. Brock had 20 interceptions in 92 career games, which is still good for 20th place in the Packer history books*

*One ahead of former Nebraska defensive back Tyrone Williams, who played in 19 more games.

Brock is a member of the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. If Nebraska had a separate hall of fame for its amazing centers, Charley Brock’s name would be there as well.

Despite being in separate conferences, the Huskers and Gophers played every year from 1934-1954. That stretch – where the Gophers were a national power and the Huskers largely struggled – was very one-sided. When Bob Devaney took over in 1962, the series against Minnesota stood at 6-29-2.  Devaney and Osborne flipped the script, going a combined 14-0 against Minnesota. The exclamation point was an 84-13 blowout in 1983, NU’s highest-scoring game of the last 100 years.


Since joining the Big Ten in 2011, Nebraska has played Minnesota 13 times. In 2014, the Twitter accounts for Minnesota’s mascot (Goldy the Gopher) and Nebraska-centric parody account “Faux Pelini” engaged in some friendly banter that led to the creation of the “$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy.” The Chair Trophy has a broken wooden chair on top of a pedestal, with a five-dollar bill affixed under the seat.

As trophies go, it is ridiculous, silly, and ugly. And I LOVE it.

The Chair is everything that Nebraska fans were expecting when we joined the Big Ten – an object that looks like it came from a flea market, but with a fun backstory that is significant to both schools. That is what all of the other great Big Ten trophies (Floyd of Rosedale, Old Oaken Bucket, Little Brown Jug, Paul Bunyan’s Axe, etc.) have in common.


Sadly, the whereabouts of the original Chair Trophy are officially unknown.* After the 2015 win – Nebraska’s first the Chair Era – coach Mike Riley was photographed holding the trophy in the NU locker room. The trophy definitely came back to Lincoln with the team.

After that… No official record exists. The Chair was not – and still is not – recognized by the conference as an “official” trophy. My belief is the two schools were instructed by the league office to cease and desist acknowledging a homemade trophy did not meet (then) commissioner Jim Delany’s vision of what a rivalry trophy should represent. For reference, Delany did approve Nebraska’s two other trophy games – the aggressively bland (and corporate sponsored) Heroes Trophy and the Freedom Trophy, which has a big bronze flag sticking out of a mash up of Nebraska and Wisconsin’s stadiums.

Maybe if the Chair had been named the $5 Bits of Mom’s Apple Pie (or some other wholesome trope that the league’s lawyers would sign off on), the original version would still exist.

*Instead (per a reliable source who worked closely with the NU athletic department during the Riley era), the original Chair Trophy currently resides somewhere in the Lancaster County (Neb.) landfill. 

But what is beautiful and good cannot be killed. The Chair Trophy has been re-created and currently exists as a traveling trophy between the fan bases. Every year, the good people at brokenchairtrophy.com run a competition between Husker and Gopher fans to see who can raise the most money for charity.


The $5 Bits of Broken Chair did not exist for Nebraska’s win in 1937, but the game is still one of the biggest upsets in school history – with a celebration to match. A Lincoln Star article from the Monday after the game recounts some of the revelry from “one of the wildest nights in (Lincoln’s) history.” Egg battles, fire hose wars, at least one automobile turned over and “snow” falling from hotel windows as guest “ripped open hundreds of pillows and dumped feathers” on the streets below.

As you might expect, alcohol played a big part in the celebration (Prohibition had ended less than four years earlier). Thirty men were arrested for intoxication, including one who “entered a Lincoln home, undressed, slipped on a pair of pajamas and gone to bed.” When the actual homeowners returned, the man explained that “he thought he was in Omaha.”

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 46: Tony Felici, Defensive End, 1980-1982

If you ask Husker fans to name the greatest Nebraska team that didn’t win a national championship, they’ll likely start with the Scoring Explosion team of 1983. They only lost one game – the Orange Bowl – by one point, when a two-point conversion attempt at the end fell incomplete. The 1993 team was a field goal (or a correctly called goal-line fumble, or phantom clip not being called, or…) away from a title. The 1999 team finished the season playing as well as anybody in the country. Old heads may point to the 1963 or 1965 teams. The 2001 Huskers were in the conversation… until the start of the Colorado game.

But there’s one team that deserves serious consideration for the “best to not win it all” crown: the 1982 Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Actually… hold that thought. Before we talk about the 1982 Huskers, let’s set the stage with how the 1981 season ended.

After a disappointing 1-2 start – the only time Osborne ever started with a losing record – Nebraska rebounded to beat Oklahoma and win the Big Eight title. The Huskers, ranked No. 4, went to the Orange Bowl to face No. 1 Clemson.

On New Year’s Day 1982, upsets in other bowl games (Pitt over No. 2 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and Texas over No. 3 Alabama in the Cotton Bowl) opened the door for Nebraska to follow the same path that led to their first championship in 1970. Beat Clemson, and the Huskers would be No. 1.

It was not to be.

The Huskers – who were called for an average of 5.3 penalties per game in 1981 – were flagged six times in the first half.* Two turnovers put Nebraska in a 22-7 hole that the Huskers could not climb out of.

*In Paul Koch’s “Anatomy of a Husker,” longtime defensive backs coach George Darlington said “Clemson was a good football team, but they got a lot of help.” Darlington recounted a story of Osborne coming into a staff meeting after the customary officials’ meeting saying “we’re in trouble” because the officials greeted Clemson coach Danny Ford with hugs like old friends.

After the game, Osborne called it “the most disappointing loss I’ve ever been associated with. We had a chance to win it all. We had it in our hands and let it get away.” Nebraska finished 9-3, with losses to No. 1 Clemson, No. 4 Penn State and No. 18 Iowa.

Nebraska likely entered the 1982 season with a bit of an “unfinished business” mentality. But once again, the Huskers would fall short.

The 1982 team went 12-1. The lone loss was at (then) No. 8 Penn State in a highly controversial manner. We’ll get into the full story later, but let’s just say this: If replay reviews had existed in 1982, Nebraska would have been national champions.*

*Had instant replay existed prior to when it started in 2006, I believe Nebraska would have won championships in 1982 and 1993. Florida State’s William Floyd clearly fumbled before crossing the goal line. That said, Nebraska likely would not have won in 1997. The Scott Frost to Matt Davison catch in the Missouri game might have been overturned for being illegally kicked by Shevin Wiggins.

Nebraska opened the 1982 campaign with a 42-7 demolition of Iowa. The next game – against outmatched New Mexico State – featured one of the greatest offensive performances in school history. A school-record 677 rushing yards (without a single yard lost, an NCAA record) and 883 yards of total offense. The upset at Penn State came next. The ending – which I promise we’ll discuss in depth down the line – is so controversial that it is still over-discussed 40 years later. Nebraska opened October with a 41-7 win at No. 20 Auburn.* The nonconference schedule also included an early December trip to Hawaii.

*The 1982 Auburn game is the last time Nebraska played a team from the Southeastern Conference in the regular season. The Tigers hold the distinction of being the last SEC team to visit Memorial Stadium. They lost 17-3 in 1981. Nebraska is 17-8-1 all-time versus the SEC (4-1-1 in the regular season and 13-7 in bowl games).

The Huskers started the 1982 Big Eight slate in dominating fashion, beating Colorado, Kansas State, Kansas, Oklahoma State and Iowa State by an average score of 46-9. A 23-19 win over Missouri (where quarterback Turner Gill was knocked out of the game on a questionable – some might call it “cheap” – hit), was the only competitive game in that stretch.

That set up the annual clash against Oklahoma for the Big Eight title. Tom Osborne dug into his bag of tricks as the Huskers successfully executed a “Bounceroosky.” Taking the snap from the near hash mark, Gill threw a perfect backwards bounce pass behind the line of scrimmage to Irving Fryar, standing between the far hash mark and the sideline. Fryar than threw a pass to Mitch Krenk, who made an impressive one-handed catch for a 37-yard gain. Nebraska would score a few plays later.


The game was still in doubt late in the fourth quarter until Scott Strasburger intercepted a Kelly Phelps pass and ran it down to the one-yard line. Even though there were still 26 seconds left in the game, Husker fans poured onto the field to celebrate. After the field was cleared (and the Huskers were assessed a 15-yard penalty*), Gill took a knee to seal a 28-24 win. The goalposts were torn down, sending a handful of fans to the hospital.

*I’m not a big gambling guy, but the 1982 OU game is likely in the “Bad Beats” hall of fame. The Huskers were favored by 7 to 9 points and led by four. If Strasburger scores, NU covers… but he’s tackled at the 1. If Nebraska runs a final play from one-yard line (as Osborne was known to do) and scores, NU covers. Instead, the Huskers are backed up 15 yards and Osborne decides to kneel before more mayhem occurs. 


The Huskers faced No. 13 LSU in the Orange Bowl. Nebraska turned it over four times in the first half and trailed 17-7 in the third quarter. Turner Gill accounted for two second-half touchdowns and the Blackshirts – led by Tony Felici – held the Tigers to just 38 yards rushing and 211 yards of total offense. Nebraska won 21-20 and finished the season ranked No. 3. No. 2 Penn State beat No. 1 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. SMU, who did not have a loss, jumped Nebraska to finish second.

Tony Felici was a relatively small defensive end, even by the standards of the early 1980s – his playing weight as a senior was listed at 205 pounds – but that did not stop him from being a presence on the defensive line. A walk-on from Omaha Central, he was an All-Big Eight selection in 1981 and 1982.


In the 1981 game versus Florida State, linebacker Mike Knox blasted a Seminole kick returner so hard that the ball flew out of his hands. Felici caught it on the fly and returned it for a 13-yard touchdown. During his Husker career, Felici recorded 14 sacks and made numerous other tackle for loss.

And he was nearly a two-time national champion.

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 45: Fred Shirey, Tackle, 1935-1937


In the entire 135+ year history of Nebraska football, only 20 players have been a first-team all-conference selection in three seasons.

Fred Shirey is one of those 20 players. Arguably, the only reason he was not four-time all-conference player (Tom Novak is still the only Husker to do it) is that Shirey played at Nebraska for only three seasons.

Shirey was a dominating tackle on the Dana X. Bible and Biff Jones teams of the mid- to late 1930s. As a senior, Shirey was a first-team All-American and was selected to play in the East-West game, a prestigious college all-star game.

I wish I could tell you more about Fred Shirey. But if you think offensive linemen toil in anonymity today, try to imagine what it was like 90 years ago. In my research, I poured through as many different resources as I could find: HuskerMax pages, old yearbooks, countless newspapers from the 1930s, and anything else Google could unearth.

Everything I read agreed that Fred Shirey was an all-time great. But that’s about it.

One of the very few descriptions of Fred Shirey’s athletic exploits was in the 1936 edition of the UNL yearbook, the “Cornhusker.” If you’ve ever read sports writing from before World War II, you’ll know that it is often peppered with vivid, colorful prose. Surely, this would be where I could find out more about Fred Shirey.

The student who wrote the capsule of Nebraska’s 19-0 victory over Oklahoma in 1935 felt it was important for us to know that Shirey’s line play was “alert.”

Thankfully, Fred Shirey’s play spoke for itself. And his three all-conference honors were the exclamation points on an excellent career.

[Temp430]

8/28 Cincinnati  W
9/6 Akron W
9/13 HCU (Who is this?) W
9/20 #20 Michigan L
9/27 Open
10/4 Michigan State (HC) W
10/11 @Mayryland W
10/17 @Minnesota W
10/25 Northwestern W
11/1 USC Toss up
11/8 @UCLA W
11/15 Open
11/22 @ #1 Penn State L
11/28 Iowa W

Only four road games all but one seem doable.   No Oregon or Ohio State.  The Huskers could go 10-2 IMO but I don't follow Husker football that closely.

[FearlessF]

I can see 8 wins if I squint a little - hoping for 9

biggest question is the D-line

biggest hope is the O-line shows improvement

[FearlessF]

[FearlessF]

Greatest Husker to wear 44: Calvin Jones, I-back, 1990-1993

Previously, we’ve talked about how Tom Osborne’s offensive philosophy shifted and evolved during his Nebraska football coaching career. He was fairly balanced during the Devaney era, more willing to pass it when he took over as head coach, and shifted to a power running game in 1977.

As part of that emphasis on power running, Osborne knew he needed more options on offense.

Figuratively and literally.

Fun fact: The option was always a part of the Osborne playbook – even in the passing years.* But in 1980, Osborne started to emphasize it as a cornerstone of the offense.

*According to the incomparable Mike Babcock, in Osborne’s early years, Dave Humm and Vince Ferragamo would run the option a couple of times each game. But neither was what today’s recruiting services would consider a dual-threat quarterback. For their careers, Humm and Ferragamo had a combined 42 yards rushing… on 247 carries. Even though sacks did not become an official stat until 1981, lost yardage from drop-backs is undoubtedly why they averaged a measly 0.17 yards per carry. 


In football – especially in the college game – the option comes in many shapes and sizes and can be run out of a variety of formations. Oklahoma loved its wishbone. Osborne was a big believer in the I-formation and used it as the basis for his option plays.

A common misconception about Nebraska’s option attack was that the Huskers ran only the triple option. Osborne ran a variety of option plays out of numerous different formations with multiple positions involved. But the triple option is a good starting place for a high-level overview. Since I’m not a big X’s and O’s guy, I’m bringing in a guest instructor: Dr. Tom Osborne (as told to the Washington Post in 2009):

“The traditional triple option, when the ball is snapped, you really don’t know who’s going to carry it; it depends on the defensive reaction. So, the first option is the fullback. If the defense closes on the fullback, then the quarterback pulls the ball; if the defense doesn’t close, you hand it to the fullback. The second option, of course, is the quarterback running with the ball if the defensive end or contain man takes the pitch.”

If the defensive end plays the quarterback, the ball will be flicked out to the I-back (a.k.a. Option Three), who has been shadowing the quarterback. The I-back will hopefully be able to turn the corner and make a nice gain. “We always felt our options plays should average more than seven yards a carry,” Osborne said. “And they usually did.”


When it all comes together, a crisp option play is one of the most beautiful things in sports. It is a well-choreographed ballet of speed and brutality, with sleight-of-hand fakes and daring high-wire pitches.

The option was successful for a number of reasons, but here are three reasons why it caused problems for opposing defenses:

Stopping it meant opposing defenses had to be fundamentally sound, understand their assignments and execute them consistently. The option can create a bit of a “pick your poison” feel for a defense. Not being disciplined is often the difference between a 4-yard gain and 40-yard touchdown.
Opponents don’t see the option very often. Pretend you’re the defensive coordinator for, say, Missouri. Your team, having played six straight games, now has four practices to learn the defensive responsibilities needed to slow down the option… while being alert for play-action passes. Nebraska week likely caused a lot of insomnia for coordinators across the Big Eight.
The option can be run effectively without elite talent. There’s a reason the service academies still run a lot of option: It is a tremendous equalizer. Nebraska won at least nine games every year when Osborne was calling option plays. Without disparaging any former players, I’ll simply note that NU did not always have all-conference caliber talent in the backfield. But when that talent was elite…. look out.
By the early 1980s, Tom Osborne’s offense revolved around power football and the option. More than any other play, the option became synonymous with Nebraska football. And no position was more synonymous with Osborne’s offense than the I-back.

Calvin Jones was a tremendously gifted back in Osborne’s offense. Big and strong with sprinter’s speed, he was just as effective between the tackles as he was taking an option pitch around the edge.

As a redshirt freshman in 1991, Jones came off the bench for an injured Derek Brown at Kansas. In that game, Jones had 27 carries for a (then) school-record 294 yards and a Big Eight record six touchdowns. A few weeks later against Oklahoma, Nebraska had a shot at the Big Eight title and a trip to the Orange Bowl. However, the Huskers were trailing 14-13 late in the game.

A freezing rain fell most of the day, turning the Memorial Stadium Astroturf into a green sheet of ice. Yet, on the go-ahead scoring drive, Jones was sure-footed, cutting and sprinting his way down the field – and into the end zone. Nebraska’s final drive covered 80 yards and took 10 plays. Calvin Jones had nine carries for 78 yards, including a gutsy fourth-and-1 conversion and 15-yard touchdown on the next play.

One of the most memorable moments of Jones’s Husker career was a 47-yard touchdown against Colorado in 1992. Yeah, he might have been in such a hurry to rip off his helmet in celebration that he dropped the ball before he crossed the goal line. But he would have scored from 99 yards out. “You put in your backup, and he runs his first play for 47 yards. But this is just not your ordinary backup,” ESPN’s Gary Danielson said on the telecast. “This is a man who can really run. The fastest player on the team.”

It’s easy to look at that helmet-off celebration and assume that Jones was a selfish, me-first back. But Calvin Jones was a true team player. He’s one of the two players in Husker history most associated with the word “we.”

In 1992, Jones (a sophomore) and fellow I-back Derek Brown were dead even at the end of fall camp. Both were worthy of being the starter. Whoever got the lion’s share of carries was likely to put up impressive statistics and be a candidate for various postseason honors. Even in the days before the transfer portal, it wouldn’t have been unheard of for a player to make an ultimatum in hopes of getting more carries.

Instead, Brown and Jones made a pact with each other to support whoever was named the starter. They even called a meeting with Osborne and running backs coach Frank Solich to share their idea. Osborne commended them for their willingness to put the team first and then told them his plan: They would rotate and split carries. The “We-Backs,” as they were known, were a two-headed rushing machine, combining for 2,221 yards (201.9 yards per game and 6.6 yards per carry) and 18 touchdowns.

As a junior in 1993, his final season at Nebraska, Jones had another 1,000-yard season despite missing time with a knee injury. He was an All-Big Eight pick for the second straight season and a finalist for the Doak Walker Award. Jones finished his standout career as Nebraska’s second leading rusher (currently seventh) even though he started just 12 games in his career.

I love this quote from Jones (taken from Paul Koch’s “Anatomy of an Era“).

“They remembered you scoring touchdowns, but they don’t remember you picking up the linebacker on the blitz or carrying out a play fake: the little things that really matter but never show up on the stat sheet. But it was just as important as running the ball for fifty or sixty yards for a touchdown.”

Calvin Jones had a successful NFL career, winning a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers. He was inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 2004. Jones died in his home of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in 2025. He was 54.