Nebraska Cornhuskers Football : Husking Hope, Harvesting Heartbreak (Ep. 14)

Welcome back to Misery Sports Co, the open plan office where hope is technically allowed but strongly discouraged by management. This is where optimism goes to die quietly in a swivel chair. I’m Trevor overqualified, underwhelmed and emotionally unionized. And I’m Zach. We are middle management in a failing sports economy, overseeing fan bases that haven’t hit their quarterly goals since the Obama administration. Each week we badge in, stare blankly at the scoreboard, and pretend this is all part of a long term plan. Last episode, we hopped across the pond to cover West Brom and the never ending relegations that come with life in English football leagues. This week, we’re back at our desk, staring down another routine performance review of pain. But before that, a message from a sponsor who clearly skipped the onboarding video. That’s right. This next segment is sponsored by Tuas. Cold weather comfort blankets engineered to keep hands warm, spirals loose, and expectations extremely low. Once the temperature drops to below forty degrees, oof, that’s always a book on them. Sorry, Tua. That was one of my retweets this week. So, um, the Dolphins have an oh and fourteen losing streak. Wow. When the the temperature is under forty and Tua is oh. And six as a starter during that time. Oh no. So it really is just a temperature. It’s something I mean I hope we play the Dolphins every December in Cleveland at this point. Seriously. That’s right. And it’s weird because there’s other teams in the South. You would think that other teams would be affected by that, but it’s really just them that’s rough. Thanks Tua though. That’s a good product. You’re hawking the blankets I like that. Yeah. Thank you sir. Let’s get into the weekly performance review, where expectations are managed downward and the numbers are aggressively misread. This is the meeting that could have been an email, but instead becomes a full emotional postmortem. And I will start with our weekly performance review of the one and only Cleveland Browns. So the Cleveland Browns played against the Chicago Bears. Shout out to the bears. They have had a huge turnaround. So they were five and twelve last year. Um, I believe they were ten and four or might be ten and four now after destroying the Browns, thirty one to three. Um, we got dominated. It was minus twenty wind chill up in Chicago. And the Cleveland Browns played like a team with nothing going for them, and they just wanted to get off the field. So we had about twenty yards rushing. Uh, shooter Sanders wasn’t great. Uh, he ended up throwing three interceptions, one of which was just a complete disaster. He threw a dime to Jerry Jeudy in the end zone, and Judy literally handed him handed the Chicago Bears defender the ball in the end zone. I it it summarizes the Cleveland Browns season so perfectly and that you do everything right. There’s a glimmer of hope right at Misery Sports Co. And then we just give them the ball. Uh, anytime something goes right it has to go wrong. Yeah. And then I mean quickly touching Cleveland Cavaliers. They’re currently losing as we speak to the Chicago Bulls. Looks like they’re going to be fifteen and thirteen. So nothing good there. Blue jackets are looking pretty mid. So we’ll see what happens with the Buckeyes going into uh playoff season here soon. It’s exciting times for the Buckeyes. I’m excited to watch some playoff games this weekend. Yeah. So Trevor what’s it look like on your side? Um. Equally as disastrous. Uh, Titans lose twenty four thirty seven at the Niners. Uh, we’re starting to move into the. This looks like somewhat competent football phase of building up the hope. So we were the car crash. We lost hope, and now we’re starting to play competent enough football. To where? Oh, this isn’t the worst thing to watch. Um, offensively. Defensively the Niners did not punt. You’re not going to win a game when you don’t force a punt. So that was tough. Uh, more cam flashes the the book on him this week was the deep ball kind of came up and I saw an interesting kind of deep dive article that showed it’s really his deep balls outside the numbers that he’s having a hard time connecting with receivers and is overthrowing it. And so that’s, you know, at least it’s just that because I’ve lived through quarterbacks where it’s like, well, their accuracy on short throws across the middle is bad. And you’re like, what are we doing? Like how can we even build with that? So at least there’s hope. Um, he had a pretty good game. The run games coming back randomly. Pollard had another one hundred yard game, uh, and a touchdown. Had a nice twenty two yard run. Like, it’s starting to look like competent football. I really think, Zach, if we just get an average intelligence coach in next year, we can really start to put the pieces back together. And this week, uh, Mike McCarthy, the former Cowboys and Packers coach, is emerging as the odds on favorite. How do you feel about that hire? Oh, okay. Um. he’s he is a good offensive mind. Um, I don’t love retreads, but out of all the retreads, he is one that can continue to have success. Yeah. Um, like, I don’t think he’s going to crash and burn or lose the locker room. I don’t know what that ceiling would be, but he’s a solid coach. He’s going to coach up cam Ward. Yeah. Yeah I agree. And I think what this team needs is like somebody who can be stable and boring. And I think he’s both of those things. Like it’s not really exciting, but he can build a culture. He’s done it before. Uh, yeah. There were two other things that I saw from the Titans game. Big man Jeffrey Simmons getting that TD pass. Got the TD got the TD. It was a full back. Rolls out and somehow gets more open than our receivers do. He had to scramble. But yeah that was that was definitely a highlight. The other play I saw was cam Ward scrambling for his life, getting getting an extra couple seconds, throwing a laser beam to a dude that just hit him in the chest and he just dropped it. It was it was wide open. It’s like a it was like watching a middle school game because then he drops to his knees and is like, no, how could I do this? Like you play in the NFL. Uh, more on that in tweets of the week. Uh, when we get there, uh, and I will also touch later on the Mavericks. Um, and that’s all for my team. I feel like I need to exclude the stars because they’re chugging along. They’re kind of a machine, and we need them, Trevor. We need them to be the the anchor in this storm right now. We do. We do need them. I yeah, I hope they keep chugging because they’re they’re a tank man. But that division is really tough. So they’re they’re doing their thing. And I’m excited to watch the Buckeyes here in a couple of weeks and watch some playoff football this weekend. Here we go. Well, the future looks mostly rough. The long term plans feel theoretical at best, and everyone involved is choosing to forget how we got here. Before legal tells us to stop talking, let’s toss it over to our next sponsor. This next segment of the Mystery Sports Company podcast is sponsored by Diego Pavia’s Crash Out Companion. Are you about to quit your job because you’re fed up with how everyone’s treating you, and it’s just time to let it rip? Well, now you don’t have to do that alone with Diego Pavia’s crash out companion. Get Diego to come into your work and scream at your boss about how you deserve that raise. Even though Bill has better sales and sold in bigger markets and lost fewer sales, and overall is probably a better salesman story, Diego will yell so hard that people who used to like you will quickly realize that was probably a bad call. You’re actually you’re actually kind of the worst with Diego Pavia’s crash out companion. Thank you so much. Diego Pavia. Um, some wild comments after the Heisman ceremony. Um, to be honored like that is just incredible. To be a top four person at freaking Vanderbilt. Um, it had it had, um, echoes. And it brought me back to a terrible time with Johnny Manziel. Like, I’m getting I’m getting the same vibe from him. He’s into the party. He’s very small boy. He he makes stuff happen. Uh, I don’t know. We’re gonna have to keep an eye on him in the NFL because it could crash and burn. And even Johnny came out and was like, I think Diego took it too far. And when when you are put in that position, you really need to reflect on what’s going on because that’s that’s not great. That’s not great. All right. Well, let’s move into the mail room where logic goes to get lost and the complaints are handwritten in all caps. That’s right. These tweets were not screened, reviewed or approved by anyone with a pulse. First up, I have a tweet that actually references that exact play that you were talking about. Zach and I have it here for your review in case you’ve forgotten how painful it is. Uh, and this is from Bret Coleman, who says every Titans clip I see is just cam Ward fighting off a pack of wolves all by himself, throwing up the most gorgeous ball you’ve ever seen. And then his receiver having the hand-eye coordination of the guy from Qwop, which is a meme computer game that we all played, where you tried to run one hundred meter dash using the Q, W, O, and P keys and was just terrible. So that’s every it feels like every game, like there goes cam hits a wide open guy and oops, that guy forgot how to play football. Yeah, like his ability to buy time, right? So he’s scrambling. He’s buying enough time. His receivers are getting up and he’s throwing to like the Washington like generals of receivers right now. So again we’ll see what next year has free agency draft I’m not focused on the numbers. I’m focused on cam Ward and what he’s been doing. Yeah. Yep. And enough to keep building and I do I trust this front office to put together a competent receiver room. I don’t know I feel a lot better if we had Carnell Tate in there. But we’ll see. We’ll see. But certainly my tweet of the week I don’t know if you’ve been following the, uh, James Madison sports news account online, but they have been tweeting, um, just they’ve been going off because, uh, jmu’s game against Oregon is coming up in the playoff. And this account has just been striking gold because they’re basically very tongue in cheek talking trash about it. Um, and it’s just it’s been great. Um, and this tweet from a few days ago says, uh, Texas Tech, who the winner of JMU and Oregon has to play in the quarterfinal. Texas Tech is one of the best teams in the country. That defense is scary good. JMU football has to consider resting some of its banged up starters against Oregon. The Dukes need all hands on deck in the quarterfinals and like so just very serious, uh, self-aware tweets like that all week. If you haven’t checked out the JMU sports news account, definitely go give it a follow. Uh, they are my tweet of the week. That’s awesome. Saturday night Oregon and JMU um huge underdogs. Huge. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. But they, you know I I’ve been a big proponent teams can earn the right to go get their butts kicked. And JMU earned the right to go get their butt kicked like Florida State should have a few years ago. I’m still mad about that, no doubt. Completely agree with you on that. Um, taking a look at my tweets of the week, I you know, my bag was a little empty this week. Trevor. So I, uh, I came across a few Browns tweets, which typically I try to jump out of the the Browns sphere with this. Um, I’m not even going to cover one of them because it talked about Deshaun Watson starting for us next year. And I’m going to lose my ever loving mind. No. Um but there was one from Browns Nation.com. And it was uh Tony Rizzo of ESPN Cleveland. So Tony Rizzo is one of those like radio guys right? I love him. He he likes to stir the pot. I’ll say that much. Yeah he does. He says he’s hearing the Browns are leaning towards taking a QB in the twenty twenty six draft. Trevor I. I can’t, I can’t, I literally can’t. The only the only caveat is if somehow we get to the number one pick, right, we’re at three wins. There’s a couple teams, including the Titans at two wins, right. If we somehow backpedaled into the number one pick, then we can have that conversation. There are so many holes on this team. Just like the Titans on offense. So many. We gotta be drafting receivers, linemen. Tony Rizzo, shut your mouth. I ain’t listening to that garbage. Not trying to hear that right now. Uh uh. So that’s it. That’s everything I got today. Yeah. If they if they have the top pick, I agree, then you can have the conversation. But. Until then, it just it doesn’t make sense to think about taking a second or third quarterback off the board, or using any draft capital to try and move up for that. Well, and there’s no like huge generational prospects, right? I mean, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, uh, Philip Rivers in that one draft. Like it’s not one of those drafts. It’s not a draft where like, you know, you can just go out there and be like, yeah, one of these three quarterbacks is going to be an absolute stud. I mean, Mendoza’s okay, but when you look at Mendoza’s stats versus even like Joe Burrow, it’s Joe Burrow almost has. I think he had double. I think Mendoza’s in the thirties and touchdowns Joe Burrow had sixty sixty touchdowns five six thousand yards. Mendoza has three thousand yards, which is solid for an Indiana team. Yeah. But he’s not one that’s like oh can’t miss him. You know so yeah. Now I will say I hope other teams feel differently because when the Titans get the top pick, I need those picks. Come on up and get Mendoza. I think he’s gonna be hyping. I think he’s gonna win several championships personally. Uh, all aboard the Mendoza train for sure. Oh, well. Good. I, uh, it’s time to pause for another, uh, sponsor before the mailroom floods again. And before we head over to our Office of Moral Victories. That’s right. Trevor. Trevor, have you ever experienced public backlash, national embarrassment? Your basketball coach slapping an opposing assistant coach, your football coach spiraling out of control in a very public psychosis that ends in jail time and you still kept your job. Then you might be entitled to ward Manuel’s Outlast Everyone executive plan. The only program that guarantees everyone else will get fired first. It’s incredible. He’s like a corporate cockroach, man. I just it’s amazing. There was a tweet out there. I think it was. Eleven of their coaches have been like arrested for something in the last couple years. It’s like what? Oh my gosh. It’s crazy. There’s ones that I didn’t even know about. I was talking to my dad about this and he’s like dropping like, oh yeah, did you hear about the hockey, this hockey coach or this whatever. I’m like, I can’t keep up with all these firings and scandals and it’s all under one person. It’s incredible. Always be a certified Michigan hater. I will respectfully cover them when that comes, whenever that time comes. But like, come on, come on, man. What are we doing here? Just. Yeah, but we’ll take your money. Thank you for the sponsorship. Yeah. Thank you so much for sponsoring. It’s nice that you had time in your day to think about how can you get some good pub. That’s right. Now it’s time for moral victories. The segment where we reward effort over results and vibes over reality. These are the moments we cling to when the standings say don’t bother. My employee of the week goes to Cam Spencer of the Memphis Grizzlies. And if you’re wondering who is Cam Spencer? That would be a very fair question. So Cam Spencer is averaging twelve points a game on the season, shooting fifty one percent from three on the season. That’s pretty dope. Gracious. He went a little crazy against the Los Angeles Clippers. So cam went off for twenty seven points uh seven for ten from three point range sixty nine percent. Field goal range or field goal percentage. Nice. And his true shooting percentage was ninety seven percent. Great googly moogly. Sixty to sixty five percent is like really good. Ninety seven is ridiculous. And there’s actually a video of him. If you look on Twitter, he hits a three and he starts screaming, you have to get him off of me. So imagine this white dude named Cam Spencer going off against the Clippers and beating them. And it really ties into the Clippers as well being six and twenty at this point Trevor. It’s insane. Are you hate to see it poor clippers. All right I just googled him. He’s the most unassuming dude I’ve ever seen. You’re telling me this guy has all those stats that you just said? Cam Spencer, I get the name right. I looked at some of his advanced stats on the year. His true shooting percentage is seventy two percent. So what they do is they take your three point percentage and they bump it up a little bit because it’s one and a half of the two points. Right. And so again sixty percent like true shooting percentage is good, seventy two percent is nuts. Uh, well done, Cam Spencer. Absolutely well done. I saw a tweet this week that said, um, Cam Spencer seems like the first kid who grew up watching Steph Curry and was like, yep, I want to do that. And I remember reading that tweet and going, I don’t know who Cam Spencer is. Next. Just scrolled on and now you’re telling me he’s doing all this stuff and that seems great. And I love the swag to give him, give him some chirps, yell back I like that. Mhm. I like that a lot. Um, my employee of the week uh actually will stay in house and goes to Dallas Maverick rookie Cooper Flagg, who this week became the only eighteen year old in NBA history to score forty points in a game when he scored forty two the other night in a losing effort, but still scored forty two. Which was cool. Um, he have a tweet here? He is fifth. He was the fifth fastest to have a forty point game. Uh, wilt did it in his first game, so his number is one. And then, uh, Kareem Michael, Oscar all did it. Uh, in less than fifteen games. Cooper. It took twenty six. And just to give everybody a some context for, uh, where folks are recently LeBron it took sixty nine nice. And Steph and Kevin were both uh Kevin Durant were both at eighty games. So it I early on it looked like Cooper Flagg was very hesitant. But he was just I think kind of learning the ropes. Um our favorite Wide eyed, speckled coach Jason Kidd was having him play a lot of point guard, which I think he was. It was tough for him. He kind of was put in a bad spot because Jason Kidd didn’t want to play D’Angelo Russell Fair, and it just was in a he was in a bad way. But I recently his highlights have looked great. He’s very decisive. He’s always going to try really hard on defense. And uh, I think they’re going to mess around and get in the play in, which is so dumb. That’s the last place you that’s the last place you want to be. This is our only year. No, I don’t want to ride. Uh, but we’d have Kyrie back by then, so maybe I do want to ride. Maybe I do want to see what happens. It’s phenomenal. I’m super happy for the Mavs. Um, I hate Nico Nico, but he’s super happy for the Mavs. I’m loving what I’m seeing out of Cooper. And again, just like you said, when when someone like Kyrie comes back and can just take a little bit of the attention away from Cooper so he can kind of operate and do his own thing, that’s only going to benefit him. I mean, he did, like you said, forty plus points when you’re really the only option at this point. Like there’s not there’s not somebody that’s demanding the ball. Anthony Davis is in and out. Um so congrats to Cooper man. Great start to the season. Yeah good job Cooper. We’re happy for you here. Please enjoy your recognition. There will be no raise, no banner and no follow up. All right. It is deep dive time. This is where we roll up our sleeves, ignore context and emotionally profile an entire fan base. That’s right. Uh, this week, Zach, I wanted to pick a team. Uh, I wanted to pick a college team because tis the season we’re getting into, uh, bowl season. We’re getting into playoff season. I was at a Christmas party this week and was talking to a fan of a program that was once one of the best programs in the land, still has an incredible history behind it and has just been bad. And it’s a fan base that is just dying for good football and is one of those brands that, as much as it pains you to say the sport is better when they’re good, uh, some programs like that, I. I really can’t stand Notre Dame. I love you Notre Dame fans if you’re here. Thank you. But I can’t stand that program in general. I do think college football is better when Notre Dame is good. I also can’t stand USC. I really wish USC was better than they are. Uh, I think the sport’s better when they’re good. So I have a team that’s been down since, I would say their last in my research of what the fans are going through. They all point to two thousand and nine as the last time they were relevant. And when things fell off the cliff. Do you have guesses for this team? And we’re and we’re talking, um, football. Correct. Uh, I will also tell. Yep. Would have been like Florida. So I’m going to say Florida with Tim Tebow. It’s a very good guess. It’s a very good guess. They are struggling too. I wanted to pick a program that, um, I thought about picking, like somewhere like Purdue, but they have a really good basketball team, like they’re a basketball school there. Their fans have had something I picked. I picked a school that, uh, is known for football supposedly, and has not had good football since then. They are members of the Big Ten. We have had some, uh, close road games there in the past. We’ve lost one not too long ago. I am, of course, talking about the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska. So Nebraska has been in a stretch. I was talking to this guy who’s very nice. Uh, he was from Nebraska. And so when he heard that I was a Buckeye, that’s pretty much because we were at a party for our wives. And so they all had work to talk about. And so it was like we clocked each other, like sports, sports. And then we talked for, like, half an hour and, uh, super nice guy, but just seemed miserable. Now, I will say quick caveat Nebraska has a really good basketball team this year. I don’t think they’ve lost yet. Oh yeah. They’re cooking. Yeah, they just beat Illinois. Um, at the buzzer. Like they’re they’ve got a great team. Uh, but usually not. He told me that they’ve never won a tournament game. Nebraska has never won a tournament game. Yeah. Isn’t that crazy? That’s hard. I have not I have not fact checked this man that I met. But I will say he’s a surgeon, so I was inclined to take him at his word, but, um. Yeah, they’ve never once he’s really excited about that, which is great. But I asked him, like, when was the last time that you feel like Nebraska was, you know, relevant and good and in the conversation and it goes back to two thousand and nine. Zach, I remember watching this game in college in our dorm room, Texas against Texas. It was the two thousand and nine big twelve Championship against Texas, aka one second left. Uh, this was Ndamukong Suh his senior year. Which go if you’re ever bored and just want to, you know, watch some incredible football. Go watch highlights from his senior year because this dude was destroying people. He almost single handedly won that game. But, uh, Nebraska was up by, um, a point or two. Texas was within field goal range, but it was going to be a long field goal. The clock is ticking. They decide to run a play and they roll out to their right. Uh, I think Colt McCoy is there, right. I think I think this is the Colt McCoy team because they go on to get beat in the national championship, even though Colt gets hurt and they roll out to the right, there’s nothing there. The seconds are ticking down. Five four. Colt throws it three, two, one. And actually all the time comes off the clock. Nebraska starts celebrating. They’ve just won. They’ve knocked off the number three team in the nation. They’re ranked twenty two at the time and the clock hits triple zero. The refs blow the whistle because we’ve just recently introduced a video review to college football. So now they can go back and look at this and I’ll be durned that ball hits the turf on the sideline with one second left. Their coach at the time is an all timer. He’s a Butte. Bo Pelini is just he’s great for the sport. Yes. He’s so great for the sport. Gosh. And um, so he’s not happy. His face turns all kinds of shades of red. Um, Texas gets a one second left and they end up kicking long field goal. They win the game. Uh, they go to the championship and, uh, get blown out like Trevor. Yes, we we at Misery Sports Co, Zach and Trevor in a previous life were referees for an intramural college championship where this same exact thing happened and we did not have video replay as the referees and we did our job and we gave them an extra play. So you did what those refs were going through? Yes. So yeah, you were the only one. You were the one with the game clock in the corner of the end zone. And it was the last play. And it’s beeping and you’re waving your hands and you’re like, we got one second, we got one second. We’re like, let’s go one second. And to their credit, they all rolled with it. It was the right call. It was the right call. It was, it was. We were very good at that. I think in another reality we’re like NFL refs on the same team. I think we would be great. It doesn’t take much if you saw the the Lions and the Rams review. Holy cow. Gosh dude that was horrible. Seriously we could be we could be refs. We could be refs. We could be the top refs I think. Oh I think we’d be doing every Super Bowl. They would get mad that it’s not rotating. Um, and so after that, uh, everything has fallen off. But so I wanted to give a quick recap because, um, I talk about this a lot because I am not a I’m not a miserable fan who has a lot of support for my really bad team. Nobody cares about the Titans. We don’t have. We’re not packing the stadium every week and, you know, screaming and having a good time regardless of the result. Like Nashville is not interested in the Titans until they prove they have a winning product. Nebraska has a sellout streak of like three hundred and seventy something games. Allegedly. It’s kind of disputed a little bit, but like they’re selling out Memorial Stadium every game because those fans first of all, you’re in Nebraska. What else you got going on? And I mean that with all due respect, with all due respect, As much respect as Misery Sports Co can give you. Yes, which isn’t a lot, but we’ve got a little bit of it. Um, you know, they, they, they probably don’t have a lot going on. And so they, they pack it out. So just a quick, um, a quick overview of, um, Nebraska and kind of where things, where things stood there. They have, um, three championships on record, the ninety seven one they shared with Michigan, but they, they won three national championships in the nineties. They were dominant. And it was running a lot of option offense, um, which I personally think is beautiful football. Uh, I think it, it always has reminded me of like, ocean waves because you have all these different levels going on. I love watching option football. Um, and they were, uh, physical and they had an incredible defense. Um, so, you know, you’ve heard them called the Blackshirts. Uh, and that was a tradition from the sixties of, you know, they had these black kind of penny pullovers that the defense would wear. And it became a point of pride. And so they became known as the Blackshirts and, um, just an incredible, incredible success under coach Tom Osborne in the nineties. Um, he retires in nineteen ninety seven, so goes out on top. What a champ. Is amazing. Um. Uh, Frank, I should know how to say this. Solich I don’t know. So, uh, he keeps things going relatively competitive. Um, but then guess who takes over as the head coach? Uh, in two thousand and four before Pelini. Yeah. Right before. So, uh, between Solid and Pelini is sandwiched four years of a character that we can’t get us to leave us alone and has sponsored. He has sponsored the show before us. Oh my goodness. Um. Oh, for golly, I, I can’t, I can’t get it. It is none other than Bill Callahan. You’re right. We just can’t get rid of him. We we can’t get rid of him. So, um, Frank Solich last year gets Nebraska up to tenth at one point in the AP poll. Uh, the best Bill Callahan does in his four years is fourteen, and that’s in his last year at one point. Um, but it’s very early on because they go five and seven and Nebraska is like, thank you so much, Bill. Why don’t you try the offensive line thing? And I think that’s going to work well for you. You can probably make some money. Enter Bo Pelini. Enter one of the most wheels off coaches uh, college football has ever seen. Throw some of the most incredible sideline tantrums. Uh, a sideline referee’s nightmare in in Bo Pelini. Yeah. Um, but passionate about the game and passionate about his players. A lot of the stories I found on YouTube, I could not play for us because they’re very inappropriate and like, there’s nothing really to beep. It’s just just not a great story. But the themes of the stories I heard about Bo Pelini is that he would always circle back and be like, hey man, sorry about that. Like, I know I called you a word that we no longer use in twenty twenty five and I’m yesterday. But I feel bad about that and just want to apologize. So like he he did circle back. So Bo Pelini has uh goes nine and four in his first season, then ten and four, ten and four, nine and four, ten and four. Bo Pelini never wins fewer than nine games. Um, he gets Nebraska up to, uh, eighth in twenty eleven after getting them up to fifth in twenty ten. So like this is competitive football. This is these are good teams. Yeah. Um, recruiting. Well, putting a good product out there. Um, and I do have a quick Bo Pelini clip, uh, just so we can have some fun. Let me, uh, play this clip. This is a half time, very brief half time interview as he’s walking off. What was your reaction to the two early interceptions? What do you think? What kind of question is that? And then he just runs off like, you idiot. What do you think I think about that. Uh, what a character. But this is a case where, um, administration and and definitely fans, there’s pressure from the fans of saying winning nine or ten games is not enough for us. We have three championships in the nineties. It is twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen at this point. This is not the guy that can get it done for us. We have to move on. And that ends up being a terrible, terrible decision. Uh, because they have not excuse me, after Bo Pelini, they have not had a season where they finished in the top twenty five. They have not had, uh, they had a nine win season in twenty sixteen. Since twenty sixteen, the most games they have won is seven. So the grass was not greener on the other side. Um, they I think moved on from Bo Pelini. Uh, they just got impatient and decided to move on when really sometimes it’s like, do we have a plan in place or know somebody, uh, that’s going to take us over the hump, or are we getting rid of a coach just because we’re impatient? Do you know where Bo Pelini played? Football? He was a football player. I do not know where Bo Pelini played football. Bo Pelini played football at the Ohio State University. What did he play? What position was he? He played free safety, uh, from eighty seven to nineteen ninety. Hell, yeah. Um, I don’t know, just Roman. Roman. The back down the field. Roman. The outfield like that. God, I love that. Yeah, because Luke, Luke Fickell came in the nineties and I think Vrabel was around the same time. I wonder if Mike Vrabel played with him. I don’t know, I’ll look it up, but, um. Yeah. Bo Pelini none other than Ohio State. Dang. What a what a treat. Um, won several bowl games. Just they moved on too quick. So they, they go to Mike Riley. I have nothing to say about the Mike Riley years. Boring. Um, but then they get Scott Frost. So Scott Frost has gone undefeated at UCF. Uh, he is a former Nebraska quarterback. This is it. Like, this is the guy. It’s a homecoming. It’s gonna change everything. We get Scott Frost in here and Scott Frost is not it? He’s just not it. Um, the most wins Scott Frost has in a season is five, and they have the, uh, famous twenty twenty one season where they go three and nine, and every single one of those losses is by one possession. They were in every game, uh, including. Oh, I’m sorry. All of them. But the Ohio State, the Ohio State one, uh, we were on the road. It was with CJ Stroud, and we ended up winning by nine. But it was close. It was a six point game for a very long time. They kicked a field goal towards the end. But Nebraska was absolutely in that game. So the misery of knowing like you’re so close, you’re in these games but you can’t close it out. Yeah. And that was right around the time too, where Nebraska went from the big twelve to the Big Ten. So I think it was like twenty eleven when they ended up going to the Big Ten and it just didn’t, you know, you went from a play style in the big twelve where it was like air raid Texas Tech, Oklahoma. We’re gonna like score fifty points to you’re now in a cage. You’re in a cage fight. And I was just looking like they were with Michigan and Michigan State in the Legends Division, which, you know, deserves its own deep dive. Um, so it just never worked out for Nebraska, and it hasn’t in the Big Ten. It hasn’t. We are in year three of Matt Rule, um, who went seven and five. And from talking to this guy at the party and kind of looking around online, it seems like fans think that Matt Rule is worth giving time to because they saw what impatience does, uh, with Bo Pelini and moving on. So Nebraska fans, you are suffering. We’re here for you. And we hope that things turn around because in this guy’s view, the sport is better with a good Nebraska team. Absolutely. And I wonder too, like, is it a is it a resource thing? Because just recently their star quarterback Dylan Raiola is now in the transfer portal. Um, we Ohio State. Yeah. Ohio State have recruited him. He was the number one quarterback coming out of high school. Like I just I I’m pulling for Nebraska. I think that they’ve they’ve got the history. They’ve got the support. So we’ll see. Hope it works out for you. Shall see. And that concludes the deep dive. Any complaints can be filed in triplicate and immediately ignored. Let’s hear from another sponsor who didn’t do their homework and invested with us anyways. This next segment of the Misery Sports podcast is brought to you by Tiny Tim’s Bullpen Hotline. Hey, you know you’re bad at picking ball games, right? You finished last three years in a row in your family pool, you always end up picking who you want to win and it’s never right. At this point, you might as well let a small, hobbled eight year old do it. And now you can just call the hotline, pay the small thirty nine point nine nine fee, and hear Tiny Tim’s takes on this year’s epic bowl games like the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl. Here’s a free one. He loves NC state with Tiny Tim’s Bowl pick hotline. Thank you, Tiny Tim. I needed you in college. I feel like we spent in just ridiculous amount of time on these bowl picks. And we thought, oh, we know what what’s going to happen. And we just never got it right. Never know. I’m at the point now where I just pick who I’m comfortable with. Rooting for picks be damned, right? I got my own kids beating me in picks. My daughter picks because she likes the colors and I’m losing to her right now. So that’s a I’m in a great place. Let him live. Ah, well, somehow we’ve reached pep talks, our weekly attempt to convince ourselves things aren’t terminal. And that’s right. My pep talk goes to the fans of James Madison and Tulane. Hey, JMU and Tulane are going to be playing playoff games in the College Football Playoff bracket. James Madison plays Oregon Saturday night at seven thirty, and Tulane plays Ole Miss Saturday afternoon at three thirty PM. Uh, both are crazy underdogs. As I see it, Oregon is twenty one point favorites. Ole Miss is seventeen and a half JMU. Tulane, you’re a shining star in this story of the college football season. We’re pulling for you. We’re rooting for you. And you never know what could happen on a in a single game on a single day. Let’s try to get an upset here. Let’s let’s go to Oregon. Let’s shake some things up. I’d like to see Jmu’s Twitter feed for another week, so the internet is not prepared for that. If they pull this off. It wouldn’t. It have been great if, uh, if that like Boise State Oklahoma game back in the day had been a playoff game and Boise State got to move on from that. It would have been so fun. Yeah, I hope they can pull something like that off. Good luck to him. Good luck to him. Uh, well, that’s a bold stance and is definitely correct. I love that stance. Uh, my pep talk goes to the Stranger Things kids. What are they, like, thirty six, thirty seven at this point? Just I mean, we talk about long seasons of sports You all have had nine long years of slogging through being on this show, and it’s finally wrapping up. We are in season five. They’ve somehow convinced us that dropping it in three parts is a good idea, so we’re doing that. But hey you guys stranger. Stranger things kids, you’re almost done. You’re almost released from this hell, and you can move on with your life and do other things and hopefully, uh, become known for something else and be released from this. Thank you for sharing. Uh, the last what feels like three decades of your life with us. And best of luck. I think some of you are expecting grandchildren. And thank you for thank you for sharing your time with us. I’m so glad you brought this up, Trevor. Um, just for the viewers out there, if this is your first time listening to the show, we have no idea what we’re going to put out there. You know what Trevor’s sponsors are? What is pep talk is I just sat down this week and started this. The the what is it, fifth season. Yeah. And I’m like, how am I supposed to. How old are these people? I literally looked it up. They’re like mid twenties in high school. And I’m like, we couldn’t move the plot a little further and be like, hey, they’re in college. Like distractingly bad. It’s so bad. It’s bad. Yeah, it’s really bad. Um, and they love the series. Yeah, this is bad. It is poor, Will. It looks like they’re dressing him up in, like, little kid clothes. Like just. He’s talking to a little kid. His sister’s, like, legitimately in high school, and it’s like you couldn’t cast this. We couldn’t say, oh, they’re in college now. It’s a little different. Like, yeah, we’re fast forwarding a few years. Nope. They have to be in school. I know, I’m that’s why I’m. I’m pepping them up. Yep. I’m pepping him up. You rolled with it. Thank you. Thank you for rolling with it. Go live your life. Take some of my Netflix subscription money right off into the sunset. Geez, that’s another week of Misery Sports Co, please remember to log your despair at Misery Sports com before logging off. Follow us on Spotify. Apple YouTube Pocketcasts. We’re everywhere. Tweet us. Tell us which franchise ruined your weekend plans. We’ll be back with more takes, more spreadsheets, and another fan base begging for mercy. Until then, close the laptop, stare into the middle distance and remember you’re not alone. Everyone else is miserable, too.