At the End of an Ugly Season, a Rivalry: Five Keys To Colorado

Whether fans see it or not, NU/CU game a heated contest for the players

The first time Colorado linebacker Jordan Dizon visited Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, he lacked the grasp a CU veteran has on what it means to play NU. He stood in the tunnel waiting to run into the biggest game a Buffalo can play. And then he saw a funny thing.

Tomatoes.

Nebraska fans - “old ladies,” according to Dizon - were spoiling those sharp, white uniforms with a staple from any farmer’s garden. “Chucking” them, Dizon said.

And you thought projectiles were reserved for boozed-up college kids in Boulder.

“Once I saw that I knew this was a real rivalry,” Dizon said. “From then on I knew it was a great rivalry.”
Rivalry. A word that rankles many a Nebraska fan, at least in reference to Colorado.

Not the Buffaloes, with their litany of intense, folksy coaches. Not them, with an anecdotal (and factual) history of lurid fan behavior that seems to grow in reputation with each passing year. Not them, whose relentless gut punches during 2001’s Day After Thanksgiving Massacre set Nebraska on a course that may come to an end by Saturday.

Colorado, to many NU fans, represents a style and attitude that’s uniquely anti-Nebraskan. CU is money. Spoiled trust-funders. Ski bums. Fickle bandwagon jumpers. Preeners. Corner cutters. White collar, liberal, loose-living, green-loving, golden pom-pom holding, snowball-and-beer-bottle-throwing louts.

In other words, the Buffaloes, and their fans, are perfectrivals.

And when you’ve got two mediocre 5-6 teams fighting for an extra month of practice and a trip to some third-rate bowl game, you’ve got a perfect rivalry game. NU/CU should mean little. But 20 years of bad blood and disrespect adds a tablespoon of hot sauce.

“They don’t really like us and we don’t really like them,” said NU quarterback Joe Ganz, who’s just the kind of gamer to relish his third start coming in front of a hostile, ticked-off crowd in Boulder. “It’s just a known fact…it‘s created with fans, but players really take it to heart.”

NU Coach Bill Callahan may not put every tradition in a bear hug, but here’s one he does; Colorado, like Oklahoma and Texas, is one of the games that seems to get his blood pumping.
In 2005, he busted out the “Restore The Order” t-shirts that NU players wore under their pads in a 30-3 rout of the Big 12 North champion Buffaloes. He also put a stuffed head of a buffalo inside the locker room, and played the buffalo hunt clip from “Dances With Wolves.”

“It’s just a fun way to get guys revved up,” Ganz said.

Colorado takes it more seriously. When CU players step on campus, they’re told if they beat Colorado State and Nebraska, they’ve had a good season. Nobody in the athletic department wears red except the Buffs’ scout team players, which don red jerseys and put an “N” on their helmets. Seniors speak throughout NU week about the importance of the of the game; the most poignant speeches, freshman quarterback Cody Hawkins said, come from the in-state guys.

As a senior and the leader of Colorado’s defense, Dizon took his turn this week.

“If you can’t get up for this then you are not a true Buffalo,” Dizon said. “There aren’t too many guys on this team who have played Nebraska before and this is something you have to learn.”

CU goes into Friday’s game with a clearer focus, of course. Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne will meet with Callahan and the rest of his coaching staff on Saturday to discuss their job status. By then - at the latest Monday - fans will know Callahan’s fate. How much Nebraska focuses on that is our first key:

Gipper:Ganz does us the favor of laying this all out:

“You don’t want to be the ’Win one for the Gipper’ type deal, but you really want to win it for (Coach Callahan) and all the coaches,” Ganz said. “And especially the fans. They’ve been through a tough year. We’d like to reward him with winning this last game and then going to a bowl game and hopefully winning that.”

Well, bet on the Cornhuskers trying to send Callahan out on a winning note, whether fans care for him or not. Throughout this season, players have not thrown their coach under the bus and some seem to have affection for him, even if he hasn’t completely reached them. And no matter how tired any of them might be of this staff, they’re surely more tired of the criticism from fans and media. An NU victory here wouldn’t merely be for the coaches, but against the critics. Never underestimate the “us vs. the world” mentality. The Huskers not only have goals, but a healthy chip on those cream shoulder pads.

Shawn Watson:Nebraska’s current offensive coordinator held this job with Colorado just two years ago as part of Gary Barnett’s staff. The best hire of the Callahan era - and a guy who, under different circumstances, might be a real candidate for the head coaching position - gives the Huskers a tactical advantage; he knows these Buffs, particularly the defense, quite well.

“He watched us for two years so he knows our weaknesses,” Dizon said. “He knows I jump on short routes. He knows that sometimes we leave the middle open. He knows that. He knows our defense.”
And Colorado’s defense has some sense of the offense Watson likes to run, too. But Nebraska’s version of the West Coast Offense features a lot of more open sets, more shotgun and more combo routes than what Watson used to call at CU Callahan’s passing game is more advanced than the bootleg-heavy attack that often featured a giant, soft-handed tight end. Watson’s more creative with the running game; where Callahan seems to only call stretch and toss plays, Watson mixes in more counters, isos and inside zone plays.

Atmosphere:If you took all of the hooligans out of Folsom Field and replaced them with passionate-yet-respectful fans, you’d have one of the best venues in college football. Seriously - on the right day, with fans who aren’t drunk and looking for a fight, it’s just a notch below Memorial Stadium, and better than every other stadium in the Big 12.

The joint is beautiful to look at, cozy, and, yes, loud. An opponent doesn’t want to be caught there on the wrong day, such as NU’s 62-36 loss in 2001. The grass track is a little slower than the FieldTurf at NU, and it’ll probably feel like stone in those cold temperatures. The last time Nebraska’s high-powered offense faced such conditions, it lost 21-7 to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game, and generally looked like it didn’t warm up until the second quarter.

Except some snow, and a little wind, but not enough to dissuade either team from trying a long field goal, if it so chooses. And don’t discount the altitude. Yes, yes, you hear this a million times, but at least two terrific Nebraska teams, in 1997 and 1999, clearly got gassed in the final quarter, nearly squandering 17 and 24-point leads respectively. And Oklahoma’s 27-24 loss in Boulder earlier this year seemed in part because the Sooners’ defense seemed to lose that fifth gear in the fourth quarter.

If it can happen to those teams, it can happen to this one. Remember: Travel rosters are tiny. Just because the Huskers had a decent defensive showing against Kansas State doesn’t mean a repeat is in store.

Know this: NU Defensive Coordinator Kevin Cosgrove will engage in massive substitutions with his defensive line, which could either lead to a lack of rhythm or mismatches when Nebraska’s second team is in there.

Watch, too, Nebraska’s young defensive backs. Do they still have their legs in the fourth quarter? Their breath?

Fortunately, Colorado’s fans will struggle with the 10 a.m. start. If this puppy was high noon, you could expect a crowd of perfectly snookered, belligerent Buff fans. With a morning kickoff, expect a fashionably late crowd that only had time for one Bloody Mary with their morning free-range egg, instead of five.

Hawkins and Hawkins:As in head coach Dan and quarterback son Cody. If you listen to Monday’s Big 12 Teleconferences, you get to hear Dan answer the same questions each week about his son. To Hawkins’ credit, he does it, and manages to come up with something new most of the time.
Cody Hawkins is destined to become a coach, and if his father can land a decent recruit sometime soon, don’t expect him to start all four years. Like Ganz’s he’s a gamer without prototypical size. Like Ganz, he knows the offense and can make plays you wouldn’t expect. Unlike Ganz, who thrives out of the shotgun, Hawkins does his best work under center, faking handoffs and throwing play action passes.

Hawkins’ stats aren’t bad - 17 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, 2400 yards passing - but he’s mostly taken what the offense gives. Like Nebraska, CU has an offense that get hot and go cold.
Coach Dan Hawkins is still tinkering with this team. Since running back Hugh Charles returned from an injury, the Buffaloes have been committed to running the ball, and will try to do it again on Friday. CU had success running the ball against a much better Nebraska defense last year in Lincoln, before self-destructing and watching a 14-14 third-quarter tie become a 37-14 loss.

The better the running game goes, the better Cody Hawkins can work the play-action fakes. Colorado doesn’t have any talents like Maurice Purify, but they’ve got guys who can catch when they’re open.

Which Nebraska? Which Colorado?:NU’s pummeling of Kansas State two weeks ago was so bizarre, coming off the heels of a such a crushing loss to Kansas. Which NU team will show up in Boulder? More specifically, which Nebraska defense?

And which Colorado? Will it be the team that gave undefeated Kansas its second biggest scare of the year, shut down Texas Tech and upset Oklahoma? Or the Buffs who were humiliated by Missouri and stunned by Iowa State?

Email Samuel McKewon at sam@ne.statepaper.com

 

Dining Guide

• Lincoln
• Omaha
• Greater NE

Calendar

• Lincoln
• Omaha
• Greater NE