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Before he showcased the timely rhythm reminiscent of the runner-up at a Royal Carribean dance contest, Tim Brando made a little bit of news last week when he forecasted Nebraska head coach Scott Frost would win multiple national championships in Lincoln.
Brando’s lofty expectations were made a bit loftier after Nebraska’s loss to Colorado on Saturday and further complicated by the injury to freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez. Martinez is day-to-day according to Frost. Fingers crossed, not as a Nebraska fan but someone made nauseous by inadequate play from the quarterback position. Even so, the long-term prognosis for the football program is rosier than the bare midriff red jerseys the team sported in the 1990’s.
With Frost’s return, Nebraska is the almighty word that forces opinion-makers to confront their previous tweets as the characters are flung back in their face by social media regurgitators who scroll through old comments in between slinging GIFS out of context.
Back.
Nebraska is back.
The same word that lampooned Joe Tessitore is a heavy claim for a dormant program. For a team to be back do they have to leave for a specific amount of time?
Iowa can’t be back because they never really left.
Purdue can be back, but probably not until next year. The only way to be back after a loss to Eastern Michigan is to beat Ohio State and Wisconsin in the same season.
Who knows what Illinois will be back from, there are only so many Kevin Hardy giveaways one fanbase can endure.
Nebraska is in the seedling stages of being back, back from a time before Bo Pelini was the favorite opposing head coach of any fan in the Big Ten and Mike Riley brought such irrelevancy to the program he was rewarded with a third term in Corvallis, Oregon. Neither of those two were embedded in the program’s rich history the way Frost is. It feels different with Frost in charge, evident by the buzz around Saturday’s game.
The outcome didn’t shake out the way Nebraska fans would like, but the long term results from the Frost regime are much bigger than a Week 2 game against a former conference opponent. Had Akron jumped on Airbnb a little earlier last Saturday, the Huskers would be 1-1 instead of 0-1 and relatively content with the start of the season.
Now it’s on you Nebraska fans. Try not to rush the process.
You have every right to be excited. A former national championship winning quarterback, your former national championship winning quarterback chose you over places with more built-in reservoirs of football talent at Florida and Florida State.
You’ve been great so far. I won’t even chalk up the burglary to anyone in your fanbase. Please prohibit expectations from building at an expedited rate. One part of the country can only brag about Warren Buffett and the College World Series for so long before the excitement of pending success breaks them of all logic and reason. Nice and easy does it, right Frank?
You’re excited, I get it. You found a sane coach, a young sane coach who wanted you, who didn’t lose a power struggle with someone else in his organization, who was not ostracized or blackballed into the gig.
Success will come. Besides a Wisconsin team that builds their offensive line by buying their meat local, there isn’t much competition on that side of the Big Ten. You think P.J Fleck will actually stick around Minnesota? A wink and a smile from a program with slightly more potential and notieriety and he’ll be flinging his acronyms of the Alternate Reality at a new location.
You are in an optimal spot for long-term success. Don’t chase away the best thing to happen to your athletic program since Tom Osborne just because you’re a little anxious to climb the ladder in the Big Ten West.
Nick is a writer for saturdaytradition.com. Your overuse of GIFs forced him away from Twitter. He removed himself from consideration in the Vanderbilt heading coaching search.