nebraska joining the big ten expecting to mix it up in the title game against ohio state every year and then finding themselves playing in a deranged annual rock fight against northwestern is one of the funniest things that has ever happened in college football
— BYCTOM (@BYCTOM) November 8, 2020
I have no idea why Nebraska and Northwestern got sent to perform football at each other in Dublin, but last Saturday there they were: the red-shirted swarm; the head of the alumni clubs of '79, '87, 2002, and '63 whose relative importance is dicated by the size of their foam corn headpieces; the Commissioner of the Big Ten; the Commissioner of the Bigger Ten; the Vice Commissioner of the Enormous Ten whose identity remains a secret and who was secreted into the stadium dressed as a Dial-A-Down official, the Northwestern Television Personality; the other Northwestern Television Personality; 757 members of the extended Fitzgerald Family; the famed Irish dancer Fearghus O'Donaghue and his arch-rival Feargus Gleason who became sworn enemies in 1987 after the infamous Headband Incident; Nebraska's Barf Boys linking up with The Most Nauseous Man of Kerry County and a Northwestern performance artist named Zach Barff; one Irish person interested in college football.
The two teams didn't bring stakes, prestige or the special connection to Ireland that comes from having a logo depicting a cartoon Irish man attacking someone with nineteenth-century Pugilism, but despite themselves they brought a hell of a football game to Aviva Stadium. Both quarterbacks put on a show in the first half. Northwesten rallied from down eleven twice. The game even featured a delightfully boneheaded attempt at a surprise onside kick that Scott Frost ordered from the ACME Catalog and ended with him trying to stop a boulder from landing on his head with a tiny Viscountess model umbrella. In the fourth quarter, Pat Fitzgerald brought out his own personal playbook, a dust-covererd Ancient Football Tome that was specifically denounced by Teddy Roosevelt that the Wildcats used to stuff Nebraska in the toilet for nearly seven minutes.
The result of this game in the college football takeosphere seemed to be to be a collective laugh at Scott Frost, which is appropriate because he is a tremendous doofus. Since he showed up at Nebraska, Frost has comported himself with the bumpkinous bravado of the guy who walks up to Arnold in a bar and says "say you ain't from around here" in a movie where Arnold plays Jack Hedlok of the ZIA, a government agency so secretive and deadly that the CIA does not know that it exists and gets himself thrown headfirst into a jukebox that then plays the Richie Valens song "ooh my head."
Nebraska remains Northwestern’s funniest opponent because while fans of the division’s other teams seem to understand that eating a maddening loss to the Wildcats in the dumbest football game they have ever seen every once in awhile is the cost of doing business in the Big Ten West, Nebraska fans seem to still be shocked and frustrated when this happens to them. But since joining the Big Ten for the 2011 season and including this game, Nebraska has a worse record than Northwestern (71-65 to the Northwestern’s 76-61), appeared in fewer Big Ten Championships (one to Northwestern’s two), played in and won fewer bowl games (2-4 to Northwestern’s 5-2); head to head they are even since 2011 with six wins apiece. At some point, if you are going to go around being stunned that you have lost to an inferior football program, it might be useful to be better than them at some element of football.
But I am not writing this to bury Nebraska but as a public service for teeth-gnashing Husker fans to let them know there is a better way. Forget about the 1990s. It is time to enjoy football again by embracing the Northwestern Football Lifestyle: strive every year to make the Oh No We Commited to the Cartoon Ape NFT Naming Rights For Five Years in 2021 Bowl and also to make an opponents' fans extremely angry for losing to you. Pretend to have a rivalry with the University of Illinois. Maybe don't go to a game because it's nice out. And then, maybe one day they'll get rid of Option Quarterback Beckman and get that coach that can diver them to the Playoff and get back to yelling about shirts.
BUCK DUCKETT, ROGUE NCAA PANTS INVESTIGATOR CHAPTER 1: PANTS FLY THROUGH THE NIGHT
You may have been wondering what has happened to the NCAA's teams of investigators looking out for illegal payments of free socks to college athletes after name, image, and likeness policies? Well, I have no idea. I did not do any research about this. But here is the first installment of a running series this season of fictional vingettes about Buck Duckett: Rogue NCAA Pants Investiagor.
Buck Duckett never hit anyone. He didn't need his fists. He had the law. Well, not exactly the law. More of a set of regulations set by the NCAA and agreed to by member institutions. Institutions that were trying not to see what was going on, what was teeming under the surface. He'd show them. He always did.
The Texas sun beat down on Buck Duckett's rental car but he didn't mind the heat. If he did he wouldn't be here sweating through his crisp white shirt and less crisp undershirt in a parking lot in Pflugerville looking at a warehouse owned by Texas booster Jutt Bumppo.
For three hours, the trucks had been coming in and unloading cargo. A real operation, Buck Duckett thought. But there was no sign of him anywhere. He had intelligence that it was going down here. It took bribing to two drunks and backhanding a mouthy fraternity brother, but he was sure that it was true, that Texas quarterback Holster Husston (Holster was actually his first name) was going to get a pair of pants today. And he wasn't going to pay. But if Duckett had his way he would.
Duckett wandered over to the warehouse, grabbed a clipboard, and put on his busy face. He could look bland and officious enough to enter all sorts of worksites-- car dealerships, apparel stores a body piercing studio once. No one looked at him twice. He quietly taped off a side door no one seemed to be using, squinted at the clipboard for a few minutes for effect, and then drove off, blasting the air conditioning. He'd come back when all illegal pants transactions go down-- at night.
Night. It was completely dark in the warehouse except for a faint glow coming from the bottom of a door above him but he didn't dare use a flashlight. He found his way into a corner and waited. Holster would be here. He'd come out. There was no mistaking what was on the quarterback's face the last game. Duckett had seen it a thousand times. that free pants look. Trouser-eyed. Those pants were already wearing him.
He waited. He waited. His colleagues once asked him what was going through his mind during one of his eternal sieges. It was nothing. It wasn't quite nothing. Something was going through his mind during those endless hours, but he never could remember what it was. He was simply there. Moss. Furniture.
At first there was nothing. And then there was light. Too much light. It poured on him through the ceiling. It tackled his eyeballs.
"Jesus christ is that Buck Duckett?"
There he was, Holster Husston himself with Jutt Bumppo. Caught in the act.
"Ok fellas, that's enough," Duckett said. "Hand over the pants."
"Which ones?" Husston said. He was smiling at him. Smiling.
That's when Buck Duckett looked up. This was not a textbook pants exchange. There were pants everywhere. The warehouse was bursting with pants. His head was spinning. He'd found three, four pairs of pants before. His colleagues once got a dozen pairs of pants on the table in the press conference. But nothing like this. This was too many pants.
"It's NIL, you dummy," Holster said.
"That's right," Bumppo said. "We're business partners, selling these here pants." They had an official Holster logo on them. "It's all legal, Duckett. Above board. Hell, the provost has a pair."
"This one's on me, Duckett," the quarterback said. "They're real nice. Wick away sweat from the crotch."
That's when he was hit. He never saw it coming. A pair of pants whapped him in the face. Damn quarterback had a hell of an arm. But there was nothing he could do. They were right. Biggest pants bust in the history of amateur sports and they were getting away with it. They were laughing at him. The quarterback was right, though. Those pants were well made. They didn't break when they hit him, but something inside him did.
If Buck Duckett does not get a series on Netflix it will be a damn shame. Not quite as egregious as Brian Ferentz being paid money to play act as an offensive coordinator, but right underneath that.
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