I was a recruiting nut back then during the Callahan and Pelini years. I spent hundreds of hours studying recruiting classes believing that if we could just get over the hump, we’d be back to our glory years.
Once we went through four coaches and 15 years of mediocrity, it just finally came to me one day. Seeing how football had changed and how much time had gone by since we were relevant, I stopped looking at college football through only the Husker fan lens.
You get a better perspective of things and how difficult it is to be elite in college football these days. We’re a state of 1.7 million people. We have the greatest fans in America, but we don’t realize how we’re seen outside of this state. We’re just not as cool as we think we are.
When somebody told me these kids playing football these days weren’t even alive when we were dominant, It was an eye-opener for me. I knew there was no getting that back unless we got lucky.
I stopped believing we were entitled to it too. That was a big part of it. Took a lot of shit about “lowering my expectations” but for me, it was just being realistic; something so many Husker fans can’t accept. When I accepted the fact we are no different than any other average program out there, it made it easier because I felt we weren’t under achieving.
I also took a hiatus from messaging boards for several years. That helped a lot. I only returned to this board last year when we started showing signs of being a competent football team again. But I’ve still always held the “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Did that through the frost years, which helped too.
I turned off a lot of football games when we were getting blown out. I know blasphemy. But when you get to the point where you can do that and not let consume you, you know your past the obsession part.
I was a 50+ year-old man letting 18 to 22-year-olds ruin my life. I stopped and thought about that for a while. And I felt really stupid about it.
I still go to games. I still get frustrated when we lose. And I’m bummed for a little while after games, especially last year. But I don’t get angry about it anymore. When you can do that, you know you’ve finally won over the addiction.
