ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 31, 1996 TAG: 9612310091
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: MIAMI
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Nebraska doesn't play football.
"It's more serious than that,'' said Cornhuskers middle linebacker Jon Hesse. "In Nebraska, this is it.''
A few years ago, there was a movement in Nebraska to get rid of mascot "Herbie the Husker,'' because some in stuffed shirts - obviously red in color - thought he was a bit more agricultural than cultural.
If they wanted to get rid of Herbie because he supposedly wasn't an accurate depiction of the program he represents, they should have done it because he wears a cowboy hat instead of a football helmet.
Hesse was born and grew up in Lincoln. He first went to Nebraska games with his grandpa, sitting in 50-yard line seats the family bought in the 1940s, when the Cornhuskers weren't rolling through the sport like a combine through a wheat field.
"I've heard it said that Nebraska, without the 'Huskers, is Iowa,'' said Hesse, chuckling. "It's what our state is about.''
It's a state of mind. What Virginia Tech faces tonight in the Orange Bowl at Pro Player Stadium isn't only the 10th-ranked team in the country.
How many other states would be whining if their team had won 10 games and reached the Orange Bowl, as Cornhuskers fans are? OK, maybe the Buckeyes, if Ohio State doesn't beat Michigan or win a Rose Bowl.
The 'Huskers sold fewer than 8,000 Orange Bowl tickets. You can bet, however, that with tonight's game on CBS, in Nebraska it won't be NBC with must-see TV.
Coach Tom Osborne has been close to apologetic in his remarks this week, but who should have to say they're sorry when the program is playing in a bowl for a 28th consecutive season?
And we're not talking Independence and Carquests. Perhaps the most remarkable fact on Nebraska is that for each of those 28 seasons, the Cornhuskers have won at least nine games.
The next longest such streak of success is Florida State, with 10. The last season that the Cornhuskers failed to win nine, Tech coach Frank Beamer was a senior defensive back for the Hokies. It was 1968.
Nebraska, which had only three winning seasons from 1941-61, hasn't had a losing one since. In the last 35 years, the Cornhuskers have won at least nine games 33 times.
You read numbers like that, and you feel like you've been pancake-blocked by one of those Nebraska linemen who look like they've been fed a steady diet of Omaha steaks.
"You don't stay on top forever,'' said Hesse, whose hometown school continues to defy that thought. "We had a great run, 25 [wins] in a row, two national championships. Our senior class is 46-3.''
In Nebraska, the inhabitants bleed red in more ways than one.
"There are four seasons,'' said Warren Swain, the former Virginia broadcaster who is new as the Cornhuskers' voice. "In Nebraska, there are only two seasons - Nebraska football and Nebraska spring football.''
It's astonishing to consider that only a few seasons ago, after Nebraska had lost seven straight bowl games, there was some dissatisfaction with Osborne, who is a perfect fit.
He's Midwestern stoic, dignified and thoughtful. He has a doctorate, but that's not why he is professorial. At news conferences, he really does need a microphone. The excitement in Nebraska football is generated only by what he orchestrates.
"Nebraska is a place with no pro sports around,'' Hesse said. "The football team has won consistently. Bob Devaney started it, and Coach Osborne has built on that.
"It's the strangest thing, but when Nebraska loses, when people go to school or work the next Monday, they're kind of down. How the football team plays is built into the group psyche of a whole state.''
It's like that because Nebraska is the state's only Division I program. Kids like Hesse grow up dreaming of playing before the red-clad sellout crowds - there have been an NCAA-record 214 of those in a row - at Memorial Stadium.
That's why Nebraska has so many walk-ons. The Cornhuskers have brought 150 players to their 16th Orange Bowl. Osborne will dress 108. The Hokies will have 65 in uniform.
"Our goal is to win the national championship, always,'' Hesse said. "That's not going to change. There's no such thing as a rebuilding year in Nebraska.''
For the 10-2 Cornhuskers, however, this is as close as that gets. Virginia Tech's most trying task might not be trying to stop Nebraska's vaunted option game.
Only one person ever has parted a red sea.
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Hesse (headshot)by CNB