(a) Texas is highly ranked, Nebraska is lowly-ranked.
And thus it is reasonable to expect Texas to beat Nebraska.
But it is even more reasonable to demand that Texas not merely beat Nebraska, but whomp Nebraska, stomp Nebraska into a little red spot in the ground.
If Texas is as good as Texas thinks Texas is, Texas should defeat Nebraska by 45 points or more. If Texas can't do that, well, Texas isn't as good as Texas thinks Texas is.
(b) Nebraskans are actually kindly disposed towards Texans.
Despite the hoopla about this game, Nebraskans actually think very highly of Texas and Texans--especially during presidential elections when Texas combines its electoral votes with Nebraska's electoral votes, giving the Republican candidate one-eighth of the electoral votes he needs, to win.
Nebraska has a large proportion of inhabitants originally Texan, and they tend to be some of the hardest-working, most industrious, least-demanding people one can hope to meet.
Despite their affection for Texans, Nebraskans would however just as soon deal with Oklahomans, as the natural order of things dictated before the formation of the Big 12 conference. Texans are okay, but Oklahomans are more our sort of people.
(c) One must consider the disproportionate size between Nebraska and Texas.
When considering all of the states in the Big 12 conference, by population and resources, Texas is an elephant, Missouri is a bison, Oklahoma and Colorado are big St. Bernard dogs, Kansas and Iowa well-fed fat housecats, and Nebraska.....a scrawny little field mouse.
So it is reasonable to expect Nebraska to get beat all the time, by any team from any state in the Big 12 conference; they're so much bigger and stronger than we are.
I have no idea why this hasn't happened, but there you have it.
(d) Texas has the home field advantage in this game today.
Despite all the noise about a "neutral" field, it's all nonsense. The game is being played within the boundaries of Texas. It is reasonable to speculate that Texans are Texans first, and alumni of their respective colleges and universities in Texas second.
There will be far more Texans at this game than Nebraskans--even though Nebraska's ticket demand outpaced Texas's--and so Nebraska's obviously playing deep inside hostile territory.
So all these factors, when taken together, dictate that unless Texas defeats Nebraska by at least 45 points, Texas isn't as good as Texas thinks Texas is.
We'll see.
