This Thursday evening, Nebraska plays Missouri.
Nebraska has played Kansas more times than Nebraska has played anybody else--it's the second- or third-longest uninterrupted series in college football--but Nebraska played Missouri before Nebraska ever played anybody else (then there was an interruption, so this series is not as uninterruptedly long as the one with Kansas).
The Nebraska-Missouri series never gained the status of a television "rivalry" because it's so lopsided. It's not like the old Nebraska-Oklahoma series, which is pretty even.
As an alum of the University of Nebraska, I always thought it was a pity non-alum Nebraska fans, television, and the general public, disregarded the rivalry as meaningless, because Nebraska was always whomping Missouri.
It was always an incredible feat, the smallest state in the union with a major college football program (until lately), usually beating great big huge enormous Missouri. When one considers population, resources, and wealth, Missouri is a bison, when compared with the dormouse of Nebraska.
(As a side note, when considering the current Big 12 in terms of population, resources, and wealth, Texas is an elephant, Missouri a bison, Oklahoma and Colorado St. Bernard dogs, Iowa and Kansas great big fat house-cats, and Nebraska a little tiny minuscule baby mouse. That was always the most impressive thing about lilliputian Nebraska winning so much of the time against all these giants.)
Anyway.
Alumni of the University of Nebraska see the annual Nebraska-Missouri game in a light different from the way the general public, non-alums, and television see it. Generally among alumni, the game with Missouri is a pretty big game, even if we beat them most of the time.
When I was in college--and even years afterwards--whenever the game was at Missouri, we always made a road trip down to Columbia.
There's always been bad blood between Nebraska fans and Missouri fans, although given our mutual genteelity and laid-backness, it's more of an act than the real thing.
The way the Big 12 seems to be evolving is that generally, usually, most of the time, probably the Big 12 top (as compared with the Big 12 bottom down at the southern end of the conference), is going to be just Nebraska and Missouri, all the other teams (Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Colorado) in the basement of the Big 12 top.
The current perceptions seem to be that Missouri does not think Nebraska is back, and Nebraska does not think Missouri is here to stay. Time will tell.
Of course, Missouri's main rival is Kansas.
Nebraska currently has no rival, Oklahoma having ditched us when the Big 8 was turned into the Big 12, and Texas seduced her neighboring state into thinking their game with Texas was "more important" than their game with Nebraska. Talk about exchanging dull gold for shiny brass, but that's what happened.
Around the turn of this century, the retarded television idiot Herb Kirkstreit tried to make the Nebraska-Colorado game into a "rivalry," which was a gratuitous slap in the face of Nebraska. Nebraska has never considered Colorado a rival; Colorado has never had the class, the tradition, the history of Nebraska.
Three or four years ago, there were actually Nebraska fans happy that Texas Tech beat us, 70-0, or something like that, simply because it denied nouveau Colorado bragging rights, with their 62-26 victory over us a few years previously, which had been a record.
Colorado is no good; never has been, never will be.
In fact, I've oftentimes suggested the Big 12 dump Colorado, and nab Arkansas, for the betterment of the conference. Arkansas doesn't belong in the Southeastern Conference anyway.
Well, as mentioned, Missouri already has a bona fide rival, Kansas, but I wish the television interests and the general public would see how much intensity, how much emotion, how many broken bones, the Nebraska-Missouri series involves.
