Why We Love The Black Shirts

By Dustin Snyder
Love of Sports Correspondent

Let’s just say that VH1’s “Best Week Ever” was not on location in Lincoln this past week.

The sad reality of the sports world is that when you have hundreds of shooting stars, you end up with just as many stars that plummet straight into the Earth.

And although they’ve been working on turning things around recently, the Nebraska family’s unfortunately dealing with this first hand.

In the third quarter of their game Saturday night against Big XII rival Missouri - a crushing, embarrassing defeat - the Nebraska sideline was shown looking up at the clock. That clock couldn’t tick fast enough. All they wanted to do was get out of there and get the thing over with.

They say bad things always come in threes. Well, Nebraska was unlucky enough to receive a bonus. They’re probably on pace to receive a double bonus this weekend.

NU’s “Worst Week Ever” started on September 24th, with a familiar face. Former Husker RB Thunder Collins was arrested early that morning on charges of first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and felony weapons charges. The news was simply surreal.

Days earlier, former Nebraska QB Eric Crouch had run into Collins and said he seemed to be doing well. So well, in fact, that he was re-enrolled at the university and determined to finish his degree. When he left NU, he was only a few credits short. He was determined to get his life in order and even take a shot at working his way into some NFL tryouts. It took a lot of character for him to make this decision. So many times we’ve seen kids leave a program early, for whatever reason, then end up with their face on TV for something far different than a football performance.

When the story turns out like this, it is nothing short of tragic.

Collins was no stranger to having run-ins with the police. After coming to Nebraska as the top-rated JUCO RB in the nation, he played three seasons in Lincoln before quitting the team following an NCAA rules violation. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to a disturbing the peace charge in order to have two assault charges dropped. In 2003, the same woman would be involved again, this time in Corvallis, where Collins would be charged and acquitted of assault and burglary charges. In 2006, he would serve 10 days behind bars for obstructing justice. In that incident, witnesses claimed he was involved in a shooting.

His football stats never ended up being as long as his police record. In 2001, his most productive year, Collins rushed for 647 yards and five TDs.

Three days later, expectations and optimism were through the roof in Lincoln. Nobody really expected new head coach Bo Pelini to win a national title in 2008, but still, in situations like this, you can’t help yourself from wanting it so badly. The newly-energized Huskers were actually playing defense. In the games before Virginia Tech, the Cornhuskers looked like a million bucks. Three blowout victories over non-BCS (yet decent teams) gave people reason to be as hopeful as they were. On September 27th, they played host to the Hokies, who had already lost to East Carolina and hadn’t looked impressive in any other game since.

Tech was an opportunity to beat a team everyone respected. It would instantly catapault Nebraska back into the national spotlight. However, Huskers fell short in front of their home crowd, 35-30, and expectations for 2008 came back down to Earth.

Six days after the loss to Virginia Tech at home, another familiar face re-emerged for the Cornhuskers. This face was one no one had forgotten. Former RB Lawrence Phillips was sentenced to 10 years in prison for an incident in 2005. He was playing in a pick-up game and was so upset that he drove his car into a crowd of people. Three teenagers were struck by the vehicle. By the grace of God, no one was seriously injured.

Assault with a deadly weapon. At the time, Phillips was also wanted in San Diego for domestic abuse, not to mention in Los Angeles for a similar charge as well.

Phillips was one of the best running backs in the history of college football. His power and speed were unmatched at the time. When quarterback Tommie Frazier went down with an injury in the 1994 season, Phillips, a sophomore, rushed for 1,722 yards en route to an undefeated season and a national championship.

But unfortunately, his on-field exploits never matched his off-field ones. In that 1995 season, Phillips went after his ex-girlfriend, drug her down a flight of stairs by her hair, and smashed her head on a mailbox. He was obviously suspended from the team, but then in a move that will absolutely never be forgotten, Tom Osbourne reinstated him later in the season. They repeated as national champions.

In addition to all this heartache, the Cornhuskers were handed their most humiliating defeat in 53 years this weekend to a team who hadn’t beaten them in Lincoln in 30 seasons. Missouri throttled the Huskers 55-17, and the game was even worse than the score indicated.

For a group of fans amongst the classiest in all of football, it’s been a rough stretch. However, things are looking up for Nebraska, and Pelini is already building a strong recruiting class for next season.

There’s no question Nebraska will return to national prominence. They just need to have the patience to let Pelini build this thing, take their lumps and get through it. It’s been a bad stretch over this past week or so. But as the old saying goes, you gotta go through Hell before you get to paradise. We’re jumping on the Nebraska Bandwagon, because despite some rough going lately, this program is finally doing things the right way again.

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