Record crowd at Nebraska volleyball reminds what football program is missing

An amazing 92,003 people were in attendance for Nebraska's home volleyball match against Omaha at Memorial Stadium, making it the most-watched women's sporting event in history, besting the 91,648 people in attendance for a Champions League match against FC Barcelona and Wolfsburg in 2022.

The amazing scene in Lincoln makes a couple of things obvious. First, as ESPN's Holly Rowe pointed out, when universities invest in women's sports, people embrace it.

The record crowd also shows how much the Cornhuskers mean to the local community. The volleyball program earned its devoted following by perennially being one of the best in the country and it's up to first-year football coach Matt Rhule to get the fanbase as excited about the football team.

The program has been in a tailspin in recent years. At one point in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Cornhuskers entered each season a legit title contender. After coach Frank Solich was unfairly run out of town in 2003, Nebraska rotated through a group of coaches including Bill Callahan (2004-07), Bo Pelini (2008-14), Mike Riley (2015-17) and Scott Frost (2018-22).

Pelini kept the team respectable - winning no less than nine games in each of his seven seasons - but Nebraska has failed to qualify for a bowl game the past six years, including every year in the disastrous Frost era when the Cornhuskers went 16-31.

Rhule's tenure kicks off Thursday night with a Big Ten showdown at Minnesota. The Golden Gophers have won the past four meetings in the series, including the last three by a touchdown each time.
A win would be a major step in the right direction for Nebraska, which can look at the school's record crowd on Wednesday and see what's in store for it if it follows volleyball's lead.

Nebraska's volleyball team deserves the spotlight. How long until the football program joins in on the fun?