“It was with words to the effect that you might not have been around if you hadn’t,” Osborne said this week. “Of course, that got my attention.”

It’s one of those interesting tales that — three national titles, a statue and an Osborne-named building later — seems to warrant a note in Husker history. If there was any validity in what the regent told Osborne, one could consider NU’s comeback in a now-defunct bowl game to be among Nebraska’s more significant victories.

Osborne cautions that he heard this from only that one regent and no one else, certainly not from then-athletic director Bob Devaney, who always was strongly behind his former assistant.

“It could have been a little bit of an offhand remark or it could have been something that was dead serious,” Osborne said. “It wasn’t like the president of the university or Bob Devaney called me in and we set a meeting and said this is what has to happen or you’re going to be fired. That didn’t happen. But I gathered that there was enough smoke out there that there probably was some heat.”