

Despite the huge win over Michigan State and taking over first place in our division, I feel emotionally detached, not from the Husker team, which I still love more than my dog, but from the essence of why I enjoy Husker football so much in the first place. I find myself not as passionate as I used to be, not because I've gotten older or wiser, but because of one of the base reasons why we root for sport in the first place.



In past years a win like last weekend would been made much sweeter by buying a beer at the bar and with a smile and a nod knowing that everyone in the place felt the same way - that it wasn't just a game, it was a battle of our moral standards over theirs, that Nebraska was full of good people who were better than all the other states around us.

We see in our opponents our enemies, and in in this first year of Big Ten play we don't have any real enemies.

No one in the Big Ten every tried to tear Eric Crouch's head off and not get called for it. No one in the Big Ten has screwed us over by getting a second put back on a clock in a conference championship game. No Big Ten team ruined countless holidays by beating us and repeatedly costing us championships while all the while having an obnoxious coach named "Barry" who cheated all the time.

Now it's just "Yay, we beat a team we haven't played in six decades and we might get into a big game". It's not "Yay, we beat the evil meth-addicted bastards from Missouri who once supported racism so fanatically they went into another state, burned down a town and killed scores of people."



Victory over such evil doers was made so much sweeter by knowing there was someone in a bar in Columbia or Boulder drinking a beer with a tear chaser.

It's just not the same right now.



I realize the incidents that inspire such hate will occur as time goes on. It's unavoidable. A part of me wishes they would happen sooner so that I might once again know the passion of sports hatred, but another part knows that such incidents occur typically occur with loss or injury and I am not anxious to see either this season.



It's just too damned bad something can't be done about it.