Huskers have a friend in Switzer
Published: 5/27/2008 5:09 PM
Last Modified: 5/27/2008 5:09 PM
You want proof of the bond between Oklahoma and Nebraska football programs, consider the outpouring of sympathy over Jack Mildren. There seemed to be almost as much grief in Lincoln as there was in Norman.
Here's another tie that binds, comments made by Barry Switzer in Ken Hambleton's Lincoln Journal Star column:
"I worry about the Nebraska job. It’s important. I want to see them succeed against everybody but Oklahoma. It’s hard. Look how long it took for Oklahoma to find Bobby Stoops.
"And at Nebraska, even if they find a Stoops, it’ll be harder to change things than it was at Oklahoma because they are that much farther away from Texas and Florida and California."
Hambleton wrote, "Nebraska was nothing without Oklahoma. Nebraska set everything to beat OU. Beat the Sooners and you’ve made it to the top. Later, there was Florida State, Miami and Florida. When the Huskers beat those teams (well, not FSU, but almost in the 1994 Orange Bowl) they were kings of college football...
"Switzer almost cost Osborne his job a couple of times. The Oklahoma coach beat Osborne’s Nebraska teams five years in a row and brought about the term 'Sooner Magic,' for all the heartbreak he gave the Huskers over the years...
"Osborne actually interviewed at Colorado in 1978 because he couldn’t win the big one, in particular Oklahoma."
Now, back to Switzer: "Hey you can read into that Sooner Magic thing, but we had some great teams that beat Nebraska. He put in the option. He still ran the I-formation but there were a lot of elements of the wishbone that we used. He told me he borrowed some of our play principles.
"And I’ll tell you what, you could win a national title today using Tom’s playbook of the 1990s."
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
