Tulsa World: Big Red rivals begin a new chapter

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Big Red rivals begin a new chapter
Sooners and Huskers hope to ensure their long series remains friendly.

OU's Brodney Pool tackles Nebraska's Cory Ross during the 2004 OU-Nebraska game. The Cornhuskers ran the ball 40 times against the Sooners and threw it just 13. James Gibbard/Tulsa World file

By JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer
Published: 11/1/2008 2:11 AM
Last Modified: 11/1/2008 2:13 AM

Sooners and Huskers hope to ensure their long series remains friendly.

NORMAN — The Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry isn't what it once was, but not because of anything Bill Callahan or Darren DeLone or Adam Merritt did before, during or after the 2004 contest in Norman.

"It's still a great series, a great rivalry," OU coach Bob Stoops said. "It's different, there's no denying that, being in separate divisions and having a couple of years off. It changes it to some degree (from) the Big Eight days, where it's just the eight teams and so much of the time playing after Thanksgiving with those two teams deciding who's going to be the Big Eight champion, and all that. There's no denying it's changed to some degree, but it's still exciting."

OU-Nebraska was always viewed, locally, regionally and nationally, as a classic King of the Mountain confrontation when the teams played in the Big Eight Conference from 1959-95, when 31 times in 36 seasons either the Sooners or Cornhuskers (or both) won the conference crown. That includes 27 in a row from 1962-88.

"There's a lot of respect between the two programs," first-year Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said. "I don't think the tone's changed at all."

The teams renew the series on Saturday when No. 4 OU (6-1 overall, 3-1 Big 12) hosts Nebraska (5-3, 2-2) in a 7 p.m. game at Owen Field.

"I know from just being up there that there's huge respect for Oklahoma from Nebraska," said OU assistant coach Jay Norvell, who coached against OU in Lincoln from 2004-06. "And being here, I see the same things. I just think it's one of the great games in college football."

Since the Big 12 was formed in 1996, the series gets a two-year interruption every two years. Still, when they met, the overriding feeling, after the game itself, was a deep respect and appreciation the programs had for each other's history and class. That even carried over into the respective fan bases.

Then 2004 happened.

During pregame warmups, Nebraska players and members of OU's Ruf/Neks spirit squad reportedly exchanged heated verbal taunts. At some point, DeLone, a 6-foot-5, 315-pound reserve offensive lineman, was blocked into Merritt, who slammed into the wall surrounding the field and sustained several injuries, including two broken teeth.

During the game, the overmatched Huskers ran the ball 40 times and passed just 13 despite trailing 23-0 at halftime. Yet, as the game clock expired, Nebraska kicked a 39-yard field goal to avoid being shut out.

Then, as the teams started toward the locker rooms, OU fans — enamored that their team would soon be on its way to the Orange Bowl to compete for the national championship — renewed the old tradition of throwing oranges onto the field, which fans of both schools once did when the Big Eight champion played in the Orange Bowl. But Callahan, an outsider to the tradition, thought fans were trying to hit him and shouted out, "f---ing hillbillies" while running off the field.

That's two black eyes and a fat lip, which Pelini said is "not something that's going to happen again."

DeLone was acquitted on felony aggravated assault charges in 2005. Callahan was fired after the 2007 season. The teams played again in 2005, then met in the Big 12 championship game in 2006. OU won all three, and when the Sooners went to Lincoln in '05, Stoops said, "We couldn't have been received any better, by their crowd, by their fans, anything."

But the 2004 stain on the rivalry remained.

"I feel that Callahan and his comments were a step back for our whole program," 1972 Nebraska Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers said in a phone interview on Thursday. "We were trying to repair (the rivalry) because it really shouldn't have been that way."

Friday's reunion of the participants in the 1971 OU-Nebraska "Game of the Century" — some 25 Huskers and almost 50 Sooners were expected to attend, and will be recognized at halftime — is not necessarily an olive branch.

"I don't think it needs rebuilding. We played the last two times and there weren't any incidents," Stoops said.

"Those incidents were just odd, to say the least," OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said. "But no one would ever let one person, or two or three, adversely affect what has happened over decades."

Still, Rodgers said, Castiglione's direction of the event "pretty much exemplifies how we feel about each other.

"I think we're well on our way."

John E. Hoover 581-8384
john.hoover@tulsaworld.com By JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer

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