Husker Hokie Pokie
Those people who still want to snipe at Steve Pederson for "ducking" Houston a few years ago just got a big dose of "shut the hell up", in the form of NU's 2008 and 2009 schedules. As you likely have heard, NU locked up a home-and-home with the Virginia Tech Hokies for those years. This choice for the schedule offers lots of things for Husker fans to be happy about and raises one important question.
There are some good reason NU fans should be happy about having VT on the schedule.
This is a quality name opponent. VT is now one of the top football schools in the ACC. Interestingly, their resurgence in the 1990's under coach Beamer culminated with the 1996 Orange Bowl, a game they lost to NU. (that game also gave birth to the title - Damon Benning, Orange Bowl MVP). Reviewing VT materials shows how much being on the field with the Huskers during that period mattered to VT. Now being on the field with VT matters to NU, too. Thanks to several consecutive bowl appearances, a BCS birth, and the coming out party of one Michael Vick, VT is a football "brand" that will get both Husker loyalist and passive observers interested in the game. Which brings me to my next point...
The game is likely to be televised nationally. Unless both NU and VT go in the tank badly in the next two years, this should be another great shot at exposure for NU, particularly on the East Coast.
It should be a doozy of a game. Granted, big out-of-conference match ups don't always live up to their billing (Pitt). But, when NU got on the field with Notre Dame and Penn State recently, you expected tough games. And, that will certainly be the case with USC this year.
A pessimist could say you don't like this kind of schedule because the road contest for this kind of series is a likely loss. (see also Penn State) That's true, Blacksburg will be a brutal place to play. But, I believe a championship-caliber club needs to be able to on the road against another very tough school and win in order to validate their elite status. I think of UT beating OSU on the road last year (revenge in Austin this year?) and USC beating VT a few years ago. Want to be the best? Go beat the best.
Now, a question all Huskers are curious about. What the heck is a Hokie? Well, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, it started out as a nonsense term used in a fight song. But, because of local custom and following, the notion of a gobbler bird came in to play, and Hokie came to be basically associated with a gobbler bird to local fans. It wasn't until the 1980's that they officially changed the sports mascot name from Fighting Gobblers to Hokies (which is still basically represented by a gobbler bird). So, do you think this game will be a real turkey shoot for NU? Ha ha, stupid joke. Of course, any fan who cheers for a team named for corn pickers should think long and hard before mocking anyone else's mascots.
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