Nebraska Cornhuskers Football 2010: What Is Reasonable?

Are the Huskers “back”?

This is the hot topic in Husker circles. But what exactly does it mean to be “back”? Is it consistent 10-win seasons and top 10 finishes? Big 12 championships? BCS appearances? Our peers’ renewed envy and hatred?

It’s a slippery definition, but we’ll know it when we feel it.

I don’t anticipate for a moment that the Huskers will go undefeated in 2010.

That kind of expectation would be unrealistic and unreasonable at this stage of the program’s resurgence. Too many unwelcome or random things could (and almost certainly will) get in the way of perfection in 2010, especially with the offense’s tiny margin for error.

But this post isn’t about reasonable expectations. It’s about reasonable hope—actually, one particular type of hope that Husker fans once took for granted.

It wasn’t terribly long ago that Husker fans had a perennial hope that the team would win all its games and contend for the national title.

That hope was usually grounded in reality; some years it bordered on expectation.

It felt like the natural order of things and that it would always be that way. Sure, Florida State might step up and wreck things early in the season, or Oklahoma might do so later on. But the point was that even though perfection was rare, going into the season there was no ceiling. The realistic best-case scenario was almost always an undefeated season and a national title.

And that more than anything characterized Big Red Fever: the frenzied anticipation of knowing that anything could happen.

For me, being able to approach a season with that mindset is what it means to be “back.” It wasn’t realistic to hope for an undefeated season during the Callahan regime, as the Huskers were in a constant state of rebuilding. In 2008, it was too soon, and although 2009 came together nicely, it wasn’t reasonable to hope that the Huskers could beat Virginia Tech and Missouri and Oklahoma and Texas and the rest. Not really.

But 2010 will be different.

The Huskers probably won’t go undefeated, but for the first time in years, they might . It will not be insane or indefensible to hope that the team will win all its games. It is again the realistic best-case scenario, and the odds of it happening are finally better than winning the Powerball.

Why is it reasonable to hope for perfection in 2010? 

The Huskers will likely be favored in every game they play. They will begin the season in the Top 10 and have road tests at Washington and Oklahoma State and difficult matchups with Texas and Missouri in Lincoln.

But each time they run out on the field, they will be the expected winner. 

So the hope that they will win every game is at least anchored in some reality, even if the chances of it actually happening are somewhere around, say, 5 percent. Not bad considering where the program was just two years ago when Pelini came to town.

And that is why the Huskers are officially “back.” This is what we have been waiting for.

Again, I’m not suggesting that an undefeated season in 2010 is a reasonable expectation. It’s not. But once again, at last, it’s OK to hope for it.

This article originally appeared on: Better Off Red

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