Opinion: Nebraska vs. SDSU; times have changed

Talk about it

Had you offered me 30 points and the Jackrabbits against Nebraska before last Saturday’s kickoff in Lincoln, I probably would have turned you down.

I’m a loyal SDSU guy, sure enough, but I’m also old enough to have been in college with some of the fellows who played for State the last time the Jacks and the Cornhuskers collided.

I didn’t remember the final score of the 1963 game, but I knew my team was on the low end of the score by more than 50 points. I learned from the pre-game stories last week that the actual score in 1963 was 58-7. And, I gather there were plenty of people who thought the more recent meeting would turn out the same way.

It didn’t follow conventional thinking, not by quite a ways. The final score was 17-3, and the Jacks actually crossed their opponents’ goal line a couple of times, although the plays were called back. As a graduate of the school, I appreciated the tough game the Jacks played. As a guy who roots for underdogs who refuse to whine, I also liked it that in the post-game interviews, the players didn’t talk about a moral victory. They wanted to actually win.

Back in 1963, I was a sophomore at South Dakota State. I’d transferred from Creighton University in Omaha after one year, realizing that State’s journalism program was at least as good as the one at Creighton and the resident tuition more than made up for a modest scholarship I’d received at the Omaha school.

While I was at Creighton, I hung around with some Nebraska kids, so on Saturdays, I’d listen to the Cornhusker games with those guys. It was right at the start of that whole “Big Red” thing. The guys I knew were fired up but not as fanatical about it as Cornhusker fans would become just a couple of years later. About the only thing I recall about Nebraska’s team that year is that it had a fullback named Bill “Thunder” Thorton. I think it might have been Bob Devaney’s first year as coach. Little did I figure those guys would be playing South Dakota State the next year, or that I’d be in Brookings, not Omaha.

The Nebraska game in 1963 was the only loss the Jacks suffered in what I believe was a 9-1 season. They beat the University of North Dakota by a point, if I remember correctly, and they beat the Bison from North Dakota State, in a relatively highscoring affair for those times. Everyone on campus knew our guys could compete with those teams. Nebraska was something else, and the game produced some injuries, some memories and a few funny stories.

In a psychology class, I sat next to a guy who played the line for South Dakota State The first class after the game, he told me when the two teams lined up for the first play from scrimmage, the Cornhusker across the line looked him in the eyes and said, “I think I can move my guy.”

Another player said Nebraska’s Bob Brown shook his hand after the game and said, “Nice game, little man. You go on back and win your conference now.”

In those days, teams from the North Central Conference were good, but they weren’t considered competitive with the big folks. The margin still exists, but less than when I was in school. Back then, if the basketball team could stay close to Minnesota or Kansas State, fans were content, even if the players weren’t. Now, the University of South Dakota beats Minnesota, North Dakota State beats Kansas and the Jacks are disappointed at a two-touchdown loss to a nationally ranked powerhouse playing on its own field at homecoming.

When I was in school, a game crowd of 5,000 or so would have been decent. Now, that many fans travel to Lincoln. Good thing, too. Without them last Saturday, the crowd in Lincoln barely would have topped 80,000.

Terry Woster’s column is published Wednesdays and Saturdays in The Daily Republic.

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