An offseason of acrimony caused by Nebraska’s imminent departure for the Big Ten has apparently bled over to the end of the regular season.
In most years, a Cornhuskers’ win like today’s that secured a Big 12 North title would have been followed by the school being presented a trophy by someone from the conference, most likely commissioner Dan Beebe. This isn’t most years, of course, and the regular season has ended with the conference allowing its pettiness to show, cloaking their indignation over the future move in a sea of alleged threats and safety issues.
According to the Lincoln Journal Star, there were no representatives from the Big 12 in attendance at Memorial Stadium to make a postgame trophy presentation. The reasoning behind the snub? The “hooligans” in Lincoln had been peppering the conference with threatening emails in the week leading up to what turned out to be a division-clinching win over Colorado.
“They didn’t think it would be safe to send somebody up,” Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said. “That’s the word I got. ... You can call Beebe and ask him [why].”
Given this diss of Nebraska by their soon-to-be former conference, it would make the trophy presentation following the Big 12 title game a helluva lot more interesting and intriguing if the Cornhuskers were to win it.
Provided the conference doesn’t just ship the hardware FedEx. Or simply drop it from a crop duster somewhere in the air space above Lincoln.