• Video: Kansas State coach Bill Snyder speaks at Big 12 media days:
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DALLAS — There will be some left behind who won't miss the white helmets with the red “N." At least two programs in the Big 12 will.
Kansas State and Missouri are going to miss their good friend, Nebraska.
Nobody is going to feel the Big Red void more than these two.
Oh sure, Wildcats and Huskers have learned to hate each other — once K-State got NU's attention — the past two decades. Mizzou's and Nebraska's historic blood rivalry has been cranked up to the boil level in recent years.
But that's just it. Who are KSU and MU going to get up for now? Kansas?
It's not the same. Not even close.
Bill Snyder and Gary Pinkel orchestrated fall revivals in Manhattan, Kan., and Columbia, Mo. They did it by emulating the Nebraska machine built by Tom Osborne. They targeted the Huskers. They measured their success by beating the Big Red.
Who's going to keep their attention now? Texas?
It's not the same. Not even close.
Here's another way the purple pride and black and old gold will miss the scarlet and cream: in the Big 12 standings.
If Nebraska had stayed, the Big 12 would have added a 12th school and kept the league title game. The North Division and the title game were the lifeblood of K-State and Missouri the past decade. It gave them a chance, hope, something to play for.
Neither Snyder nor Pinkel would say it Tuesday, but a 10-team format with no title game means that KSU and MU will be playing for middle-of-the-pack status most years behind the richer and more powerful southern schools.
Starting in 2011, college football season in Kansas City will essentially be over by Oct. 15, when the basketballs start rolling out. Just like in the old Big Eight.
No wonder Snyder was here Tuesday selling a five-team division set-up with a title game, an idea that would require an NCAA rule change. Even the old, graying Wildcat wizard joked that nobody seemed to be listening.
His buddy Tom Osborne would have listened. But Tom will be leaving soon.
“Yes, Tom and I spoke about it," Snyder said. “I'll miss Nebraska. It's too bad. But that's the way it goes. Every school has to take care of itself."
But K-State and Missouri will miss Nebraska in a way that can only be described by Stan Weber, the former Wildcat quarterback and color analyst on the KSU radio network.
Weber's voice cracked slightly while talking about Nebraska leaving. He has no problem admitting what many in the purple pride could never say.
“It really tears at my heart," Weber said. “I know that Nebraska needs to move on, and we need to be big boys and say we're going to stay with the Big 12, but to not drive up to Lincoln and see a game there, it's really hard for me to comprehend that. I'm in shock."
Weber will always be one of my favorite people in the Big 12. He has the unusual perspective of having been sacked by Blackshirts, but also witnessing Snyder's amazing climb. He combines it with a big-picture window into Saturday's America that is too often hard to find.
For instance, it's the little things we'll miss the most. That hotel in Lincoln. The spot in Aggieville where you met your friends. The back road trips through farm country you've made a million times, but maybe never again.
The games. The people. The memories. The history.
The stories.
“It was 1983, Nebraska came to Manhattan," Weber said. “It was my first game to start at quarterback. It was a rainy day, and all the Nebraska fans pile in and fill up the end zones and corner sections, as you can imagine.
“We pull within eight, but we eventually lose. I rushed for 113 yards, at the time the most by a K-State quarterback against Nebraska. I threw three interceptions, big mistakes. I'm walking off the field, up to the locker room, through all of these folding chairs, which were there back then. All of these Nebraska fans are patting me on the back, almost giving me hugs, saying that is unbelievable, that is a great performance.
“I had my head down, saying, hey, we lost and I had three interceptions and so many mistakes. But they had a passion about them. Great game! I said to myself, ‘They didn't know what they were talking about.'
“Then, on Monday morning, I got a call from someone saying, ‘Congratulations, you got Big Eight player of the week.' That was the first time it hit me that I had played well. The Nebraska fans already knew it.”
Weber had this great smile as he told the story. Then he leaned over, as if to tell a secret.
“You know what? They're going to miss it, too."
Contact the writer:
444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com
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• Video: Missouri coach Gary Pinkel speaks at Big 12 media days:
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