Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — We’re down to the last two months of Nebraska competing in the Big 12. And, yes, you’re really broken up about it.
If you’re a Husker baseball fan, you should be.
The end of the Big 12 for NU has been celebrated in most parts of the athletic department. There’s excitement and hope about success in the Big Ten.
Nebraska baseball may have a different take on it.
The Big 12 was not the boogeyman for Husker baseball. It was an elixir. No program at Nebraska embraced the move to the Big 12 like the men at Buck Beltzer and Haymarket Park. No coach used Texas and the powers of the South like Dave Van Horn to raise standards and championship banners up in the great white North.
From 1999 to 2005, Nebraska was arguably the premier baseball program in the Big 12. Texas won a national championship in 2002. But during that time, NU won four league tournament titles and three regular-season championships. It went to three College World Series and built a new ballpark that was the envy of much of the league.
One of my favorite moments in that era came during one of those Big 12 tourneys, after the Huskers had made quick work of Oklahoma State. Down near the indoor batting cages at Bricktown, Cowboys coach Tom Holliday complained about NU’s facilities and talked about how hard it would be to catch up to the Huskers.
In the old Big Eight, Oklahoma State used to scrape off its cleats on Nebraska. The Big 12 was different. The Big 12 marked the glory years for Nebraska baseball.
“It has been very good to us,’’ said NU coach Mike Anderson. “The Big 12 ended up helping us become a national power. Now, in the Big Ten, we’re going to have to work at that. We’re going to have to create some things for ourselves to get back on top.’’
When the Big 12 started, in 1996, and John Sanders was still coaching NU, the prognosis was not good. Most experts, including locals, thought adding the Texas schools to the mix would bury the Huskers’ underachieving Big Eight program.
Credit Van Horn for preventing that. When he arrived in 1998, Van Horn embraced the Texas challenge. But this Longhorn obsession worked out well for NU. Van Horn’s Huskers beat UT, Baylor and Texas A&M on a regular basis. They used the South to pull themselves up.
“We started gearing up for those teams,’’ said Anderson, a Sanders assistant who was kept by Van Horn. “We’d be all geared up as coaches, too. We were playing Texas, Texas A&M in Lincoln, Nebraska. That was pretty big stuff.
“But after a couple of years, we had to make some adjustments because we’d get up for the teams in the South and all of a sudden, Kansas and Kansas State would get us. Once we started taking care of those guys, we got rolling. We always went to Oklahoma City thinking we could win.’’
Those days are long gone, which is one reason this last swing through the Big 12 is a melancholy journey for the Huskers.
Nebraska is a shell of the program that used to dominate this conference. The Huskers went 8-19 in the league in 2009 and 10-17 in 2010. They are 1-4 so far in 2011, and with Saturday’s 10-0 loss to Oklahoma State, they’ve dropped their first two Big 12 series. They have missed the last two Big 12 tournaments. Anderson says Nebraska “needs’’ to get back to Oklahoma City this year, and part of that has to do with pride.
Part of that might be about keeping his job, but that’s another story for another day.
Finally, you don’t want to limp into the scary unknown that is Big Ten baseball.
While the Big 12 was filled with CWS regulars, the Big Ten looks like revenge of the nerds. If playing Texas or Oklahoma or Texas A&M could get the Huskers up, who’s going to light Nebraska’s fire in the Big Ten? Michigan? Indiana? Ohio State?
The Big Ten typically sends one team to the NCAA regionals. The Big Ten plays its league tourney in Columbus, Ohio, before sparse crowds (though Omaha could bid for that tourney — and should get it). The Big Ten has rules that don’t compute with most college baseball people, including one that doesn’t allow you to replace a scholarship for any player who leaves for pro ball before his senior year.
That discourages a coach from going after a player talented enough to go pro before his senior year. You know, the kind of players who take you to the CWS.
Big Ten baseball is the stone ages, and it’s going to be all Anderson and NU can do to not get dragged into a time warp. Anderson has plans to ramp up his nonconference scheduling with big-time schools to give the Huskers some chance at a respectable RPI before the Big Ten throws a wet blanket over it.
Anderson said some Big Ten coaches have already urged him to speak out to the league and preach changes that would enable the league to grow. It’s an interesting irony, since some Husker fans wonder if Anderson has forgotten how to get to the NCAA regionals.
Nebraska likely will be favored to win the Big Ten. It might have to, if it wants a chance at postseason play — and to keep Nebraska fans interested. No wonder Anderson said the words that have come from few Husker coaches.
“I’ll miss (the Big 12), but I’m excited about what’s ahead,’’ Anderson said. “I’m excited that Big Ten coaches want to grow their sport. We’ll need to improve our scheduling as a league. I don’t think it will drag us down.’’
That’s for later. Now, Nebraska wants to save face in a league it used to dominate. Maybe the Big 12 can pull up the Huskers one last time.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com
twitter.com/tomshatelOWH
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
