3 Quarters Today

If you live in Nebraska, the Midwest, or are a fan of college football you may of heard how passionate Husker fans are about their football, the players and their coaches. One person in particular strikes a solemn awe in Nebraskans, and that would be Tom Osborne. However, this is NOT your typical football blog post.

Memorial Stadium, Lincoln NE

My husband is just a little bit passionate about “his” team, me I like college football, but I grew up in Connecticut and went to Oklahoma State during the Barry Sanders years. (It was awesome!) So I’m not a dyed in the wool Nebraska fan. I do enjoy it though, for many reasons. First off, I like watching my husband enjoy a game. It’s like he’s back in college again.

Last Saturday I was lucky (and thankful) that a friend from church offered to sell me their football tickets. In fact the conversation went a little bit like this.

“Hi Dawn, I heard you might be interested in our Husker tickets this weekend?”

“Sure Betsy, Randy was going to be up in a tree stand deer hunting..” I look back at Randy in the kitchen, “..but judging on the look on his face I think he’d rather go to the game. It will be an early birthday present.” (I’ve been told I can’t say how old he’s turning, anyone want to guess?

Waiting for the Husker Tunnel Walk, think he’s excited?

We got to the game early, it’s been said that only Nebraska fans show up in the stadium and hour early so they can watch warm ups. Well, we were there at least an hour ahead of time. That’s ok, I had my camera to play with and there was plenty of photo ops. The atmosphere in Lincoln Nebraska is like no other experience. Fans start tailgating at 9 am for a 2 pm game. Nebraska fans are also know for their hospitality towards visiting teams.

Today we played Minnesota, and for one of the few times this season we were pretty much assured a win. By how much would be the question. (Gotta keep reading to see by how much)

University of Minnesota visits the Huskers in Lincoln Nebraska

Saturdays attendance topped out at 85,330 and the Huskers still lead the NCAA record for number of sell outs for a college football team. An added bonus is getting to watch our local Elmwood-Murdock graduate play for the Huskers. Sam Burtch (below) is officially a freshman coming out of his red shirt year and graduated with my son David. Sam has won Scout team MVP several times and has seen playing time during many games.

Sam Burtch, red shirt Husker freshman

The game also represented  Tom Osbornes 500th official game and tribute ran from the pregame, to halftime and post game. Many people shed a tear, including my husband. The stadium reverberates with excitement and it’s something only to be experienced.

Tom Osborne and Coach Polini do the tunnel walk together (can you spot them?)

Below are just a few of the (cough, cough) many photos I took that day. I used a 4 Gig card just to let you in on a secret, but I was shooting in RAW.  Let’s say I have enough for many posts to get us through Bowl season. My Canon Rebel XS 70-300 lens got a workout and during the course of the day and afternoon I went from a 100 ISO to a 1600 ISO. My manual skills are getting better and I can blindly set my settings when I meter. I did all my post work in Lightroom 4 and processed all (cough cough) images in just an hour and a half. Some special effects took longer, but by that time I was playing.

BUT, back to the game. Taylor Martinez completed 21-of-29 passes for 308 yards on the day, his third 300-yard passing day on the season and the fourth of his career. His favorite target was Bell, as the sophomore wide receiver hauled in a career-high nine catches for a career-high 137 yards with two touchdowns.

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Greatest Fans in College Football

By the way Nebraska won 38-14, in case you were wondering.

Nebraska notched its fifth consecutive victory to improve to 9-2 overall and 6-1 in the Big Ten. The Huskers registered their fifth straight nine-win season under Head Coach Bo Pelini and moved a win away from clinching the Big Ten Legends Division title. NU closes its regular season at Iowa in the Heroes Game on Friday, Nov. 23 at 11 a.m. That game will be televised nationally by ABC.

Related articles

• Nebraska Husker Apparel and Gifts (Amazon)
• Osborne leads Huskers out of tunnel before kickoff (sfgate.com)
• Shatel: Jogging the memories across a state (omaha.com)
• Nebraska Legacy – Tom Osborne (astonesjourney.com)
• ‘Unbeatable’: The story of Tom Osborne’s final five years (omaha.com)
• Huskers WRs are ‘perimeter warriors’ (espn.go.com)

Tags: Bo Pelini, Elmwood-Murdock, football, Husker, Lincoln Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Photography, sports, Taylor Martinez, Tom Osborne