LINCOLN, Neb. — Bring up Deion Sanders, and Rodney Lousberg can spot a jealous Nebraska fan from the Middle of Nowhere.
“Every (Cornhuskers fan) goes, ‘He’s egotistical,'” Lousberg said of the Buffs’ second-year football coach before CU kicked off against rival Nebraska on Saturday night at Memorial Stadium. “I’m like, ‘Yeah. We knew that when we hired him.’
“That’s what their thing is. I think everybody wants to beat Deion Sanders. They want him so bad. I think that’s what made ’em mad the most is, we’re actually in the prime-time (slots) even though we’re not that good.”
Lousberg is a rare breed — a CU fan in the middle of Big Red Country. Well, more on the fringes of Big Red Country, technically.
The Buffs’ season-ticket holder is also the owner of the Middle of Nowhere Bar & Grill in Venango, Neb., serving burgers and beers to Bugeaters a mile from the Colorado-Nebraska state line, three hours east of Folsom Field and four-and-a-half hours west of Lincoln.
“CU and Nebraska have both been irrelevant for the last decade,” Lousberg laughed. “(The Big Red) are just mad because they’re living in the ’80s and ’90s.
“Now (Huskers fans) are all hoping (Sanders) leaves after his kids (are done at CU). But that ain’t going to happen. I don’t think he wants to coach the pros. He can’t develop pro players, because they’re overpaid crybabies.”
Behind enemy lines, Lousberg’s discovered from his patrons and neighbors that what gets under the skin of Nebraska fans when you mention Coach Prime is how national voices, big voices, can’t stop talking about him — and therefore, can’t stop talking about the Buffs. Win or lose.
“I think it depends on which Nebraskans you talk to,” former CU fullback and Omaha native Jake Behrens told me before the game. “I think there’s some that are jealous and wish (Nebraska) had him.
“It’s mixed. Very, very much mixed. Some jealous things. They wish they had him but still like him. I have friends who love Deion because he was big when we were in our younger years. When we were 7, 8 years old, I think we all imitated Deion playing backyard football … there’s also some jealousy. But that’s to be expected.”
Boulder and Lincoln still go together like quinoa on a Runza. But when it comes to football, they’re all chasing the same pie.
Big Red locals admit that the Huskers want badly what CU got just from hiring Sanders, and snatched without having to win a ton of games first: Relevance. A seat at the big kids’ table at ESPN and Fox. Nebraska fans don’t care if you love or hate Big Red football. They just miss people having to talk about it, to care about it.
“I think (Coach Prime) has done an amazing job bringing attention to this program,” Jamie Schnegelberger, who grew up around Boulder and now lives in Ogallala, Neb., told me recently. “The buzz walking into Folsom (Field) against Nebraska last season was something that you can’t really describe.”
Know what else she can’t describe? The language a Big Red fan threw her direction at a gas station once for having the audacity to wear a CU sweatshirt while filling up her tank.
“The majority (of it) is light-hearted though,” said Schnegelberger, who also sports a proud pair of bison tattoos on her arm.
“They usually tell me that they thought I was ‘smart enough to know better,’ or give me a hard time about how I ‘must have lost a dare,’ but I’m pretty quick on my feet and can usually come up with a response to catch them off-guard.”
Behrens, who played fullback at CU from 2006-09 after he redshirted in ’05, has a response, too: 5,034. As in, before Saturday night, that’s how many days had passed since Nov. 26, 2010 — the last time Nebraska had beaten the Buffs in football.
“That gets them quiet pretty quickly,” chuckled Behrens, who now calls Parker home. “I feel like, one way or another, there’s a good-natured dislike toward each other. … I think it’s fun and friendly to be a part of it. As a fan, I have a little more at stake because I have a good group of friends from Nebraska that I have enjoyed talking smack to for the past 14 years.”
Lousberg said most of his far-west Husker pals have been quieter than usual, given the Buffs’ three-game win streak heading into Saturday’s tussle. After all, they’ve been burned before.
“62-36,” Lousberg beamed, recalling the 2001 CU win that both sides, in retrospect, consider to be the beginning of the end of the Big Red’s national football profile. “I was living in Sutherland, Neb., at the time, and (Husker fans were saying), ‘Oh, yeah, we’re going to kick your (butt).’ I’m like, ‘Oh no, you’re not.’ I made some money on that one.”
When you’re running a CU-friendly bar on the Nebraska side of the border, the autumn weekends are rarely boring. Even if you’re stuck slinging chicken-fried steak to Huskers in the Middle of Nowhere.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut until after the game,” Lousberg chuckled. “If after the game we win, all Hell breaks loose — I’ll give ’em Hell. I don’t like to crow too much.”
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