There is gonna be one really happy fan base by the time the clock turns to Midnight tonight.
Either the Boys from the Prairie State are gonna take a major step and make a statement win in a hyper-charged and enthusiastic opposition stadium. Or the Boys from Cornland will make that same step upward with another win this season to continue their major turnaround season of their beloved football program.
Nebraska used to be on National TV all the time. They were football elite and demanded National attention for decades. They have been largely absent for many years from Prime Time and for them tonight this is a most welcome return to prominence.
The Illini have not had a great deal of National attention for a long period as well. But that too is changing with the Illini now ranked and getting more people to pay attention to how the Illini program is also resurrecting.
With the new Big Ten as a Conference today... both the Illini and Nebraska will now be regular and prominent National TV programing from now on with the new Network contracts. Times may never be better than the coming years for the Illini, the Huskers, and all the rest of the now fortified and truly Coast-to-Coast Big Ten.
That move to the Big Ten by the Huskers years ago is really starting to look genius. The Big Ten until now has not seen a strong Husker program since they joined the Big Ten. They have suffered some really bad losses on National TV (particularly against Wisconsin). But that’s now all changed as both the Illini and Huskers are going to be TV Royalty and drawing lots of great National recruits as a result.