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Local college football fans obsessing over this year's game of the century - Ohio State vs. Wisconsin at Camp Randall on Saturday - may be interested to know there is one group of fans in Madison that already is obsessing over next year's game of the century.
"We should have a ticker counting it down on our website," Stewart Price said this week.
It would be counting down to Oct. 1, 2011, when the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers come to Camp Randall to play the Badgers in what will be Nebraska's first football game as a member of the Big Ten Conference.
Price, 49, a product line manager with Dean Health Plan, is president of the Mad City Huskers, a University of Nebraska athletics booster club based in Madison.
"If you cut my veins," Price said, "corn syrup will come out."
The club formed four years ago when Price moved to Madison from Louisville, Ky., where he also was president of the local Husker club.
But it was the announcement earlier this year that Nebraska will the Big Ten - effective July 1, 2011 - and that the Cornhuskers' first conference game will be at Camp Randall, that sent the Mad City Huskers into a tizzy.
"Everyone's excited," Price said.
I first heard about the club in September 2007, when I received, at home, a letter that began:
"Dear Fellow Husker fan: Are you one of the zillions of Nebraska Cornhusker followers across the country? Do you wish you could be at all the games in Lincoln on football Saturday? Would you like to watch the NU games with other Husker fans right here in Madison?"
I thought it a little strange, since I have never been a Nebraska fan, and in fact have been a Badger football fan long enough to have suffered through two Dark Ages, one in the 1960s (under John Coatta) and one in the 1980s (Don Morton).
When I examined the letter, it turned out it was addressed to my mother, who did attend the University of Nebraska. Still, by 2007 she was dead seven years, and didn't really care for football anyway.
I briefly thought about joining, because while I have never been a Nebraska fan, I am a connoisseur of unusual athletic nicknames and love the fact that from 1890 to 1900 Nebraska was not known as the Cornhuskers. They were the University of Nebraska Bugeaters.
I think the Nebraska Bugeaters is second only to the University of California-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.
There is even throwback Bugeater gear that is popular among Nebraska fans.
"I have a Bugeater hat," Price said.
Price grew up in Omaha, Neb., and graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1985. He said there are more than 60 chapters of Husker Nation around the country.
When Price landed here in 2006, he said one of the first things he did was scope out sports bars to see if there were any pockets of Cornhusker fans waiting to be organized.
He heard there were some at Babe's on Schroeder Road, but had the most luck at the Sports Pub on Bartillion Drive. The club - a dozen or so people that first year - started meeting there on game days to watch the Cornhuskers on satellite. Now the number can be as many as 100. Price said there are some 350 Nebraska alumni within 50 miles of Madison. He's expecting a good turnout at the Sports Pub for Saturday's big game against Texas.
Of course, it will pale against the hysteria sure to be present a year from now when it's Nebraska and Wisconsin at Camp Randall.
"Can you imagine the amount of red that's going to be in that stadium?" Price said.
His club will help with a pre-game Husker Huddle, which he said could draw as many as 2,000 Nebraska fans.
Asked for an early prediction on the score, Price grinned. "Nebraska 27, Wisconsin 24."He reached into his pocket and handed over a red "N" decal."A sticker for your bumper," he said. "It detaches easily. In case you feel the need to tear it off."
Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com
