This season marks the 50th anniversary of the first of five national championships for the Nebraska football program. Led by Bob Devaney, the Huskers defeated LSU in the Orange Bowl to cap an 11-0-1 season. Beginning this week, the Journal Star will look back the 1970 Huskers, telling untold stories, catching up with former players and more.
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Jerry Murtaugh has told the story dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. Many Nebraska football fans, especially those of a certain vintage, know it by heart.
Yes, Murtaugh guaranteed before the 1970 season started that the Huskers would win the national championship.
The Nebraska linebacker was never afraid to say what was on his mind, whether it was during his days as a hard-nosed leader of the Husker defense or now, 50 years after his college career ended.
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"Too bad (Bob) Devaney isn't around," Murtaugh said with a chuckle recently. "He'd still be screaming."
It’s been 50 years since Nebraska won its first national title, going 11-0-1, getting a little help at the end, and then beating LSU in the Orange Bowl to seal the deal.
That team, coached by Devaney, featured some of the program’s all-time greats: Murtaugh, Jeff Kinney, Jerry Tagge, Johnny Rodgers, and a host of others.
The Huskers had many good teams before 1970, and several great teams after.
But that group was the first to punch through.
Over the next few months, the Journal Star will take a look back at that season through the eyes of the players who experienced it, following the same schedule NU did during the historic run.
Nebraska opened the 1970 campaign on Sept. 12, defeating Wake Forest 36-12. Our series starts today, focusing on Murtaugh's bold statement as the Huskers were going through two-a-days.
"All I know is, when we came off that 9-2 year (in 1969), we had some good players coming back on that offense, and defense. And then spring ball, before fall, I noticed these young players getting after it, like (Joe) Blahak, (Bill) Kosch, Willie Harper, (John) Spider Adkins, Jake (Larry Jacobson)," said Murtaugh, who was a senior captain on the 1970 team.
"Within that 30-day period I go, 'Holy crap, we have something here.'"
When the following fall rolled around, the then-annual Big Eight Conference Skywriters tour dropped into Lincoln to meet with the coaching staff, watch practice, and interview players.
According to a report from the Sept. 1, 1970, edition of the Lincoln Journal, "35 newspaper writers and radio and TV sportscasters from throughout the Midlands†were in Lincoln to meet the Huskers.
And in front of those reporters, Murtaugh, who always seemed to be able to find a way into Devaney's doghouse, made a prediction.
"A bunch of reporters around, and they just ask me, bluntly: How do you think you're going to do?" Murtaugh said. "And I just told them — I said, we're going to win it all. Nobody's going to beat us."
Up to that point, of course, the Huskers had never been national champions. There had been very good teams — just the previous season NU went 9-2 and blasted Georgia 45-6 in the Sun Bowl.
"The first two games (of 1969), we hadn't found ourselves yet, really. But then it started, middle of the season, coming along," Murtaugh said.Â
Nebraska won seven straight games to close 1969, ending things with a 44-14 beat-down of Oklahoma and Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens before drubbing Georgia.
"We slapped the crap out of Steve Owens and Oklahoma, and you could just feel it," Murtaugh said.
But that success had come after back-to-back 6-4 seasons. NU had just three starters coming back on defense in 1970. There was some uncertainty at the quarterback position — Jerry Tagge and Van Brownson would split time through the first half of the season.
But a little more than a year after New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath famously predicted his team would beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, Murtaugh had his own moment.
"Jeff Kinney comes running over, grabbed me, pulled me out of there. And Devaney said, 'Shut your frickin' mouth,'" Murtaugh said. "And I'm like, ah, gee, and then Devaney had a talk with me and he says, 'You know what you just did? You put an X on our backs.'
"And I said, 'Sorry, coach, I told the truth.'"
Murtaugh was a co-captain on that team along with fullback Dan Schneiss. He could back up his talk, too. He finished the season with 142 tackles, including 80 solo stops.
It wasn't the only prediction Murtaugh made that fall. He also claimed that Kansas State quarterback Lynn Dickey could be rattled, and that the Huskers had done just that the previous season, in a 10-7 win against the Wildcats.
“We put a rush on Dickey, and he kinda got shook back there. He was back there scrambling, and it threw him off,†Murtaugh said to the group of writers.
That November, Nebraska intercepted Dickey a school-record seven times on the way to a 51-13 win.
So it turns out Murtaugh knew what he was talking about.
"For some reason I just saw it coming. I really did" Murtaugh said. "Everybody was coming together and gelling on both sides of the ball. ... So I just saw it coming."