On Saturday night, Colorado and Nebraska will face off in a game that should offer an early and important glimpse at what both programs might be able to accomplish during the 2024 college football season.
The Buffs aren’t surrounded by quite as much fascination as they were during Deion Sanders’ debut season as coach in 2023, particularly after limping to a 4-8 finish last season, but they’re vey likely better than they were last season, with stars like Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter one year older and with what appeared to be an improved defensive front in their season-opening win against North Dakota State.
The Cornhuskers are in their second season under coach Matt Rhule, a fact that could be predictive of better days ahead. In each of Rhule’s first two FBS head coaching jobs, his teams improved considerably from his first year to his second, with Temple going from 2-10 to 6-6 and Baylor jumping from 1-11 to 7-6. After going 5-7 last season, Nebraska has hopes for more in 2024, particularly with five-star freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola now under center.
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Of course, the importance of Saturday’s game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska goes far beyond what it might mean for the rest of a single season.
Colorado and Nebraska’s football programs are inextricably linked by a rivalry that has tied the programs together since their days in the Big Eight Conference. In the late 1980s and for much of the 1990s, they were both consistent presences in the top 10 of the major polls and met in high-profile games in which the winner would get a crucial leg up in conference and national title races. From 1988-97, either the Buffs or Huskers won their conference championship in all but one year. During that stretch, the two programs combined for four national titles.
Though they don’t play as frequently now, Saturday’s meeting should serve as a reminder of the passion – and, yes, acrimony – that still exists between the two sides.
Here’s what you need to know about the Colorado-Nebraska football rivalry:
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How did Colorado and Nebraska become rivals?
When Bill McCartney arrived at Colorado ahead of the 1982 season, he inherited a program mired in something even worse than mediocrity.
After making seven bowls in a 10-season stretch from 1967-76 — a run that included a 10-2 record in 1971 and an Orange Bowl appearance in 1976 — the Buffs plummeted under coach Chuck Fairbanks, going 7-26 in his ill-fated three-year tenure from 1979-81.
Among the potential areas for growth that McCartney quickly identified was a relatively simple one — Colorado didn’t have a marquee rival.
McCartney was a Michigan native who came to Boulder after seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Wolverines. Michigan, of course, had (and still has) a fierce and longstanding rivalry with Ohio State that gives both programs a bar against which to measure themselves and their fans a vessel to channel their passion for their school.
It only took so long for a rival to emerge for the Buffs.
Nebraska was one of the Big Eight’s dominant forces at the time, with five conference championships between 1978-84. It shared a border with Colorado, giving the potential rivalry some much-needed regional flair. The two had some history, as well, with 40 all-time meetings dating back to 1898. In fact, Nebraska was the first program from outside Colorado that the Buffs ever played.
During a post-practice media session in August 1982, McCartney publicly declared Nebraska as Colorado’s rival and wrote the Huskers’ name in red letters on the Buffs’ schedule.
What appeared sensible to McCartney was viewed more skeptically by others. Before McCartney’s first season in 1982, Nebraska had won each of its previous 14 meetings against Colorado. Those victories weren’t particularly close, either, with the Huskers winning by an average of 25.4 points per game.
“When I got up and said that at a press conference, it drew laughs,” McCartney said in “The Gospel According to Mac,” a 2015 ESPN documentary on McCartney and his time at Colorado. “It drew scoffs.”
“Usually, rivalries have to do with longstanding competitiveness and we didn’t pay much attention to it,” Nebraska coach Tom Osborne said in the ESPN documentary.
Eventually, McCartney’s idea didn’t seem so far-fetched. After losing McCartney’s first two games against the Huskers by a combined 76 points, Colorado fell by 17 in 1984 and 10 in 1985 before a breakthrough 20-10 victory in 1986 against then-No. 3 Nebraska in Boulder, snapping an 18-game losing streak to the Huskers.
“This is a moment in our program we’ll always cherish,” McCartney said after the game. “It indicates we can beat a great team. And up to this point, I don’t think we had beaten a great team.”
From there, the teams split their next four meetings from 1987-90 before tying in 1991. With that, what had been a lopsided series officially rose to the level of a rivalry.
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Why Colorado and Nebraska stopped playing
Part of the allure of the Colorado-Nebraska rivalry was its reliability, with the two programs facing off every season from 1948-2010.
After the Huskers’ 45-17 win in 2010, however, that run came to an end, with the Buffs not playing Nebraska again for eight years.
The interruption came after a chaotic three-day stretch in June 2010, when Colorado and Nebraska announced they were leaving the Big 12 for the then-Pac-10 and Big Ten, respectively. Without being in the same conference and having that built-in matchup, the Buffs and Huskers began to meet far less frequently.
In 2013, the programs agreed to a four-game series, with matchups in Boulder in 2019 and 2023 and Lincoln in 2018 and 2024. Beyond Saturday, though, they have no more meetings on the books.
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How many times have Colorado and Nebraska played?
Colorado and Nebraska have played 72 times in a series that dates back to 1898.
Who leads the Colorado-Nebraska series?
Nebraska leads the all-time series against Colorado, with a 49-21-2 record against its bitter rival.
The Buffs have had the upper hand recently, though, winning all three games against the Huskers since they left the Big 12, including a 36-14 triumph last season.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado-Nebraska football rivalry: All-time games, series record and history
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