“There’s No Hope. F*** Everything. Go Big Red.” – CornNation’s Jon Johnston Goes Viral

Earlier today, Iowa Twitter user “Hawkeyes Chronicles” downloaded a copy of CornNation managing editor Jon Johnston’s “Instant Postgame Reaction” to the Minnesota debacle from YouTube and has been sharing clips across Twitter…going viral.

Many people are incredulous that a Nebraska media member could say stuff like that.

Well, anybody who follows CornNation knows that’s just Jon Johnston, and he’s expressing the frustration that every Husker fan felt Saturday. Jon and I survived Bill Callahan and Mike Riley to make CornNation one of the leading Nebraska fan sites, and have been hoping that Scott Frost was going to be the guy to bring Nebraska back to national relevance.

And if you’ve been on any of our game threads, you know that’s just how Jon wears his passions. Since he lives in Minneapolis, this week was a great opportunity to get some photographs for CornNation that aren’t merely the licensed stuff we get from other media services. Except the Huskers pooped the bed up in Minneapolis this past weekend, so to speak. (Jon once called me the “Voice of Reason” here at CornNation, so I let him handle all of the NSFW swearing and objectionable language.)

Mitch Sherman of The Athletic went one step further and sought out Jon this afternoon for a little interview. And, you know what, Jon pretty much speaks for everybody who’s a fan of the Huskers.

Clearly, he’s a character. But Johnston speaks to Nebraska fans as they search for answers, wondering aloud Monday about Nebraska’s limited use of its offensive playmakers against the Gophers.

“Why did Samori Toure have one catch for 1 yard?” Johnston said. “Why did Omar Manning not get the ball fed to him repeatedly? You look at this team and go, ‘This is mind-boggling.’”

He’s not alone in his exasperation.

In the immediate disappointment of Nebraska’s loss, Jon joked about planning to “walk in front of a (bleeping) bus” in order to avoid taking another year of his son claiming scoreboard for another year. Clearly a joke, but for those who aren’t familiar with Jon, he’s not serious. (But if anybody else is letting Nebraska’s losing get the better of you, resources such as the National Suicide Prevention hotline are available at 800-273-TALK.)

But that’s just our Jon Johnston, a man who survived a “widowmaker” heart attack six years ago and lived to tell his story in his new book, “Been Dead, Never Been to Europe”, available now from Amazon. If he can survive that heart attack, he can survive anything… even a third straight Husker loss to those stinky Gophers from Minnesota.

And for other media outlets looking to talk to Jon, he’s available for interviews and even children’s birthday parties (but only in the state of Iowa).

So for those of you looking for “that guy” that swore a mighty blue-streak Saturday afternoon, welcome to CornNation!