1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Biggest Nebraska Sport Villains : July 8th, 11:25am

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

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You're listening to One-on-One with D.P. Sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome back. We're talking sports villains. And a couple of things, right, that, one, it has to be somebody of importance. Somebody that has caused you personal pain, right, to be a top villain. talented in opposition with or at some level a rivalry too. But growing up for me, Roger Stalbach was public enemy number one in D.C.

For a stretch. Like there was a full stretch where it was, I don't think D.C. was bothered by Danny White nearly as much because he was way too giving. He was generous thoughts. He gave Redskinned fans so many moments of joy. There were so many times when Danny White would just make a play, and Redskins fans would just throw them their hands in air. Like, thank you so much. Even Troy Aikman, although Troy Aikman got his single win of an entire season against Washington.

So he had a run as villain. So for Nebraska sports villains, and it doesn't have to just be football, doesn't have to be football. It could be, you know, is there somebody that hit a game-winning shot that killed a Huskers opportunity to advance in a tournament or somebody that broke the Huskers heart in recruiting and then came back and beat him in a game? Is there, how does that play out? So, but who comes to mind if we say biggest Nebraska sports villain? Who comes to mind for you? That's interesting.

I think, you know, it kind of obviously. depends on your era. I think, you know, obviously, Barry Switzer, it's like, but he has such a professional friendship with Tom Osborne that it kind of took away from it, but they beat, they beat Tom Osborne a lot through that the 70s. So, you know, I think that that would probably be one that you would go with. You know, I think it's more of like a team thing for Nebraska than, than, you know, individuals, certainly the boss, you know, he kind of checks out a lot of the, the arrogant type of stuff that might, my, might, distract you might frustrate you.

But then I think of some other sports, I think of like Grant Gibbs at Cretton. He kind of got into a couple scuffles with Nebraska basketball at the time. But I think Nebraska is kind of turned inward a little bit. Steve Peterson, Bill Callahan, our own guys, Sam Keller. Those are probably more Husker villains than anything.

I saw a shirt that when I saw it, it was about another team. And I immediately thought of Nebraska. But it had a two, Grutei, and then the logo of a program. And there are people who have done more damage to Nebraska who were Huskers, who were Huskers. Some names just roll off the list. They're like, just roll off the top, right?

Immediately to the list. Yeah. That, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I so let's have that discussion. What former Huskers and, you know, former Husker being relative, once a Husker, always a Husker. What Huskers are the biggest sports villains?

You mentioned Steve Peterson. Where would you rank? Is he number one? Is it Einhorst? Is it, who is it for you? Yeah, I think Steve Peterson is probably number one for a lot of people. You know, obviously, again, going along with Bill Callahan, but the search wasn't great.

You know, and just Nebraska's never recovered from, never recovered fully from that, from that transition. So I think that that's going to be up there. Like you said, IICOR certainly could be up there. You know, and I think there's some other names. You can go outside, you know, now that I'm kind of going through some different names, like Chase Daniel for Missouri was a pretty hated player. So there's some, there's some across the lines type of villains too. But like I said, I think Nebraska is mostly understood that after. after 25 years of this, that it might be a little bit of a Nebraska problem than, you know, pointing around.

Now, the other one that I would say... I think you just hit the home run of all home runs. That Nebraska's problems have always been Nebraska. Like, Nebraska has everything. When you have everything, the only... The call is coming from inside the house. Seems to be the thing, right? that if we said there are, oh, Nolan, Nolan went straight for the money, straight for the money

shot on the Texan. He goes, would you consider Frost as a villain? I don't know, Texalide. Do you consider, Bach? I'm a little softer on Frost than others. A lot of, and a lot of that due to his playing career. So I don't consider him a villain. I consider him a failed head coach, certainly at Nebraska. And, you know, a lot of different things. that could have been done differently to make that better. But I mean, if I'm answering for me, it's a no if I'm answering for the Oscar fan base, it's probably more of a yes.

So let's say that at the corner of 11th and O, we put dunk tanks at the four corners right here. In one dunk tank, Scott Frost, and the next deck dunk tank, it's Peterson. Who's in tank number three? Probably Bill Callahan. Callahan and three. and then who's in the fourth dunk tank?

Probably Sean Ikeorth. Okay. Which dunk tank makes the most money? Which dunk tank makes the most money, Bach? Which, so you get one football or one basketball, and it is your vote. And you're doing this just for young, young Bach and current Bob. And you get one, you get, you can get, you can do it with a baseball if you want. You can do it with a volleyball.

but you get one. You get to dunk one. Bach, what dunk tank are you going to? I think I'll get in that big line for Steve Peterson. So you think that's going to be the one, the one? I think that's the one, yeah. Now, Harvey Pearlman also might have an argument to be included in there. Maybe he's just going to flip inside and out with this.

Well, Kupsker says, Treve Albert. Well, yeah, talk about a, that's, that's definitely one that you could probably put in the villain category. Well, but so Husker fans in the four corners, let's just say, Frost, Albert, Peterson, whoever, there's some shots being taken to tread. Oh yeah.

Right? I mean, especially young people. Right? But is it Peterson or is it Bakke, you only get one. I know you would stand in the middle of the street. You would stand in the middle of the street for a while and just ponder it. Like you would want to look them in the eye, right? Like before you. And

You wouldn't, you would make them face you. Like, who do you want to see you dunk? Who do you want? Like, you want to look them in the eye. You're not even, you don't even be the ball. You're going to walk up and hit the lever yourself. Bach, who is it? I think it's still Steve Peterson.

I think he's the biggest villain in Nebraska. Tell me why. Tell me why. Tell me why. Well, you know, it was just the, the decision to fire Frank Soled. And a lot of it's just how it's aged, right? they went 10 and 3. He fired Franks,

they were 9 and 3 at the time, both plenty won the game after that. But they've, 10 and 3 is the best winning percentage they've had since then. They have not done better since. So when I say they haven't recovered, they really haven't, even through the Plainee years, the 10 and 4s, you know, that's not quite the winning percentage. You could argue which teams are better.

I get that. But it just, there's a big frustration with how he handled the search. Firing Frank is a whole thing. right? I mean, he would have kept Frank along, how different would things have looked, obviously. But then to go outside the Nebraska footprint, to go to Bill Callahan,

and then a few short laters, it was probably shown, hey, probably should have went with Bo Polini at the time. So it was, it's, it's just, a lot of things didn't go right. What did the people say when this was going down? What was the public demand? What was the call?

I think there, again, there was a heavy portion of Husker fans that that didn't want Frank fired. And then to go away from kind of the Nebraska community into, into Bill Callahan, and I can't pretend that there weren't, there wasn't excitement. Remember, they had the O5 recruiting class. It was kind of, okay, we're bringing in pro football to Nebraska. Maybe you can finally, you know, it was going away from the option.

So, okay, we can get a pro quarterback at Nebraska. Spoiler alert. They've had one quarterback drafted since leaving the option, which is Mr. Tanner Lee. Bro! So that didn't really work. But like how wrong out loud can you be? It's been bad.

It's been a rough, rough decision. We're going to get to these texts. So fire off your text because you guys are on fire with this thing. Bach, we're going to read some of these texts when we come back because there is a line full. If you were standing in the four way and those four huskers were in a dunk tank, whose tank would you go to first? And I think it says a lot to have people explain what Peterson did. But also to consider that there are folks who would still go to Frost or Trev as well.

And then we need to figure out who number four is. So we'll get to that when we come back.