Glen Mason had nine opportunities and couldn’t do it. Don Fambrough had eight chances, and Fam, too, shot blanks.

Terry Allen had five cracks, Bud Moore four, Mike Gottfried three and Bob Valesente two. They all struck out.

Mark Mangino is sitting on three and counting.

That’s seven Kansas University football coaches and zero victories over Nebraska. Only Notre Dame’s 41 straight victories over Navy keep NU’s 36 consecutive victories over Kansas from being an NCAA record.

I didn’t cover every one of those three dozen games, but I reported on all but a couple of them. I saw the Huskers squeeze out a 10-9 triumph in 1973. I witnessed the excruciating 21-20 NU victory in 1991 at Memorial Stadium. And I was in the KU press box when NU rallied for a 24-17 triumph in 1999.

On the flip side, I was on hand in 1986 when the Huskers flogged the Jayhawks, 70-0 – the only time a KU foe ever has tied Interstate 70. And I was there for a pair of 56-0 hammerings (1972, 74), a 55-0 pasting (1971), a 54-0 slaughter (1980) and a 52-0 whitewash (1982).

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn from time to time, so you would figure the goddess of good fortune would have smiled on the Jayhawks at least once over the last 31â2 decades.

Instead, Kansas has been, as Dan Jenkins would say, a dogged victim of inexorable fate.

Pepper Rodgers was the last KU football coach to defeat Nebraska. The 1968 Jayhawks won, 23-13, in Lincoln, Neb.

Yep, I was there, too, but I don’t really remember that much about it, other than that NU coach Bob Devaney conceded a safety late with the Huskers backed up to their goal line.

Rodgers was asked about the safety and replied: “I knew Devaney was courageous, but I didn’t think he was that courageous.”

However, a writer who was covering the game for the Wichita Eagle misunderstood Rodgers in the noisy locker room and penned: “I knew Devaney was crazy, but I didn’t think he was that crazy.”

The Eagle ran a correction the next day.

That was only the second KU game I covered after being named sports editor of the Journal-World, and I can recall how strange it felt to be returning to where I had spent 21â2 years as a sports writer and sports copy editor for the now-defunct Lincoln, Neb., Journal.

In fact, I was in charge of putting out the paper’s Sunday sports section on an October night the year before, when Kansas pulled arguably the biggest shocker in the long history of the series.

Going in with an 0-3 record that included a stunning home loss to Ohio University the week before, the ’67 Jayhawks were heavy underdogs that Saturday in Memorial Stadium. Yet KU won, 10-0.

So prior to the start of this unfathomable 36-game skid, the Jayhawks actually had won two in a row – one in Lawrence and one in Lincoln. Looking at Saturday’s next meeting from another angle, Kansas will be attempting to knock off the Huskers in Lawrence for the first time in 38 years.

At the same time, looking at the Kansas-Nebraska series from my standpoint, the Jayhawks went 1-36 while I was Journal-World sports editor.

And you thought the Houston Astros’ batting average during the World Series was miserable.