Back to ’68

Yes, it has been a long time since Kansas University beat Nebraska in college football. Since 1968, the Huskers have beaten the Jayhawks every year.

Considering every player on the Kansas University football roster was born in the 1980s, picking any of their brains about 1968 is just as beneficial as asking them about their memories of the Middle Ages.

“So, Nick Reid,” the question was posed, “what do you think of when 1968 is brought up?”

Reid thought hard, looked down at his shoes, and came back up with his answer.

“Hippies,” he said.

One word, but better than what other players could think up. Heck, six of KU’s 11 coaches weren’t even alive on Oct. 12, 1968, the last day Kansas beat Nebraska in football.

“I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what was going on in the ’60s,” quarterback Jason Swanson said with a grin. “I’ll have to call my dad or something.”

Since that fall day in 1968, 36 Kansas-Nebraska games have come and gone, and the Huskers have won every one.

Other petty stuff has happened, too — such as man landing on the moon, a president resigning, the Berlin Wall crumbling and even the coming and going of Seinfeld.

The years since also have featured the growing-up of a Pennsylvanian named Mark Mangino, now KU’s head coach and the man asked by a following of fans to somehow, someway snap this dreaded streak before it hits a million.

KU football coach Mark Mangino encourages his players during pregame drills at Arrowhead Stadium prior to this year's game against Oklahoma. Mangino was in junior high the last time the Jayhawks beat this week's opponent, Nebraska.

“Gee whiz,” Mangino said of 1968, that ancient year that pops up annually for one week in Lawrence. “I was in junior-high school in western Pennsylvania, and I didn’t know where Kansas or Nebraska was located on the map.”

They were on the map, of course. Even Hawaii and Alaska were states — and had been for a whole nine years.

Certainly, such a streak doesn’t make KU proud. But considering how little the current Jayhawks had to do with most of the slump, it’s not anything that ruffles their feathers too much, either.

Still, the players and coaches realize there are older Jayhawk fans — some who even remember that prehistoric era known as the ’60s. For 36 years, those faithful hoped for a week and winced for 51 more. The cycle repeated itself over and over, until Jayhawk fans grew numb to the fact that Nebraska was going to beat them whenever the schedule makers called for it.

The Huskers still are slight favorites for Saturday’s game at Memorial Stadium, but many factors have made this matchup more of a tossup than it’s been in many, many years.

“They’ve beat us pretty bad for a long time,” Reid said. “To finally get a win and snap the streak would be huge. Not just for this team, but Kansas fans everywhere.

“They’ve beat us 30-something years straight, and now is as good a time as any to end that.”

In 1968 …

The Beatles were in the stretch run of a remarkable decade of music and still on top of the world. When the Jayhawks beat the Huskers that October day, “Hey Jude” was the No. 1 song on the U.S. charts.

One of the most memorable images in sports history took place in Mexico City in October. During the Olympics, sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, after winning gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter dash, raised gloved fists on the medal stand to protest the lack of progress in the civil-rights movement.

On Oct. 14, 1968, advice columnist Ann Landers answered a question from a 15-year old girl undecided on what to think of hippies. Landers’ response wasn’t too kind: “I’m for peace and love, and I like flowers as well as the next person, but I also believe in work, soap and water, reality and doing something constructive to make the world better.”

Protesters who opposed the Vietnam War clashed with Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s police outside the Democratic Convention. Nearly 12,000 police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and billy clubs, assisted by 7,500 Army troops, 7,500 National Guardsmen and 1,000 agents of the U.S. Secret Service.

Man still hadn’t set foot on the moon, but the U.S. was getting closer. In October 1968, Apollo 7 was in the midst of its mission, and the weekend of KU’s big victory also was highlighted by the astronauts’ greetings to their home country on live national television.

A controversial Vietnam War was in its prime, and America still was reeling over the assassinations of civil-rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy earlier in the year.