Woodling: Oh yes, they call it The Streak
Every year Kansas University is scheduled to play Nebraska in football, the inevitable question arises.
Where were you in 1968?
Until The Streak finally ends, as it must someday, that always will be the question associated with the KU-NU game because it’s the last year the Jayhawks defeated the Cornhuskers.
I know where I was. I was in Nebraska’s football press box. In only my third week as sports editor of the Journal-World, I watched and later wrote about the Jayhawks’ 23-13 victory. Obviously, neither I nor anyone else had any idea the Huskers would win the next 35 meetings.
Tuesday during his weekly media session, we learned where KU coach Mark Mangino was in the fall of ’68.
“I didn’t even know where Lawrence, Kansas, was,” Mangino said with a smile. “I was in junior high. Back then, everybody was talking about the Vietnam War, and everybody had long hair.”
Did Mangino, someone asked, have long hair?
“Yeah, I did, but it wasn’t THAT long,” he said, smiling again, then pointing to his balding pate, “but longer than this.”
In the autumn of 1968, Mangino was 12 years old. He was an eighth-grader at George Washington Junior High in New Castle, Pa. — a school, Mangino reported, that no longer stands.
None of KU’s players were alive on that October afternoon. All they can do is place 1968 in historical perspective.
Travis Watkins, a fifth-year defensive tackle, didn’t use a football analogy. He didn’t mention the Vietnam War. Or long hair. Or flower children. Or even “Laugh-In.”
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Indeed, it was a memorable year for more than merely a KU football triumph over Nebraska. Yet The Streak is also a piece of history, if on a smaller scale.
The 35 straight wins comprise nearly a third of all the meetings (110) between KU and Nebraska, and the KU-NU series is tied for the third longest in NCAA Division I-A history, trailing only Minnesota-Wisconsin (113) and Kansas-Missouri (112).
Also, Kansas and Nebraska have played for 98 straight years, making it the longest uninterrupted series in the Division I-A. And the two schools will keep playing every year unless Kansas should somehow be shipped to the Big 12’s south division — not likely unless the league expands and adds North Dakota and North Dakota State.
Ah, but there is a bit of good news about The Streak. It isn’t the longest in the country. Notre Dame has defeated Navy 40 straight times. Kansas-Nebraska is No. 2 and holding at 35.
However, if Nebraska maintains its hex Saturday and Navy upends Notre Dame in a couple of weeks, KU-NU would vault into the lead. Most people figure Navy has a real shot this year, too. The Middies are off to a 4-0 start for the first time in 25 years, and the Oct. 16 meeting with Notre Dame will be at the New Jersey Meadowlands, a neutral site.
The next longest current domination skein is Texas over Rice. Saturday night, the Longhorns extended their whammy on the Uncle Bens to 29.
Nothing really has changed in the Kansas-Nebraska series. As usual, the Jayhawks will go into Lincoln as underdogs Saturday. Still, the 13-point spread is uncommonly small when you consider the average score of KU’s last 10 games in Lincoln has been 53-9.
Is this the year The Streak ends? That’s why they play the game. You won’t find Mark Mangino at the post office this week. He doesn’t need stamps. He won’t be mailing in the score.