At Memorial Stadium, a Nebraska Cornhusker game is about to begin. The crowd chants, “Husker! Power! Husker! Power!” More than 80,000 voices roar for their team.       A brief hype video plays on the enormous screen. A player proclaims, “There is no place like Nebraska.” Fireworks explode. Music swells. The clapping and stomping make the whole stadium vibrate.

Then, on screen, the players, dressed in red and white, emerge from behind a door, walking down a tunnel. The crowd erupts. Shoulders back and heads high, filled with excitement and adrenaline, the players push open the double doors embellished with a large N and surge onto the field through the haze of smoke.

The band launches into a riotous tune. The Husker Spirit Squad members leap into the air, their smiles flashing. The University of Nebraska flag and the American flag wave in the Lincoln sky. The crowd is a frenetic red sea.

The Huskers’ Tunnel Walk tradition is arguably the best entrance in college football. But it’s just the start of the game. The team will give their all during the next three and a half hours. So will the fans, despite their chronic heartbreak.

Husker fans pack the stadium bedecked in red and sometimes even wearing corncobs on their heads. They’ve stayed loyal to a team that has struggled.

Coach Scott Frost’s recent firing was the disappointing conclusion to the 2017 hopeful hire of the hometown hero and former Cornhusker quarterback.

Nebraska’s team hasn’t lacked talented players under Frost, but the team hasn’t been able to put it together to win. So many losses happened in the final moments of each game. For some fans, it became a sad joke. 

But with change comes hope – and Nebraska’s hiring of Mickey Joseph to serve as interim head coach has also made history. It’s the first time the University of Nebraska has had a Black head coach in any sport. Like Frost, Joseph once played quarterback for Nebraska for Coach Tom Osborne. The university is now conducting a national search for a new coach.

Since Osborne left in 1997 after an undefeated season and 24 years of coaching the Huskers, Nebraska has seen five different coaches: Frank Solich, Bill Callahan, Bo Pelini, Mike Riley and Scott Frost. 

Nebraska Life contributors Aaron Beckman and Jeremy Buss have covered the post-Osborne era as photographers. They expect the energy that Husker fans bring to every game to continue.

One of the best things about the current team is how many athletes from Nebraska are playing for the Cornhuskers, Beckman said. He watched those kids come up from playing in high school. Although the team hasn’t improved its record during his time shooting, the players have better interaction with fans than ever.

“After the game, some kids know where to hang out to get autographs after the players are showered, outside the stadium,” Beckman said.

As upset as fans are, keeping things in perspective is essential. Of all the games he’s shot, Buss said the one that sticks out the most is the first Huskers game post-9/11. Instead of featuring the players coming through the tunnel walk, it was first responders.

Buss has never since heard such a tremendous cheer over Memorial Stadium. At that moment, people in the crowd weren’t just Huskers or Nebraskans but part of something even more extraordinary. They were Americans.