Corn Nation: for Nebraska Cornhuskers fans

This week on the Five Heart Podcast, the final resolution from Lubbock, Texas as Brendan Sorsby is OUT of the Texas Tech program, looking instead at the supplemental draft. WE DID IT! WE WON! Those bastards from Texas got what was owed 'em! In other news, the Savannah Bananas invaded Lincoln last week, playing to a stadium crowd at Memorial Stadium that was their third largest attendance in Bananas history! Husker legends Eric Crouch and Dr. Tom Osborne were among the Nebraska dignitaries on the scene. In Nebraska recruiting news, the 'skers received a couple more commitments from another busy June weekend, and 2027 quarterback commit Trae Taylor caught a little social media backlash. Greg and Fred will talk all about it on this week's Five Heart Podcast, as well as an “appropriate” time to start “jonesing” for football, as posed by one of the members of our Live community!

Minnie Hunt and Fred Sacco kick off Monday Night Therapy riding a rare wave of “vim and vigor” thanks to Nebraska sports actually giving fans reasons to smile—especially a 16–0 men’s basketball team sitting at #8 in the polls, plus the general buzz of winter workouts and portal season. The big on-show feature is Minnie’s deep dive on new defensive line coach Corey Brown (from Miami of Ohio), replacing Terry Bradden. They like his fundamentals-first approach—coming off the ball hard, pad level, hands, and teaching drills like “chop, rip, roll-out”—and they cite his recent production: strong red-zone defense, forced turnovers, and big sack totals, even with new starters. They also love his background: Houston native, played at Iowa, arena ball, stops at Notre Dame and Rutgers, and a reputation for building disruptive fronts while investing in players as people. They run through portal adds (including San Diego State transfers who already know the system), debate roster needs—especially the ongoing panic about running back—and then veer into a spicy section on Dylan Raiola heading to Oregon, NIL money, “swag,” and the new reality that experience and roster age matter more than hype. The show closes with playoff expansion chatter, ticket-price madness, and a quick worry about keeping coach Ekeler.

Minnie and Fred kick off “Monday Night Therapy” in full sad Husker mode, only to watch Nebraska’s latest QB commit (Minchey… or “what’s-his-name”) flip to Kentucky before he even sees Lincoln. The chat spirals into the same old rage: transfer portal chaos, NIL bidding wars, “do not contact” tags that mean nothing, and the exhausting feeling of caring way more than the players do. Greg jumps in like an angry old man yelling at clouds—commit, stay, earn it—while everyone wonders if Nebraska is becoming a development black hole where talent shows up, stagnates, or bolts. They drift into gallows humor: rating thighs and badonks, joking about being a basketball school, and comparing NIL to throwing cash on roulette. The bowl game gets rehashed too—fast start, total collapse, the familiar moment you know it’s over. Meanwhile, people admit watching has become a chore, and that’s the scariest part: OG fans tapping out. By the end, they’re still wearing Nebraska gear, still together, still coping with mockery—because when your favorite band disappears for 20 years and your football team does too, sarcasm is basically survival.

On a Five Heart Podcast on a special day and time, Greg and Minnie (and maybe a special guest) will discuss Nebraska's performance in the Las Vegas Bowl against the Utah Utes. Lots of players missing from Nebraska's roster today, as Nyziah Hunter was a gameday scratch for health purposes. No Emmett Johnson as the stud prepares for the draft. Were TJ Lateef and the Patchwork Huskers able to pull the upset against the ranked Utes? Utah itself is going through a transition after their head coach Kyle Whittingham was hired by Michigan, prompting several of their notable players to sit out the bowl game. Be a part of the best comment section in Husker Nation when the Eking Crew takes over the Five Heart Podcast, approximately thirty minutes after the conclusion of the Las Vegas Bowl, here on Corn Nation's YouTube, Facebook, and X. Go Big Red, Always.

On this episode of the Five Heart Podcast, the hosts will take a long look at the upcoming Las Vegas Bowl match-up with the Utah Utes. It was announced on Friday that Utah's coach Kyle Whittingham was in the works to be the new head coach at the University of Michigan. Would Whittingham coach Utah in the bowl game? After that word was made public, allegedly several Utah players began opting out of the bowl game. They were going to play for the man who was going to step down from coaching. But if he's being poached to coach at a Big Ten school, maybe their fealty isn't required. Also, on Christmas, Nebraska received the commitment Christmas Wishes from Ahmad Hudson, a five-star and the number-one tight end in the country for the Class of 2027. So while there' still some of the 2025 season yet to play out, we can always look to the future. In fact, have you noticed that we as Husker fans tend to look at the past (though not as much as we are accused of doing) and to the future, but we don't always appreciate where we're at right now? We're staring at back-to-back bowl games after an eight year drought. There's a lot to be thankful for from a fan perspective. We are not where we once were, but we're definitely not at our lowest point, and we are heading in the right direction. Like Sawyer Brown sang: Well I hear something calling me Like I've never heard before. It's a red and white freight train And I want to get on board. GBR

This week on the Five Heart Podcast, Nebraska's intended transfer portal departures will be discussed. Dylan Raiola is the latest Husker to likely attach a "former" ahead of that. Speaking of former Huskers, Emmett Johnson was named an All-American, rightfully so, if you ask me. He is Nebraska's first All-American since Lavonte David, and that just seems too long. We're now two weeks away from the Las Vegas Bowl, and preparation continues. It also includes Geep Wade and Rob Aurich. They may only be consulting or just present for the bowl game, but they have the ability to be around the players. This is why thirteen practices ahead of the bowl game are important. There will also be discussion about the Nebraska volleyball team's season coming to an unfortunately pre-mature end. But hey, basketball continues to impress. So...you win some, you lose some. Literally.

In this episode of Monday Night Therapy on Corn Nation, Minnie Hunt and Fred Sacco process the emotional fallout from quarterback Dylan Raiola officially entering the transfer portal. What begins as gallows humor quickly turns into a deep, timeline-driven postmortem of Raiola’s Nebraska tenure, from his arrival and early promise to his injury, coaching changes, and eventual departure. Minnie lays out the sequence of events—Raiola’s stats, the USC injury, the UCLA win with TJ Lateef, the firing of coordinators, and the domino effect that followed—arguing the ending felt inevitable. The discussion wrestles with whether Nebraska mortgaged its future around one player, the failures of the offensive line and scheme, and how NIL and the transfer portal have fundamentally changed roster stability. Fred frames Raiola’s exit as “addition by subtraction,” while Minnie defends the quarterback, arguing Nebraska failed to protect or properly support him. Both agree the program placed too much weight on a single solution instead of building sustainable depth. The conversation expands into broader Husker angst: decades of heartbreak, nostalgia for the Osborne era, frustration with constant rebuilds, and questions about Matt Rhule’s long-term future. Despite sarcasm and venting, the episode closes with reluctant acceptance, dark humor, and the shared resolve of fans who, battered but loyal, prepare to move on—again.

Join us for the Huskers Happy Hour. And tonight, as the first week of bowl practices kick off, I am going to be turning to the comments after a short intro and we’ll see how far you take us. There’s no Husker game to review or preview this week, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of things to talk about - the firings and hirings at Offensive Line & Defensive Coordinator & Defensive Line, “Is Dylan staying or leaving??”, conference championship weekend & how Duke threw a bag of firecrackers into the whole mess, the CFP committee’s impossible weekend , and, of course, why Notre Dame didn’t deserve to be in & as a result, are little entitled crybaby bitches.