Stryker Pregame Perspective: Cherished Ceremony

Pregame Tunnel Walk is survey’s runaway winner of best Nebraska football game-day tradition

In September 1994, at the start of one of Nebraska football’s most remarkable seasons, just before Tommie Frazier developed the most famous case of blood clots in the state’s history, the staff of HuskerVision combined dramatic video, music and the image of the red-clad football team entering the stadium, and unleashed it on the Husker partisans, a concept that caught on immediately.

Almost three decades later, the Tunnel Walk has become Nebraska’s best game-day tradition, according to an unscientific survey of 100 Husker fans conducted on a cool, cloudy September afternoon before the NU-Georgia Southern game.

Nebraska Athletic Communications

Eric Francis/Getty Images via Wibbitz

Kenny Larabee photo, KLIN

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

Nebraska Athletics Communications

Nebraska Athletics Communications

Nebraska Athletics Communications

It was not a close vote. The Tunnel Walk collected more than two-thirds of the votes with 68, easily eclipsing a pair of older traditions, including the Nebraska band’s rendition of “There Is No Place Like Nebraska,” with the “Go Big Red!” chant, which gathered 13 votes.

In third place, with six votes, was the “Red Sea,” the iconic image of Memorial Stadium filled with red-clad fans. I get the feeling that if I conducted this survey with 100 random college football fans nationwide, this would have been their top choice, because this image has led off so many telecasts of Husker home games over the decades.

I offered only those three options in my original survey question, but several fans brought up their own ideas; indeed, there were 13 write-in votes.

One of the Huskers’ oldest traditions, which has been ended (at least temporarily) by a worldwide helium shortage — the release of red balloons after NU’s first score — got five of those votes. “I miss the balloons,” was a common theme.

Also receiving write-in votes were the “Husker Power” pregame chant (three votes),  “Thunderstruck” at night games, with red-out lights and flames (three votes), and one vote apiece for the Husker band’s march into the stadium and the flyover at the conclusion of the national anthem.

I conducted the survey on campus, and at three tailgates along Ninth Street, and the Tunnel Walk enjoyed wide appeal across age groups.

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