With the announcement that Tom Osborne will be staying as Athletic Director at the University of Nebraska, NETV has announced plans to begin work on a new series called "Life After Osborne" which will take a hypothetical look at the state of Nebraska's future after Tom Osborne has moved on.
The series will be patterned after the History Channel's popular series "Life After People" which examines what will happen to mankind's creations after humans have disappeared.
The series will examine several possibilities as to how Husker fans might react once Osborne has left the stage. Using the fall of other prominent college football program as a guide, NETV will seek to discover what could possibly happen to Nebraska should a worthy successor not be found.
The series is sure to be met with some controversy. Director Nancy Berry had this to say about the reasoning behind the series:
"Tom Osborne has meant so much to the people of Nebraska, we just felt like we'd be doing a public service if we helped people prepare for the day he's gone. We're going to examine the potential crises Nebraskans might face and present several different options for how we might best handle ourselves."
NETV gave us some insight as to what three of the episodes might entail:- Oklahoma after Barry Switzer
The series reveals of how few Sooner fans filled Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium after the reign of coaches Barry Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger and John Blake. It details the feelings of despair around Sooner Nation as they dealt with the concept that great football might never return.
The segment includes a heart-wrenching interview with Edna Grimmith of Enid, Oklahoma, explaining how she felt when she realized Howard Schnellenberger wasn't going to make her forget Barry Switzer. Grimmith had to be sedated and then hospitalized after the interview.
- Alabama after Paul Bear Bryant
Paul "Bear" Bryant died in 1983, yet Crimson Tide fans have somehow managed to keep him alive by exploring every facet of his life through book and film, using him as the standard to measure every head coach since, and buying 15,000 houndstooth hats a year.
Nearly 30 years later, ‘Bama fans have digressed so far as to attend tailgates before seeing a play about the great coach's life. The show's primary focus is on how the fans can deal with a loss by pretending it never happened in the first place.
- Kansas State after Bill Snyder
This episode will focus on what would happen if Tom Osborne left, then came back and found that most of everything he'd ever accomplished was destroyed by the people he left in charge.
NETV producers were said to be happy about Snyder's return as they were previously focused on Tom Osborne returning to Nebraska after Steve Pederson's reign as athletic director.
Said Berry, "We really weren't looking forward to dealing with the Pederson era. Who wants to go through that "true fans" crap all over again?"