Tanner Lee draft choice exposes schism between Nebraska football fans

While Nebraska football fans normally celebrate ever former Huskers who get drafted, the reaction to Tanner Lee has been quite a bit different.

Nebraska football fans like to repeat, from time to time, the motto “once a Husker, always a Husker.” It’s a good motto to have.

For the most part, Cornhusker fans stick to that motto. Once you have played for Nebraska, a majority of the fans will follow your career and will cheer for you the same way they would a member of their own family. It’s what makes the Cornhusker tradition as strong and impressive as it is.

On occasion though, it seems as if there is a player who comes through every now and then who doesn’t get the “once a Husker, always a Husker” treatment. Randy Gregory would probably argue that the fanbase has largely deserted him.

Reactions to stories about him trying to make a comeback tend to contain comments about how “dumb” he is for having the drug abuse issues he’s had. This isn’t all fans mind you, but the population as a whole certainly hasn’t circled their wagons around Gregory like they did for a time with Richie Incognito.

The case can be made that Husker fans have largely turned their back on Gregory because he couldn’t stay away from weed, when it sure seemed like all he had to do, in order to be a top of the line defensive player in the NFL was put the bong down every now and then.

Things are very different for Tanner Lee, yet the animus towards him is quite similar. There isn’t a story about Tanner Lee I’ve written that didn’t have more than a few comments talking about how bad a quarterback he is.

That too is somewhat normal for Cornhusker fans in the moment. They’re angry their team couldn’t win -really at all- with Lee at the helm. But what struck me in the weeks leading up to the draft and now that he’s been drafted are the number of fans who seem to be angry that one of their own is going to get a shot at the NFL.

This isn’t to say that the entire fanbase is angry. There are plenty who are sticking to the tried and true motto.

Still, the number of dyed in the wool would sooner miss the birth of their child than a Nebraska football game, fans seem like they wish Tanner Lee would disappear off the face of the earth is shocking to me.

Because I just don’t get it, I decided to look at the main reasons this schism between groups of Husker fans seems to have formed.