Nebraska football, Britney Spears and the silliest story on the Internet today

On Wednesday morning the Nebraska football team was front and center of a Men’s health article about Britney Spears’ new beau. Then things got weird.

It would be crazy to think that Britney Spears is a Nebraska football fan. Having said that, it wouldn’t be toxic if she were. Unfortunately, if a recent story from Men’s Health can be believed, the singer probably believes what the Cornhuskers did to her current boyfriend, Sam Asghari was criminal.

What exactly did the program do to Asghari you ask? The short answer is “probably nothing.”

The long answer is “probably nothing” as well but when it comes to this story, the long way around to the answer is quite a bit more enjoyable.

As I said, it all started when NPR’s Jordan Pascale noticed part of the Men’s Health article on Asghari talked about how he had been “cut” by the Huskers during his freshman year in college. In particular, Pascale voiced his displeasure at the fact that no Nebraska beat writers had already sussed out this angle.

The section of the article that raised eyebrows was this one:

"“It led to getting recruited by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. But, after getting cut his freshman year, he went back to LA to play for Moorpark College. “"

At issue is the claim that he was “cut.” Considering the only tryouts the team really has is for players who are looking to walk on, the insinuation that Asghari had a scholarship that was rescinded his very first year on campus seemed rather fishy.

That’s when Hail Varsity’s Erin Sorensen jumped in and the story went from strange to hilarious. Sorensen first tried to prove that Asghari was never on scholarship here. But as she started digging, she noticed it didn’t appear he ever even walked on.

Michael Felder chimed in to point out that Asghari doesn’t have a recruiting profile on either Rivals or 247Sports, making it even less likely he was a player the Nebraska football team would have recruited. Sorensen was able to confirm Asghari played for Moorpark College, at least for a time.

Her conclusion was that Asghari was never really “recruited” out of high school and was almost surely not given a scholarship. That was later backed up by the Omaha World-Herald. They cut to the chase and spoke to the University’s registrar’s office.

The office said they had no record of Sam Asghari ever enrolling. Apparently, there was one person by that name but it was a she. The World-Herald also reached out to Men’s Health about the discrepancies and the magazine apparently changed its wording.

Now the article says, “It led to him participating in a football program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. But, after getting cut before his freshman year, he went back to LA to play for Moorpark College.”

To be clear, the wording is still probably very wrong. You might even say the magazine should probably be saying “oops, I did it again.”

It seems unlikely he was “cut” before his freshman year because why would he be? This still basically claims he was given a scholarship, but now the story is the school rescinded that scholarship before he had the chance to enroll. If that did happen, it would certainly be an odd turn of events.

The sporting world is chock full of strange stories. We’re creeping up on the six-year anniversary of Manti Teo’s fake girlfriend’s death after all.

What makes this story stick out is that the Nebraska football team isn’t usually involved in tales that qualify as truly weird. Who knows, sometimes these kinds of stories turn out to be true.

Next: Top celebrities who are fans of the Nebraska football team

If Sam Asghari can show he did get a scholarship and was a Cornhusker, for a few days at least, we’ll all be stronger for it. It appears the Nebraska football team is going to claim the article’s assertions were false, till the world ends.