The 2021 Big Red Blitz stopped through the panhandle on Wednesday afternoon as Nebraska Athletic Director Bill Moos, men’s basketball assistant coach Armon Gates, and head wrestling coach Mark Manning were all on hand at the Gering Civic Center.
For his part, Moos is just glad we’re at a point with society and the pandemic that they could get out as a department and stop through a bunch of communities with this event, “We have a remarkable fan base that we basically haven’t seen for a couple of years. We just feel very, very excited to get out and around to, I think, It’s 20 communities, today with a multitude of coaches, staff, and others, to embrace our fans and let them know we’ve missed them.”
As was a hot topic at some of the other stops Moos did confirm that whether it’s football or any other sporting event or campus activity that they are back to full capacity moving forward into the summer and fall for campus events.
Looking ahead to the fall and the college football season the Huskers have gone from a conference game to start the year across the pond against Illinois to a true road game in Champaign against Illinois as Brett Bielema makes his debut as the Illini head coach. Moos says there are no easy outs with the upcoming football schedule.
“It’s gonna be a tough season with regards to our schedule. We’ll be prepared for it. We have the best team we’ve had in recent years, certainly the best team in Scott Frost’s tenure. A lot of good talent, we got great depth. We got leadership now. The younger guys that were forced into starting positions when they first got here are now juniors and seniors. But we do have a tough schedule. I think that’s great challenge for us. We do have Michigan and Ohio State, albeit at home, and we travel to Oklahoma who many think will be one of the few for the preseason national championship.”
We’ll hear more from Gates and Manning in the coming days and weeks with KNEB Sports, including Manning talking about Gering recruit Quinton Chavez, who will be joining the Husker wrestling program this next season.
