College Football: Rhymes with Uncanny

Outside of maple leaves and football, the best thing about autumn is that you don't have to worry about hay fever any more. Especially if you live in Nebraska, where goldenrod is the state flower. There aren't many maples in Nebraska, and there wasn't much big-time football — give or take a season or so — until a paunchy, puffy-eyed Irish man named Bob Devaney took over as head coach at the University of Nebraska in 1962.

Only twice in their history had the Cornhuskers been ranked among the nation's top ten. They had not won a Big Eight championship...