Nebraska and Rutgers play Friday. For two more years, this will be the furthest-flung conference game in the Big Ten.
Soon, USC and UCLA will arrive, making a trip merely halfway across the country seem quaint. They’ll also bring a couple of rising programs with them, which Nebraska and Rutgers most certainly are not.
The last time either was *actually* bowl eligible was 2016 (Rutgers, a 5-7 team, played in last year’s Gator Bowl due to Covid. Of course they lost by four touchdowns). The Cornhuskers’ attempt to bring back a homegrown hero from their glory days flamed out when Scott Frost went 16-31 and was fired in September. The Scarlet Knights’ attempt to bring back a homegrown hero from their glory days has currently resulted in an 11-16 record for Greg Schiano, which is worth a shrug and a “good enough,” if nothing else.
Fortunately, Lincoln has just the thing to carry it through the early kickoffs endemic to a bad team. Red beer is a cheap lager — generally Busch or Busch Light — mixed with tomato juice or bloody Mary mix. And in honor of a conference game no one asked for, we’re gonna make some booze adjustments no one asked for.
And yes, it’s gonna suck.
The Nebraska Red Beer Bloody Mary
- 1 can, Miller High Life
- 1.5 oz., Community Spirits Co. vodka (in a shot glass
- 3 oz., Zing Zang bloody Mary mix
- one dash celery salt
In theory, this should be taken like a Boilermaker. You get your beer, add the red Mary mix, then toss a little celery salt on top because that makes anything bloody Mary related taste better. Then you drop your shot of vodka in and, bing bong, delicious early morning tailgating drink.
Only, no.
My first impression was … it’s not bad? The sweetness of the Zing Zang covered up the sting of the vodka or the grain of the High Life.
This did not last. Friends, this drink kicked my ass the moment it slipped past my esophagus. My stomach immediately shot up the blinking orange “PROBLEM” light in my brain, as though I’d just mistaken a bag of moth balls for marshmallows. I can only describe the feeling — which, I must note, came after three gulps and just SECONDS into the drink — as a full body cramp. My skeleton, enraged, was trying to separate itself from my nervous system. My brain, fully aware of its culpability in this crime, shut down and feigned innocence. Drinking this knocked a full year of algebra out of my consciousness.
I needed a five minute break after my first chug. When I came back I had a drink that looked like someone had indiscriminately fired a shotgun into a small, muddy puddle filled with fish. The smell reflected this. Holy geez, it smells like death.
My head did not like this one bit. It felt like my brain was yelling at me and, I swear to god, I could hear this drink whispering things about my family. My stomach, seething in the role it has been forced to play, was simply biding its time until it could turn this concoction into a scalding cauldron of regret.
“Heh,” I thought to myself. “Too late.”
A second sip produced more of the same. First sweet, then tolerable, then poison. Another regrettable decision, only this time I’ve broken out in a sweat. It was 55 degrees in my basement. I was wearing a t-shirt.
For the first time in this series, I tapped out without finishing a drink. I was going to make this a double session and replace the vodka with whiskey to give it a Purdue theme, but no. I wanted to wake up Friday morning. I have too much to live for.
Still, if you’re looking for a faithful reproduction of the Nebraska-Rutgers rivalry, here you go. 10/10, no notes.
