A recent Sports Illustrated online poll listed current Nebraska Athletic Director Steve Pederson as the number one "enemy of the state", implying a great deal of animosity harbored by fans towards the athletic program's current skipper. Due in large part to his handling of the controversial firing of legacy head coach Frank Solich and a publicly awkward replacement search. A full 26 percent listed Pederson as their whipping boy, out-polling the likes of former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer and current Kansas State chief Bill Snyder.

"I'm not too upset by it. I guess I'm looking at it as if 74 percent think I'm doing OK." Pederson recently told a columnist from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

But Pederson is by no means the first to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged Husker fans. There have been several that have walked there before, and to a greater degree. Nebraskans are notably friendly to foes, but they can carry a mean streak when they are crossed. Even if it means eating their own. Several historical events bear that out.

Following the 1953 season former Nebraska head coach Bill Glassford endured an outright mutiny from his own players. Tiring of what they perceived as his autocratic ways, 35 members of the team signed a petition calling for the resignation of the coach they called the "Baby-faced Assassin." Practices were unbearable and their health was disregarded, they claimed. The Nebraska Board of Regents agreed that the controversial coach must go. However, Glassford invoked a clause in his contract that guaranteed him the job through 1955, with a subsequent five-year option of his choosing. The university had no choice but to keep a coach that the players disliked.

The controversy managed to soften Glassford a bit, but he lasted only through the 1955 campaign before walking away. Glassford said he could no longer take the "verbal abuse" that had been showered down on even his wife and son. His 1955 team publicly showed support and admiration for their coach saying they "sincerely feel Nebraska is losing a great coach and a good friend."

But the Husker venom would not stay suppressed for long. After a one-year stint as head coach Pete Elliott, the Huskers entered into their most controversial era under Bill Jennings.

Jennings was considered one of the top assistants under legendary Oklahoma head coach Bud Wilkinson during the Sooners' glory days and was regarded as one of the best recruiters in the country. He was a likable gent with an easy-going manner that swept people off their feet at first meeting. But Jennings met his match when it came to guiding a whole football team.

By most measures, Jennings' tenure at the helm of Nebraska would be considered a dismal failure. He recorded a winning percentage of just. 310, the worst of any non war-era coach at Nebraska. His teams never won more than four games in a season and he won just one game in his first year. Jennings did make the most of the few wins he did get, defeating a fourth ranked Texas team 14-13 in 1960, topping Pittsburgh and Minnesota in others, and claiming Nebraska's biggest upset ever when his Cornhuskers ended Oklahoma's 74-game conference win streak 25-21 in 1959.

But Jennings had difficulty in dealing with the media and the public. At a speech in 1960 Jennings raised more than a few eyebrows when he claimed "I don't think this state can ever be great in anything...our football team is about as good as anything we're trying to do."

Jennings was able to ruffle feathers both near and far. Nowhere more so than back in his home state of Oklahoma.

Jennings had developed a long-standing feud with Wilkinson after reports that it was Jennings who fueled an NCAA investigation that lead to an Oklahoma probation. Oklahoma officials claim Jennings had objected to the Sooners' recruiting advances towards a Nebraska high-schooler and threatened to reveal to the NCAA that, while he was working at OU, Jennings himself had overseen a slush fund for recruiting. Wilkinson called the bluff and self-reported the accusations to the NCAA. Jennings never admitted to making the threat and denied the handling of any slush fund, but he did feel enough of a threat to his own safety that he hired special armed guards to protect him when the Huskers went to Norman for a game in 1960.

The final game against the Sooners in 1961 was the straw that broke Jennings' back. Despite having a comfortable two-touchdown lead at halftime, the Huskers self-destructed and lost 21-14. Following the loss the quiet murmur of discord swelled to a roar.

"The radio stations just spewed hatred at him," remembers Noel Martin a player on the 1960 team. "I think it really hurt his feelings."

Players on his team publicly denounced the entire coaching staff openly in the media.

"It's just a damn shame to see a good football team go down the drain," said Husker center George Haney after the game.

Others questioned Jennings coaching plans.

"The practices were just unbearably long. We were just exhausted by the time game day arrived," remembers quarterback Dennis Claridge.

The Daily Nebraska newspaper, in an editorial, called for Jennings dismissal the following week.

"Coach Bill Jennings has not lived up to expectations for five years and a need for change should be crystal clear to all, including Coach Jennings." It said.

Jennings would indeed be dismissed by the end of the month, but not before getting in one last jab.

Speaking at one of his last functions as a coach Jennings lashed out at the Nebraska football mindset saying "there is an intense desire to do something good in this state, like elect a President or gain prominence in politics. But we can't feed the ego of the state of Nebraska with the football team."

Jennings would be gone, and just as quickly Nebraska would enter into an era of unprecedented success with, beginning with head coach Bob Devaney's reign.

But even as the years pass, Jennings' former players still hold some resentment over past sins of Jennings and his staff.

"It was just pitiful," said Haney in a recent interview. "I was sick and tired of everything (the coaching staff) had done and I would have done anything to have kept that group of coaches from coming back (in 1962)."

Several players were angered when Jennings refused to forward letters to them sent from professional teams that were pursuing the players for contracts. Former Husker center Mick Tinglehoff said he first learned of the postal snub when he finally made it to the pros.

"(Norm) Van Brocklin, who was the coach then of the Vikings, asked me why I had never answered any of the letters. I never received them."

Tinglehoff said he was angered when he learned about the withholding of the letters "and I had a chance to tell Jennings that to his face."

Time did heal some wounds for the former coach. Jennings was elected to the Nebraska Football Hall Of Fame in 1996 and later interviews showed he had shed most bitter feelings he may have had towards the school. Jennings passed away from cancer in July of 2002.