Dave Feit's Greatest Huskers by the Numbers: 4 - Lavonte David

Dave Feit is counting down the days until the start of the 2025 season by naming the best Husker to wear each uniform number, as well as one of his personal favorites at that number.

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Greatest Husker to wear 4: Lavonte David, Linebacker, 2010-2011 Honorable Mention: Larry Asante, Troy Dumas, Randy Gregory, Tim Jackson Also worn by: George Achola, Avery Anderson, Tommy Armstrong Jr., Jahmal Banks, Alante Brown, Terrell Butler, Judd Davies, DeAngelo Evans, Keem Green, Roy "Link" Lyman, Octavious McFarlin, Jaevon McQuitty, Luke Reimer, Cory Ross, Guy Rozier, Mohammed Seisay, Larry Valasek Dave's Fave: Lavonte David From Nebraska's perspective, the Big 12 never quite felt right.

Yes, all of Nebraska's longtime rivals from the Big Eight were there.

And thanks to the four Texas schools, there was more TV money than ever before.

But Nebraska was repeatedly on the wrong end of 11-1 votes as schools either fell in line behind Texas or tried to break up the Nebraska dynasty that existed when the conference was first formed in 1996.* *Nebraska won its second straight national championship in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl with a blowout of Florida.

The game cemented the 1995 Huskers as the greatest team in the history of the sport, and enhanced Tom Osborne's resume as one of the all-time great coaches.

In the postgame press conference, Osborne used the opportunity to criticize the Big 12's stance on partial qualifiers - a position he felt was unfair toward NU.

Osborne was right.

K-State's president later bragged in his book about how the vote was designed to slow Nebraska down .

Instead of the Big Eight taking on four schools from the floundering Southwest Conference, the new league felt more like a Texas takeover.

The league offices were moved to Irving, Texas.

Instead of rotating the Big 12 Championship game between north and south locations, it was permanently placed at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The divisional split meant Nebraska and Oklahoma - one of the great rivalries in the sport - would only happen two out of every four years.

The ending of the 2009 Big 12 Championship game - where one second was added back onto the clock before Texas kicked a field goal to go to the BCS Championship game - certainly did not help dispel the belief that the league was set up to favor Texas.

With Nebraska leading 12-10 with seconds to go, Ndamukong Suh pressured Colt McCoy into a quick throw.

McCoy's pass landed out of bounds as the clock appeared to expire.

With Texas coach Mack Brown holding up one finger, the previous play was reviewed.

It was determined that one second would be added to the clock.

Texas kicked a field goal, keeping the Longhorns' national championship hopes alive.

This was a truly wild time in college athletics.

Word was out that the Big Ten and Pac-10 were looking to expand.

Rumors swirled daily on who might go where.

The University of Missouri openly campaigned to join the Big Ten.

Missouri Gov.

Jay Nixon said MU was "deserving" of a Big Ten invite, due to the school's academic prestige and two large TV markets (Kansas City and St.

Louis).

Colorado flirted with the Pac-10.

Texas allegedly tried to broker a deal to go west with Texas Tech and the two Oklahoma schools.

It was an extremely uncertain time.

Nobody - not even Chip Brown of Texas fan site Orangebloods.com - knew where the original members of the Big 12 would end up when the realignment carousel stopped spinning.

The only consensus was that the Big 12 was likely to dissolve.

It was every man for himself as schools scrambled for a lifeboat.

Why was the Big 12 - a power conference with several prestigious members - taking on water? In short, there were three reasons, which all fed into each other.

Leadership - or a lack thereof - which meant...

Member schools focused on their best interests, not the collective good.

Not surprisingly, the schools' best interests were often motivated by...

Greed.

College athletics was in an arms race, and having more revenue created more opportunities.

Dan Beebe was the Big 12's commissioner.

He was widely viewed as a weak leader whose main priority was keeping the biggest member - the University of Texas - happy.

As for the Longhorns, their focus was making as much money as possible - preferably without having to share it with anybody else.

Revenue sharing in the Big 12 was uneven.

Schools that were on TV a lot (Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska) got more revenue than those whose appearances were less frequent (Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Baylor).

It is worth noting that Nebraska did not have a problem with this arrangement.

The rights of so-called "tier 3" Olympic sports were another sticking point.

The individual schools owned them, but if they pooled them, the league could potentially create its own network.

Kevin Weinberg (the Big 12's commissioner from 1998-2007) wanted the Big 12 to be the first conference with its own network.

However, the motion failed on an 11-1 vote, with Texas as the lone vote in favor.

Weinberg later resigned from the Big 12 to join the Big Ten, where he helped launch the Big Ten Network.

Texas would eventually decide to go it alone and create the Longhorn Network (in association with ESPN).

After weeks of constant speculation, anonymous sources, and debating TV markets and academic clout, everything came to a head at the Big 12's annual meetings in June 2010.

Beebe issued an ultimatum to Nebraska's leadership (UNL chancellor Harvey Perlman and athletic director Tom Osborne), as well as Missouri: Pledge your loyalty to the Big 12 by 5 p.m.

Friday.* *You will note that no such request was made of Texas or any other school.

By the way...

what exactly would Beebe had done if Nebraska had refused? If he kicked NU out, he would have created the chasm he and the rest of the league did not want, potentially starting a chain reaction that would destroy the conference.

Dan Beebe doesn't strike me as much of a chess player.

The next few days were filled with tension, hourly rumors, and fanbases going back and forth on who was to blame.

The University of Colorado announced it was leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-10.

The first domino had fallen.

At the time, the belief was that Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would join Colorado.

Kansas had discussions with the Big East and Mountain West, and so on.

With Beebe's "deadline" looming, Perlman and Osborne moved quickly.

Nebraska - with the blessing of the NU Board of Regents - applied for membership in the Big Ten Conference.

The Big Ten voted unanimously to accept Nebraska's application as the 12th member of the prestigious league.

The move was formally announced in an afternoon press conference.

The comments by Osborne and Perlman were clear that they did what they felt was in the best interest of the University of Nebraska - academically and athletically.

Perlman said NU was more "aligned" with the Big Ten than the Big 12 in terms of academics, athletics and culture.

Furthermore, the Big Ten provides "stability that the Big 12 simply cannot offer." Osborne said the decision was made for "the long-term trajectory of the athletic program and the university."* *With the Big Ten, Nebraska would gain an extra $15 million a year in TV revenue.

It took some time for the financial windfall to hit - NU didn't receive a full share until 2017 - but the league's annual payout is the best in college sports.

Additionally, the Big Ten - a premier academic conference - would provide additional prestige and research options for the University through the renowned Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of the Big Ten universities.

Nebraska's leadership also rejected any notion that NU was going to be responsible for the potential collapse of the conference.

"One school leaving a conference does not destroy a conference," Perlman said.

"Nebraska did not start this discussion." Osborne agreed.

"As we read the tea leaves and listened to the conversations, some of the schools that were urging us to stay, we found some of them had talked to not only one other conference or two but even three, and those were the same ones urging us to stay," he said.

Nebraska's final season in the Big 12 began with a nationally televised game at Kansas State.

Like every conference opponent NU would face, the Wildcats wanted to give the Huskers a painful loss on their way out the door.

Freshman phenom quarterback Taylor Martinez stole the show on offense, with 369 yards of total offense (including 241 on the ground) and five total touchdowns.

But on defense, the star was Lavonte David, a JUCO transfer linebacker originally from Miami.

David had 16 tackles, including two for loss and a sack.

He and the Blackshirts held K-State's vaunted running back Daniel Thomas to 63 yards on 22 carries.

In the 48-13 win, Nebraska made a statement.

We intend to go out on top.

It was a rematch of the Big 12 Championship Game with Texas, dubbed "Red Out Around the World." Fans were convinced the No.

5 Huskers would exact revenge and get the last laugh.

Welp.

The offense struggled, fumbling the ball, dropping passes and scoring just six points.

David had 10 more tackles as the Blackshirts did everything they could to keep NU in the game.

The No.

9 Huskers traveled to College Station to face No.

18 Texas A&M.

It would become one of the most controversial games in school history.

The Huskers were flagged SIXTEEN times for 145 yards.

The Aggies were penalized twice for 10 yards.

Bo Pelini's teams could sometimes be undisciplined, but several of the flags were, at best, questionable.

Many fans believe the officials - acting on orders from the Big 12 offices - had it in for Nebraska.

Later, Beebe would address the "conspiracy theory." His comments didn't exactly sooth Husker fears.

"If there were a conspiracy, and if officials were involved, it would be easy to have a team lose just about every game possible.

That's a silly notion.

Fans don't always think through things clearly.

They have emotions on their sleeve." Lavonte David had a team-high 14 tackles - including four for loss - and a sack in Nebraska's frustrating 9-6 loss.

His efforts were overshadowed by the on- and off-field drama .

Nebraska clinched the Big 12 North title with a 45-17 win over Colorado.

However, nobody from the league office was on hand to award the trophy to Nebraska.

Beebe said it was precautionary because a few of the nearly 2,000 emails he received from Husker fans following the A&M loss contained threats.

Lavonte David had "only" eight tackles.

Fittingly, Nebraska's final game as a member of the Big 12 Conference was against Oklahoma in the championship game.

Given the history between the two teams, the outcome - a disappointing 23-20 loss - was also fitting.

David had 17 tackles, including 11 solo stops.

He would set a school record for tackles in a season (152), breaking Barrett Ruud's record.

David was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and second-team All-American.

Nebraska officially became a member of the Big Ten.

I'd love to say it's been a perfect relationship, but that's not how long-term marriages work.

But make no mistake - Nebraska is not going anywhere.

Between the money (over $63 million in revenue per school in 2024) and the academic boost, it would be absolutely foolish for NU to leave.

As for the Big 12, it did not fall apart.

In the end, five schools (Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri) all of whom which have been on the outside looking in if the Big 12 had folded, agreed to give their shares of the exit fees paid by Colorado and NU to the schools (led by Texas) that had been flirting with the Pac-10.

Texas has since left the Big 12 for the riches of the SEC.

If you were going to create the perfect linebacker for the modern defense, the end result would be Lavonte David.

Speed.

There have been faster players in the 40-yard dash, but few have been faster sideline to sideline.

Size.

His 6'1," 225 frame gave him the speed to chase ball carriers down, without sacrificing the physicality needed to play the position.

Instincts.

There were times it felt like David knew what play was coming next.

In the 2011 game at No.

12 Penn State, the Huskers are clinging to a three-point lead.

The Nittany Lions are driving with under two minutes to go and gained eight yards on first down.

What follows is one of the most incredible sequences you'll ever see: Second-and-two.

Lavonte David (and Austin Cassidy) stop the ball carrier for a one-yard gain.

Third-and-one: David stuffs Silas Redd for no gain.

Fourth-and-one: Redd has a lead blocker and a decent hole.

David is being blocked by the center.

Less than two seconds later, David meets Redd short of the line to gain and drives him back .

First down Nebraska.

Playmaker.

With Nebraska trailing Ohio State 27-6 midway through the third quarter, the Huskers needed a defensive stop and a spark.

That seemed unlikely as Braxton Miller weaved through the Blackshirts for an apparent first down.

But as Miller was falling to the turf, Lavonte David grabbed the ball and ripped it out of Miller's arms.

Taylor Martinez scored two plays later, the first of 28 unanswered points that led to the biggest comeback in school history - and Nebraska's first win as a member of the Big Ten Conference.

Nebraska has had some amazing inside linebackers over the years.

Jerry Murtaugh was a beast on the 1970 championship team.

Ed Stewart was a finalist of the Butkus Award.

Barrett Ruud holds the career record for most tackles.

But I would pick Lavonte David over any of them.

Every day of the week, and twice on Saturday.

To me, there were two very appealing benefits of joining the Big Ten: 1) the high likelihood of establishing a rivalry with Iowa and 2) playing for a silly trophy.

Ever since the Big Eight became 12, Nebraska has been missing a true rival.

There were periods of heightened hostilities with Kansas State , Missouri, and especially Colorado , but none of them truly felt like - or were widely acknowledged as* - a rivalry.

*I think it is safe to say that Nebraska and Colorado had a rivalry in the 1990s and 2000s, but for the most part, Husker fans didn't want to acknowledge it.

There were a lot of reasons why this happened (Husker fans looking down their noses at CU, not wanting to take away from the Oklahoma rivalry by acknowledging anybody else, and how former coach Bill McCartney forced the rivalry into existence).

But when the Oklahoma series stopped being an annual event - THE biggest game of the Big Eight calendar - Nebraska fans felt a void.

We would see all of the great college football rivalries and border wars, and secretly wished we had that team that we could despise 24/7/365 - and know that team felt the same way about us.

We were just too dadgum proud to say that team was Colorado or K-State, because it would acknowledge that those formerly inferior teams were now on Nebraska's level...

or that Nebraska had dropped down to theirs.* *Was this an extremely pompous way for fans to think? Absolutely.

Was I alone in feeling this way? Absolutely not.

It was also very silly.

By most measures - head-to-head, national championships, Heismans, conference titles, etc.

- Nebraska trails Oklahoma.

Did the Sooners look down their noses at Nebraska? Probably not.

One of the few upsides to Nebraska wandering the college football desert for over two decades has been that our collective feeling of Manifest Destiny has cooled off.

By the time Nebraska joined the Big Ten, the Huskers were ready to hate again.

And Iowa was a perfect candidate.

Like Colorado and Mizzou, they wear black and gold - colors that somehow makes a team more hateable.

The two teams seemed destined to play every year.

And unlike Oklahoma, there wasn't 200+ miles of Kansas prairie separating the two states - only the Missouri River.

Nebraska was initially placed in the Big Ten's "Legends" division with Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota and Northwestern.

An unnecessarily pretentious name with a weird, non-geographic split, but whatever.

Next, the Big Ten office wisely declared Nebraska and Iowa as an annual rivalry game, with games taking place on Black Friday.

So far, so good! But then, it started to fall apart.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany announced that the matchup would be known as the "Heroes Game." Each school would recognize somebody from their fan base who had committed a heroic act of bravery in the previous year.

Look: I'm all for celebrating everyday heroes and will not disparage anybody who has been honored.

But it wasn't the agricultural-based theme that most people on both sides of the river wanted/expected.

Nebraska and Iowa are ag states.

Farming is a major industry in both places.

It's okay to acknowledge and celebrate that.

And yet, it felt like Delany was trying to downplay the obvious, specific tie-in to force a square morality trope peg through the round hole of the fledgling rivalry.

And let's face it: After despising your rival for the last 364 days, do you really want to stand and clap because one of their fans rescued a family of eight from a burning building, and went back into to save their pets...

including the goldfish? No.

You want to let the hate course through your veins (even if the people on the other side of the river are essentially the same folks with the same values as your friends and neighbors), because that's part of what makes college sports fun.* *Admittedly, this seems mildly psychotic typed out, but I know many of you are nodding in agreement.

Plus, the "Heroes Game" doesn't have the same gravitas as The Game, the Iron Bowl, Backyard Brawl, Red River Shootout, Civil War and other well-known college football rivalry games.

The Heroes Game sounds like a charity softball game between the local police and fire departments.

And then there's the trophy.

The Big Ten LOVES its trophies.

Floyd of Rosedale, Paul Bunyon's Axe, the Old Oaken Bucket and so many more.

Any disappointment I had about losing the short drives and (usually) winnable games of the Big 12 North could be offset by playing for a gigantic bronze T-bone, a wagon wheel, or some other oddball tchotchke that is valued only by the two teams in the rivalry.

But instead of an axe, or bucket, or pig, Nebraska and Iowa play for the Heroes Trophy, the most painfully bland, generic doorstop in sports.

It is essentially a tiered wedding cake made of wood with a pewter football on top.

In the Trophies-R-Us catalog Jim Delany ordered it from, the basic Heroes Trophy template also comes in 14 other sports, including basketball, bowling, and women's rifle.

Just use a 7/32" Allen wrench to swap out the accessory on top.

The game and trophy also have a corporate sponsor, because apparently the Nebraska-Iowa rivalry needed to be more sterilized and focus-group approved.

In the first dozen years, the trophy has gone through three different title sponsors (a regional grocery chain, a sporting goods store, and currently, a seed company).

In today's NIL world, the corporate sponsor should cut a five- or six-figure check to the winning school's NIL fund, but don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

From a Husker perspective, the series with Iowa hasn't gone much better.

The Huskers - who have largely been mediocre to bad since joining the Big Ten - are 4-10 against the Hawkeyes since the stupid Heroes Game was announced.

Their record in the last 10 matchups is so bad I'm choosing to ignore it.

So, let's talk about the first meeting as Big Ten rivals: 2011 in Lincoln.

Bo Pelini's 2011 team entered with an 8-3 record and was coming off a 28-point nationally televised upset loss to Michigan.

Nebraska's strategy was basic: give the ball to Rex Burkhead and rely on the Blackshirts.

It worked.

Burkhead carried a school-record 38 times for 160 yards and a touchdown.

Iowa was held to 88 yards rushing and was just 2 of 12 on third down.

Linebacker Lavonte David continued his brilliant dominance.

He recorded a team-high eight tackles, bringing his season total to 122.

David also contributed a sack, forced fumble, fumble recovery,* quarterback hurry, and two pass breakups.

Just another day at the office for the linebacker GOAT.

*David's forced fumble and recovery were reminiscent of the play he made against Ohio State.

As the ball carrier was fighting for extra yards, David swooped in and grabbed the ball out of the offensive player's arms.

The final score was 20-7.

Iowa scored a touchdown with 3:26 left in the game to avoid the shutout.

It is Nebraska's largest margin of victory in the Iowa series since joining the Big Ten.

The teams have played 10 one-score games since 2012.

In most of them, Nebraska has found the most inventively frustrating ways to lose.

I know that in the first few years of the rivalry, some Husker fans didn't want to acknowledge Iowa as a rival.

But I think there has now been enough Hawkeye crowing to raise the ire of any holdouts.

Nebraska and Iowa are rivals, even if the trophy is dumb.

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