An article on their game this weekend with OU, with a focus on series history:
Even if NU fans aren’t optimistic about this meeting, the game is rekindling memories of past heydays, when the game’s outcome almost annually determined conference championships and Orange Bowl bids.
omaha.com
A snippet:
… The lowly Huskers did shock Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners in 1959, ending Oklahoma’s 13-year, 74-game conference winning streak. It’s still one of the biggest upsets in Husker football history. …
There is nothing that says NU is bound to revert to past glory. They had a decent prior W-L record when they won the national title in the 1970(71) season, I believe, but that was a new height. I was young but remember seeing the Orange Bowl that year (New Years Eve, or Jan. 1). It appeared that night that things might fall into place such that NU would be voted number 1, which turned out to be the case. It was unusual then, though, and not the norm.
The next season, it was like they were UCLA basketball, major league hype — and the game of the century against number 2 OU Thanksgiving afternoon — close and in doubt the entire game and one in which Johnny Rodgers, always a deep threat, returned a punt for a TD.
Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Colorado finished that season 1-2-3 in the polls. I think the Big 8 regularly had 4 or 5 teams in the top 20 (this was before they were doing top 25).