Things You May Not Have Known About Iowa Football: Installment V -- Nebraska has fewer BCS bowl appearances since 2000 than Illinois (or Iowa)

This is the last of a series of not-necessarily-meaningful pieces I constructed before leaving for vacation. I hope I return to a stronger, healthier, happier state of Iowa.

But this post is really about Nebraska, not Iowa. Although, most people in the other 48 states don't differentiate between the two. Obviously, they haven't been to Wahoo or What Cheer.

Neither have I, for that matter.

Nebraska Cornhuskers football has a lot of well-deserved mythology. You're talking about a program with five national championships, countless conference crowns, and a string of home sellouts that dates back to when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.

But let's talk recent history. In the last 10 seasons, Nebraska has been to a BCS bowl once, and that was a 37-14 BCS title-game loss to Miami in the 2001 season. It was a little weird the Huskers were in that game, since they suffered a 62-36 regular season-ending loss to Colorado.

Since then, the Cornhuskers' bowls have been Independence, Alamo, Alamo, Cotton, Gator, Holiday and Holiday. Part of that stemmed from the Big 12 not having the quality of bowl-affiliations the Big Ten does. But a bigger part of it is Nebraska not having a season with fewer than four losses since 2003.

The last three years have been a revival for the Huskers. They've gone 9-4, 10-4 and 10-4 since Bo Pelini became the head coach prior to the 2008 season. Will they return to the form

Ohio State has been to eight BCS bowls (including three national-title games) since the 2001 season, though its Sugar Bowl appearance last season has been scrubbed from the record book. Michigan has been to three Rose Bowls in that time. Iowa and Penn State have been to a pair of BCS games. So has ... Illinois.

That's right, Illinois has been to two BCS bowls in this millennium, Nebraska one.

Here are the won-lost records of Big Ten teams over the last seven seasons:

Ohio State  74-15

Wisconsin  68-22

Penn State  62-26

Iowa  57-31

Nebraska  56-34

Michigan  51-36

Michigan State  47-40

Northwestern  47-40

Purdue  41-43

Minnesota  37-50

Indiana  31-52

Illinois (even with a Rose Bowl year included)  31-53

You can make statistics do a lot of things. Nebraska has a very good football program. Maybe its record over the last decade would be better had it played in the Big Ten instead of the Big 12. One thing's for sure: This season will be interesting. Because this season, the Huskers play all of the seven other Big Ten teams with winning records over the last seven years.