Time for another update on Huskerland for the 2021 football season, both online and in printed form. And an update on Ross the Dog.

Starting tomorrow (Tuesday) on the website we will start shifting gears, starting to mix in our top ten teams in each class along with more of our top games, and our world famous Top 225 player rankings. World famous in my world, anyway.

We will continue to sprinkle in some previews of teams that won’t make our preseason top tens as well as some other commentary before we add the player feature stories late this month and into next month.

Much of this is tied to our printed edition of Huskerland Prep Report, the mother of all things Huskerland, which it would seem will once again be in magazine form after last year’s newsprint version. (BTW, I liked the newsprint edition.) While not completely confirmed it is all but a done deal we will once again work with our friends at University Sports Publications to produce the Huskerland football preview in magazine form, and we will get formal confirmation by the end of this week.

What is for sure is we are about 10 days out from having a completed document, the final draft of the Huskerland high school football preview. Despite some early struggles in collecting information we will have team previews on 269 of the 275 high school football programs in our state, missing only Omaha Christian Academy and Walthill in Class D-2, and Heartland Lutheran, Santee and Arthur County in six-man.

Beyond that we will have our typical mix of features in the magazine, including 22 player feature stories, the Top 225 player rankings, our list of the Top 30 Games of the Year (according to me, anyway), preseason top tens in each class, and our preseason all-state teams. It’s a lot, and it takes a long time to put this all together - last year was the first time I can ever remember leafing through the printed preview edition and thinking, wow, that’s a lot of writing.

It’s been a lot of writing all along, I’ve just gotten older (thankfully) and slower (not as thankfully).

We still have some player feature interviews I need to conduct, three of them in total and I hope to have them done late this week or early next, but I took care of a big swath of those interviews last week. That’s when I took my annual @HuskerlandBob Tour out to the real west (and west-central) part of our state, making 15 campus visits in three days that included 1,231 miles of driving (give or take).

After making that delightful trek I am pleased to let you know the rivers and lakes are full, the Sand Hills still have plenty of life in them, and that Ross the Dog is still alive and kicking, thriving really.

Ross the Dog? Could it be you don’t know the story of Ross the Dog? (Actually it could, and you wouldn’t be alone, but stay with me on this.) Eleven years ago I conducted a preseason football interview with a young student athlete from Creek Valley High, by the name of Ben Hansen. We conducted our photo shoot at his family home, a farm located just two miles east of Chappell, and waiting for him, lying on the porch, was Ben’s family dog, Ross.

Ross?, I asked. Ben told me he that fine looking pooch was named for former Husker running back Cory Ross. Good enough, I said, and we got Ben dressed out for our photos.

During that stretch of time Ross was actually really good for a three-year old puppy, staying on the porch for almost the entire time Ben was getting ready. Almost. At the last minute, with Ben kneeling down, ready to have his photo taken, Ross the Dog shot into the frame, cuddling up with his master, showing him some affection. Very cute.

At first Ben wanted to dismiss the pooch, thinking he was enthusiastically in the way like puppies can be, but I said, wait a minute, we might have something there. So I had Ben hold his pose and had Ross the Dog do the same - what we had when we finished was one of my all-time favorite player feature photos in the 32 years of Huskerland publication. Classic.

Fast forward nine years and I interviewed Ben’s younger brother Patrick, documenting the rise of Creek Valley football. As I told Patrick, nobody really cared about him, but how was Ross the Dog. Good, Patrick reported, real good. It’s funny you remember him, he said.

Patrick remembered the photo I took of his brother, of course, and after I explained how it all came to be he came to understand the importance of Ross the Dog in Huskerland history.

Which brings us to last week, Tuesday night to be exact, when I was again in Chappell, making a campus visit to report on Creek Valley football. You gotta love small towns because when I asked if Ross the Dog was doing OK there was a brief pause and then they all started talking at once, telling me how awesome Ross the Dog was doing these days. Awesome, indeed.

Being just two miles from the Hansen home I had to stop to see Ross the Dog. So after I was done with the football team I eased out there and, sure enough, there stood the farm house with that beautifully simply wrap-around porch, the one Ross the Dog had graced so long ago. Only there was no Ross the Dog, no dog at all that I could see. Weird.

I retreated to Hansen Petroleum, the family owned joint located downtown and found Grandma Hansen still working the front desk, though it was nearing 6 p.m. MT. After getting reacquainted (we have talked several times in the past) I again asked about Ross the Dog. Oh, he’s doing fine, Grandma told me. That’s great, I said, but there was no sign of him at the home place.

That’s probably because they moved, she told me.

Oh.

So I turned around and headed back east on Highway 30, this time five miles east of Chappell and not just two, and entered this beautiful farm yard with the classic farm house located smack dab in the middle of it all. As I pulled into the yard here came a working farm dog with a bobbed tail, which is sort of a badge of honor for working farm dogs, and he was really happy to have some company. But no Ross the Dog. Not yet.

Once I got out of the truck and got acquainted with my new working class dog friend I turned to the west and here he came, like one of those Old West gunslingers emerging from the livery stable, Ross the Dog. Looking good, he ambled over to me and greeted my like an old war buddy, immediately presenting himself to be petted and spoken kindly of. Both of which I did.

With Ross the Dog at my side I made a lap around the Hansen place, knocking on all the doors of the house, calling out to see if anybody was home, walking down to the shop and looking around but no dice, or more accurately, no Hansens. It was at that point I turned to Ross the Dog and said, dude, there is no way I drove all the way out here to see you and we don’t take a selfie.

Which we did. And when Ross the Dog took that selfie he went with his patented move, the one he used with Ben in the photo, turning and looking up at me, almost smiling while we snapped the photo. Look man, I’m a dog guy, and to me it was the highlight of the trip. No offense, Quade Myers. (wink)

So, with that trip out of the way, and the assurance Ross the Dog is doing great, we are in the home stretch for getting your 2021 Huskerland Prep Report published and mailed to you. If perhaps you don’t have a subscription to our print edition (gasp!) the cost is $35.00 for 13 issues, including the preview, and you can mail your check to us at Jensen Publishing, 19109 Hampton Drive, Omaha NE 68136.