NU/OU Pre-Tunnel Walk Video

Set this on High-Def, full screen it, turn your speakers up and enjoy.  This really got the crowd going Saturday night.

Sunday School: Oklahoma

On a night where fans in Lincoln got to salute some of the greats who played for both Nebraska and Oklahoma, the modern-day Huskers and Sooners put on a throwback show of their own at Memorial Stadium.

It was always interesting that a good number of the old Big 8 title shootouts between these two schools turned out to be relatively low scoring, defensive affairs.  This coming despite the fact that Oklahoma’s wishbone and Nebraska’s option “I” usually put up monster numbers in the other 10 games of the regular season.

Having a great offense is always fun to watch.  Lots of big plays, lots of points.  But when the old cliche ”defense wins championships” is pulled out, it still rings true.  A great defense will always keep you in the game, no matter how anemic or ineffective your team’s offense.  This was never more true that Saturday night.  Somewhere Bill Callahan must have been smiling.  That’s right, Bill Callahan.  We basically saw the 2006 USC offensive game plan replayed against Oklahoma.  Only this time, the result was victory.  Neither quarterback was asked to do anything remotely dangerous (with one glaring exception that I will elaborate on later).  It was run, run, run, run all night long.  Hang onto the ball.  Ask Alex Henery to punt.  Cover the punt and then play great defense.  Not pretty, but it worked.

Now this team and Husker Nation can bask in the glow of this win.  Any win over Oklahoma is special, no matter the record.  Bo Pelini was particularly satisfied, though he won’t go very far to show it.  He respects his mentor Bob Stoops too much to gloat and he knows that the final three games of the regular season will be just as challenging as this one to get too excited.

Yes, I said the final three games will be just as challenging.

Because just as a great defense will keep you in most any game, a poor offense will also keep you from getting too comfortable in most games.  So my advice is to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst because every game left on this schedule is pretty darn close to 50-50 – except maybe Colorado.  But even then, it’s maybe 60-40.

Replay Blues

How does a play in the final minute get run in its entirety, have no penalty flags and still not count?

When Big 12 officials are involved. 

After Ryan Broyles broke his 35 yard punt return with :41 seconds remaining, there was some question as to whether or not he may have stepped out-of-bounds.  Yet despite the time it took to move new offensive and defensive personnel on the field, set the ball and start the play clock, the replay officials couldn’t get the signal to the field officials in time before OU snapped the ball and ran the entire play.  Seriously!  What are these guys doing up there?  Broyles was very close to stepping out as he tightroped the sidelines.  Awareness is usually heightened to close or controversial plays in the final seconds of a close game.  But it took over a minute to signal that they wanted to review the play to the field?

Fortunately, the phantom play (a deflected pass by Barry Turner) did not change the outcome of the game.  What if OU had struck a big play?  Or the Huskers forced a game-winning turnover?  You would have had a near-riotous situation on one of the sidelines.

The Big 12 has had issues with their replay paging system all year.  I don’t know if that was the case here or if it was just very slow reaction upstairs, but the league needs to look into it.  Not after the season.  Right now, before it causes a huge controversy that gets played out on SportsCenter.

Third Verse, Same As The First

At this point just write the starting quarterback’s name in light pencil, because you are bound to erase it.  Zac Lee may have relieved Cody Green in the second quarter, but he is no closer to being Nebraska’s starting quarterback next week than he was this week.  Nebraska’s offense – the worst since 1968 – is still without an identity.  The way Shawn Watson calls plays, you really can’t say NU is a “throwing team” when Lee is in the game or a “running team” when Green is behind center.

You never want to be mired in a quarterback controversy in the month of November, but that is where the Huskers find themselves.  Lee did nothing to justify his starting at Kansas no more the Green did to keep the starting job.  That means another week of questions and another tryout in practice.

1959 Revisited

There was a sweet coincidence to Saturday’s win.  As the 1959 team celebrated it’s 50th reunion and its signature win – the 25-21 upset of Oklahoma that ended the Sooners’ 74 game conference unbeaten streak – the 2009 offense put up anemic numbers in their 10-3 win.  180 yards.  Total.  In 1959, the Huskers gained just 160 yards in the win over OU.  However it was another win over the Sooners in Memorial Stadium, the 21-7 victory in 1993, where the Huskers gained just 179 yards that rates as the lowest offensive yardage total in a winning effort by a Nebraska team since at least 1961 (my research could not find game stats for contests prior to 1962.)  Here are some other low-yardage efforts in winning games.

vs. Auburn – 234 (1964 Orange Bowl)

vs. Wyoming – 206 (1968)

vs. Minnesota – 237 (1968)

vs. Kansas – 213 (1973)

vs. LSU – 219 (1975)

vs. Kansas State – 220 (1994)

vs. Oklahoma State – 215 (1998)

vs. Southern Mississippi – 185 (1999)

vs. Missouri – 235 (2004)

vs. Wake Forest – 234 (2005)

The 1962 Gotham Bowl vs. Miami, the Huskers won despite being outgained by 206 yards.  Miami 502, Nebraska 296.  The Sooners outgained NU by 145 yards on Saturday.

Time To Let It Go

It pains me to write, but any real chance of rekindling this rivalry between Nebraska and Oklahoma is gone.  I know Big 12 athletic directors will try to tweak the schedules, but as long as there is a North/South split there will not be an annual game between these two schools.

Yes, I am ticked off that this rivalry, my rivalry, is dead.  Killed by the 10-gallon hat wearing Big Texas Conference.  Strange how the merger of this conference was spun in its early days.  I was at the press conference in the chancellor’s office when the Big 12 was announced to the Nebraska media.  To those of us in Nebraska, it was spun as “the Big 8 was adding four teams from Texas”, but in reality, a new conference was born.  All remnants of the Big 8 were dead, including the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry – the best rivalry in all of college football (as voted on by fans in a USA Today poll taken in the late 80s.)  Nebraska and Oklahoma were the two programs that gave the Big 8 legitimacy.  The two programs that made the conference a force to be reckoned with.  Now with the laundering of the “dirty” Southwest Conference schools, a great national tradition was scrapped.

I will always have fond memories of the NU/OU series.  It made Thanksgiving week so special.  And while losing to the Sooners usually ruined many a Turkey Day memory, it was the reward of beating them that made the effort worthwhile.  I can always take satisfaction in that in the last years of the every-season series, Nebraska went 9-1 against the Sooners and most of the games were not even close.

Sunday School Top Ten

1) Florida

2) Alabama

3) Texas

4) Cincinnati

5) TCU

6) Boise State

7) Georgia Tech

Pittsburgh

9) Houston

10) Ohio State

Friday Night Videos

Ahhhh, I love Friday afternoons.  Winding down the work week, focusing on the great weekend up ahead,  perhaps being a little less productive than usual, and most important, a chance to watch this week’s most interesting Internet video. 

Right now, the most popular movie trailer on the web is clearly that of 2012, which explores the idea of a global doomsday event coinciding with end of the Mayan calendar’s current cycle in the year 2012.  Sounds like a real feel good flick, huh?  Nothing like going to see a movie where it appears that about 10,000 people die in the trailer alone, but I’ve got to admit–the special effects are sweet. 

This one got a lot of hits earlier in the week.  It’s a Las Vegas semi-pro football league (it’s not HS as this video indicates), and the guy here returning the punt makes a couple of nice moves before getting tackled, but look closely at the uniform of the guy who makes the tackle.

There was a lot of talk about dirty football players this week after a Florida player was suspended for gouging the eyes of a Georgia running back.  Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen dirtier play than was displayed yesterday by this New Mexico women’s soccer player.

At about the 30 second point of this soundless video, we see why forklift driving ability is a major prerequisite for any warehouse job.

I find this one pretty hilarious.  It’s the music video for Bonnie Tyler’s total eclipse of the heart, but this is the “literal  version”.  It’s pretty self-explanatory once you start watching.

I’m always curious about how computers will change in the coming year.  Here’s a video showing you what might be the newest trend in the notebook variety–’rolltops’.

That’s it.  Have a great weekend!

The Magical Big XII North Scenario Generator!

If you’re anything like me, when you’re not busy stressing about why Nebraska’s offense has lost nearly all of its potency, you’re contemplating just how likely it is that Nebraska could lose one or even two more games and still punch their ticket to Dallas for the Big XII North Championship in what I’m sure would be a riveting matchup with the Texas Longhorns. 

Well, I’ve got the answer.  With this handy-dandy Big XII North scenario generator, courtesy of an old law school buddy, Scot Ringenberg, you can see what would happen via any of the tens of thousands of permutations of game results that could still happen in the division’s final month.  Plus, it’s nice to be able to figure out if you should really be cheering for Kansas or Kansas St. this weekend (probably Kansas). 

When running the generator, don’t change the “results grid” on the left, but instead, just place the “x” under the week by week schedule next to the team you’re predicting to win and each team’s record will be updated at the bottom of the results grid.  Oh  yeah, you may need this, it’s the Big XII rules about tie-breakers, which are almost certainly going to come into play.  Have fun.

Hey LJS: Headlines matter, too.

If you listened to our show on Friday, we spent a lot of time discussing the State’s audit of the University of Nebraska’s use of credit cards for, in some cases, unauthorized purposes.  While it looks like the audit uncovered some real problems in the way these cards were being used that needed to be brought to the public’s attention, John and I mentioned several times on Friday that the Lincoln Journal Star didn’t do the University (or clear reporting) any favor with a ridiculously huge headline that simply said “$40 Million”. 

Aside from the fact that it seemed the font was the size that normally reads “Huskers Win National Championship” or “U.S. Attacked”, there was also the slight matter that the $40 Million mentioned wasn’t particularly newsworthy.  That amount was the annual volume of the University’s Credit Card program, NOT the amount alleged to have been spent in violation of policy, which was much, much smaller, and the source of the actual news.  While the public certainly deserves an explanation for these expenditures and the University needs to take serious corrective action, I’m hopeful that this incident doesn’t disproportionately feed into what has become a surprisingly strong distaste for the University among many of the people I talk to around Lincoln.  While I don’t begrudge criticism of the University, which is healthy when we’re dealing with a state-run institution, that criticism is more frequently being backed by misinformation, and this doesn’t help.    

That said, I applaud LJS Editor Michael Nelson for stepping up and admitting the mistake in this Sunday’s papers (albeit it was on page F5, not quite the audience of page A1 in 80 point font). 

I was particularly critical of the newspaper on Friday’s show because it was the second time in a single week that the LJS had written a headline that was inaccurate in a way that almost seemed to be designed to feed into a common  source of local outrage.  In Wednesday’s online editions, the headline above Deena Winter’s column read “City arena tab so far — $2.9M”. 

Well, that’s not really true, which the article itself clarifies.  Of that $2.9 Million on the city’s ‘tab’ to study and plan the arena project, more than half of it ($1.6M) comes from a  loan from the 2015 Vision group.  That loan will not be repaid unless the voters approve the arena.  Yet, I know that listeners with whom I talked, and I presume others around the city assumed that nearly $3 Million in city funds were spent prior to  any kind of voter input.   Not true.  And now, much like the strong distaste for the University, the intense and grumpy faction of this city who thinks the city is constantly trying to pull one over on its citizens via this arena project is energized.  Wonderful. 

I don’t mean to imply that the LJS is trying to encourage this sentiment behind the scenes, but I do recognize that the “anonymous copy editors” are obviously looking for the sexiest headline, which apparently often comes at the expense of context and full disclosure of the facts.  The result?  A lot of people who skim headlines and articles (we all do it) end up with out-of-context or irrelevant facts.  C’mon LJS, if you fix your headlines, I promise not to complain the next time you refuse to mention John and me by name when you use us as a source–we can forever be the mysterious “Morning Talk Show on KLIN“.

Sunday School: Baylor

The Cody Green era has begun.

I just hope it didn’t start with the Cody Green error.

First, let’s not get too excited nor discouraged by the start of the true freshman quarterback.  But what I still do not understand and what I think will eventually cost Nebraska the North Division title is that this start should have come one week earlier.  Green was okay in his first start as a Husker.  Yes, he made a poor decision to make a long throw to the sideline that was picked for Baylor’s only touchdown and he fumbled once, but you are going to have to expect those kinds of mistakes from a true freshman quarterback.  However, it is illogical why Green wasn’t handed the keys to this offense last week.

Next week marks the most vicious challenge for the Nebraska offense that it will likely see all season.  If Iowa State and Baylor represent Defense 101, the Sooner defense will be like facing a graduate course.  With that said, Green could have started every game this season and still be overmatched against OU.  But at this point, every game of experience can help and for Green to have been on the sidelines all last week against Iowa State is just a wasted opportunity.

It was apparent that Shawn Watson was trying to give Green a very manageable game plan against Baylor, though for the life of me I cannot understand why we see more read option called with Zac Lee in the game than we do our best running quarterback.  There was more of an emphasis on power football (something I called for here), but it seemed to lose some steam when Dontrayveous Robinson was knocked out of the game.  I felt there were opportunities to run play action out of that power look, but we never saw it.

Green was not the only significant player on offense that got a fresh look.  The demotion of Meno Holt and Curenski Gilleylen was serious.  Holt saw the field a little, Gilleylen did not.  Roy Helu, still limited by injury, didn’t play much.  The Huskers are still sorely lacking a playmaker and at this point, it doesn’t appear as if one will develop this season.  I can pretty much guarantee that a playmaker won’t be found next week against the Sooners, which brings me back to my original point.  Green has the makeup of a guy who can be that playmaker someday.  But outside of Saturday’s game against Baylor and a few series against Texas Tech and Sun Belt competition, he has very little experience and Green is going to need every life’s experience he can muster against OU.

I know most people have conceded the Oklahoma game.  That kind of talk was going on before the Iowa State game, which is a shame.  You aren’t going to find many OU teams as vulnerable as this one – even with the great defense.  The Sooners have their own freshman quarterback, they haven’t been able to protect the passer nor have a big threat in the running game.  With the Blackshirts playing as they are, it could easily be the first one to 10 points wins.  If that is true, then one big break, one special teams play or one big play by the offense could be the difference between winning and losing.

I just wish Cody Green would have had a few more snaps last week to be better prepared to make that play.

Bishop’s Six Pack:

The Good:

-Jared Crick.  What an awesome game by the young sophomore.  If you play in a college fantasy league that has individual defensive players, here was your MVP.  A school record five sacks; tied the record for most tackles for losses (7); 13 total tackles, 10 solos and a fumble recovery.  Suh gets the attention by college offensive coordinators, but no matter how you scheme you still have to beat your man one-on-one.  All day long, Crick was beating his man and beating him badly.

-Numbers Game.  Baylor’s one offensive threat was in using their speed to go deep.  But just about every time Florence threw one of his long “hang time” passes, there seemed to be two Nebraska players for every Baylor receiver.  I don’t recall NU blitzing once on Saturday.  They didn’t need to with the pressure from the front four, but also it gave the coaches Pelini to scheme a great zone defense to confuse the young freshman QB.  With a couple of exceptions, the strategy worked and kept Baylor’s offense out of the end zone.

-Robert Griffin on the sideline.  I don’t wish ill on the young man by cheering for his injury, but had he been on the field Saturday there’s a good chance Baylor wins that game.  He is that kind of a difference-maker.  Florence did his best, but he was overmatched.  Griffin’s legs alone would have given BU a dynamic that they sorely needed against the Blackshirts.  And the way Nebraska’s offense was puttering along……..oh, stop thinking about it.  Griffin didn’t play and NU won.  The way this season has gone, we’ll take it.

The Bad:

-Second Half Offense.  The Huskers ran six plays in Baylor territory after halftime.  How many chances will NU have in Sooner territory in all of next weekend’s game?  Gonna need turnovers and special teams plays to probably get there.

-More overprotection of the QB by officials.  I might give you the personal foul on  ”>Suh for slamming Nick Florence to the turf – though technically the play was not over.  But the hit on Florence by Dejon Gomes was absolutely a pathetic call.  The quarterback is now really a kicker.  Can’t touch the kicker, can’t touch the quarterback.  And the game is getting ruined by overprotective officials and their supervisors who encourage “protection” of these players.  How about protecting the integrity of the game?

-Walking wounded.  I was alarmed by the number of Huskers that were helped from the field in Waco.  It used to be that NU was the more physical team, but Baylor knocked some guys around in a way that we aren’t used to seeing.  Alfonso Dennard, Kyler Reed, Tray Robinson, Niles Paul and Jared Crick were just some of the Huskers that either needed help off the field or were slow to get up.  Most will be okay (we think), but don’t expect to hear anything definitive from Bo Pelini, whose injury report has two columns:  Alive or Dead.

Dennard and Robinson’s injuries are the most concerning.  Dennard will be a huge loss in the secondary if he cannot play against OU.  Anthony Blue will be a moving target all day long for Landry Jones.

Robinson continues to show promise and ran well against Baylor.  But if he cannot go and Helu is only 80 percent healthy (which is probably a generous estimate), then Nebraska has very little running threat.  All defenses, not just Oklahoma’s, will be  pre=”be “>salavating at a one-dimensional Nebraska that hasn’t proven to have two good dimensions to its offense this season.  A healthy Robinson at least gives NU the threat of a run.

Manhattan Melodies

This is going to be hard for many Husker fans to swallow and hard for many people to believe, but Bill Snyder has brought Kansas State back to respectability.  Okay, not the kind of respectability that warrants national attention, but respectability that could very well lead the Wildcats to an improbable division title.  Yes, the North Division is an awful division – but KSU was supposed to be a really awful football team this year.  Since the change from Carson Coffman to Grant Gregory at quarterback, KSU has found themselves offensively and get this……they don’t try to do more than what their athletes are capable of doing.

Brandon Banks has turned into another David Allen, having returned four kicks for scores this season.

Defensively, the Wildcats aren’t going to knock anybody’s socks off, but this team was down 28-9 at halftime to Oklahoma and they never gave up.

Typical of most Snyder teams, they are getting better as the season draws longer and they are well-disciplined.  The rest of their schedule might have sounded like murderer’s row in September, but now seems quite manageable.  They can beat a demoralized Kansas team in Manhattan as well as Missouri the following week at home.  Then it boils down to a date in Lincoln with the Huskers on November 21st.

Only a fool would count K-State out the way this bizarre season is going.

Instant Replay Woes

If you have seen any of Indiana’s football games this season you must wonder, as I have, how head coach Bill Lynch hasn’t dropped dead of a heart attack.  If the Hoosiers aren’t doing things to blow big leads, they are getting shafted by the visually-impared individuals who occupy the instant replay booths of their games.

A few weeks ago, there were a pair of suspect reviews that went against IU at Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Then last Saturday, two touchdowns were taken away by instant replay.  Both were very close, but were called TDs on the field which means it is incumbent that the replay official find clear visual evidence to overturn the call.  In neither case, did I see that clear visual evidence.  Indiana did get a score after one of those erroneous reviews, but the second cost IU a 28-7 lead which would have changed the dynamics of the game dramatically.

I really think a more structured system of instant replay is in order in college football.  Give the coaches three challenges per game, provided that the team still has timeouts remaining to cover if the review is upheld.  To have an open system where officials can be buzzed defeats the purpose of speeding up the game, which is why the 40 second play clock was instituted.  Put the strategy in the coach’s hands and don’t make every single play subject to review.  It won’t change what happened in the Indiana-Iowa game, but it will take the pressure off replay officials to find something wrong with every play.

Fashion Faux Pas

Does anybody ever look in the mirror anymore?  College football is already weird enough this season without some of the wardrobe malfunctions we are seeing this season, especially this past weekend.  Tennessee in black jerseys with orange pants.  Georgia switching to black helmets with red facemasks.  And the coup de ugly: whatever that purple/orange/vomit combination Virginia Tech was donning on Thursday night.

The Huskers pulled the throwbacks out for the first time ever to salute the 1962 Huskers and the 300th sellout.  But my guess is that it will be a long time before we see anything like that again.  Thank goodness.  There’s something to be said for tradition and being proud enough of how you look to not want to change just because some fashion designer got a wild hair.

Sunday School Top Ten

1 – Alabama

2 – Florida

3 – Texas

4 – Cincinnati

5 – TCU

6 – Boise

7 – Oregon

8 – Iowa

9 – Georgia Tech

10 – LSU

No change at the top, but I was seriously considering rearranging the top three.  But the sweep of the state of Oklahoma is just not as impressive as it looked before the season started.  Iowa got the win, but finding a way to win in the Big 10 is one thing, finding ways to win in the SEC, Big 12 or most every other conference is something else.

Sunday School: Iowa State

It was supposed to be sunny Saturday in Lincoln.  It was not.

Nebraska was supposed to beat Iowa State Saturday in Lincoln and begin to repair their wounded psyche.  They did not.

About the only thing that was accurate or made any sense on this dark, dank crappy day was a time-honored football equation.

8 turnovers + 7 points = LOSS.

How ironic that when I mentioned last week that Zac Lee was the better choice at quarterback I said Lee was far more likely to limit turnovers than the less experienced Cody Green.  Yet the turnover bug bit anyway and bit hard.  Lee was responsible for three of them (and nearly a fourth on a fumble that  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”that “>Curenski Gilleylen somehow recovered), but teammates Roy Helu, Dontrayveous Robinson, Roy Helu and Menelik Holt all contributed in mind-numblingly bizarre and inexplicable ways.

It’s really as simple as that.  Eight turnovers.  That is what lost the game.  Yet there is still so much more.  So many more questions.  So many more debates.  So many more explanations necessary.  Now a football season that eight days earlier seemed so much full of hope and promise looks as dark and depressing as this October weather.

There’s that number again.  Eight.

Get Used To Lee

Bo Pelini said something in the post game press conference that should have rung very loud in the ears of those who are hoping to see Cody Green start at quarterback at some point this season.

“He’s not ready yet.”

Pelini added that Green “is getting there” but it seems that this season’s offense will ride on the right arm and decision-making skills of Zac Lee.  From where I sit, that means this offense is going to continue to struggle.  Sure if you take away the turnovers, NU wins this game in a rout.  But Lee does not look comfortable.  He cannot run every facet of this offense to make it even approach what we saw last season.  He is not a runner, so why even try?  NU showed the ability to run some power football – that is your only running threat at this point.  Why was it brought to an abrupt end after the Robinson fumble at the ISU five yard line?

Yes, receivers continue to make drops so not all the blame of missed opportunities fall at #5’s feet.  But consider this:  Lee has been off target on passes 15 yards or less all season (even in his “impressive” games against the Sun Belt) – balls thrown too high or too wide, putting the receiver in awkward positions to catch them.  It’s hard to develop chemistry in a passing game between thrower and receiver when the sometimes routine pitch and catch is not executed properly.  You combine a quarterback who is not accurate with receivers that drop balls and you have problems.

I still believe that NU can ditch the read option, show some power (which worked, hello Mr. Fullback, nice to see you), get a couple of your talented tight ends in the game and work a little hard-nosed running with some play action.  You need to build back confidence in an offense that has ZERO confidence right now.  Nebraska doesn’t appear to have three receivers it can trust to run three and four receiver sets, so why force it?  To me, building confidence in the offense starts with the basics and taking some pressure off a quarterback that is feeling nothing but pressure on the field right now.

I am reminded of something Vince Lombardi said upon his hire as the coach of the Green Bay Packers.

“Running makes you hard-nosed.  The more you run, the more hard-nosed you are.”

Meanwhile, it’s time to temper the enthusiasm for Mr. Green.  It’s obvious if he was truly in the same area code of “being ready” that this was the week to make the switch.  It didn’t happen.  The coaches are seeing something that won’t let them turn the keys over to this freshman.  Because we don’t see practice, I can only assume that they know what they are doing.

Take A Shot!

For the most part, I cannot see much fault with the game plan and play calling of Shawn Watson against Iowa State.  I still cannot see the logic in putting Lee in position to run as much as he does, but that’s not what lost this game.  There is one major fault I have with Watson’s decisions from Saturday and it is this:

Why did Nebraska not take a shot downfield on the play after Suh’s blocked field goal and Sean Fisher’s return to the ISU 35?  Instead you run a stretch play out of the shotgun to Marcus Mendoza that loses a yard.  It’s basic momentum here.  You gave ISU a scoring opportunity (on Holt’s fumble), stuff it in their face, turn the field position around and you don’t take advantage of a huge swing of momentum?!?  Not to mention that the deep ball is the one pass that your quarterback throws accurately.

The one shot ISU took all day was after a similar momentum switch on special teams when right after their successful fake punt, Jerome Tiller throws deep to Jake Williams for the go-ahead score.

It’s Football 101.  When given a golden opportunity, you seize the moment.  Instead, Watson and Nebraska seized up.

Unity Walk

The Nebraska players voted to walk in lock-step, arm-in-arm into Memorial Stadium rather than run onto the field during the Tunnel Walk.  Ndamukong Suh said afterwards that it was suggested by “a couple of the team’s leaders” to go this route.  Because only the players truly know why this was done, we are only left to wonder why this was done.  Was there concerns of unity issues on the team?  I don’t think so.

But I have to wonder if the team felt put off by the reaction to the Texas Tech loss by the Husker Nation last week?  There were a number of questions asked this week about the booing and on more than one occasion, players made references that people outside the program “didn’t know” or “didn’t understand” what was going on inside the walls of Husker football.  Perhaps the players just wanted to send a message that no matter what was being said on the outside, the team is sticking together on the inside.

But I am left to guess, because I am only on the outside.

With That Said

It is only human nature that frustration eventually settles in when you see situations like the one that is transpiring at Nebraska.  Suh said after the game that he wasn’t frustrated that his defense played well enough to win only to see the offense struggle again.  But no matter what the character or the unity that exists among a team, eventually cracks are going to show if it keeps up.  You cannot have two units of a football team so far apart in their performance for it not to happen at some point.

That’s why it is so important that the offense find something, anything that it’s good at and do it.  Because at some point somebody on defense is going to get mad that they keep playing well enough to win without a win to show for it.

It’s only human nature.

Kansas State Is Leading The North

This statement alone tells you all you need to know about the quality of the Big 12 North.  So here are some other numbers to digest.

The Big 12 North Non-Conference Record vs. BCS Conference Schools: 2-4

(wins over Illinois and Duke – losses to West Virginia, Virginia Tech, UCLA & Iowa)

Yes, of the 24 non-conference games played by Big 12 North schools, only six were against teams who were in BCS conferences.  And this record doesn’t reflect losses by Colorado to Colorado State and Toledo and Kansas State laying a giant egg against Lafayette.

Big 12 North vs. Big 12 South: 2-6

(the only wins are KSU over A&M and Iowa State over Baylor)

Hypes-man Race

I heard a disturbing thing uttered by Mel Kiper on ESPN this week.  He said the Heisman race is basically down to two players.  Tim “America’s Quarterback” Tebow of Florida and Mark Ingram, running back from Alabama.  So really what Kiper is saying is that the Heisman goes to the best player on the best team in the country.

I wanted to vomit.

The Heisman has turned into a marketing trophy.  Marketing for the schools who want to hype their candidates.  Marketing for the network (ESPN) that airs the award ceremony.  Marketing for Nissan, the automaker who attached their name to the award.  It ceased to be the award for “the most outstanding player in college football” a long time ago.

Before the season started, the pundits (mostly ESPN) told us that the winner was going to be either Tebow, Sam Bradford or Colt McCoy.  You pretty much had to be Superman to break that trifecta.  But then the pundits were thrown a curve when Bradford got whacked in week one and McCoy was underwhelming through six games.  Now it’s pretty much Tebow’s award to lose - which is a shame, because he’s not doing anything to win it.  The concussion against Kentucky has turned him into a much less confident player.  But because he has such a great story and because Florida is on top of the polls, the pundits like Kiper are going to give him the trophy by default.

And if it’s not Tebow, then we’ll all be told that Ingram deserves it because he’s the only offensive star on the other best team in the nation.

Meanwhile, all Ndamukong Suh does is disrupt other offenses, blocks kicks, knocks down passes and picks them off.

But he doesn’t play for a top five team and he’s on defense, so he’s ineligible.

Yawn.

Sunday School Top Ten (coming following the late results Saturday)

1 – Alabama

2 – Florida

3 – Texas

4 – TCU

5 – Iowa

6 – Cincinnati

7 – Georgia Tech

8 – Oregon

9 – USC

10 – Boise State

Friday Night Videos

Since the sun seems to finally be peeking out this afternoon in Central Lincoln, I think that means it’s time for another fresh batch of Friday Night (err, afternoon) Videos. 

We start today with what is actually the most watched video in YouTube history.  It’s comedian Justin Laipply compiling the entire history of dance into a few minutes. 

This is a lesson to all you young athletes.  Don’t ever stop playing until the whistle blows.  This was amazing.

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you can’t stop laughing in a situation you really need to? 

What do you do if you’re stuck in an elevator for 41 hours?  This video tells the story.

Have you ever wondered how to shoot an anvil 200 feet in the air?  I think we all have.

Have a good weekend, dudes.

Let’s Help Braedon Lee!

On Friday’s show, we talked with Kim Rosenthal of Humann Elementary about the plight of six year old Braedon Lee, a Humann student who is now being treated for leukemia.  My wife, Chris, who manages the kitchen at Humann wanted to help get his story out to you because Braedon is a special little guy who could use some help.

More of his story was well documented by Cindy Lange Kubick of the Journal Star, but here’s the nutshell.  Braedon (who is autistic) was diagnosed with leukemia just a few weeks ago and he begins a very lengthy chemotherapy process soon.  Twelve weeks initially, then periodic treatments for the next three years.  He lives with his mom, who is single, and they are in the process of finding a new apartment because the old one has mold and Braedon’s immune system is compromised due to the extensive chemo.  His mom, meanwhile, has had to give up most of her nursing school classes to care for Braedon.  So, obviously, money is very, very tight.

The kids at both Humann and his preschool (St. Mark’s Kidzone) have really stepped up for Braedon’s emotional support, but we could really use some help on the financial side.  A Braedon Lee recovery fund account has been set up at all Westgate Bank locations and any monetary donations would certainly be appreciated.

There is also a Caring Bridge website set up for Braedon and being updated regularly by his mom, so we can keep up with his treatment and recovery.

Please give what you can and thanks for your support of Braedon and his mom.

Rush to Judgment?

I don’t think I’m surprising anyone when I note that I disagree with Rush Limbaugh on several issues (while perhaps we’re pretty close on some others).  That said, I was fascinated by the backlash he faced from the NFL community after being mentioned as a minority shareholder in a bid to buy John Bishop’s woeful St. Louis Rams, and his response in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

I get frustrated with political “talking heads”, whether they be on the left or the right, who seem to have convinced large portions of their audiences that those who have political differences with them are either evil, intellectually bankrupt, socialist, racist, or hate America.  There’s hardly any room in this country to have legitimate political disagreement on some of the most complex, evenly-divided issues our country is facing, without being portrayed as an ultra-villain by your opponent, and therefore a target of absolute hatred, thanks to this culture of over-amplification of political difference.  

While I do think Mr. Limbaugh is certainly one of the purveyors of this damaging culture, he’s certainly not the worst, and I’m at least a fan of the fact that from an industry perspective, he certainly knows how to make good radio, as he was a radio guy before he was a ‘famous conservative’.  That’s not the case with the majority of his fellow political rabble-rousers from either side of the spectrum.  But even when he does frustrate me by encouraging the “overamplification culture”, I don’t find him to be a racist.  Put simply, I think he has an unreasonable amount of distaste for those who disagree with him, whether they’re white, black, brown or otherwise.

That said, I think Limbaugh was right in the WSJ article when he asserted that there’s often a rush to demonize he and other conservatives as racists, whether it’s by the news media or people on the ‘left’.    Limbaugh called the racism accusations ”the sledgehammer,” used to hinder conservatives and unfairly affect their perception.  I agree.  

But that does remind me of the ”sledgehammers” Rush and his allies also tend to use pretty frequently: accusations of socialism and hatred of the United States, to name a couple.  These characterizations make it easy to dismiss disagreeing voices in the most overly-dramatic and polarizing way possible, and it’s making the political dialogue in our country complete crap, not to mention starting to render nearly everyone in this country into two factions, shouting their positions to each other, but never actually making arguments and counter-arguments.