Ahh yes. I can taste the weekend. Let’s get to the videos.
If you’re scared of heights, don’t click ’play’. this is footage from the top of the Burj Dubai, the nearly completed tallest man-made structure ever built. Unbelievable stuff.
This is for John Bishop, the resident Star Wars geek. Apparently this guy taped himself singing four different a capella parts of this arrangement, and then fused them all together for a weird, yet compelling tribute to the George Lucas classic.
Granted, this next one is clearly a marketing piece for Google’s new operating system, Chrome, but if you’ve ever been frustrated by the way computers work, I think you’ll really enjoy the explanations and ideas in this one.
Bethel College in Kansas runs one of the weirder trick plays for a touchdown that I’ve ever seen.
There’s often ‘that person’ who’s had too much to drink at wedding receptions, but rarely do they ruin things as much as the gal in the red dress does in this video.
And with that, I bid you a happy weekend, and hopefully I’ll be wearing my Big XII North Champs shirt next time I blog.
-First, I can’t believe some of you had the audacity to be critical of Federal Stimulus Package, errr, Recovery and Reinvestment Act that passed through Congress earlier this year. Now that the results are in, time for you haters to eat some crow. I mean, just look at the 22.4 jobs that were created in Nebraska’s 17th Congressional District or the nearly quarter of a million dollars realized by our good friends in the NE-48. I think it’s pretty clear that our Government knows what it’s doing.
UPDATE (11/19): The information on the recovery.gov seems to be fixed right now, but here’s an article from the OWH on Nebraska’s, uhhh, new congressional districts.
-I’ve always had a hard time keeping track of all those little counties west of Lincoln, I mean who knew there was actually a place called Deuel County? So of course I’m overjoyed that the conservative-ish economists and thinkers over at the Platte Institute think that we should go ahead and get rid of 65 of ‘em.
-Today it’s all the rage on the #LNK Twitter feed that we apparently live in the second strangest city in the USA, just behind New York City, according to the folks at Tableseed. The results were tabulated using the quantity of ’strange’ stories that came across the AP wire from each city. Speaking of strange, why is a small-venture company out of Wisconsin that specialilzes in creating birthday clubs for restaurants putting out press releases about the strangest cities and states? Perhaps they were hoping to get some big-time radio host to drive traffic to their site. Bravo, Tableseed, bravo.
-Tomorrow on the show we’ve got the people from Time Warner joining us on the show around 7:15 to talk about their new “start over” feature on their digital cable boxes that will save people like me, who often forget to set the DVR at key times. Pretty cool feature if you ask me, but I’m still wishing they’d add that 30 second forward button that I used to have on my satellite DVR that made watching entire recorded football games in a half hour a snap.
As a result, Nat has helped organize a benefit concert this Sunday (Nov. 22) from 1-4pm at 1st Avenue Social Hall (1st and Cornhusker). There will be family friendly live music from the hip-hop, rock and country genres, a raffle, food and more. All the proceeds are going to Omaha’s Children’s Hospital and their medical hardship fund to help parents facing a mountain of bills in order to care for their children.
If you would like more information on how to help, call Nat Crawford at 770-8501, email, or stop by 1st Avenue this Sunday.
So when I saw this, I had to post it for viewing. What you are about to see is Oilers….um, Titans owner Bud Adams flipping off the Buffalo Bills after his putrid team (now a proud 3-6) won 41-17 on Sunday. The funny thing is that he was hosting NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in his box during the game (obviously the Commish was out of the box at the time).
Please note, this link is NOT censored, so if you are offended by the obscene gesture DON’T click on the link and just take my word for it.
“Uh oh. Offense is going to have to win this one. Yikes!”
It was “Yikes!” alright, for the Kansas Jayhawks.
Few short of Shawn Watson, his fellow offensive assistants and the Husker offensive players thought this was going to turn out good for the scarlets. But low and behold, it did! In the most impressive offensive effort against non-Sun Belt competition, the Cornhuskers put themselves in a position to win the North Division next week by defeating Kansas State. Preseason, we all felt that NU had to beat Kansas (their co-favorite counterparts) to claim a spot in the Big 12 Championship. We just didn’t think the circumstances would be like this.\
And we didn’t think it would be the offense to save the day.
How did they do it? With some good ol’ fashioned Nebraska power, possession, precision and poise.
Power
Hello there Tyler Legate! Nice to see you! The redshirt freshman from Neligh is listed at 5-10, 225 pounds. By fullback standards, that’s kinda small. Consider that Joel Makovicka was listed at 5-11, 235lbs - 12 years ago. While nobody is going to confuse Legate for Makovicka as a runner (mostly because Legate may never touch the ball outside of a pass play), Legate is doing the one thing that all Nebraska fullbacks are taught to do first.
Plow a path.
And plow Legate did. Though it wasn’t a guarantee that every time the Huskers ran Roy Helu behind #48, they gobbled up mass chunks of yardage, they succeeded more times than not. The back-breaking final drive featured a 30 yard Helu run on 3rd and 10 and the game-clinching 14 yard touchdown run on 3rd and 4. Both plays set up by textbook lead blocking by Legate. Watch the replay of the 30 yard run, Legate flattens his man on the perimeter, opening up the sideline alley that allowed Helu to streak down the field.
In addition, three of Niles Paul’s four catches off play action were made possible because Legate was in the game to give the defense a “run look.”
Possession
How about NO turnovers. Only the third time this year we’ve been able to say that. If the Huskers were going to win, they couldn’t be bumbling around the field.
In addition, the Big Red also controlled the ball in the second half. More often than not, the time of possession stat doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what kind of dominance an offense is having in a particular game. But on a day where Nebraska’s defense was struggling, having the ball for over 19 minutes of the second half was critical. In addition, the Huskers gained that T.O.P. with only four possessions – and they scored on each of those possessions with drives of 13, 13, 4 and 10 plays respectively. Alex Henery’s only work of the second half was to kick the ball through the uprights.
Precision
Zac Lee is not going to confuse anyone for Peyton Manning when it comes to accuracy. But on a day where he was facing the Big 12’s most veteran quarterback, Lee outperformed Todd Reesing. He hit Paul every time on those important field-changing play action passes. He never really missed anybody badly as we have seen in other games and his short passing game was accurate when it needed to be.
In addition, his receivers didn’t make the mind-blowing drops that have plagued this team most of the season.
Poise
Lee looked more like the Arkansas State Lee than the Virginia Tech Lee. He still looks like a robot at times running the option which still confounds me every time the play is called or Lee audibles to it. But he did enough when it was called not to screw it up. Not to panic. Then there were a couple of 3rd down scrambles where Lee actually looked like he was running with confidence. Reesing was the one sliding more times than Lou Brock going into second. Lee generally stood his ground, not that he needs to nor should, but he wasn’t showing that stooped over look of a man who was ready to fall at the first sign of contact.
Confidence. That is something that has been sorely missing in Nebraska’s offense. With success usually comes confidence. Though last week against Oklahoma could not be considered an offensive gem, it did do enough to win the game. Against Kansas, the Huskers were more free to spice things up a bit with play action passing and option and it worked. Against Kansas State, the Huskers should be able to build on that confidence and if they can, they should win the North Division. That was expected all along. The path has been very strange and very rocky, but with a little confidence, it should be one that the Huskers can follow all the way to its proper conclusion.
Reesing “Goes For Two”
I remember this play, but for some reason I didn’t see it all the way through to the end. It happened early in the first quarter on one of Kansas’s opening possessions. It will go in the stat sheet as a routine incomplete pass. But as you will see, the pass did find a target…….and anytime a KU guy can inflict pain on a K-State grad, that’ll make any Jayhawk proud.
And if you are a fan of The Simpsons, it might remind you of this classic.
You might say Ekeler imitates art!
Sunday School Top Ten
Before I give you my poll, I first have to mention the fact that despite looking like absolute garbage the last three weeks, the pollsters still find it proper to have Southern Cal ranked with their 7-3 record. Sure, that record is not bad, but this system is based on subjectivity. It’s been based on “style points” and “quality wins” yet somehow the Trojans are deemed worthy of a ranking when they are only worthy of the first syllable of that word.
Why? Well, it’s pretty easy to see. The pollsters will always give the benefit of the doubt to the brand name program, especially when that program is of the glamour of Southern Cal. Logic doesn’t apply. Not that I ever expect logic to apply in anything the AP or coaches do when it comes to ranking the best teams in the nation.
With that said, let me try to apply my logic to this week’s top ten.
1 – Florida
2 – Alabama
3 – Texas
4 – TCU
5 – Cincinnati
6 – Georgia Tech
7 – Boise State
8 – Pittsburgh
9 – Oregon
10 – LSU
As I mentioned earlier this season, I tend to give more credit to undefeated teams than perhaps some pollsters do. So why is Georgia Tech rated ahead of unbeaten Boise? Boise hasn’t beaten anyone of quality since Oregon in the first week. Yes, Oregon is in my top ten while Georgia Tech hasn’t beaten anyone of that caliber. But I am looking at the entire body of work. The Yellow Jackets have wins over division leading Clemson, along with bowl eligible teams North Carolina and Virginia Tech. Their only loss is to another bowl eligible team, the Miami Hurricanes.
Beyond Oregon, Boise has wins over Idaho and Fresno State. Idaho is the only one of those two that is bowl eligible.
I thought I’d share this picture of Kent Titze, a.k.a. “The Real-Life Herbie Husker” who was in town last week spreading some cheer to the kids at one of Cedars Youth Services Early Childhood Development Centers, posing with the host of Meagan’s Monday Morning Quarterback (catch it 8:35 on Mondays), my wife Meagan.
Did you see the LJS article this morning telling the story of a Sioux Falls, SD fan who paid $10 to park in a lot downtown, and then had his pickup towed during the game because “fine print” somewhere apparently stipulated that the lot closed at 10 p.m. and all cars left in it thereafter were subject to tow?
Are you kidding me with this? A downtown business invites people to park there and pay $10 on the night of a football game and then starts towing those cars after the strike of 10. Where exactly was this ‘fine print’ located? The story doesn’t end there. Since this story came out in the LJS we’ve heard that this wasn’t the only car parked in that lot and some have speculated there may have been as many as 20, although I haven’t been able to confirm that number.
If that’s truly the case, one has to wonder if the business in question, La Tapatia and the towing company, Wiestar, may have had some sort of a deal. Why else would La Tapatia set up a situation where so many cars would inevitably be towed? If that had actually happened, it would be illegal under Neb. Rev. Stat. 60-2411 and it would likely turn into something in which the local authorities may have some interest.
After we talked about this story on the air today, I got in touch with Senator Steve Lathrop’s office who, as we detailed in September, is working on some legislation that might curb predatory towing and ridiculously high towing fees. One of the Senator’s aides told me that the upcoming bill will likely require signage so that “fine print” is much more visible. Another idea being tossed around is to require one sign per a certain number of parking spots as some lots have only one sign with small print far from view from all of the spots. Perhaps that would have helped on Saturday night, but even with signage, it’s just plain dirty to close a downtown lot at 10 p.m. on the night of 7 p.m. game without some sort of specific verbal disclaimer to everyone who parks there.
If any of you have had a similar experience or were involved in this one on Saturday, drop us a comment below.
Since this week mark’s Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, John and I were waxing nostaligic about our childhood memories of the show. I think we can all agree that it’s went downhill since it’s heydey in the late ’70s-late ’80s when Mr. Hooper was still around and everyone still thought Big Bird had a screw loose when talked about his imaginary friend, which was a huge brown elephant-looking thing.
In any case, thanks to the magic of the internet, we can bring a few of these memories back for another look:
Today we talked about embryonic stem cell research and health care reform, but my comments about Oprah quitting drew the angry emails. Wow. 1 day ago
Tomorrow at 7:20 everything you need to know about the man who will determine what the university will do regarding embryonic stem cells. 2 days ago
Going to interview #Huskers Coach & Youtube sensation Mike Ekeler, who still haunts my nightmares with his black facepaint and purple mohawk 2 days ago
Yeah....no way I'd, uhhh, ever listen to that.... RT @beatboxbadhabit: just listened to Miley - Party in the USA. Does that help? 3 days ago
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Posted by jackm1400 
Posted by johnnybish1 
At halftime, I posted the following on Facebook.
