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It was an ugly game befitting an ugly divorce from an ugly conference.

Sixteen penalties versus two.

Ever see a more disproportionate statistic in a football game?

Once the breakup was finalized, you could hear the gears spinning in Husker fans all over the world. Would NU catch a break from the conference? Would the Huskers get the shaft from the men in stripes?

I think we may have gotten our answer Saturday night in College Station, Texas.

This is an extremely hard column to write. Many times one is compelled to say or write something that will come across as bitter and spiteful, but holds back so as not to run the risk of ruining credibility or trust with the listener or reader. This column may just be that albatross for this writer, but these are words that must be written because what was seen at Kyle Field on November 20, 2010 was obvious. As obvious as a game winning touchdown pass, you cannot tell the story of a game without it.

Sixteen to two. 145 yards to 10 yards.

Again, have you ever seen a more disproportionate statistic than that in a football game?

I wish there was a smoking gun. I wish there was a leaked document proving that a conspiracy exists. It would make things so much easier. Instead, we just have to look with our eyes and interpret what we see. Through these eyes, admittedly ones that have enjoyed many a Nebraska football game, there was something screwy going on. Something that maybe Vince McMahon would have been proud of.

 

Then again, there were some moves in this game that noted cheaters like Jesse "The Body" Ventura would have been proud of.

 

It is said that you can probably find a penalty being committed on every play. I won’t deny that. I also won’t deny that some of Nebraska’s penalties happened, but can you honestly say that Texas A&M – the second most penalized team in the conference - was being watched as carefully and as critically as Nebraska?

Sixteen to two. 145 yards to 10 yards.

There were three critical calls (or no calls) that occurred that stick out like a sore thumb. The pass interference on Alfonso Dennard was the type of hand-to-hand combat that occurs routinely. Jeff Fuller was every bit as guilty as Dennard if either was guilty. The call went against Nebraska. Flipping the field and preventing an Aggie punt from deep in their own territory.

On a critical 3^rd and 6 inside the Aggie 15, NU’s Brandon Kinnie had a ball knocked away from him; one that would have brought a first down; one that brought a flag. Finally! Something was going to go Nebraska’s way!

Nope. Flag picked up. As ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit pointed out, it was probably the right call. But then, why throw the flag? Would Nebraska have been given the same benefit of the doubt had the roles been reversed?

There would be a chance to do just that on the game’s most critical drive. As A&M faced a 3^rd and long from just inside Nebraska territory, Carl Pelini dialed up a blitz. It worked. Ryan Tannehill was forced to throw long and inaccurately, but there it was….another flag. Last month, Missouri and Ed Cunningham accused Courtney Osborne of illegally striking Blaine Gabbert with his helmet. The flag was never thrown, but then the obvious fumble on that play was erroneously ruled “down by forward progress”, too.

The makeup call would come four weeks later as Osborne was called for one of the worst roughing the passer misinterpretations in recent memory. No helmet to helmet. No cheap shot. The hit came a fraction of a second after the ball was released. But there would be no huddle by the officials to make sure the play was correctly called.

I honestly thought that if there was to be any chicanery by Big 12 officials, it would be more subtle. I didn’t expect to see anything like this.

Sixteen to two. 145 yards to 10 yards.

Nebraska, like every other team, can point to moments where poor officiating has cost them games. For the Huskers, two of the most infamous are the 1982 Penn State extended sideline and the 1994 Orange Bowl with the mystery clip on Corey Dixon’s punt return and the fumble by William Floyd that was missed at the goal line. You can now add a third and this one is the ugliest of them all because it lasted an entire game. 

Trying to look at this from an outsider’s point of view, I can understand why a league would not want to have its departing member take the championship with them on the way out the door to greener pastures. But you would hope that institutions would behave better than this. 

As Eric Martin was made an example of in Stillwater, these officials should be sanctioned in some way by the league office for what is obviously a one-sided affair. If not, the Big 12 Conference should be ashamed.

Nebraska-Texas A&M Statistics

With all of the above said it’s time for a very honest and frank discussion on why some of these penalties are so much easier to call on Nebraska than on the opponents.

Football is an emotional game. I believe the most emotional game. You have to have a burning intensity to go out there and throw your body around with 21 other guys on the field. But you also have to have a steely calm reserve, the kind that allows an Alex Henery to boot a 57 yard field goal with the game on the line. The kind that allows a Tom Osborne to keep thinking several plays ahead after a miracle in Missouri forces overtime.

Bo Pelini has plenty of fire in the belly, an amount to heat enough homes to compete with Black Hills Energy. But there is, at times, an embarrassing lack of cool to counter the heat.

Nobody rides officials like Bo Pelini and it has been going on for three seasons, long before the Big Ten and Nebraska started to exchange phone numbers. That also plays a significant factor in why NU seems to catch very few breaks from the officials. It is only human nature. The more Pelini rides the zebras, the less inclined the referees will be to give NU any borderline calls.

In the case of Saturday night, any calls period.

Put the conference politics aside. Pelini’s modus operandi has been to get vocal, belligerently vocal, with officials. It has to stop. Unlike famed umpire-baiting managers Billy Martin, Earl Weaver and Bobby Cox, football coaches don’t get tossed from games. There aren’t penalties called in baseball. If a manager gets out of line, they get run. When football coaches get out of line, as Pelini did in the second half, they get flagged and that can affect the outcome of the game.

It’s time for the good Dr. Osborne to have a heart-to-heart with his coach. Pelini must be less demonstrative for his own sake and the sake of his team.

As written here last week, NU’s offense has gravitated to Version 2009 since the injury to Taylor Martinez. That should be a huge concern. The defense has turned in two stellar efforts the last two weeks and now it is clear that they will have to carry this team as last year’s unit did.

Teams do not need to respect Martinez as they once did. His bad ankle has affected both his running and throwing game and the offense is grinding to a halt when defenses can load the box to stop the two other true playmakers, Roy Helu and Rex Burkhead. The offensive line was overwhelmed on a number of occasions against A&M and the far too frequent confusion in getting plays from booth to sideline to quarterback to huddle is killing drives and burning timeouts.

When a key member of a team is injured, the other parts must come together and work harder to continue to move forward. That did not happen in College Station and if it doesn’t happen this Friday, Colorado will likely ruin Nebraska’s season. The Buffs are a new team since replacing Dan Hawkins with Brian Cabral and this series seems to always bring added drama when drama isn’t expected.

And with everything that happened on this infamous Saturday night, there is going to be plenty of drama the day after Thanksgiving.

Don’t use up all your antacid on Turkey Day.

If you wish to flag the writer for unsportsmanlike conduct, send your comments to jbishop@klin.com.  The words of the writer are his own and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of NRG Media or 1400 KLIN.