Sunday School - Feast or Famine

  It took me three quarters to put my finger on it, but I finally figured out where I had seen this Nebraska offense before.

It was in a rundown house I shared with four other guys on R Street in Lincoln almost 20 years ago playing Super Tecmo Bowl with the 1991 Houston Oilers. 

I couldn’t establish any kind of consistency with Lorenzo White, so instead my offense resorted to mostly Warren Moon throwing bombs to Hayward Jeffires and an occasional big run. Had a winning season, but never advanced through the AFC playoffs, so I went back to what worked – playing with Bo Jackson and the Raiders.

Tim Beck and the Huskers don’t have that option.

The offense is not broken. You cannot say that after a 42 point, 438 yard effort. But its alarming lack of consistency could end up being its downfall later this season. There is nothing you can hang your hat on at this point. Disciplined defenses are not going to simply allow the big play to happen once every seven snaps. They’re going to make you drive the field. Nebraska has not really done that. Saturday’s longest scoring drive was 7 plays, 80 yards, capped by Taylor Martinez’s option around the left end and his second touchdown of the day. It was made possible by two very solid runs by Rex Burkhead, who was forced to make plays with his legs due to the fact that very few holes were available to him.


Tim Beck postgame comments


Taylor Martinez postgame comments

Opponents will continue to fill the box with defenders in order to make Nebraska beat them deep with Martinez’s passing. Perhaps that is a good thing with the poor secondary play that was on display in the Big Ten Conference Saturday afternoon. Still, it cannot be terribly comforting to rely on a few bombs thrown to a cadre of first and second year players with speed, but little experience. Is that going to work at Madison? More importantly, is that going to help a defense that was obviously gassed and would have been in big trouble if Martinez hadn’t made that proper read and put the game away with his 46 yard touchdown run? Fresno possessed the ball 15 more minutes than did the Huskers and ran 25 more plays.

Here were your first half plays:

3 plays (2 long Martinez runs & pass to Kenny Bell) -137 yards

The other 28 plays – 69 yards

Feast or famine.

But at this point, the coaches don’t seem to be panicked. Bo Pelini said the Huskers needed to “find a way” and they did. Derek Carr is a fine quarterback with a big time arm. Robbie Rouse carried the ball 36 times and didn’t lose a yard in gaining 169. But what was disturbing was the fact that Fresno controlled both lines of scrimmage for a good portion of the game. NU could not get pressure without blitzing and only then the Huskers managed to knock Carr on his rump one time. Carr was his best when he was on the run – which is why I was mystified that Coach Pat Hill got away from doing that when FSU started three straight second quarter drives near midfield and went 3 and out each time. Again, mobile quarterbacks getting the best of a Pelini defense. 

Russell Wilson is watching. But he and the Wisconsin Badgers are three games away. Need to get through two more “W’s” first. Washington & Wyoming.


Bo Pelini postgame comments


Carl Pelini postgame comments

Daimion Stafford – solid play in the secondary making his first start. The big hitter still has things to clean up in coverage, but he is a quick reactor and a sure tackler.

Ameer Abdullah – last time we saw a freshman with this kind of mad skills in the return game? Bobby Newcombe. But Abdullah isn’t going to covet the QB position.

Jamal Turner – I was asking in the third quarter where he was. 3 catches and 63 yards later, he showed up.

Kenny Bell – huge 42 yard catch that set NU up for their game tying score in the second quarter. He also is a mature young man who said the right things in his postgame comments.


Kenny Bell postgame comments

Exciting? Sure. Riveting? Yes. But the difference between this “classic” and the opening night win by Green Bay over New Orleans? The Packers & Saints had superior quarterback play. The Irish & Wolverines just waited for the other team’s coverage to make a cataclysmic mistake. Haven’t seen that many blown assignments since my high school German class.

Good win for Conference USA…..or Big East…..or Missouri Valley? Whichever conference they end up in, they have a quarterback in Steele Jantz (sounds like the name of a TV detective.)

I can read the frustration in the words of many college football writers when I read about the latest turns in the conference realignment soap opera. I hear the pain in their voice when they cross over to tell their sob stories to sports radio audiences nationwide. But if we are going to assign white hats and black hats to the bad actors in this soap opera, can we at least use a little perspective and be mindful of history?

Columns like this are portraying BU as being the Luke Skywalker in this impossible struggle against the evil empire of greed portrayed by the Texas A&M, Texas, the SEC, the Pac 12’s Larry Scott and others. And despite the fact that writer Jen Engel acknowledges what Baylor did to shove former SWC rivals Houston, SMU, TCU and Rice aside to stay in the Big 12, she still insists that Baylor is fighting the good fight for college athletics.

The Big 12 deserves to die. Many of their members voted to invoke Texas rules just to spite Nebraska; voted to placate the Longhorns at every turn because many were either used to dealing with that or just wanted to spite NU, which was the strongest player in the game at that time. Everybody was looking out for themselves and not the greater good of the conference. When it was formed, the Big 12 was poised to be the SEC of its day – the strongest force in college football – but they blew it for shortsightedness and pettiness. So in other words, you made your bed Big 12 schools, so lie in it.

And what is heroic about trying to force schools that obviously don’t want to be together to stay together? The quick-sand foundation on which the league was built would be as porous as water if somehow Baylor’s threats went heeded. Nobody could be trusted and nobody else would sure as heck want to join that mess. You could forget about finding strong central leadership, because Dan Beebe is pretty much beyond worthless right now, thus your television contract negotiations will go poorly and you’ll get whatever the networks want because you have no bargaining strength.

Super Conferences may or may not be inevitable, but one thing that is for sure is that the stronger schools and leagues will only get stronger and the weak will be discarded. Schools like Baylor, with almost zero tradition, zero commitment to winning and no brand recognition are on their way out. But you go right on fighting, little guy! Just remember that we all really know why you’re trying to do this, and it has nothing to do with the good of the game.

Meanwhile for a good read and a look at the history of the screwball culture of Texas football check out this article from 19 years ago from Sports Illustrated’s Sally Jenkins.  It reads eerily like it was placed in a time capsule and meant for today.

We always appreciate your comments. Send me a message, jbishop@klin.com. I don’t bite. Much.