Guts!

It takes guts to go for the win when you could just play the percentages and go for a second overtime.

It also takes guts to go on the road with your third string quarterback, overcome an at times sloppy performance and leave with your goals intact. Barely.

The history of the Nebraska-Iowa State series has been made of one-sided affairs, imbalanced competition and games void of drama. But the final installment of this series will likely go down as the most dramatic, gut-wrenching of them all. In the end, it took an alert play by Nebraska’s Peso back to bankrupt Paul Rhoads’s daring call to beat Iowa State 31-30 in overtime at Jack Trice Stadium.

While this Husker-Cyclone tilt will be remembered for the game’s final play – a fake two-point conversion attempt that was read beautifully by Eric Hagg and intercepted – Nebraska needs to remember it for the obstacles they overcame in preserving their season. And make no mistake about it; the season was on the line here.

The Huskers have been all about going out of the Big 12 in style in 2010, but this afternoon in Ames had very little style about it. Cody Green got the call when Taylor Martinez’s ankle and Zac Lee’s elbow couldn't answer the bell. It was obvious early on that Shawn Watson was determined not to let Green’s arm get in the way of victory. Green was limited mostly to handing off to Roy Helu and Rex Burkhead as well as yielding to Burkhead as the Wildcat formation made a successful return to the offensive game plan.

Last year in similar circumstances (injury hampered QB); Bo Pelini could lean hard on his defense to save the day while the offense managed enough points to win. Saturday in Ames, the defense had flashes of brilliance, but sloppy tackling and a failure to close down ISU when they were in second and third and long kept Iowa State in the game right to the bitter end.

Saturday did nothing to quiet the critics who believe the Blackshirts struggle against the run.  This week made it clear, Nebraska has problems with teams that are even average running the ball. While ISU’s 183 yards and 3.3 per rush average are not eye-popping, the threat of the run was enough to keep NU’s secondary from totally siccing themselves on the Iowa State receivers. Nobody thought Austin Arnaud (who himself gutted out 4+ quarters on a gimpy ankle) would have much for the Husker defensive backs, but 65% completions for 203 yards and three touchdowns was better than so-called superior quarterbacks Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert could manage.  The difference was simple; Iowa State had the threat of a run game.

Then there were the errors. Once again Niles Paul showed his ability to cause people to scream his name in anger with his awful decision to return a kick from four yards deep in the end zone, hesitate, and then fumble the momentum to Iowa State. There were flashbacks to Texas with poor tackling that turned 2^nd and 3^rd and long situations into first downs. There was indecision on offense that led to wasted timeouts as well as penalties that killed offensive drives or saved Cyclone drives.

While it’s easy to look at the win as underwhelming, Nebraska won. This isn’t 1994 anymore when a superior NU team can go on the road, play with its third-string quarterback and still win by two scores. While some might yawn at the accomplishment against “lowly” Iowa State, this was still a victory worthy of praise. Partially due to the circumstances the Big Red had to overcome and the quality of the opponent. Yes, I said the quality of the opponent.

Iowa State looked like they had been delivered a case of lemons when Gene Chizik blew out of town faster than the Ames breeze two years ago. But the lemonade being mixed by Paul Rhoads might very well be the tastiest brew this side of Natural Light to a Cyclone fan. ISU has taken on the personality of their coach and have turned two lopsided losses to Oklahoma and Utah into inspired efforts against Texas and Nebraska while surviving their own struggles in beating Kansas. Iowa State is in good hands with Rhoads and it was never more evident than when he rolled the dice on the fake point-after-touchdown.

Nearly three decades earlier, a young coach made a similar decision to go for victory and is still being lauded for his guts in a 31-30 loss.

Perhaps in Ames, they’ll one day look back on this 31-30 loss and think of Paul Rhoads’s intestinal fortitude in the same way.

I don’t like to dedicate space here to rag on the officials, but Holy Cow do these Big 12 referees make things look difficult. It took forever to figure out where the ball should be spotted after instant replay overturned Eric Hagg’s fumble recovery for a touchdown in the first quarter. They ruled a fumble on Roy Helu when it appeared the pile had been stopped and they overturned a goal line stand on Arnaud’s sneak when there was no clear evidence that the ball had crossed the plane (you could assume he got in, but you never saw the ball cross the plane.)

Then there was the bogus personal foul called on Tyler Legate after Rex Burkhead’s 2 yard touchdown run. First, Legate was defending a teammate whose helmet was being yanked off by Iowa State’s A.J. Klein well after the play was done. Second, Legate’s hit on Klein to get him away from Burkhead was nothing worthy of drawing a flag. It was terrible judgment by officials who are usually lacking in good judgment.

I’m not going to pretend that Big Ten officiating is perfect – and I’m sure that many in that conference are frustrated by calls that happen there – but I don’t know if it can get any worse than the current state of Big 12 officiating.

Saw a list the other day of Nebraska’s top ten all time passing game records and was a little surprised by the fact that NU lost 4 of the 10 games in which the QB threw for at least 345 yards. So in the wake of Roy Helu’s record-setting feat against Missouri, I went through the record books and checked out the difference in the team’s performance when a runner had a big day versus when it was the quarterback’s day.

1 – Joe Ganz, 510 yards, Kansas State 2007                         W 73-31 (42)

2 – Ganz, 484 yards, Colorado 2007                                         L 51-65 (-14)

3 – Sam Keller, 438 yards, Ball State 2007                             W 41-40 (1)

4 – Zac Taylor, 431 yards, Iowa State 2005                             W 27-20 (7)

5 – Ganz, 405 yards, Kansas 2007                                            L 39-76 (-37)

6 – Taylor, 395 yards, Kansas 2006                                          W 39-32 (7)

7 – Taylor, 392 yards, Colorado 2005                                       W 30-3 (27)

8 – Keller, 389 yards, Southern California 2007                      L 31-49 (-18)

9 – Ganz, 349 yards, Texas Tech 2008                                      L 31-37 (-6)

10 – Ganz, 345 yards, Western Michigan 2008                       W 47-24 (23)

 

1 – Roy Helu, 307 yards, Missouri 2010                                    W 31-17 (14)

2 – Calvin Jones, 294 yards, Kansas 1991                              W 59-23 (36)

3 – Mike Rozier, 285 yards, Kansas 1983                                 W 67-13 (54)

4 – Ken Clark, 256 yards, Oklahoma State 1988                     W 63-42 (21)

5 – Rick Berns, 255 yards, Missouri 1978                                 L 31-35 (-4)

6 – I.M. Hipp, 254 yards, Indiana 1977                                       W 31-13 (18)

7 – Rozier, 251 yards, Oklahoma State 1982                           W 48-10 (38)

8 – Keith Jones, 248 yards, Colorado 1987                              W 24-7 (17)

9 – Taylor Martinez, 241 yards, Kansas State 2010                 W 48-13 (35)

10 – Keith Jones, 240 yards, Iowa State 1987                          W 42-3 (39)

                *Dan Alexander, 240, Northwestern 2000

* 2000 Alamo Bowl – NU bowl game record

Passing Single Game Record: 6-4, Average margin of victory: 3.2

Rushing Single Game Record: 9-1, Average margin of victory: 26.8

One could make the argument that in some of those losses NU was forced to throw a lot more to come from behind. While this is true, I still think it points out that if you can run the ball with authority you’re still better off than if you can throw it proficiently.

This was the first week of our experiment at 1400 KLIN to sync the radio play by play with the television. I’ve heard from many – I’d guess that the positive reviews outweigh the negatives 65% to 35%. Obviously, there are so many ways to receive television these days. Cable, satellite, over-the-air. Standard or high definition. DVR box or no DVR. Lincoln or Omaha ABC affiliate. At the radio station, I had the broadcast in sync with KETV-HD in Omaha (because our KLKN feed was bad at the radio station, go figure.) Watching from our studio and from my home, it was pretty close to spot on.   But again, everybody’s situation is different. We knew we weren’t going to please everybody.

Did you try it? How did it go for you? We’d love to hear so we know what we can do better next time. We are scheduled to do it again for the Texas A&M game. We will not be synching the radio with video for either the Kansas or Colorado games because we know there are many of you who listen to Greg Sharpe, Matt Davison and Lane Grindle in the stadium. If we like the results with these road games, we will have a serious discussion about what policy we would employ for all games 2011 adding the resources of our sister station Froggy 98.1 FM.

Let me know what you thought about our experiment. Send me an email to jbishop@klin.com.

I would like to say that NU is down to a one game schedule prior to the Big 12 Championship. But if Martinez and Lee are still hobbled, you cannot assume anything. There is a reason Cody Green is the third QB and even with Lee, NU’s offense is far less intimidating to opposing defenses.

Beyond Kansas, the Huskers look to be catching A&M at the wrong time as Ryan Tannehill has the Aggie offense looking far more effective than Jerrod Johnson ever did this season. College Station is also not a great place to play for an opposing team. Then there’s Colorado and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in recent years, it’s that records are meaningless in this series.

This is a three game stretch that has more than enough landmines to blow up NU’s season. My advice is whatever you used to get you through the Iowa State game, you stock up on some more just in case.