And here comes...a Husker LOSS?

Well, the Huskers find a way to win a big game in Stillwater this past weekend. Once again they get us thinking that they are for real and that we should believe they still have a chance against the Missouri Tigers this coming weekend, but are we just getting set up again for a big disappointment? I just have an uneasy feeling in my stomach this week and actually might actually predict a husker loss for this one, but at this point, I'm still torn...Let's take a closer look to see if I can put myself at ease, or at least understand why I am feeling this way to this point.

Now before we go any further, that even though I was sitting in the endzone down in Stillwater, I have to admit that I needed to watch highlight replays on youtube on Sunday to actually understand what happened during the game. Maye I was too distracted by the old Poke sitting behind me screaming at me to "sit down" because apparently he didn't "come to the game to watch [me]." Maybe it was the Poke sitting next to me that I was convinced was my new best friend, maybe I was distracted by the brand new Boone Picken's Stadium that was actually quite impressive. Or maybe it was the 3/4 bottle of Jager I thought would be a good idea to drink before actually going into the game. Well that's neither here nor there, but there was a distinct point during that game where I realized I may not be cut out to do on-site reporting. The first moment came when a fellow Husker fan reminded me that Taylor Martinez had just passed for his 5th passing touchdown. I thought back, and couldn't really remember the first three, but he was definitely right, those last two touchdowns were definitely passes. The second moment was when I was sitting there wondering why everyone was leaving the stadium with a full quarter left to play, then I was informed by a nice old man, that there was only a minute left in the FOURTH quarter. Oh how time flies when you are having fun. Anyways, after a little bit of research, here is what I have come to accept.

1) Missouri appears to be good. Beating an Oklahoma team, while it may be an overrated Oklahoma team, is no easy feat. I think we can all admit they might possibly be better than we want to give them credit for. At this point, I think they have the talent to beat anyone in the Big XII. Don't believe me? Find a team that you see them almost certainly losing to.

2) Taylor Martinez can apparently pass the ball as well. While Oklahoma State is not known for their pass defense, Passing for 300 plus yards and 5 TDs is nothing to shrug off. He made good decisions, avoided pressure, and did not screw the pooch when the going got tough. At times he still scares me with the desperation shovel passes, and the overthrown balls, but I can accept that from a redshirt freshman, and to this point in the season, he has not lost a game for us.

3) Screw Niles Paul. I don't care if he did have a 100 yard kick return. He's still a liability and I don't like him. I'll take a sure thing over a gamble any day.

4) Nebraska plays better on the road. In his post game press conference Martinez said himself he actually enjoys playing on the road more than at home as it is more exciting and he feels like the team comes together and is more concentrated when they are away from home. That's a coaching issue that needs to be fixed. Every young boy in Nebraska dreams about playing in Memorial Stadium. The coaches need to put that feeling back into this team and have them come out ready to play. The team just seems outright flat during home games. They cannot afford to keep this up. It cost us against Texas, almost cost us against SDSU.

5) Fumbles fumbles fumbles. What is up with this team fumbling in the first half to give the opposing team in scoring position? Come on. Hang on to the ball. This might be the one thing that will end up costing us the game against a tough Missouri team.

6) We have an all-time great kicker in Alex Henery. What a class act and stud. He also showed that he has been hanging out with Martinez and sharpening those running skills. While he may look like a pipsqueek that I'm pretty sure I could beat up, he's a stud.

7) Missouri: Please act like you have won a big game before. How many times will you tear down your own goal posts? I have personally seen you tear them down more than any other team, once in person against a horrible Nebraska team. If you want respect on the national stage, please act like you have been there before. Take notice, no respectable team tears down the goal posts. Watch Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame, all teams with top numbers in wins, and a real football history, their pasts never fall. Please either follow suit, or continue to be a poser. PS: You have the fewest conference titles in the entire Big XII. But congrats on your Big Ten invite. Oh.....wait.....

8) The Huskers were further embarrassed by Texas this week. I am convinced that Texas is losing now on purpose to drag down the Husker's strength of schedule. How does Iowa State lead Texas the entire game and win, and Nebraska was unable to lead at all during their game with Texas. Makes we want to puke up that Texas Orange stomach bile when I think about it.

11) Coaches who wear visors are douches. See Bob Stoops, Gary Pinkle, and Mike Gundy.

9) There appears to be a Big XII hate towards Nebraska at the moment. Taylor Martinez puts up big numbers and is recognized at the unanimous National Offensive player of the week, however he has to share the Big XII recognition of conference player of the week with Yo Gabba Gabbert for Mizzou? Now someone please explain that to me. How does the National Player of the week, not even get to have the Conference player of the week to himself? Please. Also, How does Niles Paul have a 100 yard kick return for a TD, not to mention a big game receiving, but the special teams award goes to a kid with an 80 some yard return for Missouri. Seems a little fishy to me. I still hate Niles, so I might be okay with this last award.

10) I officially have no idea who is going to win this next week. My brain tells me that Nebraska is again setting us up for a big disappointment. Afterall they are playing at home. My head says were looking at a 42-38 loss for the Huskers. I see both teams scoring a lot of points. I have not been impressed with our defense and I think both teams are going to score fast, leading to a lot of offense throughout a 60 minute game, just like OSU. Nebraska has struggled to defend the run, and Missouri has a nice balance between run and pass that the blackshirts may struggle to defend. Also, Nebraska is building a nice history of losing to top ranked teams. However, I just can't bring myself to accept that score. My heart says a 48-24 Husker win with Mizzou scoring late to make the score look better.

I think I may have just been successful in confusing myself even more about this weekend's game. I just don't know how it is going to play out. The only think I do know for sure is that I will be in the stands this weekend for the game, with probably just a little bit of that jager flowing through my veins.

GBR!

And there we have it...

I knew it. I just freaking knew it. I didn't even want to post last week because I just freaking knew it. I mean, really? Were our red goggles just too crimson to see that the writing was on the wall right in front of our faces?

Rewind to Saturday morning. Husker nation was celebrating the Redout Around the World. This is the first mistake. Historically, when a team makes a big hoopla focusing on a single opponent, they are just setting themselves up for a huge disappointment. And for those of you who say that this was not a "revenge" event for what happened in the Big XII title game last year, did you see the original Redout Around The World video put out by the University? The end of the video stated "Wear Red, Be Loud, Beat Texas." That was until Dr. Tom had the video edited and the "Beat Texas" removed. Right there, Nebraska was setting itself up to be embarrassed. Not to mention, could they have produced any greater locker room bulletin material for Texas? Well, I'm glad Nebraska called the attention of the world to witness this disappointment. Lets not even get started on the "REDemption" t-shirts that were made up for this game. These things are about as worthless as the National Championship shirts made up before the big game for the losing team that end up getting donated to starving children in Africa. If I see one person wearing one of these shirts in the future I'm going to punch them in the face for reminding me about this game.

On Friday night before the game, I went to Downtown Lincoln with some friends and my beautiful wife (who I have to thank for putting up with this blog). After seeing "Social Network" (which i highly recommend, even though it makes the founder of Facebook look like a complete asshole) we went to Woodys for a good discussion. During this discussion, i predicted a 28-10 win for the huskers, but reminded people at the table, that the longhorns have made a career out of embarrassing Nebraska in the cruelest of ways. No matter what the circumstances, Texas always find a way to win, but not before giving the husker faithful just a glimmer of hope before dashing those dreams. I just reminded my friends of a tidbit of information I had picked up at some point during the week. That tidbit was that in 1998, Texas was unranked and had two losses, one of them being to UCLA when they came into Lincoln. Nebraska at that time was ranked #7 and was a heavy favorite to win that game. The final score of that game was 20-16, Texas. There was just too many similarities to that game and this one to write it off as just a pointless statistic. I also pointed out that in the first year of the Big XII, underdog Texas beat Nebraska in the conference championship game dashing the hopes of a Nebraska National title. How fitting would it be for Nebraska to go out the way it entered the conference? I told my friends "Let's just hope history doesn't repeat itself." Looks like I forgot to knock on wood...

This final thought really had me thinking that night and when I woke up the next morning, I posted that random tidbit on Facebook (Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for making that possible, even though you are kind of an asshole). Thinking I was going to get a lot of hate responses from the Husker fan(atics)s, I was surprised when it hardly showed up as a blip on the radar. I guess more people were on to this than me.

I did go down and tailgate before the game, but came back home to watch the game in the safety of my own basement. If I was safe from the fall out anywhere, it would be there. From the opening series, i had a bad feeling. Maybe it was the DeLeon's I had the night before. I think the likely suspect though might have been the Helu Fumble that set up the Texas touchdown. That was the first domino that set off a chain reaction of Husker shortcomings, that are just becoming common place in the NU-Texas matchups...

Where did we go wrong? Maybe it was the 5 fumbles we had. These are getting ridiculous. Hang on to the damn ball.

maybe it was the 8 dropped passes? I'm tired of Niles Paul. I could care less if he steps foot on the field again. Think back, what exactly has he done that we couldn't live without?

Maybe it was that we couldn't contain Garret Gilbert who ran for 70 yards against the Huskers, when he had only rushed for 14 all season prior to this game. Looks like Crick and Company AREN'T better without Suh like Pelini said at the start of the season. We didn't really believe it anyways did we? Oh,...we did? Shame on us. Looks like Crick definitely benefited from having Suh on the line with him.

Maybe it's the attitude of this team. I have a feeling that they think they are a lot better than they actually are. They actually believed that they were good and Texas was bad and that the game was over before the opening kickoff. This is why the games aren't played on paper.

Maybe it was the fact that we hadn't trailed all year, and for once this team found themselves behind and didn't know what to do.

Maybe it was the fact we couldn't figure out how to return a rugby punt, and instead let the ball roll forever.

Maybe it was onside kicking with three minutes left. When your Defense is "better than last years" who was ranked #1 in the nation, you kick the ball and pin them deep, working for the stop and a change in field position. That onside kick was an admission that we were desperate.

The only good thing from the game was the 95 yard punt return, but even that comes with a grain of salt. Remember what I said about Nebraska getting a glimmer of hope, before their hearts are smashed? Well that return was the obligatory glimmer. Its almost like those burnt orange pricks are messing with our heads.

Maybe its a combination of all these things. The glaring thing is, that all these things point towards the coaching. It just seems like the coaches didn't have these players focused and ready to play.

I don't know what it was for sure, but there are a few things I am sure of. 1) This loss will hurt a lot, and for a long time. 2) We are officially Texas' bitch. They have every reason to accuse us of running to the Big Ten and hiding from them. 3)What hurts even more, is that, they are probably correct.

This may be the start of a long road for the Huskers. Next week they travel to OSU for a game against the undefeated cowboys, then the following week is a game against the currently undefeated Mizzou Tigers. IF and only IF Nebraska can right the ship, they may eventually meet up with the current #1 team in the Nation in Oklahoma. My my how the outlook on this season has shifted. No prediction from me at this point. We will see how the team rebounds against a good OSU team next week before I start to ring the emergency bell. All I know is that right now I'm sick to my stomach, and this time, I can't blame it on the DeLeons.

There's no better way to say it, that was some funky butt-lovin...

Last Thursday night, the Husker faithful followed their team down to the Little Apple of Manhattan Kansas and invaded that glorified highschool stadium named after their fearless, and possibly senile coach Bill Snyder. To make it better, this was the showcase game on ESPN on the national stage. After doing some quick roaming around the world wide web, for some reason the Mildcat faithful were almost certain KState was poised to upset their neighbors to the north on the national scene, destroying the kickoff party of the Husker's farewell tour.

We all know by now how that went. T-Magic rushed for 4 touchdowns and 240 yards, and threw for another score. For a while there, I was wondering if the Huskers were attempting to score 71 points in honor of Bill Snyder's 71st birthday that was that night. I guess they failed in that department. But why bring up the past? I must admit, that the only reason this post was created was to show the world exactly what it looks like to bend your opponent over, and embarASS them...(SEE ABOVE) I know, how juvenile right?

I need to credit this picture to my good friend Adam who sent me the link, after he most likely found it one night browsing the free gay porn sites. Sorry Adam, couldn't resist...

Anyways, this weekend the Huskers prepare to battle the Tejas Longhorns in a matchup that most Husker fans have looked forward to with hate in their hearts since last year's 60:01 debacle. Or has it been since 2007 28-25 loss? Or the 2006 22-20 loss in the "snow game"? You get the point. The Huskers are hungry for this win, and it looks like this will be the Husker's last shot at a win against Texass for a long time as I do not see these two school wanting to work with each other any time soon. If the Huskers can point to one team who has broken their hearts repeatedly, it has to be the longwhorens. Couple that with the reputation Texas has of being arrogant, controlling, and manipulative, no wonder there has been so much anticipation surrounding this game. This weeks coming blog will submerse itself into the upcoming matchup, but like any good writer, I need to leave you waiting for more. Come back Thursday for a report on the whole "Redout Around the World" promotion, recent heartbreaks at the hands of the leader of the Texas Conference, and possibly a group prayer in hopes it will help this years Huskers prevent an ultimate letdown against their archnemisis. A Husker loss would be the absolute disappointment. And a writer could not write a better plot than that. A Husker team who year after year has you on the verge of believing that they are "back" to only kick you in the mouth with an unexpected loss (See Iowa State 2009). A loss like this against a Texas team paddling like hell to keep from being a .500 team would surely send people jumping from rooftops in downtown Lincoln. Here's to hoping that won't happen. Dear God, please don't let that happen...

Come back Thursday for more.

PS: Please don't let the Huskers lose to Texas...






...Please...

Don't Forget Your Power Towel

Well well well...the Daily Opinion took a week off with the Huskers last week, mainly to sleep off the hangover of the ugly 17-3 win over SDSU. Sorry! aren't I allowed a break too? I sincerely apologize to all the readers and will catch us all back up to speed.

The Huskers are now 4-0 entering conference play. This week they have a road test with our neighbors to the south in the Kansas State Mildcats. The mildcats led by their fearless geriatric coach Bill Snyder will surely be amped up for what most likely will be their last shot in a long time to upend the real kings of the Big XII north. Kansas State enters this matchup also 4-0 and excited to host a Thursday night ESPN nationally televised game. They can be excited all they want because let's be honest, without the Huskers, ESPN wouldn't even know where Manhattan Kansas was located. They will soon realize this (as well as the rest of the Big XII North) fact once they no longer have the Husker faithful filling up their stadium every other year. So come on everyone, let them have their fun while it lasts and let them soak up all the coverage they can while they can still benefit by being associated with an elite program. Kinda like that ugly, bigfoot-looking Kardashian girl does with her hot sister Kim.

Anyone ever wonder why Kansas State decided to name their Stadium Bill Snyder Family Stadium? Me neither. But really could they have picked a worse, less intimidating name for a stadium? Its kinda like naming your son milton, I'm sorry to all the Miltons out there, but you're not going to intimidate anyone. And before and K State fans take a shot at Memorial Stadium, it was built to acknowledge the veterans of past, present, and future wars, so if you don't like the name, you don't like the veterans and thats just wrong. Take that hippy thought to Boulder. Oh yeah, and don't forget your Power Towel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A-05wPlQQ40)

While were on the topic of power towels and other K State failures. Why is Willie the Wildcat a half-cat, half-man hybrid? I know that K State is a agricultural school and somewhere down there I'm sure that there is a livestock breeding program, doesn't this mascot open the doors for all sorts of inter species breeding jokes? I always knew those people were pussys. Atleast they are wearing the right color...

Here's some trivia for you. Name the only school the the Big 12 conference that has NEVER won a National Championship in ANYTHING. I'll give you some time...Did you guess it? It's not Baylor, or Iowa State,...Thats right. It's K State. For being the fourth oldest Big 12 institution, you would think that they could have added atleast one. Even if it's in women's bowling.....oh,...wait...Nebraska's good at that too. But I'm sure they have a better in-conference reputation right? Well, I'm afraid not. They are barely edging out Missouri for the fewest conference title's by a 7-6 margin. This purple color is looking more and more fitting...

After those stats, what can we really talk about? Rich tradition? Talented athletes? unfortunately no. While the SDSU game was a hard one to swallow, historically, Pelini does well with extra time to prepare. Look for the blackshirts to have addressed the problems we all witnessed and shut down Kansas States talented runningback. Look for Nebraska to run up the score early to force KSU to throw the ball, which has not ended up good for any of the Husker opponents this year. If KSU is able to hold the Husker offense to minimal points while chewing clock with their run game, the Huskers may be in trouble, but look for the Huskers to come out 5-0, and the Mildcats to,...well...fall back into their place.

I'm sorry KSU if I was a little harsh on you this week. Keep your heads up. Your university produced the talented Kirstie Alley, and activist Erin Brokovich. But here's the kicker, you also produced DeLoss Dodds, current Athletic Director of the University of Texas. Screw. You.

Here's to Nebraska beginning their farewell tour in the Little Apple with a win over KSU. After the game be sure to head to Aggieville for some of the best fun in a college town you can have. There's a bar there that serves a drink called a fish tank, and unlike Duffy's in Lincoln where your drink comes in a little fish bowl, these drinks are literally served in fish TANKS. Look! I found one thing they can claim superiority to!

One last note, any fanbase that celebrates every first down, doesn't deserve to be on television, so let's hope the blackshirts can help them out with proper primetime etiquette. We all get it, that was "another K STATE first down!" That's what happens when you get 10 yards....