Out of Gas

Troy gave Florida State and Georgia Tech quite a scare the last two weeks, but following those two games up with a trip to Nebraska was just too much for the men of Troy. In a 56-0 thumping, Troy was completely dominated on both sides of the ball by the Huskers. Are the Huskers that much better than Troy? Was Troy simply out of gas? Did the Huskers step their performance up a notch last night? Which is it? The answer is: Yes - all of the above. Nebraska is bigger and stronger than Troy, and after two exhausting games the previous two weeks, Nebraska was faster last night.

Prime exhibit? Marlon Lucky. Lucky showcased his speed against the exhausted Trojans for 156 yards and three long touchdown runs of 34, 44, and 52 yards. On each run, once Lucky broke through the line of scrimmage, nobody came close to touching him.

On defense, the Husker defensive line was able to create enough of a matchup problem for the Troy offense that blitzing was simply unnecessary. Troy QB Omar Haugabook was a man under siege and took a horrible beating all night long. Nebraska simply dominated this game from start to finish, and when Bill Callahan pulled the first stringers early in the third quarter, you knew the game was long over, if it ever had even began.

Interesting to note that Zac Taylor only threw 17 passes last night, compared to 16 the week before. The big difference was that on it's first 16 first downs last night, Nebraska threw 8 passes and ran the ball 8 times, unlike last week when Nebraska ran the ball the first 16 first downs. In his post game interview with the Husker Information Minister, coach Bill Callahan talked about how against modern defenses, you need to be balanced offensively and that if you become one dimensional, you become easier to stop. Hmmm...

Kansas State rookie coach Ron Prince made a point of contrasting his approach, apparantly opposite of Callahan's, in his comments after yesterday's Louisville-PuddyTat game:

“The plan was to be bold and daring, to try and seize an early lead. We weren’t trying to play the game just to get the game to the fourth quarter and be close. We were trying to win the game and see if we can play with these guys. We were kind of excited about that. To be honest with you there was an extra spark to our team this week. We had some better practices and we were excited. We are not going to coach scared. We are going to coach smart and be bold and daring. If you are going to pull of an upset like this you are going to do that."

How many Husker fans would have like to have seen Nebraska take it's shot last week, rather than play to see if USC would lose?

After watching some of the air show around the stadium yesterday, we headed into the stadium early and decided to check out the North stadium changes for myself. My vote: the fans in the North Stadium have been tempering their complaints. While the concourses are a very nice retrofit to the stadium, the failure to add any new entrances to the seating areas near the new seats was an extremely poor design. When you consider the severe weather that affected eastern Nebraska last week or the storms that forced a two hour delay in the Texas-Iowa State game yeseterday, this is a potentially life threatening, deadly design should an evacuation become necessary. It was amazing to contrast the difference in design between the new North endzone seats and the South endzone seats as to how much better the traffic flows out.