Midway through the fourth quarter, I was afraid that this post was going to be called "Odor Restored" as the Kansas Jayhawks spent most of the final 3 quarters of tonight's game trying to recreate last year's 40-15 thrashing. What's the difference between last year's Kansas game and this year's? Two observations: (1) Callahan made Kansas pay for stuffing the line as Zac Taylor didn't complete a lot of passes tonight, but those passes sure covered a lot of yardage. (2) The CozBohl defense (aka "the bend and break") made an unpleasant and unwelcome reappearance.
First the negative to get it out of the system: With Kansas playing a backup quarterback tonight, the CozBohl defense has to be considered a near disaster. When I say "near" disaster, that's only because in overtime, Coz finally unleashed a few blitzes and challenged KU's Adam Barmann. Before that, Kansas dominated the entire 2nd half so much that I felt that we were unlikely to be able to win the game in overtime. Glad I was wrong on that account.
On the positive side, the Husker offense was able to score 32 points and put up huge numbers through the air against a decent Kansas defense. Last year, Callahan played into KU's "stuff the box" strategy, but this year, he threw deep and scored. At the time, Husker fans probably were thinking "blowout", but as it turned out, Nebraska was able to hold on at the end.
It's been a long night, but USC's struggles against Washington State and the beatings encountered by Louisiana Tech and Troy tonight sure give one some serious reason for concern. But by that same token, Iowa State struggled with 1-AA Northern Iowa and Kansas State lost at Baylor. At this point, AJ's Missouri Tigers might be the best team in the Big XII North...
2 comments:
Judgement Day Cometh.
11/4
;)
There are some issues of serious concern on defense, like no pressure on the QB. Apparently Coach Coz was conerned about some shovel pass play KU was running that had averaged 30 yards a play prior to last night, so he called off the blitzing. If KU's receivers had held on to a few more passses, we'd all be pretty glum right now. We got real damn lucky on this one. On a positive note, who knew Hardy was that fast?
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