Sunday Night Dessert: A Weekend of "L"s

UNO hockey gave it a go for a little while this weekend against #2 Miami. Friday night, UNO dominated the second period and even carried the play well into the third. UNO's penalty kill was particularly strong, as on several occasions, it looked like UNO had the advantage. In fact, on Miami's first power play of the evening, UNO outshot Miami 4-0. But, as was the case in the first two meetings, Miami turned it up late, scoring two goals with about five minutes left in the game to break a 3-3 tie and adding an empty net goal in the final minute. Saturday night was pretty much a domination by Miami, aside from a rather nifty Bryan Marshall goal. While Friday night's game was closer than the score indicated, the Saturday night game was more lopsided than the score indicated. Too bad, because the Saturday night game had great attendance and the Qwest Center was rocking initially.

Husker hoops got pasted by Kansas as well. I only saw a few highlights of the game, and while you can say that Nebraska played better than last year, that might be more because Nebraska played so poorly the last couple of years against the Jayhawks. In any event, Doc Sadler isn't rushing things in Lincoln, redshirting several freshmen to help build some depth. And it's not like #3 Kansas should be much of a measuring stick for the Huskers anyway. The Jayhawks right now appear to be on a path to steamroll through the Big XII on their way to the NCAA tournament this year. Texas A&M looks like their only speed bump, though you never know about Missouri in Columbia.

Introducing Bo Pelini and the rest of the football coaching staff ensured a big crowd for the game, but didn't seem to be the good luck charm some might have hoped for. In any event, Pelini came off a little more passionate than his predecessor, who had to read "Go Big Red!" off his note cards when introducing himself to fans four years ago.

If there was ever any doubt about Pelini's devotion to his players, here's another example courtesy of the Lincoln Journal-Star. New assistant Mike Ekeler says that shortly after joining the Oklahoma coaching staff in 2004, the Sooner coaching staff spent five days meeting with the Dallas Cowboys to share ideas. Except, of course, Pelini who had other priorities:

“He didn’t come to one meeting,” Ekeler says. “He stayed outside the meeting room and was on the phone talking to GMs/player personnel, all these people in the (NFL) for all these guys back at Nebraska, guys who played their tails off for him, who would never do anything else for him again. And I thought, ‘You know what? This guy gets it. This guy totally gets it.’”

Now do you see why Pelini coached in that national championship game? Yeah, the ring is nice. But Pelini wasn't about to turn his back on his players if he had any choice in the matter.

Was that Green Bay/Seattle playoff game fun to watch or what? The snow was coming down so hard that Fox had to use their sideline cameras for much of the second half since there was almost no visibility from the press box. And let's face it, Brett Favre leading the Packers this deep into the NFL playoffs is the greatest story of these playoffs. The Sunday games were somewhat of a surprise, especially with how San Diego fought off injuries to defeat the Colts. I'm sure some people will criticize Peyton Manning, but he's not the guy who couldn't stop the Charger backups today. Football is a team game, and only great teams win in the playoffs. Great players can't do it by themselves. And in the case of today's game, a lot of great players (Marvin Harrison, LaDainian Tomlinson, Bob Sanders, Philip Rivers, Reggie Wayne) came off the field injured, and the Charger backups picked up the slack. With the number of injuries the Chargers suffered, it looks like New England will be a prohibitive favorite to return to the Super Bowl. But I'll be pulling hard for Favre and the Packers...