MMLB

Hope it was a relaxing weekend for everyone, mine was fantastic with the exception of the hangover I woke up to Sunday morning morning. Staying up till 4 in the morning playing FIFA 07 probably wasn't necessary. I'm am neither a soccer or hockey fan, but after NCAA Football, they are by far the best video games out there. Enough about that though, on to the football.

There is a lot of stuff I want to get to after a busy Saturday of spring games, starting with the Big Red. Here's a link to some video highlights of the game for those of you not fortunate enough to either attend or have the NFL Network.

First off, let's start out with the Quarterbacks. If you want a complete analysis, I suggest you check out the OWH's article that breaks down both of their respective performances, or the extremely fancy passing chart they made. As I've stated before, the media loves a QB controversy. It gives them a topic to write about whenever they need one. And after the spring game, they now have four more months to write about one. Neither definitavely seperated himself from the other. Keller had a bit of better game statistically, going 10-13 with 193 yards and a touchdown, whereas Ganz went 11 for 18 for 157 yards and a TD of his own. What terrifies me is that he did the macarena for his celebration. That alone should cost him the QB job in my opinion. In all seriousness, I think the real fun of a spring game is to see if some lesser known players step up and make some plays against the starters, or if somebody establishes himself in a position battle. We have four more months till camp in August, and I'll let other people worry about the QB situation till then. I was more interested in the other QBs anyways......my thoughts? Beau Davis will never get off that bench. He had some downright atrocious throws, albeit he was playing against the blackshirts. Witt didn't have great stats, but he throws a nice ball and looks to have really good velocity.

One thing I especially loved was Cody Glenn's performance, especially in light of the fact he did it with a banged-up foot. I was able to watch the first quarter of the game (click here or scroll down to the posting before this one to see my running diary of it) before the DVR recording quit, and I was having a blast watching him. It literally took three guys to tackle him every time he carried the ball. Sure, he was playing against the second team, but dragging three guys for extra yardage is impressive no matter who you do it against. One play in particular stood out to me: Glenn caught a pass in the flats, turned up field and was met by two defenders after about seven yards. He runs over them both, and then drags a third guy an additional seven. He might have had a pedestrian stat line (11 carries, 44 yards), but you really had to see him in action to get an idea of the havoc he was wreaking. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do when he's 100%.

When talking about Glenn, one has to think of Lucky. The victim of what Callahan calls a "medial sprain" of his knee, he still logged 16 carries for 94 yards and a TD before he was felled by the injury. Times like these, fans always freak out about how he shouldn't even have still been playing, that the coaches made a mistake by keeping him in a meaningless exhibition or some other BS line. To which I have to reply: ITS DIVISION ONE FOOTBALL! IT AINT INTRAMURALS! It's a f***ing contact sport, injuries are part of the game. What happens if he hurts his knee in practice in August? Should we just keep Lucky out of any situation that involves him getting touched? At what point do you draw the line? I get so sick of people complaining when something like this happens. Anyways, the good news (at least as of right now, we'll see after the MRI) is that it isn't anything serious and that he'll be back to normal in a month. I thought that Brian Christopherson wrote a good article about Glenn and Lucky for the LJS. The bond between a position group is a powerful thing, and it's great to see that both guys are supportive of each other and rooting for the other to do well.

A mathchup I was particularly interested in was the safety battle between Thenarse and Asante. While Thenarse would appear to have the better game based off the tackles comparison (5 compared to Asante's 2), one has to understand that when it comes to safeties, stats are not a good indicator of one's performance. Does he disguise coverages well? Does his pre-snap movement cause the QB to pause? A guy like Troy Polamalu may not fill up the stat sheet, but his impact can't be measured in terms of affecting an opposing team's gameplan. Another huge aspect of safety play is the ability to intimidate the opposing recievers. The fact that secondary coach Bill Busch is emphasizing the big hit bodes well for the Blackshirts, although bringing in guys like Asante and the development of Thenarse will go a long way in transforming this unit into the ballhawks that one always hopes for at the rover position. One thing I was glad to see was that Thenarse did well on kickoff returns, having one for 20 yards and another for 28 yards, respectively. As we all know, the return game was something the Huskers weren't especially good at last year.

While there may not be a position battle at wideout for the Huskers, their performance was still of great interest to me. We all know that Purify is going to be the main guy at the X reciever, but what about the Y on the other side? Some say that Nunn will be there, others argue Swift. According to many observers this spring, nobody established themselves through practice as the frontrunner. From what I've heard, reciever play has actually been somewhat poor in practice, which is surprising considering the talent we have there. In the spring game, Swift appeared to outplay Nunn, with 3 catches for 70 yards and a score, wheras Nunn had only one reception (although it was for a touchdown). That said, Swift also had a couple of drops that a third grader could have caught, so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The real stud of the day was Todd Peterson, who had over 100 yards recieving (granted, 47 of them came on one catch, but a hundred yards is a hundread yards). Petersen and Keller were in sync the whole day, hooking up on a couple nice catch-and-runs where Keller hit him in stride for big plays. The thing I was disappointed about was how little of an impact the younger recievers had. Granted, it doesnt help when your playing against the starters, your offensive line doesn't give the QB any time to throw, and the QB's name is Beau Davis, but I thought we'd see a lot more of Will Henry and Menelik Holt, yet neither of them had a single catch.

One thing I was disappointed with on Saturday: fan turnout. I know we still probably had the largest or second largest (to Ohio State) in terms of numbers, but I thought with Keller and no ongoing stadium renovations that we'd get 65,000 plus, but the announced crowd was just over 54,000. Oh well. Speaking of the crowd, apparently they gave it the 'ol college try when it came to impressing all of the recruits on hand. I love the fact that our fans are that obssessed that they know all the kids by name when they come. It shows them just how much we care about our team, and the passion of Husker fans is something that often times awes recruits. Unfortunately, it didn't have that effect on heralded Riley Rieff, the 6'6", 235 pound d-line prospect. Despite attending our spring game, he commited to Iowa on Sunday, saying that the fact they were the first to offer was a big factor when making his decision. Rieff is widely considered to be the best prospect coming out of South Dakota, which probably isn't that hard when there are only 200 people in that entire state and only three football teams. Either way, a setback in our recruiting momentum, but it's still reeeeaaly early.

In other Big 12 spring game news, the Cyclones' spring game was won by the offense. Instead of having two seperate teams, they use a scoring system where the D gets points for turnovers, three-and-outs (something I call TKO's, which is what we called them at Bethel), and other factors. Bret Meyer looked good, which is expected when your playing against a defense that ranked next-to-last in almost every important defensive category last year. I'll be honest with all the Husker fans: I went to Iowa State my freshmen year. That was the year Seneca Wallace tore from the gates and led them to a #9 ranking, only to lose their last six games. So I know something about the Cyclone mindset, which is to say they are extremely poor fans when it comes to supporting their team (evidenced by only 7,000 people coming to the game).

Over at Colorado, a mere 6,000 people came out to watch the train wreck that is Buffs football. Apparently it's so bad that they have resorted to keeping stats for the QBs in 7-on-7 pass skelly drills. Against live competition, the two leading contenders for the job (Nick Nelson and Cody Hawkins) combined for a Jammal Lordesque passing line of 15 for 30, 150 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. In the 7-on-7 drills they combined for 430 yards and four touchdowns, which is great news for the Buffs if any opposing team ever decides not to send out a defensive line. Seriously, you keep stats for pass skelly? How desperate are you? When there isn't a pass rush, you can sit back there till someone gets open, which is bound to happen considering your defense sucks too. But then again, I'm just a former D3 player. And as coach Hawkins knows all too well, ITS DIVISION ONE FOOTBALL! The poor turnout for the game is really no surprise, considering they are coming off a 2-10 season and most of the student body was most likely passed out in the parking lot. I'm guessing the beer pong games being played outside the stadium was more enticing than the football being played in it.

In the Okie State spring game, Zac Robinson outplayed Bobby Reid, leading his team to a come-from-behind victory in a rare competitive spring contest. We shouldn't be surprised that Robinson out-performed him, considering I thought Gundy was an idiot for even putting Robinson in games last year. The lesson, as always: I'm an idiot. That said, I don't care who ends up starting, as long as we end up beating them. Last year's game against OSU was one of the most infuriating Husker games I've witnessed, and it was our season in a nutshell: play great in the first half, stake yourself a nice lead, watch the other team storm back in the third quarter assisted by our poor offensive playcalling, lose at the end. I remember watching that game and being so dejected afterward that I didn't even go out afterward. It's one thing to lose to USC and Texas (both of which were winnable games), but to lose to OSU after having a lead is inexcusable. If your looking for a few more things on Big 12 spring games, I suggest you head over to the Fanhouse, Jeff Adams has done a nice job over there briefly talking about some of the games.

5 Things I'm thinking about this morning

1) Great career, Will Shields. The former Husker was one of the best offensive linemen in NFL history, and he's hanging up the pads after 14 years playing for the K.C. Chiefs. The league needs more guys like Shields, who was one of the most active players in the league when it came to philanthropy. He won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2003, and was a consummate gentlemen. He will be missed.

2) For those of you that saw the spring game on Saturday, you may have noticed that Ndamukong Suh was an intimidating presence on the interior of the d-line. From what I've been reading, this guy has top-10 level ability if he keeps developing at his current pace. While I am nervous about replacing some other guys on our defensive front, I am not worried about the inside at all. Suh, who is working on developing a nasty streak this spring, will play a key role in whether or not there is a drop-off from last year on the d-line.

3) I, along with pretty much everyone else who follows college football, think that the Ohio State Buckeyes are in in for a long and hard season after last year's success. In the battle to replace Heisman runner-up Troy Smith, the unhearalded trio of Todd Boeckman, Antonio Henton, and Rob Schoenhoft combined for a sub-50% completion rate and four interceptions. It should be noted that the Buckeye's spring game allowed the QBs to actually get hit, whereas almost everywhere else in the country they are strictly hands-off. Still, this performance can't bode well for the defending Big 10 champions. They lost a lot of talent to the NFL draft and graduation. It's a good thing they play in a conference with only two other good teams (Wisconsin, Michigan).

4) Over at USC, they once again are having the good-to-have problem of having way too much talent. All-everything backup QB Mark Sanchez played well in an intrasquad scrimmage, which is important to note because he went against the #1 defense, a unit which, according to the USC media guide, is comprised entirely of guys that should be All-Americans. There are some saying that Sanchez could take the job away from Heisman favorite John David Booty by the time fall camp rolls around. My hope? That the two have a bitter falling-out, forcing other team members to pick sides, causing morale to sink and leading to a loss at Nebraska. Wishful thinking? Of course. But a guy can dream. When an entire team is made up of former Parade All-Americans, it's tough to be optimistic. The good news is that thanks to my ticket-broker uncle, I may be getting tickets to the NU-USC game for free. Words can't even begin to describe my excitement.

5) I usually would never comment on or link to an article on Miami football, but I thought Ivan Maisel had an interesting article about new head coach Randy Shannon over on ESPN. After descending into a lax state of discipline under former head man Larry Coker (whose early success I always thought was the result of the spectacular talent assembled by Butch Davis), it appears Shannon is intent on implementing a new attitude at "The U". Among his new rules: if a player has a GPA below 2.5, he has to live on campus. If Shannon ever gets a phone call after midnight about a player, that athlete will not play the next game. And hats will not be worn inside the football facilities (a rule I love, considering we had this same rule at Bethel under d-coordinator Jimmy Miller). I am about as anti-Miami as one can get, but I'm glad to see someone instilling some discipline in Coral Gables. After the brawl with FIU last year, it became apparent that losing games was the least of Miami's problems. Here's to hoping that Shannon can repair the program's image......well, repair it as much as he can anyway. Miami will always be Miami.

Just a little side note: beginning in May, I will be undertaking an extremely ambitious beer pong table construction project. I realize that I'm graduating, which means that maybe I should leave the game in my college era. But in my opinion, for fall Saturdays, nothing gets you the football mindset more than some pre-gaming competititon. You can take the kid out of the college, but you'll never take the college out of the kid. Anyways, it's going to be an exact replica of the Memorial Stadium's field, brought down to a 4' by 8' size. I will be putting a picture up upon completion.

Husker-Glorifying Quote of the Week

"I'm always proud when someone says to me, 'Where did you play?', and I can say, 'I played at Nebraska.' That makes me very proud."----Barry Alvarez