Guy Chamberlin

Burton Burns isn't ringing a bell. And I go back awhile with Husker football. When did he play?

Isn't there still a strip club in an old International House of Pancakes just off 1-80 in Waverly?

Just for the record, I'd be a terrible moderator and I don't want the job.

I'm gonna take the Pelini's word that the defense could be even better, as they have no good reason to put uncessary pressure on themselves. They honestly seem jacked by some of the players who weren't getting enough game time this year. And I'm inclined to believe the offense will be better, as it could hardly get any worse.

Go back to August. We all know the Huskers have a great D, but a lot of questions about the young untested offense. Would we have taken wins against Missou, Oklahoma and Kansas on the way to a Big 12 North Title, a Holiday Bowl win and a #14 ranking? I think so. Now go back to the evening of October 24. Huskers have just lost to Iowa State at home to go 4 and 3. Did anyone see that as a blip on our way to a #14 ranking? Didn't think so. Still......pretty amazing to think that three plays going differently in the VTech, Iowa State and Texas games would have put us at 13 - 1. So there will always be a twinge of pain looking back on this season.

Yeah. I couldn't get past that.

I like him a lot, but I'm not sure he's "so good" yet. He does seem smart and versatile, so he may not need to be the guy you send into the line 25 carries a game. Seems like only a year ago we were chatting like this about Helu and Castille.

Thanks, Knapp. I give unemployment and insomnia the credit.

Huh? We were a top 12 offense last year with Joe Ganz and a supporting crew that didn't even crack All-Conference caliber. Zac Taylor, nobody's all-American, was able to run this, too. The notion that Nebraska players somehow can't master a fancy big city offensive scheme is faulty and insulting. The notion that you can just decide to run really hard and knock defenses on their butts is kinda naive, too. Replace "multiple" with "balanced" and "average" with "good" because there is absolutely no rule that a team can't run and pass the ball equally well. It's actually what a lot of successful teams do. It's also the innovation that Tom Osborne brought to the Devaney teams. Although TO got his national championships using a triple option running attack, I'm not so sure he'd try to replicate it if he were coaching today.

I think the offensive shortfall hit the coaches the same way it hit the fans: How can we be this bad? Because up through the fourth quarter of the Missouri game, the young Husker offense looked perfectly capable of carrying its weight. Plenty of improvements to be made, but nothing needed to be reinvented. Then against Texas Tech, nothing worked. Complete failure. Then against Iowa State it worked again. Kinda. The Huskers were moving the ball until they literally dropped it five times in the red zone and Zac Lee threw three interceptions. What the hell was that? Can't blame the playcalling when your best receiver fumbles the ball twice on his way to an easy touchdown. So you what....dump the WCO? Play smashmouth football with your fourth string running back? Wait for the Zac Lee, who looks sharp in practice, to look better under game pressure? No. You make everyone in Husker Nation happy by benching Lee and getting the Cody Green era started. Except holy sh#t....that didn't make everyone happy. That made everyone very nervous. And you (and that means Watson, Pelini and everyone else) is forced to realize that maybe the best way for this offense to support this Very Special Defense is to Not Screw Up. At this point there is no ego or West Coast Offense. Only ongoing experiments in designing the simplest plays for the healthiest available players. Of all the adjectives you could stick on Watson in the second half of the season, stubborn would not be one of them. Then one day you look up and realize that your offense was one second away from outscoring the #2 team in the nation. However hard as that 102 yards of total offense may have been to swallow, the offense did enough to pull off a massive upset. Then you look up again, and you're 9 and 4, going to a bowl game that would have been unimaginable after Iowa State. Going up against a ranked team and a very respected defense. You have extra time to prepare. You've got healthier players. It's the last game of the season so you've been given the mandate to loosen the offense back up. The defense is awesome. The offense is inspired. They finally play off each other for a complete and satisfying win on national television. And not a single returning coach or player isn't fully aware that it was just one game and the offense will have to forge a new and coherent identity next year. Except now you get the feeling that it could be fun. Watson deserves another year. He also deserves a better quarterback, but that's for a different thread.

I think Ganz was a good but not great quarterback. I'm guessing he was a pretty big fan of Shawn Watson's calls, being as they allowed him to be the leader of the nation's 11th rated offense and set a bunch of Nebraska records. Which goes to show that this offense probably was a good — not great — quarterback away from contending for the national championship this year. Good quarterbacks develop a good rapport with their receivers, and our young receivers never had much of a chance to grow this year.

Ridiculous. If you sensed lack of enthusiasm for some of those choices, it's because none of those choices are as appealing as they once were. That last weekend threw everything up in the air. There's no slam dunk. The ESPN players may have been encouraged to argue with each other because it is sports television after all. Skip Bayless came out and endorsed Suh. He kinda enjoys being disagreeable. But it's pretty clear that Suh is the sexy choice for Heisman. Suh has gotten all the Heisman hype you could ask for, but then again, he earned it.

Exactly. We all knew we'd had a Top 12 Offense for two years that an abysmal Defense couldn't support. And coming into this season we were concerned something like this would happen. And it did. And we're 9 - 4 again, though I don't remember everyone being this crabby about it last year. If Shawn Watson hadn't worked wonders with spare parts he inherited - much the way the Pelinis did with the defense - you'd have a case. There's a reason both Tom Osborne and Bo Pelini wanted to keep hold of Watson. As the season unfolded Zac Lee kept showing less promise in new and baffling ways. Get Watson a working quarterback and some receivers with a year of seasoning and let's check back next year. If Watson hadn't worked

By Monday morning May had upped it to the best defensive lineman he'd seen in 25 years, and the guy 25 years ago was Reggie White.

Technically Callahan played-not-to-lose-to-USC-by-as-large-a-margin-as-some-might-have-predicted. And Zac Taylor was ready to make a game of it. One of my least favorite Husker games.

There are so many people who hate the BCS and love underdogs and anarchy that I believe the vast majority of college football fans will be rooting for Nebraska on Saturday.

How come nobody is talking about the fact that we're forced to play without Quentin Castille?

We will see if he will give into the pressure or not come saturday. Are you suggesting that the game will determine the outcome?

Somehow Stanford was able to put together a gameplan that defeated USC 55 - 21. At the LA Coliseum. Then did the same thing the next week against Oregon. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke. Jim Harbaugh can coach.

I'm just relieved it won't be Stanford, which utterly destroyed USC and Oregon in back to back games. Until proven otherwise, Pete Carroll is a better big game coach than Bo Pelini. I'll take Iowa, thanks.

Last summer I predicted that neither Roy Helu or Quentin Castille would end the season as our starting running back. Having thus established my brilliance, a few more thoughts: 1) It's nice to have both Helu and Burkhead. 2) Those short rollout passes we've been running the past couple weeks? Those are tailor-made for Burkhead. 3) Helu carried the entire offense on his back against the toughest defenses we've faced all year. He's earned the respect and the start. 4) EVERY college football fanbase and EVERY BBS on the internet regardless of topic ends up sounding pretty much like this one.

This Saturday, when the Husker D is containing the run, sacking McCoy and has Texas on the ropes with a 4th quarter 3rd and 12 and a scrambling McCoy throws the ball out of bounds and Asante gives his man a good whack anyway and Texas a first down it didn't earn, you may learn the difference between aggressive play and smart football. btw....the NFL is full of aggressive DBs who don't continually draw unecssary roughness penalties. Asante will learn.

If the offense had put together a break-out game against K-State or Colorado, I would be more optimistic. A special teams and defensive score or two, a solid game by Helu & Burkhead and a couple of those freakishly good out of the blue throws from Zac Lee and it's a game. Stranger things have happened. Callahan's nightmare squad of '07 almost pulled off a win against Texas.

I was at that game. It was fun.

The announcers were fine. They could not have done a better job promoting Suh to a national audience, and Nebraska as a legitimate threat to Texas, even if we're probably, you know....not. Asante doesn't need to get thrown out. He does need to play smarter. Plenty of great defensive backs manage not to cross the line. Dare you to call any of them pussies. If you find a sportcaster who never says anything bad about anyone or anything from Nebraska, then you'll have found a lousy sportscaster.