Guy Chamberlin

Yep. Wes Walker definitely popped into mind.

My buddy who played for Lincoln East remembers trying to tackle Tom Rathman in the open field on a punt return. It wasn't pretty.

Yeah, I don't see any glaring disrespect to our players here. These are All-Conference awards and you gotta go with the numbers. But the nice thing about hard-working guys like Ganz and Swift is that they may actually benefit by flying under the radar. There are a lot of NFL players who have been built out of small salaries and low expectations and who survive longer than some of the bigger names whose agents and entourages turn them into fragile head-cases before they can grow into their talent. Suh is no longer flying under the radar. He's gonna do just fine. As for Henery: I think he should be pretty happy with his place in history right now.

In fairness, ESPN talking heads score a slight credibility edge over the CNN and FOX News talking heads. The problem is people who are paid to offer opinions, combined with way to much airtime to fill. And wasn't it but a few innocent weeks ago that a certain Kirk Herbstreit predicted that Nebraska might surprise a few people, and Joe Ganz was a legitimate sleeper?

Also keeping in mind that if a single 57 yard field goal had gone the way of most 57 yard field goals, a whole lot of conversations on this board would have a very different tone.

The defensive line has made a huge improvement over the season. The secondary....ah, not so much. And that modest improvement has been greatly aided by the pressure applied by the d-line and more aggressive play calling.

Helu makes people miss, but he doesn't exactly drag anyone along with him. So I wouldn't put him in the bigger and stronger camp with Berns and Rozier.

Nice story. Especially when so many other fathers are bringing their kids to Nebraska just for the Safe Haven law.

We're right where we should be, getting a few votes along with the fellow four-loss teams. A bowl win against Florida State might crack it. There's no way to rank teams without an argument.

Again, that would be the Cotton Bowl, New Year's Day less than two years ago, coached by Bill Callahan, with a team of Juniors and Seniors recruited by Frank Solich, who had been criticized for his poor recruiting. Just keepin' the perspective, folks.

Lucky was suited up. It was Senior Day. And Helu was clearly playing hurt. Not a conspiracy theory exactly, but if Lucky was good enough to suit up, I'd think he was preferable to Castille.

I'm glad Callahan's gone. Didn't care for his personal style, going back to the cowardly way he handled his last season with the Oakland Raiders. But if we're all being perfectly honest here, this season feels exactly like Callahan's second season. 8 and 4 with an inspirational win against Colorado (on the road and by a big margin), a great come-from-behind victory in a legitimate bowl game, and the unmistakable feeling of a program on the upswing. And Callahan's third season? Well he did deliver the Big 12 North title we now covet and almost upset a Top 10 team in a major bowl game. I think we have to be ready for the very real possibility that Bo might not be able to top this season next season, when he has to continue to upgrade the defense while breaking in a new quarterback. Argue style points and personality all you want, but in terms of x's and o's, wins and losses, no jury can come in on Bo Pelini "turning things around" for another two seasons. And do keep in mind that Bo was smart enough not to hasten back to the glory days of the triple option, and instead retained Callahan's offensive coordinator, who we can thank for an 11th ranked, well-balanced and enormously entertaining offense. Is that stirring the pot? Cause I consider it talking about football. Remember, life is all about expectation management.

I think Helu has come along at exactly the pace he should: legit playing time as a Freshman, platooned as a Sophomore where he emerged as the featured back. Now Helu will come into his Junior season expected to be a full-fledged star. I predict that within 47 weeks people on this board will be wondering of more of Helu's carries should be going to Mendoza.

Wow. Van Brownson. Thanks for the memory. That guy was fun to watch and we loved pretending to be Van playing sandlot ball. He'd run down the line then jump up and throw the ball, almost like a basketball jump shot. He and Tagge were co-QBs for a long stretch. I don't think Tagge got full control of the team until his senior year. And if championships are your critereon, Tagge has the edge on Berringer and Frost and is tied with Frazier. Humm was our first passing phenom, but after a promising soph season he went downhill and wasn't even starting some games his senior year. I remember him throwing 4 interceptions in the first half of our bowl game against Florida and his back up (Lucky? Runty?) stepped in and won the game. Ferragamo didn't have a full career at NU but he played the NFL style vertical game throwing to guys like Frosty Anderson. It was fun while it lasted. Almost forgot about Gdowski. Not in the top 5 but definitely worth a tip of the hat. Same with Steve Taylor, who did a pretty decent Turner Gill imitation.

I don't think it's a slam on Nebraska fans at all. Sports teams are all about regional identity, and Nebraska football has the market pretty much to itself. When I was a kid, we all picked our favorite NFL, NBA and MLB teams and it rarely had to do with proximity. I liked the Baltimore Colts. My brother was a Packers fan. My best friend was loyal to the Bears. We all thought the LA Rams had cool helmets. But your #1 loyalty was to Husker Football. And it stayed with most of us when we moved out of state and into cities with a plethora of sports and cultural offerings. Probably because Nebraska football had been extremely successful our entire lives. And that makes you feel good about your local sports identity.

Let's not go the bias route. Even with injury shortened seasons and deceptively modest statistics, Tommy Frazier is a college football legend. Even to the guys on ESPN. And speaking of ESPN, which pitted the '71 Huskers against the '95 Huskers for greatest college team ever, I'm not sure either team would beat those '83 Huskers. That team was enough of a juggernaut to make the cover of Time Magazine. If one incompletion had been a reception, that team would have been top of the mix and we'd be elevating Turner Gill in this discussion. He was a helluva team leader, a better passer if not quite the rusher Tommy Frazier was. And again, God love Eric Crouch but he was not a good passer. Not even close. Leadership looms huge in the discsussion, but the ability to throw the ball is a key attribute for a quarterback. Also, give him two full years and even a 50th ranked defense and Joe Ganz gets to enter the discussion.

However it happens to shake out. Someone will always wash out surprisingly early. Someone will hang on holding a clipboard for a few years, then be asked to step in, and find themselves a starting NFL quarterback against all odds. This week's example: Shaun Hill and the San Francisco 49ers. By the way, I thought Eric Crouch was one of the toughest little QBs I've ever seen, but he is not a better quarterback than anyone currently holding a clipboard in the NFL. He was the product of a college system that took advantage of his unique skills, a system they just don't use in the NFL. Eric Crouch was not a confident passer and there was just no way around that.

The legendary loyal and travel-happy Nebraska fans can thank themselves for getting the Huskers into Bowl games above and beyond their record.

Before I imagine what would happen in games that will never be played, I'd like to see Nebraska beat Colorado.

Oh hell yeah. This offense is fun to watch. Watson has been calling great games. And while I will always take winning over losing, if I can choose as a spectator I'd rather see 300 yards passing and 200 yards rushing, than 427 yards rushing and 63 yards passing. I would also like to see longer, slower pans of the cheerleaders.

I'm carrying this over from another thread about whether Ganz will ever play in the pros. I'm gonna up the ante a bit. Take these three guys... 1. Harrell 2. Bradford 3. McCoy ....and I predict that Joe Ganz will have a longer NFL career than at least one of them. Can we all agree to check back with this post in 5 years?

Yep. Purify was wasted on Keller. Ganz steps in and figures out how to get the ball to the most talented receiver. Too bad those two never had a full year. Then you look up and realize that Nate Swift might actually be someone pretty special. Hope so, as he's going into the record books. The top running backs all returned and have a better average behind this offensive line. Hard to mourn the loss of anyone from last year's defense, the most pourous and least aggressive defense in the history of Nebraska football. Can't always separate psychology from talent. I'd go with this year.

On a recent thread someone was claiming he wouldn't take another poster seriously until he had a higher post count. I posted that I had nothing to add to the subject, I was just trying to bump my post count. My post was deleted. Guess it wasn't a close call and clearly required intervention.

Done that. But no. The posts no longer exist. If they fell under the "waste of space" category....uhm.....well that's a critereon that would threaten an awful lot of posts around here, and quite possibly the very existence of online bulletin boards . And the Bill Callahan Returning to Nebraksa thread didn't come a country mile of the Cody Glenn thread in terms of requiring moderation. Just my two cents.

The Bill Callahan Returns thread was locked. What's the ruling on that? And why have a couple of my more whimsical posts disappeared without a trace or explanation? I see no Terms of Service rules broken in any of these cases, nor anyone in danger of being hurt.