Bad Breath

Despite some of the recent rancor that seems to exist between our two fanbases, I for one am not happy to see this come to an end. I hated it when Missouri was talking about moving to the Big Ten due to all of the traditional match-ups that we would be throwing away. Missouri and Nebraska have been going at it for 100 years and it is sad to that come to a close. I am a traditionalist when it comes to following sports. The primary reason for me attending this past weekend's game was because I knew it would be the last time Missouri played in Lincoln. (Of course, it didn't hurt that this particular game had numerous other implications as well.) While at the game on Saturday, I noticed the pressbox and the years signifying national championships and conference championships and wondered if that would have to be altered to reflect Nebraska's change in conference.

Got back from Lincoln on Sunday. This was my third game at Memorial Stadium (1998 and 2008). Surprisingly enough, I was treated better on this trip than any other. I tailgated with some friends of friends in a lot full of red. And just about everyone nearby treated us cordially, even offering us food and beverages at their tailgates. I was ribbed on a couple of occasions, but it was good-natured and never crass or offensive. (There were a few minor incidents once in the stadium, but again...rather mild overall.) Thank you for being gracious hosts. As for the game, Nebraska completely dominated Mizzou (duh!). I had hoped that Missouri's defense would make things tough on Nebraska, but that turned out to be Fantasy Island. Very impressive performance by the Nebraska offensive line which created some wonderful holes for Helu to run through. Not only did he find them (the holes), but I think the whole Missouri defense was caught off-guard by his speed. He looked faster than I've ever seen him before. Just as many of you predicted, the early NU lead led to Missouri becoming completely one-dimensional -- playing right into the Cornhuskers' strength. I'm so glad the Tigers don't have to go up against that secondary again. Too darn good. After the game, my friends and I tried to get a table at Lazlo's (east location), but didn't want to stick around for the 90 minute wait. So we ended up at Sam & Louie's where we were razzed by a couple of semi-drunk patrons. They were annoying (and largely ignorant) and not the typical college football fan types. Other than that, we had a nice meal and enjoyed our time in Lincoln. Good luck.

Your 100% guarantee is 100% wrong. I was at that game and there was no applauding by the Cornhusker faithful at the end of the 2008 game. They cheered when NU scored on the last play of the game and then left. There was no applauding for the Missouri team when they left the field.

No, what's scary is the national rank in scoring defense of NU's opponents: 33 47 67 89 102 111 Average rank: 75

I just noticed that Nebraska has faced some pretty poor defenses this year. In fact, the only top 50 defense that NU has gone up against kept their offense completely out of the endzone. Here are the national ranks of the defenses of Nebraska's FBS opponents: 6 65 84 97 98 100 Average Rank: 75 Interestingly enough, South Dakota State has one of the worst defenses in all of FCS (98th out of 117 FCS teams). This is one the primary reasons why I think Saturday's game will be tough for the Cornhuskers as Missouri's defense is probably going to be able to slow down the NU offense and be able to force some turnovers. Nebraska has been awfully careless with the ball, even while playing pretty poor defenses. Missouri's opportunistic defense could be the difference in the game.

When I was in Lincoln in 2008 for the Missouri-Nebraska game, there were more Missouri fans in the stadium at the end of the game than Nebraska fans. We shut that place down.

Who is chest-pounding and claiming invincibility? All I said was that I think Missouri is the better team with the results of the games to back up my claim. I also called out Enhance for his claim that Missouri has only played one good game and looked bad in the rest of their games and almost lost to a Division II team.

While the Texas D is decent, they've really only looked impressive in two games this year: Texas Tech and Nebraska. In all of their other games, the opposing offense has been right around their typical average in offensive output. Iowa State's offense just put up 335 yards against Texas, considerably more than they had against Kansas State (293), Iowa (275), Northern Iowa (210) and Oklahoma (183). Considering that they put up almost twice as many yards against Texas as they did against Oklahoma, Iowa State will tell you that Oklahoma's defense is a lot tougher than Texas'. Texas defensive stats have been padded by going up against the weakest offenses in the nation in Rice (National Rank: 100), UCLA (102), Iowa State (103) and Wyoming (120). Average rank of Texas' opponents' offense: 70. I would hardly consider their defense "lights out."

When has Missouri looked bad in other games? Previously, you mentioned that Missouri almost lost to a Division II school. I don't mind you spouting off nonsense if it makes you feel better about your team. Please continue.

A&M has not lost to an unranked team. Nebraska has. No, I'm certainly not saying that. While we all know that transitive results are not indicative of future results, they do provide some information on the relative strength of various teams. Texas A&M and OSU played a close game. Nebraska and OSU played a close game. Missouri blew out Texas A&M. While that does not mean that Missouri is going to blow out Nebraska, it does lead one to believe that Missouri might be the stronger team of the two. Wow. OU failed to score touchdowns because of their own mistakes and Missouri had nothing to do with that? Okay. And what about Missouri's turnovers? I guess those didn't have anything to do with Missouri either and did not have an impact on that game. Lots of wishful thinking and not a whole lot of solid analysis with your statements here. Huh? Will you be around if MU loses on Saturday? Or will you be like the folks last year that showed up prior to the game, talked big, and never returned? We'll be here regardless. I'll be around. Am I out of line for thinking that Missouri might be the better team based upon what I have seen so far this year? Why do you say I am "talking big"?

A&M has not lost to an unranked team. Nebraska has. No, I'm certainly not saying that. While we all know that transitive results are not indicative of future results, they do provide some information on the relative strength of various teams. Texas A&M and OSU played a close game. Nebraska and OSU played a close game. Missouri blew out Texas A&M. While that does not mean that Missouri is going to blow out Nebraska, it does lead one to believe that Missouri might be the stronger team of the two. Wow. OU failed to score touchdowns because of their own mistakes and Missouri had nothing to do with that? Okay. And what about Missouri's turnovers? I guess those didn't have anything to do with Missouri either and did not have an impact on that game. Lots of wishful thinking and not a whole lot of solid analysis with your statements here. Huh?

Over Confident For whatever reason, everyone has been underrating this Missouri team this year. And they keep on finding ways to win. In the telecast of the Oklahoma game, Herbstriet made a great point that Missouri's red zone defense has been consistently good all year and that these "lucky breaks" keep happening too often for them to be just luck. Yet when watching Missouri play or even just looking at the box score, it appears that Missouri has just been very fortunate that their opponents keep making critical mistakes. The other thing which continues to go unnoticed is how Missouri has completely dominated its opponents in the second half (and in the 4th quarter especially). For example, in the Oklahoma game, Missouri had 192 yards in the 4th quarter, while Oklahoma had 7. Missouri went into College Station and absolutely dominated a decent A&M team. A&M's lone touchdown came late in the game against Missouri's second team defense. This was the same A&M team that put up almost identical offensive numbers against Oklahoma State as Nebraska did, yet held OSU to 150 fewer yards than Nebraska's defense. Other reasons why Missouri might win: 1) Missouri is the better team. They have a better record than Nebraska and have played a tougher schedule. 2) Turnovers. If Missouri wins the turnover battle, they are almost impossible to beat. Despite playing tougher competition, Missouri has a more impressive turnover margin than this Nebraska team. 3) Sagarin predicts a dead-even tie between these two teams. If this game goes to overtime, huge advantage to Missouri. National Rankings for Red Zone Offense (Missouri: 26, Nebraska: 81) Red Zone Defense (Missouri: 1, Nebraska: 81).

The matchup that I will be watching is the Missouri slot receivers versus Nebraska's safeties and linebackers. We know that NU's CBs are tough and will be blanketing Missouri's primary wide receivers (Jerrell Jackson and Wes Kemp), but how will the midfielders do against T.J. Moe and Michael Egnew?

I think Franklin will get some snaps this weekend. I would be surprised if he didn't.