Heart, Smarts and Guts

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

Not sure if you guys have seen this yet or not but it's a good read. Been out of the loop the past of couple of weeks with my kids being here for X-mas. But now I'm back....hopefully.

 

NE Statepaper

 

Heart, Smarts and Guts

Commentary: Pelini and Co push the right buttons in a wild Gator Bowl win

by Samuel McKewon

 

January 01, 2009

 

Well, the Boys in Red sure know how to give Husker Nation a collective heart attack. Three or four of them, in fact.

 

You want a bowl game? That was a bowl game. After a bowl season of real snoozers – Nebraska and Clemson fought with flair in North Florida.

 

You want perfect? Well, you didn’t watch Nebraska football this year, did you?

 

NU’s 26-21 Gator Bowl win over the Tigers was far from flawless – outside of the extraordinary play of the Cornhuskers’ defensive line, anyway. When head coach Bo Pelini refers to Nebraska as a “work in progress,” hell, he wasn’t kidding in August and he’s not kidding now. On its best day, it’s a bunch built for the top 20. On most days, it might wear its best gameday suit, but forget to match the shoes.

 

The Huskers’ offense stumbled out of the gate. NU’s line looked like a bunch of hippos in quicksand for an entire half, groping about while orange jerseys breached the castle walls. Joe Ganz seemed two steps slow before his head got slammed against the turf. And based on his play Thursday, Niles Paul better not think his spot on the receiver/returner depth chart is remotely safe.

 

We could go on. Missed tackles. Blown offensive chances in the second half. Timeouts burned like cheap toast. A celebration penalty. It isn’t that hard to be harsh It’s also for another day.

 

Thursday was about guts, smarts and heart, and the Huskers had all three in spades.

 

Ganz had guts to come back in the game after taking so many hits. Pelini stuck with Ganz, too – which seems like an obvious choice, unless No. 12 had made another mistake. Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson did the same with sophomore Quentin Castille – whose two long runs arguably won the game – after Castille had endured an up-and-down season. Safety Matt O’Hanlon had the toughness to come off the bench for Rickey Thenarse and play one of the best games of his career, a bogus personal foul penalty aside.

 

And as the Gator Bowl wore on, Clemson’s young coaching staff started to wither, while Pelini’s bunch warmed up.

 

The Tigers stuck with the power running game for too long, and never switched to a Wildcat attack – never really got running backs CJ Spiller and James Davis the ball in space at all. Until its final drive – and the game should have been out of reach by then – CU’s offense spent much of the second half handing the ball back to Nebraska. Only Paul’s fumble on a punt return gave Clemson any life.

 

Pelini and Co., meanwhile, gathered after a poor first half and got their coaching house in order. The second half was among Pelini’s finest hours of the season. His no-name linebackers and safeties were all over the bubble screens and swing passes. He dialed up smart pressure, which left Clemson quarterback Cullen Harper confused and prematurely scrambling from the pocket. Twice on that climactic four-down series at the end of the game, Harper rolled right into the blitz. He didn’t know where it was coming from. And Clemson’s coaches’ didn’t prepare him. The Tigers’ last play was a total disaster, even if Dabo Swinney tries to say otherwise. The smart play was an alley-oop to the end zone. CU tried some bizarre combo route against a zero blitz.

 

Even NU’s Cover 2 tactics worked. Finally! Pelini must have seen on film that Harper prefers the middle of the field; aside from a quick slant to Jacoby Ford – aided by a missed Thenarse tackle – the area inside the hash marks was pretty much closed for business. Swinney bemoaned his quarterback’s play after the game, but did so without acknowledging that Harper’s slants and square in routes were taken away from him.

 

Nebraska’s offense rolled with the pressure that Clemson brought – frankly, NU shouldn’t have been that surprised – and figured it out in the second half. Instead of rolling out in the second half, Ganz stepped up into the pocket, and threw two touchdowns. He doesn’t like doing that, but Clemson’s swift ends took away the edges of the field. By the second half, NU had also adjusted its zone read game to a more power-based style, pulling guards to pound the Tigers’ fast safeties and linebackers. It didn’t work often, but it worked twice, for two huge Castille runs.

 

“Clemson was doing stuff that they haven’t done all year. We expected it to be different, but not that different,” Ganz said. “With a new coordinator coming in, we expected it to be different, but not that different. They were bringing all-out blitzes on third down, and it just took us that long to settle in. We made some great adjustments at halftime to get the ball out quicker.”

 

Again – subtle differences. But the main ones between a five-point win and a five-point loss.

 

Pelini won the chess match, and his players put in as many chips as the Clemson boys did. That’s a recipe for a statement win.

 

Is it too much to call this Gator Bowl “W” a statement? No, it isn’t. Clemson’s a name team, folks – a strong program.

 

Scoff if you wish, but there are 10 or 15 guys in the Tigers’ two-deep whom Pelini would love to have. Oh, Bo might keep his offensive and defensive lines, and certainly Ganz over the statuesque Harper. Kicker Alex Henery, for sure. But anybody else? Be honest.

 

And high school players aren’t dumb. They’re mercurial, but not dumb. When they see Nebraska roll into ACC/SEC country and knock off one of the 15 or so sacred cows down there with an old-school beating in the second half, they take notice. They see those sharp road uniforms, the open offense, the come-hell-or-high-water blitzing defense, and they like it.

 

Pelini’s roll of the dice at the end of the game – and Eric Hagg’s execution of it - is a poster for Nebraska football that says: Here’s how we win a game on defense. You like it?

 

It doesn’t have to be perfect, folks. It just has to be seductive.

[tattooedhusker]

helluva read

[MCAT800]

Nice read, thanks for posting.....

[Syzygyone]

Pelini’s roll of the dice at the end of the game – and Eric Hagg’s execution of it - is a poster for Nebraska football that says: Here’s how we win a game on defense. You like it?

 

 

Those were the genious defensive calls of the season IMHO, plus brilliantly executed.

 

I have very warm feeling about the future of Husker football.

[holvy83]

They took chances, some worked some did not, but that showed a lot about this years team about not giving up and to just go for it. Is it September yet?

[redout22]

Great game, great article