The Road Ahead - Final 1/3 of the Season

[Guy Chamberlin]

I worry about a letdown next week because this team is capable of a letdown even after a bye week.

 

Last year, the MSU win was our best complete game victory. I don't think Michigan this year was our complete game victory. Which is good. I think we still have a complete game waiting for us, and this Saturday would be a great time to see it.

 

As for matching up stats to predict victories, it always sounds like a good idea but rarely works out head to head as predicted.

 

Well except for the one stat that shows up consistently in both college and pro analysis: teams that avoid penalties and turnovers tend to win.

[HuskerNationNick]

The only concerning thing to me is how we're swapping wins for losses last year and a loss for a win last year. Last year, we lost to Wisconsin; Michigan; and Northwestern. This year, we've beat those three. Last year, we beat Ohio State. This year, they took us behind the shed. I'm more than a little concerned about Michigan State and Penn State for this reason.

 

We're not swapping wins for losses, we've swapped ONE win for one loss. It's not some innate thing that we lose every game we won last year...seems a little superstitious to me.

 

One? Last year Wisconsin beat us, this year we beat them. Last year Northwestern beat us, this year we beat them. Last year Michigan beat us, this year we beat them. Last year we beat Ohio State, this year they creamed us. Yes, I'm superstitous. Michigan State's defense scares me. A fumble here or an INT there would put us in a pretty tough spot I'm afraid. I don't know what to make of Penn State.

This year UCLA beat us and last year we beat...... nah dang.

 

As of right now, we have lost to two top 25 teams

[southernoregonhusker]

I would hate to see Oregon in the rose bowl....but with their strength of schedule these list few games they should move up to#2

 

I completely disagree, Kstate has more of a tough schedule this year, and has beaten everyone they were suppose to lose to. KSU will stay at #2 as long as they stay undefeated and have a decent margin of victory.

 

I am hoping ND and Bama get beat in these upcoming weeks. Therefore it would be Kstate vs Oregon lol

Agree w/ you here. Tossup though. With USC losing last week, the oregeon/usc game is no longer enough to put them on top of kstate at this point. Oregon's schedule strength is getting worse by the week. Cal. won't help any. The only thing that will help them is they finish against Oregon State, and they'll have a championship game to play in. Unfortunately for Oregon - their opponent will probably be a 3-4 loss team. The Big12 might find out how important that championship game was this year. Then again, Oregon has been at the top of the rankings for a couple years now and never had a chance to play for it all. K-State is realtively new to the scene.

 

They lost to Cam Newton on a last second field goal 2 years ago.

[BartonHusker]

K-State will stay #2 if they win out.

[junior4949]

K-State will stay #2 if they win out.

 

I'd be willing to take that bet because I just don't think it's possible to dethrone Oregon if they stay undefeated in the human polls which makes up 2/3 of the BCS points. However, I don't see Bama; KState; Notre Dame; and Oregon staying undefeated.

[The Dude]

As I posted after the horrific OSU loss. If we beat NW and Mich we are going to win the division. Period. IMO we can still drop one more game and still win the Legends because we have the tie-breaker over NW and Mich. Without Robinson Mich can lose any game, and they WON'T go into Columbus and win at the end of the year regardless of their QB. We are going to face Wiscy again, and play where we first lost. PASADENA

 

First time since 99' we will have won a damn conference title. FINALLY!

 

Stop jinxing us, dammit!

[True2tRA]

I'm singing a new tune after this one. The Northwestern game was a big disappointment for me, I just am not one of those "a win is a win" kind of guys. I judge the game of football far deeper than that, and there are such things as ugly wins. This Michigan game though, it was a great win. I said all week that it would tell me a lot about this team and the direction of the program. It did. Congrats to the Big Red and Bo Pelini. I thought this game was huge for us. We took it head on, attacked, made Robinson really struggle, and really put a good beating on a very decent team. When Denard got hurt, we really turned on the heat on defense, a defense that was already playing lights out! The Northwestern game and the Michigan game were very dominate performances for the defense. Blackshirts well deserved. Injuries are a part of football, every team deals with them. Michigan clearly didn't have a very good backup plan. When you have a QB like Denard who is more susceptible to injury with the things he does, a capable backup should always be a priority. They clearly had not prepared that Bellomy for what he was going to experience. Kudos to Bo and the team for really turning up the aggression and getting after them even harder. We could have laid back and allowed that kid to find a rhythm but we didn't give him a chance. It was a solid game plan, solid execution.

 

The offense may have had it's lowest scoring output, but really we all know what this offense is capable of. Taylor played well. Limited his mistakes. If we needed to score more, I think we could have, but once the game was going our way, we put our trust in our defense and played a sound game offensively. Really feel bad for Taariq Allen and I wish him a quick recovery. It would have been nice to have him out there, he would have been probably the 11th guy to catch a pass that game. If I saw the stats right, 10 different players had receptions. That is impressive. This offense is capable as long as the gameplan is solid. It's getting better and I really don't have any worries about the offense against the rest of the schedule.

 

I think Nebraska wins the rest of their games. I think we win the Big Ten Championship and on to the Rose bowl. Things are looking good after this win and I think the team is finally playing together, and gaining some confidence in one another. Let's not take the foot off the gas. We know exactly what to do to beat Michigan St.. We handed them their ass last year, we can do it again. Go Big Red! Great victory Saturday.