Just back from the game ..

BigWillie

All-Conference
First and foremost ...

Mary Mother of God, it was unbelievably hot. I heard they were talking about it on TV, but unless you were there, you have NO idea how hot it was. It was supposedly 95 there (and my sunburns can attest to this), but with the concrete steps and walk, plus the metal bleachers, who the heck knows how hot it really was for the fans. I'm guessing 120+ for the game.

Literally, I was there 90 minutes before kickoff, by the 3rd quarter I was literally going to pass out. I had screamed my lungs out, standing up the entire game and I had to sit for half of the 3rd quarter, and until 2 mins to go in the 4th when I told the guy in front of me to just pick me up if I fall over.

A few parents had to leave the game with their kids because it literally was unsafe to keep them in that type of heat.

I know some of you will say I should have gotten a water to hydrate myself. Tell that to the 50 or so people standing in each line. They were out of water by halftime.

Now about the game ...

1.) Groves Stadium, errr, BB&T Field, whatever the heck it is called -- pure junk of a stadium. I don't care what anyone says about it being a beautiful stadium. It literally makes NAIA stadiums I have been to look like Heaven. Their field is beautiful, but the actual stadium and its layout is garbage. The replay board looked like something from the 70's. More on this later.

2.) Besides the Wake student section, that stadium was packed with red and white. Their motto of 'Paint It Black' was weakkkkk. The west side of the stadium (Wake's side) was mostly white. The upper corners of Wake's side was painted red as well. The east side of the stadium was painted red as well, besides the student section. The only Wake Forest fans I saw on the east side were 2 kids in front of me (their parents were Nebraska fans), and about 5 kids towards the first row. But I do have to give credit to their students, they are freakin' loud.

If I'm guessing on the attendance, probably 55-45 in favor of Nebraska.

3.) I've seen some bashing of Sam Keller. Why -- I don't understand. Besides an overthrow pass on the sideline to Swift (who was wide open), he really didn't make any terrible throws. His INT was a make or break INT by their corner. If he doesn't make that diving catch, Nate Swift takes that to the house since their was no safety help on that side.

4.) Two things I noticed about the QB's -- Patrick Witt has switched his number to #2, and Zac Lee was absent today. Either he is definitely taking a redshirt, or he simply didn't make the trip.

5.) Jaivorio Burkes is a large, large, LARGE man.

6.) When people talked about Adi Kunalic having a different sound when he kicks the ball, they were not lying. If you have played baseball, and your coach has ever made you hit a tire with a bat, it sounds pretty much like that.

7.) While I'm on the subject of kickers, I want to compare Henery to Kunalic. Unless Henery simply cannot kickoff, Kunalic doesn't need to be out there right now. He still has quite a bit to learn about harnessing his leg strength, plus getting much more height on his kicks. I'll talk more about KO's in a minute. But Henery's leg strength is NOT behind Kunalic's at all. Henery hit two 57 yard FGs in warmups with room to spare, back-to-back I might add.

8.) Our KO coverage was fantastic today. Kunalic's low liners he tries to put out of the end zone are going to haunt us sooner or later. He literally gives them zero chance to in the position they truly need to be. If not for guys like Thenarse, Blue and Octo, we would be suffering big time.

9.) Kevin Dixon. Literally, a waste of space today. I know our entire defensive line suffered today, but my God, he was getting murdered at the POA today.

10.) It seemed our defensive ends and OLB's have no idea about containment at all versus a misdirection team. How many times were they going to crash in on a fake handoff, only to be fooled? It literally got sickening how they were not willing to stay home on the outside.

11.) Wake kicked the dog out of us up front -- on both sides of the ball. Carl Nicks, just wow. If he plays a much more horrid game than he did today, I may go smack him in the face and ask him if he knows what game he is playing. I literally felt sorry for Keller when he dropped back because of Nicks.

12.) Still wondering if Suh hurt his oblique. When Green was helped off (Dixon also got hurt on the play), Suh came off as well in some pain. Looked they were trying to stretch out his midsection while he was trying to catch his breath a bit.

13.) I'm sure I am missing some things I wanted to say, but was the last INT a pick or not? That replay board was so craptacular, I still have no clue if it was or wasn't. From the view (or lack thereof) they gave us, it certainly looked like an INT.

14.) Ah yes, how can I forget the two rollout passes we were burnt on. The first where Asante and Green got their coverages mixed up (definitely looked like Green's man), and when Murillo got beat for the huge gain to the 1 yard line. We finally rolled safety help over the top, along with a corner to put an end to that play working. Hodges still got a 6-7 yard gain on a run, IIRC.

 
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nice input, always nice to hear from a person who was there. About the interception, it looked like it wasn't but with the rule of indesputiable evidence I don't think they had the right angle to call it incomplete.

 
nice input, always nice to hear from a person who was there. About the interception, it looked like it wasn't but with the rule of indesputiable evidence I don't think they had the right angle to call it incomplete.
Actually, it looked more like a fumble.... Keller's arm wasn't moving forward.

Either way, it was a turnover.

 
First and foremost ...

1.) Groves Stadium, errr, BB&T Field, whatever the heck it is called -- pure junk of a stadium. I don't care what anyone says about it being a beautiful stadium. It literally makes NAIA stadiums I have been to look like Heaven. Their field is beautiful, but the actual stadium and its layout is garbage. The replay board looked like something from the 70's....

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, BigWillie. Love that 1st hand account! :thumbs

Their stadium does look nice on TV, but I've seen bigger H.S. stadiums in Texas!!! ;)

 
great input, thanks for posting

here is a few things that i saw from the TV coverage

#2 the announcers were guessing 2/3 red

#3 Sam seems to be forcing throws and not looking off recievers. i am sure that is because of not getting alot of protection today

#4 Zac may not have made the travel squad. i think that you have to be at least #3 on the depth chart to travel

#12 Suh's injury might just have been cramps, because after that play he came in and made some great tackles behind the LOS

 
I agree, Keller did alright today. He wasn't great, but not terrible either. A few poor decisions, a few dropped balls, a few nasty looking throws, and a number of good throws. I think he'll continue to improve as he gets more games under his belt.

 
Ah, the more I think, the more I realize I have missed things.

Their concession stands were beyond unbelievable. I didn't see this first hand, but people around me were coming back to tell me they had began selling tap water for 3 bucks a cup after they ran out of bottled water. They also sold cups of ice that they told customers would turn into water.

The one bottle of water I did get was nowhere close to being cold.

Not to mention the cup of lemonade I got. The taste was nowhere near lemonade, nor the smell. No joke, I thought someone around me had passed gas, until I went to get another drink out of my cup, realizing my drink smelled like that. I was beyond disgusted.

Also, I REALLY did not understand the power of Husker Nation until today. People making 20+ hour drives out the day before this game. People taking out late night flights to that stadium is beyond unbelievable. Not only that, but to invade it.

I have read Wake fans thought their were only 8k-9k in that stadium that were Huskers. For point of reference, when I came into the game, I literally saw zero Wake fans until I approached the gold lot. Even then, Nebraska fans were out in force tailgating in that lot as well. Wake fans can be in denial all they want, but they were without a single doubt in my mind outnumbered today.

I do have some pictures from todays game, and I wish I had taken some of the crowd just to shut alot of those Wake fans up.

 
Thanks for the insight Big Willie. And for getting your tail out there and supporting Husker Nation! :w00t

I saw the game on my Big Screen, cold A/C, unlimited cold water & soft drinks, and easy access to the facilities, ah hem, restrooms.

 
even with the hot humid days during fall camp, i dont think that NU was ready to play in those conditions. had to be unbearable with all of the gear on

 
I know I saw Lucky and Bowman, and they both looked like walking death. Bowman really looked bad. I wondered if that could have been some of the problem. I wondered if they were sick, but the heat would explain it.

Thanks BigWillie.

 
I know I saw Lucky and Bowman, and they both looked like walking death. Bowman really looked bad. I wondered if that could have been some of the problem. I wondered if they were sick, but the heat would explain it.

Thanks BigWillie.
i saw a shot of him on the sidelines and i thought that he was going to throw-up. it had to be horrible out there today.

i dont care what kind of shape your are in, if you are not used to playing in that kind of humidity it is really going to hurt.

i thought that i was in pretty decent shape, but when i go to Iraq and it was 115-120, i felt like sh#t all of the time, and wasnt trying to play football either.

to put it into perspective when i was at Ft Benning and the heat and humidity was that bad, the heat index would go into "Black" and you would have to have 40 min of shaded rest with water for every 20 min of strenous work to help keep heat injuries to a minimum, and we still had a guy almost die from heat stroke.

 
3.) I've seen some bashing of Sam Keller. Why -- I don't understand. Besides an overthrow pass on the sideline to Swift (who was wide open), he really didn't make any terrible throws. His INT was a make or break INT by their corner. If he doesn't make that diving catch, Nate Swift takes that to the house since their was no safety help on that side.
Keller made some bad decisions today other than that interception and the other dropped ball and the fumbled snap.

He missed about 3 or 4 open receivers and instead threw into coverage. One in particular had Lucky completely uncovered in the middle of the field... he probably would have gone for 30. Keller doesn't seem to be able to survey the field and make fast decisions... hopefully I can put a "yet" on the end of that statement. But he is a senior. Not much time to make up for lost ground.

I think my nephew pointed out that last time Keller played USC he lost by 40 or something atrocious like that.

 
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