HuskerfaninOkieland
Heisman Trophy Winner
It was, as they'd say in the basement of some mafia den, with stacks of money and stolen cigarettes all over the room, a beautiful thing.
The Blackshirts, that is. The pass rush. The aggressive coverage. The hitting. The tackling. The blitzes who seemed to know just where OU quarterback Landry Jones would look first – and where the Sooners' protection would not be. A beautiful, brutal thing to behold. A 10-3 win that goes above the fireplace. How many times have you watched the game by the time you read this? Be honest. You'll savor it more, too.
Feels good, doesn't it? After nearly ten years of stump speeches about pressing forward, never surrendering, mediocrity, offense, quarterbacks, recruiting and all the things that go with the new wave of college football, wasn't it nice to witness four hours of the Blackshirts kicking the rump of an opposing quarterback all over the field? Are you noticing the changes in college football this year? The spread ain't dead, but it's not taking seconds at the buffet line anymore. Teams are figuring it out.
Bo Pelini especially. He played the Sooners like a Stradivarius, didn't he?
“It's ain't about me,” he said.
He's modest. And wrong. Bo was hired for this moment, for he and his brother Carl to stand toe-to-toe with Oklahoma's defensive braintrust, Bob Stoops and Brent Venables, and win the chess match. And he won it. You cannot deny that. Bob and Brent are about pressure. Bo is about a four-man pass rush, and a dizzying, frustrating coverage strategy that put his guys in the right positions and quarterback on a bus to confusion.
He will call a blitz – and he did Saturday night, often at the right times – but he wants turnovers even more. And blitzes don't always produce turnovers. You've got to devise other ways to get them.
And Bo was like a shark in the water against the Sooners. Jones was the chum.
Jones - that poor kid, starting just a handful of games, asked to throw nearly 60 mind-boggling passes against a solid four-man pass rush and a seven-man coverage scheme?
Sam Bradford might have been up to the task. Jones wasn't. How could he have been?
Nebraska coaxed OU to reveal just about every route they've got stored in their schooner – especially all the short stuff that NU excels at taking away – and then the Huskers delivered on the clutch downs. You may think Jones simply overthrew a couple passes – he wasn't that accurate – but he was baited into bad throws, forced to play Peyton Manning, to stick the ball into a tiny four-yard window. Constantly, he thought the Huskers were offering the middle of the field – and they weren't. NU is almost always “middle closed.” Jones didn't see it. Why?
Pelini. He had Jones and Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson snookered all night. Spooked, too. The Sooners, never trailing by more than seven, played as if in a shootout. They abandoned the run. Stopped thinking about the field position battle. Starting taking big shots down the middle of the field – again, hasn't been open for business all year – and duly paid for it with three picks from Matt O'Hanlon.
“We kind of disguised our coverages so he didn't really get a feel for who was in a run fit, or what of coverages we were running,” strong safety Larry Asante said. “It just kind of threw them off a little bit, which cause them to throw some ill-advised passes."
And remember – Jones essentially takes his marching orders from the sideline 15-20 seconds before the play. When NU is supposedly showing its hand to the offense, and OU is adjusting accordingly.
Oklahoma racked up yards, but schemed sloppy. Three times, Wilson put his kicker, Tress Way – who had kicked all of one field goal all year - on the sharp hook hash. No wonder he missed two of three. He constantly sent Sooner running backs wide even though Nebraska was successfully spiking its cornerbacks and O'Hanlon was filling run support like a beast. NU's scared to death of deep fade routes along the sideline, but OU rarely took the chance. Nebraska's fairly maniacal about the deep middle, and the Sooners kept testing it.
If it sounds like a broken record, well, look: It's coaching. You saw a master class of it Saturday night. Nebraska doesn't have Oklahoma's athletes. And Jones, despite his numbers, is a better quarterback than either Zac Lee or Cody Green right now. Through scheme, effort, guts and a terrific front four, NU simply checkmated the Sooners.
Nebraska's offense? I'm not going to put lipstick on the pig here. It's not real pretty. Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson wisely kept it vanilla once NU grabbed a 7-0 lead. Green, apparently, isn't the answer. Watson certainly wasn't interested in finding out tonight.
Which, for this game, is OK. Roy Helu surprisingly returned to the player we saw nearly two months ago at Virginia Tech. The offensive line actually got some push on a few power plays. Aside from a mind-numbing fumble on an option play, NU protected the ball. For his part, Lee never threw a dumb pass, never fumbled and gained a yard or two on the option. He still looks about as comfortable as a candyman in the dentist's chair.
“We just wanted to keep pounding it and running the football,” Pelini said. “We were going to be fairly conservative, try and keep them from blitzing and some of the things that they did. We stuck with it. We were able to get the lead, which was huge. It allowed us to play to our defense.”
Now Bo's got it. The offense is NU's defense. The defense is NU's offense. The former should serve the latter so the latter can set the table for the former.
What a night for the program. The Memorial Stadium atmosphere was electric. Like old times. Fans tailgated and milled around for hours before the game. The Heisman Trophy winners were gracious and smiling at the Husker Nation Pavillion. Barry Switzer got off a bus and 100 Husker fans nearly lost their heads. A Sasquatch – with a giant red N painted on its belly - was seen on the premises. NU and OU fans talked and mingled, old friends. There was a sense of investment from the fans Saturday night – and not a sense of entitlement. Of course, the Huskers' defense gave them plenty to cheer about.
It all had a big-game feel. It was a big-game crowd. And it's been too damn long since there was a big home win to go along with the vibe.
Pelini delivered it. He did what Bill Callahan never could – he beat Oklahoma. A shame we won't see the Sooners for another four years in these parts. Can we savor it that long?
You'd better believe it.
The Blackshirts, that is. The pass rush. The aggressive coverage. The hitting. The tackling. The blitzes who seemed to know just where OU quarterback Landry Jones would look first – and where the Sooners' protection would not be. A beautiful, brutal thing to behold. A 10-3 win that goes above the fireplace. How many times have you watched the game by the time you read this? Be honest. You'll savor it more, too.
Feels good, doesn't it? After nearly ten years of stump speeches about pressing forward, never surrendering, mediocrity, offense, quarterbacks, recruiting and all the things that go with the new wave of college football, wasn't it nice to witness four hours of the Blackshirts kicking the rump of an opposing quarterback all over the field? Are you noticing the changes in college football this year? The spread ain't dead, but it's not taking seconds at the buffet line anymore. Teams are figuring it out.
Bo Pelini especially. He played the Sooners like a Stradivarius, didn't he?
“It's ain't about me,” he said.
He's modest. And wrong. Bo was hired for this moment, for he and his brother Carl to stand toe-to-toe with Oklahoma's defensive braintrust, Bob Stoops and Brent Venables, and win the chess match. And he won it. You cannot deny that. Bob and Brent are about pressure. Bo is about a four-man pass rush, and a dizzying, frustrating coverage strategy that put his guys in the right positions and quarterback on a bus to confusion.
He will call a blitz – and he did Saturday night, often at the right times – but he wants turnovers even more. And blitzes don't always produce turnovers. You've got to devise other ways to get them.
And Bo was like a shark in the water against the Sooners. Jones was the chum.
Jones - that poor kid, starting just a handful of games, asked to throw nearly 60 mind-boggling passes against a solid four-man pass rush and a seven-man coverage scheme?
Sam Bradford might have been up to the task. Jones wasn't. How could he have been?
Nebraska coaxed OU to reveal just about every route they've got stored in their schooner – especially all the short stuff that NU excels at taking away – and then the Huskers delivered on the clutch downs. You may think Jones simply overthrew a couple passes – he wasn't that accurate – but he was baited into bad throws, forced to play Peyton Manning, to stick the ball into a tiny four-yard window. Constantly, he thought the Huskers were offering the middle of the field – and they weren't. NU is almost always “middle closed.” Jones didn't see it. Why?
Pelini. He had Jones and Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson snookered all night. Spooked, too. The Sooners, never trailing by more than seven, played as if in a shootout. They abandoned the run. Stopped thinking about the field position battle. Starting taking big shots down the middle of the field – again, hasn't been open for business all year – and duly paid for it with three picks from Matt O'Hanlon.
“We kind of disguised our coverages so he didn't really get a feel for who was in a run fit, or what of coverages we were running,” strong safety Larry Asante said. “It just kind of threw them off a little bit, which cause them to throw some ill-advised passes."
And remember – Jones essentially takes his marching orders from the sideline 15-20 seconds before the play. When NU is supposedly showing its hand to the offense, and OU is adjusting accordingly.
Oklahoma racked up yards, but schemed sloppy. Three times, Wilson put his kicker, Tress Way – who had kicked all of one field goal all year - on the sharp hook hash. No wonder he missed two of three. He constantly sent Sooner running backs wide even though Nebraska was successfully spiking its cornerbacks and O'Hanlon was filling run support like a beast. NU's scared to death of deep fade routes along the sideline, but OU rarely took the chance. Nebraska's fairly maniacal about the deep middle, and the Sooners kept testing it.
If it sounds like a broken record, well, look: It's coaching. You saw a master class of it Saturday night. Nebraska doesn't have Oklahoma's athletes. And Jones, despite his numbers, is a better quarterback than either Zac Lee or Cody Green right now. Through scheme, effort, guts and a terrific front four, NU simply checkmated the Sooners.
Nebraska's offense? I'm not going to put lipstick on the pig here. It's not real pretty. Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson wisely kept it vanilla once NU grabbed a 7-0 lead. Green, apparently, isn't the answer. Watson certainly wasn't interested in finding out tonight.
Which, for this game, is OK. Roy Helu surprisingly returned to the player we saw nearly two months ago at Virginia Tech. The offensive line actually got some push on a few power plays. Aside from a mind-numbing fumble on an option play, NU protected the ball. For his part, Lee never threw a dumb pass, never fumbled and gained a yard or two on the option. He still looks about as comfortable as a candyman in the dentist's chair.
“We just wanted to keep pounding it and running the football,” Pelini said. “We were going to be fairly conservative, try and keep them from blitzing and some of the things that they did. We stuck with it. We were able to get the lead, which was huge. It allowed us to play to our defense.”
Now Bo's got it. The offense is NU's defense. The defense is NU's offense. The former should serve the latter so the latter can set the table for the former.
What a night for the program. The Memorial Stadium atmosphere was electric. Like old times. Fans tailgated and milled around for hours before the game. The Heisman Trophy winners were gracious and smiling at the Husker Nation Pavillion. Barry Switzer got off a bus and 100 Husker fans nearly lost their heads. A Sasquatch – with a giant red N painted on its belly - was seen on the premises. NU and OU fans talked and mingled, old friends. There was a sense of investment from the fans Saturday night – and not a sense of entitlement. Of course, the Huskers' defense gave them plenty to cheer about.
It all had a big-game feel. It was a big-game crowd. And it's been too damn long since there was a big home win to go along with the vibe.
Pelini delivered it. He did what Bill Callahan never could – he beat Oklahoma. A shame we won't see the Sooners for another four years in these parts. Can we savor it that long?
You'd better believe it.
