Maybe one day...
Curt McKeever: Even the biggest critics have to give Nebraska credit
Thursday, Dec 29, 2005 - 09:57:13 am CST
SAN ANTONIO — The 2005 MasterCard Alamo Bowl really did live up to the game sponsor’s slogan. You would have been tickled to pay face value for a ticket if you knew Nebraska would give a gritty performance against a more-talented Michigan team in the Alamodome here Wednesday night.
But a 32-28 win, coming from 11 points down in the fourth quarter? Now that’s what you call priceless.
It’s almost unbelievable. We’re only two years into the Bill Callahan era and the Huskers are just as the head coach claims, right on schedule to being a reborn, once-again proud nation. Actually, they might be arriving early.
The attitude Nebraska displayed here Wednesday, one that shined brightest through junior quarterback Zac Taylor, departing I-back Cory Ross and junior cornerback Zackary Bowman, is above and beyond the kind of table setter Callahan could hope for his 2006 charges.
“I can’t be any prouder of the way we fought back,” he said after the Huskers improved to 5-0 in this building.
If you saw the ease with which Michigan’s mammoth defensive front and athletic linebacker corps toyed with the NU O-line and left Taylor mangled in the pocket, you would have known why the Wolverines were picked to win the Big Ten.
But even though he was given little chance of having a big statistical evening, the Huskers’ quarterback delivered in the clutch and ended up with a trio of touchdown tosses. There should be no question now that Taylor, undoubtedly the sorest Husker late Wednesday night, is the key to Nebraska’s hopes next season.
Thrown off rhythm early by Michigan’s smothering up-the-middle pressure, the junior kept his cool, endured like most of his teammates and delivered a performance that would leave you thinking the Harrison Beck show won’t be set for release until 2007.
Taylor’s ability to hang in for the long haul allowed him to one-up Michigan sophomore quarterback Chad Henne, who’s done nearly all he could to position himself as the next Joe Montana — the guy who you know will get it done in the playoffs or, for now, the bowl season.
Except that unlike Montana, Henne now is winless in the postseason, and for that he can blame the Big 12 Conference. Last year it was Texas’ Vince Young who got the best of him in the Rose Bowl. Now Taylor.
Henne looked like he had delivered the final nail in the Huskers when he scrambled for a TD that made it 28-17 with 11:40 to play.
At that point, I never would have imagined that after another 5:40 had ticked off the clock a colleague would be uttering: “Wow, this is a good game. Nebraska’s going to have a chance.“
NU was down 28-25 then, and on the next play, a blitzing free safety Blake Tiedtke knocked the ball free of Henne and Ola Dagunduro picked it up and the Huskers were in business at the Wolverines’ 17.
Taylor came through again with a 13-yard touchdown strike to Terrence Nunn to put Big Red up with 4:29 to go.
Back comes Michigan, driving with machine-like efficiency to a first down at the NU 20. But the nation’s least-penalized team committed an illegal procedure infraction and after Jason Avant made his fourth catch of the drive, the Blackshirts forced three straight incompletions, the final coming on a fourth-and-9 play in which Bowman reached in front of Mario Manningham to deflect Henne’s second-to-last attempt.
After the Wolverines forced a punt to get the ball back with seven seconds left, defensive end Adam Carriker hurried Henne into another misfire before a wild final play in which the ball exchanged hands eight times ended when Bowman and Titus Brothers pushed tight end Tyler Ecker out of bounds at the NU 13-yard. It occurred amidst a mass of Husker hysteria that had flowed onto the field and left one recalling the famed Stanford-Cal band-incident finish.
This one was the kind that left you hoping it’d be cool if these teams met again next year in a more significant venue.
That, of course, can wait. For now, the Huskers should have no thoughts other than the ones they have from posting a remarkable 8-4 season that included three straight wins at the end for the first time since the 12-1 campaign of 1999.
That one was completed by a dominating Fiesta Bowl win over Tennessee. By the way, that’s the site of next year’s BCS championship — but let’s not get too carried away.
Nebraska fans walking around this city proudly wearing their Restore The Order T-shirts that emerged following the regular-season finale at Colorado are smart enough to know the Huskers still have a long way to go before that’s truly the case.
But are they on their way? You’d better believe it.
How priceless is that?
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
