Hmmmm......where are all those Nebraska fans NOW?

[BroncoSaurus]

I remember at least a half a dozen clueless wonders from Nebraska telling us (here) how overrated Boise State is and how Nebraska would just stomp the Broncos this fall. Hell we even had one Nebraska fan come here and tell us to "switch" our bowl games because they hated their match-up against a lowly 6-6 team from the PAC 10 (Washington). Hmmmmm seems they are all SILENT now.

Nebraska managed to score only ONE TIME in their bowl game last night and that one score was on a pass that would be GENEROUSLY called a "wounded duck" of a pass. Honestly that pass was pathetic - it had no steam on it and was just floated up in the air. The receiver had to wait on it for what seemed like forever.

If Nebraska had tried a weak assed pass like that against the Boise State secondary it would have - for SURE - been intercepted. The only reason Washington didn't intercept it is because their d-backs gave WAAAAYYYYYY too much of a cushion to that guy (and they were, incredulously, in the red zone, but still gave the guy a huge cushion).

I looked at the drive charts for both teams after this game and Nebraska had NINE of their 12 drives which consisted of six plays or less. And their longest drive of the game (13 plays) ended with them turning the ball over on downs.

Nebraska also averaged only 2.2 yards per rushing attempt and had only 91 yards TOTAL in rushing (for a team whose primary offensive threat is their running game). And that lowly 6-6 PAC 10 team rushed for 268 yards against Nebraska last night and averaged 5.2 yds/carry.

This post was edited on 12/31 8:41 AM by BroncoSaurus

 

[NorthEastCorner]

That game was a great demonstration of just how important the mindset of the players is to a game. When nebraska was undefeated and hopes were high, and after UW had already ruined their season by dropping a game to BYU - nebraska kills them.

Then when nebraska is playing for nothing in a meaningless exhibition game, and UW feels disrespected (and rightfully so), UW takes em to the woodshed.

 

[krazyhorse]

After seeing how well Mr Gee's Big Ten has done during the Bowl Season I can't help but think how well Nebraska is going to fit into their new conference.

 

[BroncoSaurus]

For the most part I agree with you on this NEC..........BUT.........you have apparently forgotten all about last week's game with Utah. Utah was the team in that game which was sky high and motivated. Boise State looked, initially, as if they really didn't want to be there. Yet Boise State won that game going away. So sometimes - the better team wins even when they aren't "up" for their bowl game.

 

[NorthEastCorner]

Sure, there are a million shades of grey on that. Overwhelming talent can always squash desire. Clearly that's what happened to the poor Utes.

But here's another generality along these same lines: seems like NFL teams don't suffer from the let-down games too often compared to college teams. I really believe that (with very few exceptions) you will never succeed in the NFL if you don't have that "go 100% every play" mentality. Even in meaningless games like we saw this past weekend - where two teams who are out of the playoffs are playing each other - the level of play and the effort is still very high. The desire to compete is intrinsic in those guys.
This post was edited on 1/3 10:58 AM by NorthEastCorner