Final Game thoughts.
No team in America finds creative ways to lose than Nebraska. No one!
I guess I just don’t understand the mentality. You play an almost perfect half of football. Then you decide to take the entire second half off. You pass a partition in the locker room (otherwise known as naptime) pledging to take the second half off.
For 15 years we have watched this crap. Nothing ever changes.
Sleepwalking out of the locker room after naptime, Frost has to call a timeout because his entire offense was still too sleepy to run a play.
Are you kidding me?
The first drive was vintage BAD Martinez. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn all of a sudden.
We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?
Nine for nine in the first half, missing receivers badly in the second half. Something about NU QB’s with big leads at halftime.
Washington lazily allows himself to be tackled short of the first down on a play he should have had the first down easily. Luckily, we sneak for the first. But the bad play generator is just revving up.
Then Stoll picks up a big penalty, and Martinez misfires badly a few times before fumbling on a sack play. But we recover.
But the machine is just revving up.
When we decide to stink, we really decide to stink. Everybody signs the petition.
Then the defense. Missed tackles suddenly are a steady part of the gameplan. But we sleepwalk our way to a stop—3 missed tackles on a play to force a fourth down.
It goes like this for awhile. We have another sleepy time timeout after a change of possession. Seriously? How does that keep happening?
The lead holds for awhile but you can feel that our guys aren’t in the game anymore. They checked out. It wasn’t fatigue. It wasn’t the altitude. It was the ATTITUDE.
And the attitude was bad.
Then suddenly, our defense folded. With the offense sound asleep and lacking any sense of urgency, CU begins moving the ball at will. After shutting down CU all game, suddenly we are getting no pressure on their QB and CU can do anything it wants.
Sound familiar?
Remember Northwestern? How Frost said that all we had to do is someone make a play—anybody—just one play in the last 6 minutes and we win. But no one ever did. Everyone signed the stink petition. And you couldn’t have scripted a loss any better.
Fast forward to today. So many opportunities to win. So many guys failed to play for their teammates.
We beat our opponents. We beat ourselves. And sometimes we beat our opponents again. Today, we took an oath at nappy time . . . we weren’t going to beat anybody . . . no matter what it took.
How do we get a coaches sideline penalty with under 6 minutes to play after recovering a fumble near midfield up by 7? Did the coaches sign the petition during nappy time too? Think about that penalty. It is mindboggling. What a change of field position that was.
Nebraska starts to finally wake up in the fourth quarter after their somnambulant third quarter. Of course, now fatigue really is setting in—self induced fatigue.
Washington takes a pass to the house—75 yards on a simple swing pass. Suddenly, there is hope.
Then the defense has a major bust in the secondary and CU scores all too easily.
A Martinez careless fumble later, and CU ties the game.
Suddenly tied and no momentum in spite of the Washington play, NU finally mounts a good drive. A horrendous drop by Wan’Dale Robinson reminds fans of the Morgan and Spielman drops last year. But Martinez bails him out with some nifty running and Washington again bust loose for a bit run. NU goes for it on 4th down inside the 10 and takes the lead.
Then NU gets creative. They decide to kick short (why?) and CU has a big return. During the return, you can see Taylor-Britt chasing the ball carrier—his intent is not just to tackle the guy (a good idea by the way) but to create a fumble. He succeeds. NU gets the ball and a chance to salt the game away. But a coaches sideline interference call negates the field position.
Nebraska does very little right for the rest of the game. About the same time as the Northwestern meltdown occurred last year.
Once again, NU goes into overtime and holds CU to a FG. Normally, you feel pretty good when that happens. Not the way NU plays. Two busted running plays lead to 3rd and 9 and Martinez takes an awful sack to force a long 4th down with our starting kicker not available. A 48 yard shank later . . . and CU is the latest recipient of a Husker chokedown.
Enjoy the gift Buffaloes. It really is a special gift that we just keep giving.
By the way, when we say they were held to a FG, did anybody notice we picked up not one, but two penalties on the FG try?
Nothing ever changes. Coaching staff after coaching staff after coaching staff.
I watch other teams. And yes, they occasionally melt down. But no one does it as religiously as Nebraska.
Any Husker fan who says he is shocked by this loss . . . I’m calling you a liar. We have all seen this too many times.
You can set your watch by it. Your calendar. You could probably go to Vegas and make a ton of money predicting it—if you were so bold.
When did this slop become our identity?
I’m sure we will hear the usual statements.
We are a great team, we just keep making silly mistakes over and over and over and over and over again.
We learned our lesson. We will never let up on a team like that again. Yeah, right?
Okay, nowhere to go from here but onto the next game. Some of the players in the locker room need to really look in the mirror. That second half performance and effort was unmistakably unacceptable. Look at your team mates and don’t lie to them. Tell them “I thought you were going to make the plays. I wasn’t going to do it.”
Sorry to be so negative. But we beat ourselves again—CU just came along for the ride. The rest is just window dressing. I could have written this very wrap up to cover countless other games over the years sans some of the specifics. Come to think of it, I think I have.
But we learned something today. Halftime naps are not a good idea.
I wonder if we will ever learn.
Take care all.
