Husker football finally gets a win
The Huskers won a football game last Saturday.
What kind of a game was it? First of all, and most important, it was WIN. It was the first win over an FBS team for the Huskers in 364 days. Hopefully, that is a start with the rearranged coaching staff at Nebraska.
In my opinion, there were some good things and still areas that need much work done. The first thing that I noticed is that Mickey Joseph showed some emotion right from the start of the game and that is something that you didn’t see much of with Coach Frost. I want to say right away, that I was happy when Coach Frost was hired. I thought that his experience as a player under Coach Osborne, his experience as an assistant coach at the college level plus a pretty outstanding time as a head coach would really help get NU back on track. It didn’t work out and there appears to be a lot of reasons that might have happened. But he is gone and Mickey Joseph now is running the show and now has a “W” on his side of the ledger.
The game with Indiana started with a bang! Defense comes out and forces a punt and the Huskers had two touchdowns before the half. I thought I saw a lot of things that were better but the work is not finished in some areas. The thing that stood out the most to me was the penalties that the Huskers picked up. They had 12 penalties for 111 yards. The most they have had in a game this season and something that has to stop. The worst penalty was a personal foul that got a player ejected.
We still had trouble tackling one-on-one in the open field. There were, however, a lot of good things. Casey Thompson had a decent game. He threw for 270 yards on 18 of 27 attempts. He also drew a few stern words from Coach Joseph over some of his decisions on the field. I didn’t mind seeing that, I just hope he doesn’t have to do that much in the coming games. Anthony Grant had 32 carries for 136 yards and would have had more if some of the 12 penalties hadn’t happened. Trey Palmar had 157 yards on eight catches which were very helpful, special teams blocked a punt and ran it back for a touchdown for the first time in 13 years.
Maybe another big help was that 86,804 fans showed up for the 386th sellout in a row and they were vocal. Hope that continues.
A lot of upsets Saturday and the Big 12 is a mystery.
What about them Jayhawks? I know that is a bad sentence for an old English teacher but what about them? KU won their fifth game in a row and they are undefeated and that is the first time they have done that since 2009. It was a strange game. KU has been winning with their offense and there have been times that the defense looked kind of shaky but against Iowa State, their defense was much better. Sometimes though it is nice to be lucky! KU was more than just lucky in this game. Iowa State’s freshman kicker was 5-5 on field goals coming into the game and against KU he missed his last three attempts with the last one in the last minute when a field goal would have tied the game. He hit the upright on two of the kicks and the third kick took a right turn in the air and it might be somewhere on the KU campus. Sometimes it is just better to be lucky than anything.
Now the Big 12 has Kansas University in first place in the conference and in second place is Kansas State. I can live with Silo Tech being second, but I just remember when K-State was labeled as the worst football program in the nation. They have improved with a Nebraska transfer!!! But for now, all I can say is Rock Chalk Jayhawk, Go KU!
Congratulations to the Junior High Volleyball team and Coaches for having a great season and also to the Junior High Football team and Coaches for their outstanding season. Keep up the hard work! Go PCS!