Pitching with Pritch

Personally, I don’t care if a professional player or professional team gets booed from their hometown fans, but I don’t particularly like to hear college or high school players receive that kind of treatment because of their quality or lack of quality play. 

There was no disguising it at the Husker game against Rutgers. There were boos! Plenty of people wanted to see the player who is often referred to as the most popular player on the team, the second team quarterback, to get a chance to play. I do have to admit I thought the time was right to at least give Patrick O’Brien a chance to direct a drive or two. 

Mike Riley has to be the most patient Division 1 coach in the nation. I am pretty sure he is an intelligent person. He had to know his position as head coach at Nebraska was somewhat in jeopardy from the second Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst was fired last Thursday. 

His starting quarterback leads the nation in interceptions and threw two more against Rutgers including another pick six. Still when asked if he ever thought about changing quarterbacks in the Rutgers game his answer of “no” came almost before the reporter finished the question. He quickly said that didn’t mean they had no faith in O’Brien, but if I was O’Brien I would wonder just a bit. 

I know I am not real smart and there are plenty of guys who played for me who would second that, but if I had a point guard, let’s say play a couple of quarters of a game, and turn the ball over enough to lead to six to eight points for the other team, he would probably get some “Pine Time” over by me. Sometime spending a little bit of time on the sidelines will help a player regain some focus. 

Tanner Lee looks so bad at times on some of his throws and then he will drill one to a receiver for a big gain or a touchdown. Thank goodness the Huskers found a running game vs Rutgers. Devine Ozigbo, who I thought must have transferred because he hardly has played, Mikale Wilbon and true freshman Jaylin Bradley combined for 197 and averaged 4.7 per carry. I might add that Bradley saw the field before Ozigbo did. Ozigbo did rush for 101 yards for the game and looked pretty tough throughout the game.

The Huskers survived Rutgers, which has now lost 15 Big 10 games in a row, and Nebraska will probably be favored in their next game which is this Friday against Illinois, but then there will be a couple of tough games to get through Wisconsin at Nebraska, and a trip to Ohio State. Then they still have Purdue, Northwestern, Minnesota and Penn State to play. A 5 and 7 season might look good who knows. Again I hope they improve individually and as a team.

I think it would be difficult as a head coach to constantly hear rumors about who is going to replace you when you get fired. A lot of coaches don’t play much attention to local news when the season is going on, especially if there is a little turmoil going on as there is at Nebraska. The continuing parade of head coaches makes it difficult to build a program, but there are a number of names being heard. One of course is Scott Frost. 

Frost, a native Nebraska boy with UNL experience, is currently at UCF in Florida. His name was mentioned for the Oregon position when it was open a couple of season ago, but he said he was happy in Florida where one big item recruiting is easier. His response was that he could recruit in Florida and be home at night. That is not always the case in Oregon or Nebraska. 

Frost doesn’t have a lot of head coaching experience. He was a very successful offensive coordinator at Oregon and UCF is his first head position.