Pitching with Pritch

Losses for my favorite teams

I think this past weekend I saw a really good football game and a really bad football game and my favorite teams lost both games! 

The really good football game was the Sedgwick County and Perkins County game Friday night at Haenfler Field. I certainly am not a guy who likes to watch my favorite high school team lose, but this game was pretty well played and the PC team did a pretty good job against another pretty darn good football team. 

Sedgwick County has only lost one game in two years and that was to PC last season. They are two-time defending champs in their division in Colorado and appear to have a decent chance to make it three this season. 

PC played good football and I thought they were going to get the job done, but Sedgwick County played like champions do and scored with 22 seconds left in the game to get the win. Even with just 22 seconds left the Plainsmen made a great effort but time ran out. 

PC can learn from this game. They need tough games to hone them for their own district play and hopefully a run in the playoffs. Nothing really hurt in this game except pride, so it is on to the next step and that is Hemingford this week. Good luck Plainsmen.

Huskers not looking good

Now to the worst game of the weekend and maybe the worst the Huskers have played since the 2007 season. I don’t know how many people remember the 2007 season because it is one you would want to forget if possible. 2007 was the Bill Callahan, Steve Pederson, Kevin Cosgrove and our best ever quarterback transfer from Arizona State, Sam Keller year. 

Pederson was the AD and got fired and Dr. Tom returned. Cosgrove was a disaster as the defensive coordinator and the transfer quarterback threw the ball to both teams a lot. 

There are some similarities 10 years later in the Huskers. I hope this year’s version of Huskers makes a turn around and doesn’t follow the 2007 team’s path. 

In 2007 the Huskers did not win a game in October. Missouri, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M combined for 122-34 against the defense. Oklahoma put up 38 in the first half, KU hung 71 on them and the rest is history. Coach gets fired, terrible record for the season and fans boo the Huskers. I hope history doesn’t repeat itself this year. 

Saturday, the defense only gave up seven points, but it was the winning touchdown after the Huskers had taken a lead. It was a drive they had to stop and didn’t get it done. 

Our Tulane transfer, Tanner Lee, threw for two touchdowns and ran for one. The problem of course was the two passing touchdowns were pick six touchdowns for NIU. Lee has thrown seven interceptions in the last eight quarters of play for the Huskers. 

With Big 10 play about to start, it is hard to feel real confident about the Huskers chances for success. NIU put a lot of pressure on Lee Saturday and I think it would be safe to say the Big 10 teams will generate more pressure than a MAC conference team picked to finish in the middle of the conference. There needs to be a bunch of improvement and it needs to come quickly.

Nebraska’s very embarrassing loss didn’t come cheaper either. NIU came to Nebraska and got $820,000 guaranteed for the trip plus a win. Nebraska also paid NIU $1.027 million to cancel the 2016 game that was supposed to be played in Chicago. Not too bad money-wise for the NIU team.

To think that Cornhusker Football will ever be like it was in the Devaney and Osborne era is a dream I don’t think will ever happen. There have been too many changes in the culture of football at the University. Today’s recruits were not born when Nebraska was winning National Championships. 

Nebraska had two coaches from 1962 to 1997 and has had four in the last 20 seasons. Three of those coaches have been fired before their contracts were completed and even though the fourth, Coach Riley, just had an extension of a year added to his contract, his status might be cloudy if the season doesn’t turn around pretty quickly. Stability hasn’t been part of the Husker program since Coach Osborne retired.

It is early, but the natives are restless and even Larry the cable guy has called for the athletic director to be fired. I am not sure how much influence the funny guy has but I would bet he is a contributor to the athletic department. If those people stop writing checks and all of a sudden the seats are empty on game day, the unstable part of the program will increase.

 

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