Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend, and a great weekend of football! Sorry for the late post, but I have been swamped this week getting ready for finals and finishing up the semester. I had a rough week with my picks, but watching all the games was still nothing but fun. There wasn't quite as much chaos as I was hoping for, but there were still some really great games. In this post I'll discuss the Iowa-Nebraska game, along with the bowl situation for the Huskers.
I had a lot of fun at the game, even with how freezing cold it was. It was a lot of fun meeting some more recruits and reconnecting with some of my previous recruits that I am now friends with. I was bummed that we lost, but I really do not believe that Iowa beat Nebraska on Friday, Nebraska beat Nebraska. Iowa played a very good football game, and definitely deserve the win since they minimized their mistakes, but they did not look like a championship caliber team. With the number of mistakes made by the Huskers, specifically the four interceptions Tommy put right in the hands of Iowa players, the Hawkeyes easily should have scored 50+. I would like to give a lot of credit to the Blackshirts defense; besides the two long TD runs by Canzeri, Iowa's extremely efficient offense was completely locked down. Sadly, the Huskers offense, specifically Tommy, did not show up to this contest.
Offensive execution has to be one of the biggest focuses of the off-season for the Huskers. I think that Coach Riley & Coach Langsdorf need to sit down with the tape and scrap some of the plays that did not work this year, specifically the screen passes. I have never been a big fan of screens, but if they are run right, no one will have a problem. Nebraska has a lot of problems running them though, so I think we need to focus on something else. Another big adjustment to the play book I would like to see is a more creative running game. I can easily predict where the run plays are going from my seat in the student section, so I know the defense can see it as well. The blocking does not set up well and there is hardly ever a hole for the backs. Speaking of running backs, they need to work a lot this off-season as well. They need to hit the hole hard and fast, and limit the amount of dancing. Newby has looked very good at times this year, but there are numerous times throughout the game where he just tries to dance and juke around everyone too much, wasting too much time and letting whatever hole was there to close. Back to the game a little bit, I thought that the play calling was sub-par once again. I thought that we abandoned the run game (no matter how pathetic at times) too soon. Having Tommy throw the ball 40+ times per game is not an ideal situation for Nebraska, especially when he's not having a good game. I know a lot of people have been questioning the 4th & 1 call where Tommy went deep to the endzone. I personally think that we should have kicked the field goal and gotten the points while we could, but with the play that was called, it was not completely stupid. Clearly our running game wasn't going to get the yard that we needed, so Langsdorf dialed up a passed. The play worked to perfection as the bunch formation on the left side of the line broke out into their routes and TE Cethan Carter was wide open for the first down, and a whole lot more. The only issue is that Tommy was going for the home run ball and never looked left to see Carter waving his hands. After going back and watching the film, I was not upset with the call at all, because Langsdorf clearly found the hole he had been looking for, but Tommy blew it. The circumstances of that play would tell even the most simple of football novices that you should never throw that pass. The offense will have a lot of work to do in perfecting this system. Tommy and Langsdorf need to work constantly together this off-season working on Tommy's reads and decision making. Everyone wants Patrick O'Brien to come in and take the starting job in the Spring, but I really don't see that happening. Tommy is going to be our QB next year, but he needs to get better for this team to succeed. This team will be better next year, but the offense, especially the run game and Tommy, need to improve. I don't even want to discuss his interceptions because they were beyond horrible. Not even close to our wide outs and easy pickings for the Iowa defense.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Blackshirts had another great outing. Canzeri had those two big touchdown runs early in the third quarter, but after that, Iowa's offense did nothing. Besides those two drives, they didn't really do anything significant on offense throughout the game. Nebraska held Iowa to a total of 250 yards and only 97 passing yards. The two big run plays accounted for 97 of the rushing yards as well. The Blackshirts also stopped the Hawkeyes completely on 3rd down. Iowa was 0-9 on their third down attempts. For a team that averaged almost a 47% conversion rate on 3rd down, that is very impressive. The defense has easily improved leaps and bounds over the past few weeks, and having a healthy linebacking corps and other players back in the line up really helped as well. Overall I'm a little frustrated with the game because just like many of the other games this season, the Huskers easily could have come away with a victory. Minimizing mistakes will be key for Riley's teams to be successful.
As for the bowl possibilities for the Huskers, I have conflicting feelings. As a college football fan, I do not believe that there should be 41 bowl games in the first place. Having too many bowl games takes away that aspect of fighting to become bowl eligible and allows teams with losing records to sneak their way into the post-season. I believe that it should be a reward to earn a bowl game, and you should only receive that reward if you go 6-6 or better. That being said, I am very happy that my Huskers will get to go to a bowl game for a few reasons:
1. I am a huge Husker fan and love watching my team play as much as possible
2. I am happy for all my friends in the band and on the team or staff who get to go on this special trip
3. This will give the Huskers more time to practice and another game setting in which they can improve themselves
I am excited to see what bowl game the Huskers end up in, and who our opponent will be. I will be making predictions on all 41 bowl games and it's always fun to see the match-ups. I hope you enjoyed reading my reflection post, and please comment if you think of any topics you would like me to cover. GO BIG RED!
#CollegeFootballKnowItAll
Alex Fernando
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