Assistant Head Coach and Receivers Coach, Ted Gilmore, was in Omaha this morning for the Big Red Breakfast.
Here’s some of what he had to say about tomorrow night’s game in Norman:
“Without giving away the game plan, we’re going to go at them,” Gilmore said, pausing as the crowd at the Holiday Inn clapped. “We’re not going to sit back. We’re going to compete. We’re going there to win.”
Pelini said the same thing after Texas Tech, that we went to Lubbock to win.
As a player, you need to believe you can win before you do win and this staff is helping these players to believe. Pretty soon the most dubious fans and our detractors are going to believe too. In fact, nothing would be better for the Huskers to make believers out of everyone tomorrow night against our arch rival on national television.
A win in Norman would be too sweet for words, although I’ll try to provide some should that come to pass.
Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops has too much tunnel vision to dwell on the fact that he’s coaching against childhood buddy Bo Pelini when OU takes on Nebraska this Saturday in Norman.
But there was a moment last summer, when Stoops and Pelini were at a coaching clinic in their hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, that he just had to chuckle.
“Bo and I were just hanging out with everybody,” Stoops said in Monday’s Big 12 Teleconference, “and we said, ‘isn’t it ironic two guys from the south side of Youngstown end up coaching, hell, Oklahoma and Nebraska, and the rivalry that it is?’ It’s just unusual.”
I hope what we see this Saturday night is the first of many legendary battles between these storied programs. I love that’s there’s this additional element of two tough kids from Youngstown–long time friends–now leading the respective teams. It’s an additional layer in an already decadent cake.
You guys will love this video, if you haven’t already seen it. To give a little backround, Brandon Rigoni, now an assistant strenght and conditioning coach and Mark Manning, the wrestling coach, have been jawing back and forth at each other for some time now. About what? Whether or not Manning could stop Rigoni one time out of five with Brandon starting at the 5 yard line and Manning at the goal line.
The whole athletic department was involved in this, right down to Dr. Tom handing out the trophy to the winner. This is the type of thing that brings teams together.
Nate Swift is the Huskers all time leading receiver. He tied, then passed, Johnny Rodgers mark of 143 grabs on Saturday. Swift now has 147 catches and five more games to play.
According to Omaha World Herald, it took seasons of 45, 22, 36 and, now, 44 receptions for Swift to break a record deemed out of reach until Nebraska shifted offensive philosophies in 2004.
It wasn’t pretty, but we got the win. And it was a win we desperately needed at home, in Big 12 conference play. Once upon a time, the outcome of this game would have been a foregone conclusion. Not so, today. College football is changing fast.
You ask and you shall receive. Chris Williams was the Texas class 5A defensive player of the year for 2007. You can think of all the talent in the the state of Texas, and then think he will be all ours come next year!!! This guy is TRULY awesome!
Thud! There, it’s done. Bo Pelini and his coaching staff went to Ames, Iowa, and slid one of the foundation stones for the Cornhusker football program into place.
It looks square and plumb, and for the first time in a long, time – solid.
In other words, we played Iowa State the way we used to play them. There was never any question about which team had command of the game.
The foundation Stryker refers to is our ability to win conference games on the road. Iowa State is a start. Personally, I want to see us win on the road in the Big 12 South. When we clear that hurdle, things will be right with the college football world again.
