This morning it was Carl Pelini’s turn to speak at the Big Red Breakfast in Omaha.

Pelini called the preparations for ISU “the best week of practice I may have ever had as a coach.” The highlight was the 20-minute team portion starting Tuesday where the Huskers matched their first-team units.

“We stretched and we did a little individual, and when we came together for that period it was the fastest, most violent, physical period I’ve ever seen in a practice,” Pelini said. “I turned around and looked at Bo and went, ‘Hmmm. How about that?’ Look what’s going on out there. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Boy, this is Tuesday.’ That is a great indicator of where we’re headed.”

Virginia Tech, Mizzou and Texas Tech away…

We all knew it was going to be tough going and it was. But it’s behind us now. And while it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback the last three games, it’s also easy to see we could have won two of the three.

Bo Pelini sees that. According to Omaha World Herald, he said:

“We’re not good enough yet. We’re hurting ourselves. We’re not executing well enough to win. When I look back . . . I thought we should have won two of the three football games. We just have to keep working to get better.”

So, let’s look forward, shall we? Oklahoma on Nov. 1st is scary, but this team can beat our other five opponents, provided we show up to play football the way we did on Saturday.

And speaking of Oklahoma, I can not wait for the day when the storied rivalry with the Sooners is once again the game we all anticipate. You know it’s coming, I know it’s coming and Oklahoma knows it’s coming.

Samuel McKewon of Nebraska Statepaper sums up how well we played today in Lubbock:

NU (3-3 overall, 0-2 in the Big 12 Conference) outgained Tech (6-0, 2-0) by 50 yards, had 13 more first downs, ran 32 more plays and possessed the ball for 20 more minutes. The Huskers were especially unstoppable in the second half, scoring on all their drives, including three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Watson mixed Ganz’s controlled passing plays with an inside/outside running game featuring Marlon Lucky and Roy Helu, Jr. The offense resembled, in some respects, a hybrid of Watson’s West Coast attack and Kansas’ screen-and-shotgun spread offense.

“(Watson) called an outstanding game,” Pelini said. “He kept them off balance, he did a lot of different things, we ran the ball well. I thought it was a good game plan.”

McKewon also heard Pelini speak these key words:

“I came down here fully expecting to win the football game,” head coach Bo Pelini said. “It didn’t happen. It just – didn’t happen. We had our chances, and we didn’t capitalize.”

Ganz connected on 36-of-42 passes for 349 yards in another stellar performance. I’m sure he’s kicking himself over the interception at the end of the game and I understand the pain of losing, but Ganz has every reason to be proud of his performance today. He and many other Huskers did what they needed to do to win. Like Pelini said, “it didn’t happen.” The good news is we all know it will happen.

Castille runs it in for the score

Game notes coming but go ahead and start your comments.

Steve Beideck of Omaha World Herald attended the Big Red Breakfast at the Holiday Inn convention center this morning. Tight ends coach Ron Brown–who received a standing ovation from the crowd of 500–talked about the team’s need to “get better.”

He said working to get better on the things the Huskers can control has been a primary focus.

“That’s how we’re approaching this week,” Brown said. “Our greatest opponent is not Texas Tech, our greatest opponent is Nebraska, it’s ourselves.

Big Red Network’s Darren Carlson is saying something similar. Basically, that we just need to rear back and play football again.

Ron Brown also added:

“It’s making sure that we don’t take on the definition of success that everybody around us might want to put on (us), and make you feel bad. It means that we look at ourselves and correct the things we need to correct, and we attack it.”

I know what he means and focus is great, but the team isn’t just playing for itself. The expectations and well wishes that fans bring to the game is all part of the deal in college football, especially in Lincoln. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but for me, it’s not the team’s won-loss record, it’s the way we’ve been losing that I find intolerable. We’re not even in the game at the times when we most need to be.

No one expects us to win in Lubbock tomorrow. But every Husker fan wants to see the team compete and leave it all on the field. If we do that, the wins will come. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

Nebraska has lost its past 18 games in a row against teams ranked higher than 20th in the country:

Nov. 23, 2001: No. 14 Colorado 62, No. 2 Nebraska 36

Jan. 3, 2002: No. 1 Miami 37, No. 4 Nebraska 14

Sept. 28, 2002: No. 19 Iowa State 36, No. 20 Nebraska 14

Nov. 2, 2002: No. 7 Texas 27, Nebraska 24

Nov. 16, 2002: No. 11 Kansas State 49, Nebraska 13

Nov. 29, 2002: No. 13 Colorado 28, Nebraska 13

Nov. 1, 2003: No. 16 Texas 31, No. 12 Nebraska 7

Nov. 13, 2004: No. 2 Oklahoma 30, Nebraska 3

Oct. 8, 2005: No. 15 Texas Tech 34, Nebraska 31

Sept. 16, 2006: No. 4 USC 28, No. 19 Nebraska 10

Oct. 21, 2006: No. 5 Texas 22, No. 17 Nebraska 20

Dec. 2, 2006: No. 8 Oklahoma 21, No. 19 Nebraska 7

Jan. 1, 2007: No. 10 Auburn 17, No. 22 Nebraska 14

Sept. 15, 2007: No. 1 USC 49, No. 14 Nebraska 31

Oct. 6, 2007: No. 17 Missouri 41, No. 25 Nebraska 6

Oct. 27, 2007: No. 17 Texas 28, Nebraska 25

Nov. 3, 2007: No. 8 Kansas 76, Nebraska 39

Oct. 4, 2008: No. 4 Missouri 52, Nebraska 17

[via Omaha World Herald]

PassOrCatch2008.com is a Texas tech microsite that mimics political advertising in effort to bring Heisman attention to its two marquee players.

It’s not bad work, but we could do it so much better in Nebraska. If we only had the Heisman candidate(s).

From the looking ahead department, Texas Tech opened as an 18.5 point favorite in next weeks game against Nebraska and was quickly bet up to 20.5 favorite in the early line action on the off-shore sports books.

6-0 Texas Tech is ranked #7 in the country and is winning games by an average win margin of 30 points per game and rolling up nearly 600 yards of offense per game.

Jeffie Husker at Double Extra Point has some interesting things for Bo Pelini to consider.

Here are two of his directly opposing ideas:

4. Scrap the running game and hope we can outscore teams a la the last few games of 2007.

5. Completely commit to the running game, even if it means less offensive success and additional losses. The idea being that a shift in offensive philosophies could be coming and this would put the foundation in place.

Which just serves to remind me that we have serious problems on both sides of the ball.