It’s game week (finally!) and Husker fans are getting pumped for Saturday. There are a million good reasons to look forward to this season with excitement. One of which is Saturday’s opponent.
Florida Atlantic may sound like a powder puff team, but rest assured that’s a misconception. A real football team who believes they can win in Lincoln is coming to town. The good news for us is we will be tested early and that’s what this team needs more of, in my opinion.
But back to FAU for a minute. Both the Omaha and Lincoln papers are dedicating lots of space to the program’s coach and lead salesman, Howard Schnellenberger. As many of you may know, Schnellenberger was an All-American tight end at Kentucky; he won national championships in 1961, ’64 and ’65 as Bear Bryant’s offensive coordinator at Alabama; he was offensive coordinator on Don Shula’s 1972 unbeaten Miami Dolphins; and his Miami Hurricanes team defeated Nebraska for the national championship on Jan. 1, 1984. In other words, FAU has a legend on the sidelines and I promise you the kids he’s pulled from the Florida swamps and brought to Boca Raton want the good life that beating Nebraska brings. They will be ready to play on Saturday.
The Owls represent the Sun Belt Conference and are coming off two consecutive bowl game victories.
Tight end is one of the best positions on the field. You get to block, go out for passes and line up in the backfield on occasion. This fall we may be in for some truly special play from this position, if the coaches and Omaha World Herald are right.
They can’t all play at once, but assistant coach Ron Brown insists that the NU staff has ways to utilize the pass-catching abilities of its tight ends.
“It just gives us a lot of versatility,” he said. “We’re pretty adaptable and flexible offensively in terms of our structures and our sets.”
Meaning, in other words, the tight ends can split out wide, as if they were slot receivers. Or they can become fullbacks and line up with a hand on the ground behind the quarterback.
The tight ends are led by juniors Mike McNeill and Dreu Young. But expect to see sophomore Ryan Hill and Redshirt freshmen Ben Cotton and Kyler Reed on the field too.
Dreu Young, who caught nine passes last season, hasn’t been cleared for contact since offseason back surgery, but the green light could comes as early as this week.
Life in the Red suggests that true freshman, Rex Burkhead from Plano, Texas, is now poised to make a big contribution in the wake of Quentin Castille’s removal from the team.
Burkhead, Pelini said on Saturday, is now the clear No. 2 guy behind Roy Helu.
For those of you who don’t know about Burkhead, and didn’t follow him during the recruiting season, he was known down in Texas as a “throwback,” a player who made the varsity team at a very proud program as a freshman. As far as anyone down there can remember, it’d been either a long time or never since someone made varsity as a freshman at Plano. But Burkhead did.
ESPN says, “He’s a warrior, throwback type of player that will fight, scrap and sellout to get the job done and make the play.”
As exciting a time this must be for Burkhead, it’s also an exciting time for the fans. To have a four-year man in our backfield is something rarely experienced in college football today. If he’s capable of doing damage today, what’s he going to be like in 2010, 2011 and 2012?
According to Huskers.com, Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini announced Saturday that six members of the Cornhusker football team have been placed on scholarship. All six of the former walk-ons awarded scholarships are native Nebraskans, and the group includes three seniors, two juniors and a sophomore.
The players added to scholarship include senior wide receiver Wes Cammack (DeWitt), senior linebacker Colton Koehler (Harvard), senior offensive guard Derek Meyer (Campbell), junior place-kicker Alex Henery (Omaha), junior tight end Dreu Young (Cozad) and sophomore center Mike Caputo (Omaha).
Rumors are swirling tonight that Quentin Castille has been suspended or kicked off the team. Coach Pelini is set to address the media after Saturday’s practice.
Players were deferring comment today as Castille missed practice for the second straight day and is not known to be nursing an injury.
As usual, we’ll let the rumors play themselves out, but with speculation running rampant, we felt it was our duty to bring this up.
Update:
Coach Pelini has confirmed today that Castille has been dismissed from the team.
Blair Kerkhoff of the Kansas City Star is my kind of sports writer. He recognizes what Nebraska football is made of and is eloquent in his delivery.
Superior Nebraska offensive linemen were the surest bet around. They were the foundation of the Cornhuskers’ dynasty, the program’s identity and its greatest natural resource.
Nobody grew ’em like Nebraska, and although several factors have contributed to the program’s fade from the national scene for much of this decade, the decline up front feels like a crunching pancake block to the faithful.
Kerkhoff is also a good reporter. Good reporters speak to the right people.
“For the last few years, it’s been tough to watch,” said Matt Hoskinson, a guard on the 1995 and 1997 national championship teams. “Nebraska’s known for tough, nasty linemen, and we just haven’t had that.”
Speaking of good sports writers on this beat, Samuel McKewon of Nebraska State Paper is among the best, if not the best. He also has written recently about the Huskers’ offensive line. Looking at the play of left guard Keith Williams, a 6-foot-5, 315-pounder, McKewon notes:
Williams didn’t start to play with more nasty until Barney Cotton got ahold of him. Williams started the last ten games in 2008, and steadily improved.
There’s that “N” word again.
If our line does bring the nastiness this fall, we’re going to like where it takes us. Big time.
According to Huskers.com, the University of Nebraska Athletic Ticket Office has a limited number of tickets available for each of the Huskers’ first three home football games.
Tickets are available for matchups against Florida Atlantic (Sept. 5, 6 p.m.), Arkansas State (Sept. 12, 1 p.m.) and Louisiana-Lafayette (Sept. 26, 6 p.m.). The tickets are located in the visiting team sections and cost $55 each.
Which leads me to this suggestion…
Let’s play some tough as nails teams in September. Not only would games against Pac 10 teams like Oregon State and Big Ten teams like Wisconsin toughen us up and ready us for the important battles ahead against Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech, it would certainly alleviate the need to advertise ticket sales.
The Huskers will celebrate their 300th consecutive sell out of Memorial Stadium on 9/26 against Louisiana Lafayette. To commemorate that fact, Nebraska will play that game in throw back uniforms which will then be sold at auction.
The consecutive sell out streak began during the 1962 season. Lyle Sittler played Center on the ’62 squad under Bob Devaney. 47 years later, the Crete resident put his finger on something incredibly important.
In a non-embeddable video on Huskers.com, Sittler says about this year’s team:
“The players, as we watched them this morning, they have just a little bit extra pride that wasn’t there a year or two years ago. They’re dealing with one another and making sure that they are Nebraska.”
Making sure that they are Nebraska. Man, I love that. And that’s going to mean good things on the field this fall and every fall for a long time to come.
Kody Spano, redshirt freshman quarterback for Nebraska, has been lost for the season due to an ACL tear, the second time in four months.
With the departure of Patrick Witt in the off-season and the loss of Spano, Nebraska enters the season with Zac Lee as the only Husker QB who has game experience. The injury elevates freshman Cody Green to the backup spot along with linebacker convert, Latravis Washington.
ESPN.com’s Big 12 coorespondent Tim Griffin–who had a 24-year career at the San Antonio Express-News before joining ESPN–likes Nebraska’s defensive line.
Here’s what he’s saying:
Pierre Allen and Barry Turner will develop into the North’s best pair of defensive ends. Of course, they should probably thank Ndamukong Suh for that. But the fact that Suh will command a lot of double-team blocks inside will mean that Allen and Turner will face single-team blocking outside on almost every play. That sounds like a recipe for production from one of the conference’s best and balanced pass rushes — and the key to Nebraska’s overall defensive improvement.
I must say, I’m looking forward to some dominant play from the Blackshirts.
