Curt McKeever: Too-little, too-late tendency causes concern
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Long before the fourth-quarter fake field goal that forced Nebraska to dig deep into its bag of tricks Saturday afternoon, Oklahoma had that winning posture.
Give the resilient Huskers their due for hanging around and making a 31-24 loss worthy of being more than a footnote in this storied series. But even prior to kickoff, it looked clear as the blue sky above Memorial Stadium which of the two giants would come tumbling down.
The youthful (but still talented) Sooners might have been given the slip this season from their recent customary role as national championship contenders. But even with a 4-3 record, they carried the swagger that made you think it would be a quiet evening in Lincoln.
With Tom Osborne and Barry Switzer both in the house, you could almost feel that during the pre-game coin toss.
Given the option of taking the ball or defending one end of the field after Nebraska deferred to the second half, Oklahoma sent its defense, No. 1 in the Big 12 Conference in league games, full-throttle at the Huskers’ slow-starting offense.
Sure enough, on the first play, senior Calvin Thibodeaux schooled redshirt freshman left tackle Lydon Murtha with a spin rush and sacked quarterback Zac Taylor for an 8-yard loss. Taylor, by the way, would taste the turf behind the NU line of scrimmage eight more times, including his final snap.
Three plays after Thibodeaux’s tone-setter, Oklahoma took over at its 49-yard line following a 30-yard punt into the wind, and redshirt freshman quarterback Rhett Bomar, playing in just his second true road game, fired a 15-yard completion to Malcolm Kelly. So much for Memorial Stadium’s aura.
Two plays after that, Bomar stuck the ball into the belly of Adrian Peterson for the first time in two games and the 2004 Heisman Trophy runner-up sprinted 36 yards to the end zone.
Let the “Boomer Sooner” renditions begin.
By halftime, OU had built a 21-3 lead, leaving members of the Huskers’ 1995 national championship squad who were recognized during the break secretly wishing they could suit up for the final 30 minutes of action.
They must have been proud at how Bill Callahan’s squad battled to the finish. The way Nebraska countered Garrett Hartley’s 6-yard gain on the fake field goal just before Kejuan Jones ran 17 yards to make it 31-17, with a four-play, 70-yard drive capped by I-back Cory Ross’ 18-yard TD pass to Nate Swift. The way NU got the ball back with 2:37 to play having a chance to force overtime or better.
But they also had to be pulling out what’s left of their hair over the first-half start. Four straight weeks now, NU has tripped coming out of the gate.
Texas Tech led 21-0 in a game it pulled out 34-31.
Baylor got the Huskers’ attention by taking a 7-0 lead on its first series.
At Missouri, NU hit the snooze button enough times to fall behind 21-3 before putting up a rally it couldn’t sustain.
Now this.
You want to try and game plan for that?
“We’re confident in the direction we go to when we have to adjust and adapt,” Callahan said. “But you certainly don’t want to live like that, and we have been for the last two weeks.”
Actually, what Nebraska showed Saturday was more of the inconsistent play that had you concerned after it struggled against Maine, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest. And really, that’s never gone away, but wins will change one’s perspective, and the Huskers, after all, were 5-1.
At 5-3, their confidence could be fading.
Suddenly, with Kansas dominating Missouri on Saturday, next week’s game in Lawrence has a whole new feeling. Come out of there with a loss and you’d better not spit the bit at home against Kansas State, because then, in order to become bowl-eligible, you have to win at North Division-leading Colorado, which doesn’t seem likely.
And can you imagine someone at Husker headquarters having to try and put a positive spin to a five-game losing streak at the end of the season?
“Losing just kills,” sophomore linebacker Bo Ruud said. “But the thing about college football, you’ve got to put it behind you quickly, because every team, every week, any more it’s a big game. We don’t have one game on our schedule where you can just show up and play and win. It’s never going to be like that. We’ve got to put (this) behind us now.”
Indeed, time is of the essence. The Huskers are already in danger of having their too-little, too-late tendency define their season.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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