Husker report card: Colorado

 No comments  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

By the Lincoln Journal Star

RUNNING GAME (A)

Nebraska earns a good grade for churning out 190 rushing yards against the Big 12’s No. 3 rushing defense, and doing it without two starting offensive linemen. “I really didn’t notice,” running back Brandon Jackson said. “It was like Greg Austin and Matt Slauson were in there.” They weren’t. They were out with injuries. Still, Jackson pounded away for 142 yards on a career-high 34 carries.

PASSING GAME (A)

Is Zac Taylor the Big 12’s first-team quarterback? Jay Norvell said Taylor would get his vote (if Norvell had one). Taylor might get some other votes, though. Colt McCoy had three interceptions Friday, and Taylor went 19-of-28 for 249 yards and two touchdowns. Again, Taylor responded after taking some brutal hits. Another fantastic catch by Maurice Purify. With ability like that, why does he only get two or three catches a game?

AGAINST THE RUN (C)

Poor tackling — and that’s a generous adjective — was the culprit on Colorado’s two long runs. The Buffaloes averaged 5.4 yards per carry. “We had three guys around the ball and we overpursued on that (first) long run, then we missed a couple tackles on that other long run,” defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove said. “Other than that, I thought we did a pretty good job.”

AGAINST THE PASS (A)

Colorado has the nation’s 117th-ranked passing offense, so holding the Buffs to 131 passing yards isn’t exactly surprising. CU had the Blackshirts fooled on the early touchdown pass, though. Good pressure by the defensive line; Nebraska had four sacks.

SPECIAL TEAMS (A)

Where to start? The trick plays factored huge into special-teams play, and the Huskers capitalized. Great punt by Jordan Congdon on the pooch kick to the 1-yard line. That set up the safety. Joe Ganz’s pass off the fake field goal and Tierre Green’s run off the fake punt were also key. Major Culbert partially deflected a punt. Fielding balls on punts, though, is still a little troublesome.

GAME MANAGEMENT AND PENALTIES (D)

What’s with all the penalties? There were a season-high 10, and this is the last game of the regular season. False starts. Holds. Ugh. Also, the end of the first half was ugly. Why not take one of the two timeouts before the punt and preserve time? Coaches were probably counting on better field position, but that went awry when Cortney Grixby didn’t field the punt. From there, things went south, literally. After Taylor was hurt, NU should’ve taken a knee instead of risking a turnover. Not pretty.

PLAY CALLING (A)

Not sure about needing all these trick plays to beat a 2-9 team, but give the coaches credit for calling them at the right time. The halfback pass off the toss sweep run, though, has probably worn out its welcome.

OVERALL (B)

For as meddlesome as the Buffaloes were throughout much of the game, they still left Lincoln with their largest margin of defeat this season. So the Huskers, while sloppy with the penalties and poor first-half tackling, still did something right. The celebration for the Big 12 North trophy used to be reserved for national championships, but, hey, these kids haven’t experienced any type of championship, so they deserve it. Finally, Nebraska vs. Oklahoma in the title game. We think.