Posted: Friday, October 21, 2005 7:00 pm
They’ve gotten steady enough on flat ground to take off the training wheels. Now, we see how Bill Callahan’s pedal pushers handle the hills.
Missouri might not be a spoke-jamming stick capable of sending a team like Texas or Texas Tech careening off the trail leading to a Big 12 Conference championship. Heck, the Tigers couldn’t even derail New Mexico, which five weeks ago went to Columbia and popped wheelies all over the home club.
Just the same, a brunch-time battle against Mizzou in revved-up Faurot Field today supplies Nebraska with a real opportunity to show it’s worthy of being called the most improved team in the league.
A win would make the Huskers bowl-eligible just one game beyond the minimum that accomplishment could have occurred, and also should shove them back into the national rankings for the first time since the end of the 2003 season.
You think those mountain-biking, granola bar-packing folks to the west who also pretend to be avid college football fans one Friday in November would actually start taking seriously the notion that Big Red could end up in Houston on Dec. 3 to play in its first league title game since 1999?
Think back to that opening-game struggle against Division
I-AA opponent Maine, and the idea seems far-fetched.
Nebraska had so many problems to dissect with its offense after that one that left guard Greg Austin recalls coaches replaying every single snap to point them out. Sessions following the next two contests against Wake Forest and Pittsburgh burned through nearly just as much tape, too.
“From the first game, it was ‘We’re so close,’” Austin said about the talk offensive players were hearing from their coaches. “We’re like, ‘Man, (if) we’re so close, when’s it going to start happening?’”
It seems like overnight.
In three Big 12 games:
n Nebraska has produced nearly two-thirds of its scoring drives for the season (13 of 21).
n First-year quarterback Zac Taylor has completed 61.5 percent of his passes, ranks No. 2 in the league with an average of 276 yards per contest and has a 3-to-1 touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio (6 TDs, 2 picks).
n And the Huskers’ total-offense average of 393.7 yards ranks No. 5 in the conference. That, believe it or not, is higher than where their vaunted defense stands over the same span (No. 7, allowing an average of 346.3 yards).
“Our defense has kept us on the up and up, but these last three games our offense has become more potent,” said Austin, noting that tape from last week’s 23-14 win at Baylor showed only 30 plays out of 83 where “somebody messed up.
“We’re an offense that stopped ourselves in the beginning, and slowly we’re becoming an offense that doesn’t stop itself.”
No wonder Taylor thinks the fun is only beginning.
“We can see improvements in different areas of our team each and every week,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve got some tough games coming up, but we feel really confident about where we’re at. We wish we were 6-0 right now, but 5-1 is not a bad place to be. … We’re still on pace to do what we want to do.”
You figure with the record-setting Brad Smith having a monster final go running Missouri’s 36-points-per-game machine that the Huskers are expected to be in a shootout today. Smith does lead the Big 12 in rushing.
Then again, Nebraska is No. 1 nationally defending the run. And in Big 12 games, Smith’s pass-efficiency rating is just ninth-best.
Don’t think the Huskers will take either of those figures for granted. They understand the same kind of zest brought to Tech’s Cody Hodges two weeks ago will be required against Smith, who in 2003 single-handedly ended Missouri’s 24-game losing streak to them with 350 total yards and four touchdowns.
“I would tell you that this team has been on the screws,” Callahan said. “They’ve had their eye on the bull’s eye, in terms of what we have to get accomplished.”
It’s a long pedal, still. Yet, the Huskers seem to have reached today’s stage feeling like Lance Armstrong about to attack the Pyrenees Mountains.
“We’ve been tested a lot this season,” Taylor said. “There have been a lot of games that went down to the wire, and you have to be mentally strong to get through that. We’re very confident.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.