Posted: Sunday, November 5, 2006 6:00 pm
The report was false. Connor Cosgrove really didn’t ask his dad if he could take the day off from school last Monday. It was fall break in the LPS system — there were no classes.
“Good timing. Real good timing,” Kevin Cosgrove joked Saturday after watching his Nebraska defense shut down Missouri’s no-huddle offense effectively enough to help the Huskers to a 34-20 victory that put them on the verge of their first Big 12 Conference championship game appearance since 1999.
But if Cosgrove’s youngest child really had asked if he could’ve played hooky in order to avoid the digging complaints about how the Blackshirts got undressed at Oklahoma State, the old man would have advised him just as he did his players:
Suck it up and get back to work.
What wonderful, fatherly wisdom.
“The thing with Coz, he cares for everyone, and that’s so nice,” said senior defensive end Adam Carriker. “He has that face on him — he comes and chews you out — but right after he’s done with that he’ll tell you you’re a helluva player.
“I love the man. You definitely get a sense that you’re playing for Coach Coz.”
On Saturday, Carriker and Co. gave their thick-skinned leader some payback by taming the Tigers.
Moving from his regular end position to nose tackle when NU switched from its base four-man front to a 3-4 look, Carriker became the Huskers’ wild card. His first-quarter interception (the first of his career) set up a touchdown that put Nebraska up 17-0. In the second quarter, he tipped a pass that linebacker Bo Ruud hauled in, and the offense also converted that takeaway into a TD.
By halftime, Nebraska’s lead was 27-6, thanks largely to Cosgrove’s unit limiting a team that ranked No. 8 nationally converting 52 percent of its third downs to 1-for-6 in those situations.
Was it perfection? Well, the standards in this demanding climate make that nearly impossible.
If the Huskers rank 30th in scoring defense at 17.4 points a game (as they did entering Saturday), some fans think the program is in trouble. As for the 339.8-yard average NU was allowing? That drives the die-hards crazy.
They might bemoan how Mizzou sophomore quarterback Chase Daniel eventually got going and passed for 244 yards and a pair of scores, forgetting that his talents make him one of the most feared quarterbacks in the Big 12.
Allow me to note that it took Daniel 38 throws to achieve those numbers. And the Blackshirts forced him into three turnovers.
“You always strive for perfection, and I know there’s areas where we got caught in the backside or didn’t fill the way we needed to fill,” Cosgrove said.
Ah, but wasn’t Nebraska making do Saturday without injured big-play linebackers, Corey McKeon and Steve Octavien?
“That’s the hand we’re dealt right now, and we’re just trying to make the best of it,” Cosgrove continued.
Given that, he acknowledged the defense “came pretty close” to making the best of things Saturday.
Let’s just say a lot closer than last week, when Oklahoma State, trailing 16-0, scored 41 of the next 48 points to give the Cosgrove bashers a season’s worth of material.
“I don’t know if it’s ever easy to have the title of defensive coordinator here at Nebraska,” said Cosgrove, smiling but meaning every one of those words. “It’s something that you’ve grown to expect and, in a sense — I hate to say this — appreciate, sometimes. I mean, hey, this is Nebraska.
“… There’s a passion. That’s the way you want it.”
No wonder that in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s victory, Cosgrove’s boss, Bill Callahan, was handing out props to seemingly everybody who played a part in the Huskers’ big day. Even the water boys were on their games.
Considering what unfolded in Stillwater, Okla., last week, no one could have taken more satisfaction from Nebraska’s latest drama than its defensive coordinator.
And yet, on Saturday night, he was back in the office devising another plan. After all, Texas A&M awaits and the Huskers haven’t clinched anything yet.
The only thing Cosgrove knows for sure right now is there’s school tomorrow — and Connor is going to want to arrive early.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.