In case you missed it, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network has recently come out with a College Football preseason Top 25 for 2012 . We've been through this before...preseason polls are evil and should be banished forever, and the ESPN only likes specific schools from Texas, Southern California, The State of Ohio, and any school located to south and east. I know that, you know that. But after I saw this recent roundtable discussion from ESPN, I just had to provide some sort of rebuttal to some of the nonsense spewed out on national television.

As you'd guess, Taylor Martinez is the first big thing to come up. Analyst Robert Smith makes a completely original comment that we've never heard before. "One of the ugliest things you'll see on any week is Taylor Martinez throwing the football." Have you looked in the mirror recently, Robert? Boom, roasted!

In all seriousness, the discussion basically becomes a Taylor Martinez roast for a while. His mechanics are horrible. He makes too many mistakes. His throwing motion is ugly. He's regressed from when he was a freshman. He's injury prone. He did work with a nationally respected quarterback coach on mechanics in the offseason, but he still shotputs the ball (present tense..because we had a spring game where we all saw that he didn't improve). Oh, and have you seen the way he throws a football? HAVE YOU???

My rebuttal regarding Martinez and more after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

Height: 6' 4"

Weight: 279 lbs

40 Yard Dash (Combine): 4.90

High School - Hometown: Cozad High School- Cozad, Nebraska

Birthday: August 21, 1989

Collegiate Position: Defensive Tackle

Executive Summary:

Jared Crick exploded onto the scene in 2009 as Nebraska's defensive line terrorized quarterbacks on a weekly basis. After Ndamukong Suh became a Heisman finalist and the second overall pick in the 2010 NFL draft, Crick faced unreasonable expectations to be House of Spears 2.0.

Crick proved that he was indeed a very good defensive tackle without Suh by his side, although the unreasonable comparisons and expectations seemed to overshadow a solid 2010 season. Regardless, the former three-star recruit from Cozad was a shoe-in first round draft pick...if he chose to leave school early.

Instead, he made the decision to come back for his senior year.

Continue reading this post »

WOMEN'S NCAA TOURNAMENT 1st ROUND

Time: 6:30 PM CT

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas

Television: ESPN2/ESPN3

Radio: Husker Sports Network (huskers.com)

With March Madness for the men already in full swing, the madness for the women is just getting started. Nebraska earned a 6 seed in the women's NCAA tournament, and will take on old Big 12 foe, 11th seeded Kansas tonight in Little Rock.

Nebraska finished the regular season with an exclamation point, entering the Big 10 tournament as a 6 seed and making it all the way to the championship before losing to Purdue in double overtime. It's been two full weeks since that game, and this small break came at just the right time for a team that was running out of gas after playing four games in four days in the Big 10 tournament.

Continue reading this post »

After one rebuilding year, the Huskers are back. The Nebraska Women's basketball team earned a 6 seed in the Women's NCAA tournament, and will face Kansas this Sunday at 6:30 PM in Little Rock.

Kansas started this season strong with a record of 15-2 and an appearance in the top 25. However, they lost 10 of their final 14 games, and ended their regular season with a loss to Texas A&M in the first round of the Big 12 tournament. In a loss to Kansas State on February 12th, Kansas also lost their best player- junior guard Carolyn Davis. Davis was the team's leading scorer when a knee injury ended her season. She was also a likely all-american had she finished her season and could have led the Jayhawks to a stronger finish.

Obviously, this is a Big 12 opponent and should still be somewhat familiar for the Huskers. Nebraska split the series with Kansas last season, but this year's Huskers are much improved over last year's. Kansas on the other-hand has a nearly identical record this year as they did last year, but struggled down the stretch after a strong start. Everything is adding up to look like a very favorable first round match up for the Huskers.

If Nebraska wins, they'd likely play 3rd-seeded Delaware. Let's just cross that bridge when and if we get there. Looking ahead is never a good thing in sports, so I'll refrain from doing that here.

So how far do you think the Huskers can make it? Will they be able to get their second Sweet 16 appearance in three years? Click here to view or print out the Women's tournament bracket. This team has surprised us many times before, and I know they're capable of surprising everyone during March madness. Good luck ladies, and go big red!

BIG TEN TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONSHIP

Time: 3:00 PM CT

Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis

Television: ESPN2

Radio: Husker Sports Network (huskers.com)

The second best season in school history just got even better.

Yesterday, the Nebraska women's basketball team defeated Ohio State and became the first 6th seed to make the championship at the Big 10 women's basketball tournament. Husker fans are excited, but shouldn't be that surprised. Despite being the 6th seed in the tournament, Nebraska came in with the 3rd best overall record, and had defeated 4 of the 5 teams ahead of them at least once during the regular season.

By now, most have heard about the youth on this Husker team. That three game losing streak made us wonder if this young team was out of gas. But they refueled, and have since been playing like a veteran squad that can go toe to toe with the best in the country.

Continue reading this post »

BIG TEN TOURNAMENT SEMIFINALS

Time: 4:00 PM CT

Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis

Television: Big Ten Network

Radio: Husker Sports Network (huskers.com)

The Nebraska women's basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament yesterday with an 80-68 victory over Iowa, defeating the Hawkeyes for the 3rd time this season.

The game was close throughout the first half, and it looked like Iowa would go to halftime up by 6. Then Junior Lindsey Moore hit a shot at the buzzer from near half-court to pull Nebraska within 3, and they went into halftime with all the momentum. Moore finished with 26 points.

Despite being down 9 at one point early in the second half, the Huskers seized momentum one again with three straight three pointers and never looked back. Now they have a chance to play in the Big 10 championship with a victory today over Ohio State, a team they just beat six days ago.

Continue reading this post »

BIG TEN TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINALS

Time: 1:00 PM CT (or approx. 25 minutes after previous game)

Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis

Television: Big Ten Network

Radio: Husker Sports Network (huskers.com)

Total dominance.

That sums up Nebraska's 88-56 victory over Northwestern in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament yesterday. The outcome was never in question after the Huskers went on a 24-0 run early in the first half. Nebraska's 54 first half points set a Big Ten tournament record. Jordan Hooper scored 16 of those first half points, and became the first Husker to reach 1000 career points as a sophomore.

Concerns that Northwestern had some sort of magical powers over Nebraska can be put to rest for now. Maybe the women's basketball team can give a crash course to the other Husker sports' teams on how to beat a mediocre Northwestern squad.

The starters sat on the bench most of the second half, and hopefully have plenty of energy to take on Iowa today, a team that Nebraska beat twice during the regular season. However, Iowa's last loss came against Nebraska...way back on January 26th. They've won 9 games in a row since. This could be a tough one.

Continue reading this post »

After a three game losing streak threatened to derail a good season, the Nebraska Women's basketball team bounced back to win 2 of the final 3 regular season games, ending with a convincing win over #14 Ohio State in the season finale.

They finished the season ranked #24, and finished 6th in the Big 10 with a 10-6 conference record. They did it all as the youngest in the Big 10- with 6 freshman either starting or receiving significant playing time during the season. The Big 10 is clearly stacked with talented teams, but despite their youth is Nebraska really the 6th best?

Nebraska has the third best overall record in the league (21-7), and has at least one regular season victory over 4 of the 5 teams ahead of them in the conference standings. The Big 10 tournament offers an opportunity for this young team to show that they can be the best team in the conference.

Continue reading this post »

The 16th ranked Husker Women's basketball team was upset by Northwestern on Thursday night 63-51.

This marks the first time that the Huskers (8-5 in the Big 10, 19-6 overall) have lost more than two games in a row this season. A fall out of the top 25 in next week's rankings seems very possible.

As a side note, apparently Northwestern REALLY wants to own the rights to being abbreviated as "NU." They have now beaten Nebraska in football, volleyball, and now both men and women's basketball. With the exception of men's basketball, all of those wins would be considered major upsets. The most annoying part is that Northwestern is average at best in all of those. What's the deal? I want answers!

Back to women's basketball...

Just three games ago the Huskers beat Purdue in an epic triple overtime game, 93-89. Since that game, shot accuracy has become a major problem, and Nebraska is averaging only 54 points per game during the three game slide.

Winning the Big 10 title seemed possible before this losing streak started, but now some are questioning whether or not they will even qualify for the NCAA tournament. Will they be able to re-energize and turn things around before the season ends, or has this young team simply run out of gas?

Continue reading this post »

Sorry the refs screwed you over a few times...it happens. We dealt with it big time last year, so in some regards it was a bit refreshing to have ridiculous calls going our way for once...but still it is always better football when it's called evenly. Any Nebraska fan who is reasonable would admit that the reffing was effing awful (look, I rhymed!). I'm pretty sure that crew just sucked all the way around, and they happened to really screw it up on some calls that obviously helped the Huskers.  

It's hard to know for sure how much those calls effected the outcome. You could argue that the 3rd quarter meltdown on your end wouldn't have happened if you had been ahead. But you could also argue that the 4th quarter meltdown wouldn't have happened for us if we had been behind. Unless you can find one of these there's no way to ever know.

As for that 4th quarter...wow I almost developed an ulcer! I kept thinking you guys were put away and you'd just quit fighting and start playing some back-ups...but then 1 to 3 plays later you had a chance again. That's awesome. Your team has some real heart and apparently our guys thought they had the game won and could just take it easy in the 4th quarter. I think that 4th quarter benefited both teams tremendously. Your squad was reminded to never give up and learned that they have what it takes to come back against great teams, and our squad was reminded once again that football games are 60 minutes long, and you have to play hard every minute of it. 

You've got a good team this year, and I think it's definitely better than last year. Keith Price is a fine quarterback, and in time I think he'll be better than Jake Locker, partially due to a better supporting cast. You're easily the 3rd best team in the Pac-12 this year in my opinion, and I think you're headed for 8 or 9 wins. Good game, way to keep fighting, and maybe we'll see you in a bowl game again sometime soon (preferably the Rose Bowl!). 

You've heard it again and again- Nebraska's 2011 schedule is tough. But just how much tougher is the 2011 schedule than the 2010 schedule? With a new conference and an entirely new set of opponents on the schedule, (minus Washington), it's pretty hard to tell. I decided to look a little deeper, compare the 2010 & 2011 schedule side by side and see if the 2011 schedule is actually as tough as we've been told.

Continue reading this post »

I'm so glad that the 2010 season is finally behind us.  When this team was 9-1, things looked pretty good. That "1" stuck out like a sore thumb though because we knew it was a home loss to the worst Texas team in over a decade. But regardless, I could get past that because 9-1 is a darn good record. Some were even mentioning Nebraska in the national title conversation. I do remember thinking during that week that we were 9-1 that it would take a pretty epic collapse for this team to finish at 10-4, and I figured that the last loss would come to a really good bowl opponent. 

Then the Texas A&M game happened. Bo had a total meltdown that included ripping Taylor Martinez a new one on national TV, Ben Cotton was sexually assaulted, Carl assaulted a camera, and in the days after rumors about Taylor Martinez abounded. The entire fan-base looked bad for unprecedented complaining about how one-sided the officiating was in that game (no matter how justified it was). That was the meltdown off the field. The meltdown on the field happened after Nebraska got out to a 17-0 lead against Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship.  We all know what happened, Nebraska lost the Big 12 championship and the number 1 goal for the season failed. The 2010 Huskers were supposed to beat Texas and win the Big 12. Neither happened. End of story.

Continue reading this post »

Nebraska was 35 point favorites against Kansas.  They won by 17. How did this happen? Perhaps you could argue that some of the reasons below are just excuses, but I would argue that they are very logical reasons why we shouldn't worry that Nebraska only beat Kansas by 17 points.

1. Kansas just came off their greatest come-from-behind victory in school history, and the 2nd greatest in NCAA history. This team has been improving gradually since getting blown-out early in Big 12 play, and they really believe that they can beat anyone. Turner Gill has them believing.

2. Aside from one play against Iowa State, Taylor Martinez hadn't played in 6 consecutive quarters. He was a bit rusty, and it seems like he's not quite his explosive self yet. When defenses don't have to account for Martinez on the ground, they have a much easier time slowing down our offense.

3. Our defense played their best game of the season. Say what you want about Kansas' offense, but when your defense only gives up 87 total yards, 5 first downs, and 3 points- that's an incredible team performance. We also had 5 sacks, which hasn't happened since a man named Suh played for us.  Don't overlook the fact that this was an amazing game for the Blackshirts.

Continue reading this post »

I've already seen quite a few articles about how Oklahoma State has a prolific passing offense that will not only challenge Nebraska's 1st ranked passing defense, but could succeed.

Don't get me wrong, Oklahoma State can pass the ball well, and their numbers are pretty impressive...but they haven't faced a defensive secondary that's even close to as good as Nebraska's.  Here is the list of the opponents they've played and the rank of their passing defense.  It's pretty incredible.

Washington State 102nd
Troy 109th
Tulsa 120th!!! (dead last)
Texas A&M 101st
Louisiana-Lafayette 113st
Texas Tech 117th

Granted these teams ranking is hurt a bit by their poor performance against Oklahoma State, but we are 7 weeks into the season...by now if these teams had a good passing defense their average would be much better than it is.  

Now the question is whether or not Nebraska's 1st ranking passing defense is legitimate or not...

Continue reading this post »

[Bumped from Fanposts - mostly because I was thinking the same thing - Who is leading this team????? - Jon J]

We all saw it. We are all still asking this question. Obviously, it's really hard to stomach this loss, and I think my personal biggest concern going forward is that our players are going to lose motivation, because it seemed like their entire motivation for this season was built on beating Texas.

I am really afraid that the loss to Texas hurt their pride so much, that they could fall into a "What's the point?" mentality and 2010 will turn into 2007 fast. What this years team needs is a leader, a guy who we know will rally the troops both on the field and off the field. In 2007 the team really lacked a specific player who was a leader on and off the field, that combined with poor coaching led to a 5-7 season.

But last year the leader of the team was Ndamukong Suh. He was the best player on the field, and after a loss, his opinion was the first one you wanted to hear as a fan, and most likely as a player. Who's that guy this season? The guy who says, "We are better than this" and then backs it up on the field?

Niles Paul? Jared Crick? Prince Amukamera? Alex Henery? We know it isn't Taylor Martinez, he plays like a leader but doesn't have the personality needed to really rally the team. He won't even talk to the media and his teammates say he's the same way in the locker room. We know it can't be Zac Lee, he doesn't even get to play. It's not Roy Helu Jr. We have plenty of guys who are talented and could step up to be the team leader, but it seems like no one is.  Someone better step up soon because with the next two games coming against top 15 teams, this team needs a leader now more than ever.

With that being said, what is your biggest concern after the loss to Texas going forward?  

Some people have noted that Texas' run defense is ranked 19th. That's true. However, if you look a bit closer you'll see just how deceiving that statistic is.

Texas has played 5 games, and 4 have been against teams that primarily pass. The only team that primarily ran against Texas was UCLA, who  gashed Texas for 264 yards.  UCLA is 17th nationally in rushing yards per game, but what about the other teams Texas has played?  Oklahoma is 80th in rushing yards per game, Rice is 99th, Texas Tech is 103rd, and Wyoming is at the absolute bottom of the barrel at 120th.  Even with UCLA, the average for all of the rushing offenses Texas has played is 85.8th.

I know Texas has the athletes and the coaching to be a great team on both sides of the ball.  I know Texas has the capability to come into Memorial stadium and give us one last heartbreaking loss.

But statistically speaking, Texas's defense should have a very difficult time stopping Nebraska's rushing attack. Texas has only played one team with a top 20 rushing attack, and UCLA walked all over them. Nebraska has the 2nd best rushing game in the country so far.  Granted, we haven't played a defense with the talent level or speed that Texas has.  But If you have watched UCLA play, you know that Tayor Martinez is quite a bit faster than UCLA's QB Kevin Prince. 

Muschamp will have his defense ready, you can bet on that.  But eventually Nebraska's rushing attack is most likely going to be too much for this year's Texas defense, and that's why Nebraska has a great chance to not only win this game, but dominate it.  Go Big Red!

(Then again, it's Texas, and I won't be surprised if they find a way to make me very upset)

I'm not a football genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I do read a lot on the Huskers, and I'm a huge fan.  

From everything I've read and seen I feel like most people are missing something from the Nebraska/SDSU game last Saturday. First let me name the obvious things.  The Jackrabbits came out to play the game of their lives, and they pulled it off.  Nebraska started flat, played flat, and just never seemed to find a rhythm. Taylor Martinez played like a redshirt freshman and made a lot of mistakes. The defense only gave up 3 points but their performance was anything but dominating. If Nebraska had been playing a better opponent they most likely would have lost.  There's a lot that this team can take away from this game to learn from and improve on.  But there's still that sick feeling in your gut and that hint of worry that says, "It's a freaking FCS school!??? If we can't dominate them, what happens when we play a good team!!!?"  At the end of the day, it was a moral loss.

Continue reading this post »

Okay so I was bored at work today (not uncommon), and I spent some time over at "Rock M Nation", the SB nation fan site for Missouri.  Of course, everyone over there thinks Nebraska is majorly over-hyped.  They even have a thread called "Wisdom of the Crowds" where they are picking all the Big 12 games this season.  The most recent one was week 10, and they have Missouri at 9-1 through 10 weeks and Nebraska at 7-3.  Wishful thinking at best.

So I wondered, "What were the people on this site saying about this time last year?"  This season Nebraska has been hyped quite a bit, but how much was Nebraska hyped last season in the eyes of the Missouri fan?  I found the preview of Nebraska's defense from last year, and it was incredibly incorrect. Granted, it's impossible to know what's going to happen during the season (who would have possibly predicted the loss to Iowa State), but it makes their bias against Nebraska stick out like a sore thumb knowing now how the season actually played out.  

Click here to read the 2009 Rock M Nation preview of Nebraska's defense

Fun read.  Major college football analysts thought Nebraska would have a very good defense last season.  Bloggers from a rival fan site didn't.  For some reason I can't trust their opinion that Nebraska is over-hyped once again this year. I'd rather go with the major college football analysts.