Nebraska Beats Michigan State

I am proud; proud to be a Husker…
Go Big Red!!!

way to step up defense, many players that had been struggling early in the season now appear to have bought in and are executing very well.  I ant believe the improvement I the offensive line.  Michigan state handled the wisconson o line and we looked dominant today.  Who would have thought back in week 1 that our o line would be gelling this well.  Hats off to tim beck, martinez, and burkhead, and all of the great blocking by wideouts.  It’s so good to see everyone playing their hearts out.

GBR

Wow. That’s all I can say. What a great win. The Blackshirts came through! So did the offense. Both sides of the ball played well…the offense obviously better in the second half. Defensive line play was weak, the offensive line play was just OK, but other than that….it looks like we got us a team boys! Go Rex Burkhead!!! The guy is iconic. I can see all kinds of good things this offense is going to do in the future. The defense as well now. Much more like a Pelini defense. This was the best game by the defense -by far- so far this year. Alfonso Dennard finally decided to show up and had a HUGE game and I think that really spread throughout the whole defense and we used that momentum well. Damion Stafford is officially part of the family now. The defensive line did have like 3 or 4 sacks and that hasn’t happened in a while around here, but I couldn’t believe how good Michigan States defense is. Which makes this win all the more impressive. Grade A+ to the coaching staff with not only making adjustments during the game and at half time, but in getting the guys ready to play…you could tell they wanted it more.

Did anyone else notice that after the last touchdown Taylor came off and showed his right hand to Pelini (who looked concerned) and then handed the ball off only with his left hand the rest of the game?
My guess is he jammed a finger or something.

Husker Heroes

Michigan State is a good, solid program, all the way around. But, like I mentioned a few days ago, it’s offense is all but tailor made for the Brothers Pelini. Which is why Speilman continually pointed out how little they had to adjust to Sparty. State was totally in the defense’s wheelhouse and it became a matter of athletes, which gave Nebraska the edge. 3rd and 3 and the whole house knows they have to pass. 
I mean, NO catches for their main guy, Cunningham?

One thing from previous game observations this year and confirmed today, is Big 10 teams play a very chippy style, with the extra elbows and facemask smacks. More than simply playing through the whistle. Not a complaint. It’s just interesting that Nebraska was considered a dirty team, with Bo running it, the last 3 years in the old conference.
That Nebraska isn’t getting pulled into it, lets you know they’ve got the mental upper hand- always a key.

Michigan St. Was flat. I really expected a better fought game by them.

At times it looked like sandlot football. Maybe the Sooners get to play the Huskers in a bowl game. We’ll see.

Any win against a top ten team is good.

PE in C:  Your saying that the Huskers D line was weak?  I must completely disagree with your opinion,  our D line put a lot of pressure and sacked the Spartan QB several times and I thought they looked awesome. 

It has taken half the football season for the Husker D to figure out the difference tween the Big-12 and the rough-n-tumble physical play of the B1G.  Now that we FINALLY understand that and have learned to deal with that we may have finally arrived. 

No matter what anyone says I’m extremely proud of our Huskers and they played until the end of the 4th quarter.  It seemed like the D got its swagger back and that attitude will help as we complete the rest of the reason.

OU7times:  Maybe the Spartan O was flat but I believe that the Husker D had a large hand in creating that.  It seemed to me that they couldn’t really figure out our D package thrown at them and adding in the factor that the D played fiercely and physical football today.

Don’t see a Husker - vs - Sooner football game this year but it would be a good game.

Well the bad, is that Michigan State might’ve had the worst offensive game plan and preparation I have seen in a long, long, long time.  To say that they had no imagination is just being nice. I do not understand what they were trying to do, and understand even less, after the game, why they made no adjustments after halftime.  Now to the good. . .

This team, as a team, has learned a lot about the guy next to them and their character as a team.  They have come a long ways since Madison, and that is saying something.  They could’ve folded against Ohio State but fought, and never gave up on themselves when the whole world was about to do just that.  That’s a lot of character and mental toughness.  Way to go guys.  Like Al Pacino in “On Any Given Sunday” and the locker room speech, you fought for those inches that made the difference.  You fought for the guy next to you.  I could not be happier for you in that aspect.  And THAT’S what makes football an amazing game.  What you learn about yourself and the guy next to you under adversity.  What your character is off the field is what you will bring on to it. . .

I thought to myself during the game that this team has learned how to win.  They’ve come out in the 2nd half since Ohio State (well since David’s strip against Ohio State) and learned how to finish plays, and games.  I liked the stand-up pre-snap looks by the Defensive Line and although the Spartan Offensive Line was just barely alive let’s give our guys credit, they just outworked and whipped them.  All afternoon long 4 guys beat a team using max protection.  A healthy Dennard will just be invaluable moving forward and the Safety play has stabilized.  Hopefully we can get the Jean-Baptiste, Green or Evans to anchor the other side. . .

We have a long ways to go, but this team is getting better.  They at least have an identity on offense.  Yeah we’re a no huddle, and use some spread principles, but a great deal of Dr. Tom Osborne’s plays are back.  And guess what?  They still work. What I like so much about the offense (and where we’re going) is much like under Dr. Tom Osborne if we complete 4-7 play-actions (G series, or others based on power/option principles) in a game it simply breaks all assignments on a defensive unit.  I also like the fact that we appear to be one of the best conditioned teams in The Big 10.  We have speed, play with a no-huddle, but finish games with power.  I will give Martinez this, he really does a very good job with his counts, audibles, and keeping a Defensive Line off-balance (when he’s playing well).  It is hard to be a Defensive Lineman, get in stance, watch the other unit line up, and then go look back for the play.  It creates indecision regarding jumping a snap count, burns the hell out of your lower body over time, and creates fatigue over time. . .

Really happy for Coach Pelini, The Coaching Staff, the players.  They’ve had quite a journey this year.  They still have a long ways to go, but these past few weeks has been invaluable preparation for this home stretch.  They had their Dunkirk, survived, lived to fight another day, and are now re-equipped, fresh, confident, well led, and ready to invade the final part of the home stretch. Great job guys. . .

OU7, way to bounce back.  Sucks for Whaley.  You hate to see things like that happen.  Especially to a guy who has busted his tail like he has, and has the jouney he undertook to make it into Sooner Football.  Good luck the rest of the way. . .

Goutam, you are correct it is a great day to be a Husker!  They played well today!
You can look at the score and see something different then what was on the field in my opinion.  I think that the Husker played a very good game, that rocked MSU back a bit, but also that MSU hurt themselves as well.  There were a few drives that were kept alive because of penalties by MSU.  I am not taking anything away from the Huskers, but I also don’t want to take away from MSU either.  I thought that their defense played well enough to win this game, 0 passing yards in the first half, and only 101 on the ground at half. 
I would agree that NU defense really confused Cousins, and we did cover the receivers very well.  I didn’t really care if we won the game after I saw the Blackshirts play.  That is what they should have looked like all season!  I hope that we can sustain this now down the back stretch.
Two parts of the game bothered me.  2 offensive false starts should never happen at home and in the second half while trying to finish the game.  Kickoff returns, sometimes they are absolutely stellar, and other times you wonder if they had a plan while heading down field.
Does anyone else ever remember seeing the Husker play this many games on TV before?  I cannot believe that I just finished watching the 8th game on TV for this season alone.  That is usually like over 2 – 3 years.
Home again next week, lets watch these guys improve over the week and get ready for the other Wildcats!

GBR!

It was good to see Carl Pelini taking a page from the Steelers Defense.  It worked to perfection!!!!  Go Big Red!!!

Great win but whear has jamal turner been

blake06:  Good Point.  Where was Jamal Turner?  The team does have a lot of work to fix things but I’m glad they won and they showed POWER on both side of the ball.  At times it seems that the O temporarily lost focus on their mission to score but Beck seemed to reel them back in. 

Rugger Husker:  Isn’t it great having the Huskers on TV so much during the football season?  Like you I don’t ever remember the Huskers being on TV for 8 games in one season.  This is what Notre Dame fans have had for years, being able to watch their team weekly on TV through out the season.

Jamal Turner has not had good practices that is why he wasn’t seen much, or at all in the game. Marlow got the call becausee he had practiced better this week. he had his best game too.
I think we essentially got beat in the trenches and still won the game. Our defensive line was not too much of a factor…plenty of times Cousins had all the time in the world. The fact is our secondary had everyone shut down. Our offensive line played OK but their defensive line was awesome…bunches of their players in our backfield all the time. We really din’t have a huge numbers rushing or YPC but the fact is Michigan statees defense coming into this game was the legitamate #2 defense in the country and we scored 24 on them! That’s a feat!
i also think they were pooped…they had 3 huge games before coming to Lincoln, but on papaer, tehy should have won. Just goes to show what we have folks…we’ve got ourselves a football team who seems to be coming of age…finally! Hallejula!

PE in C:  I don’t really accept that they were pooped.  Playing 3 huge games in 3 or 4 weeks is just football, plain and simple.  It seems like you are not giving our Huskers the credit they deserve.  Even Michigan States own football team heaped nothing buy praise upon the Huskers and state how the Huskers beat them physically, etc.

Our O line had a good game against the Spartans but we beat one of the best D’s in the country.  Hopefully Bo hands out black shirts to the D either today or tomorrow.  Our D also did a good job against an outstanding Spartan O.

Mark, the shirts were handed out last night after the game, and everyone on defense deserves them!!
I said it earlier, I wouldn’t take anything from the MSU defense, I think that they played a great game.  It was their offense that couldn’t score for them.  But in part, because our defense was able to take Cousins out of his game; by locking down on the receivers.  The DL had a better game than we have seen out of them over the last few weeks.  How many sacks did we through the season, and how many yesterday.  We just don’t have someone in there that is disruptive right now.
Our offense did what it has done in the past, they scored enough to win the game, not pretty by no means, but they played 4 quarters, and scored more than enough to win.

GBR!!

My one worry in this game is that I hope that we didn’t win it at the cost of losing Burkhead and/or T-Mart.  I see it as well when we came to the sideline and Bo asked him what was wrong.

I think a lot of people forget that we were literally inches away from getting 2 pick sixes as well.  Defense was beast in this game and actually coukd have even made the game more mopsided.  I’m sure damion stafford and andrew green could taste the endzone on both of those plays.  Hope to see more down the road.  Watch penn state be the exact same type of game as this msu win.  I for one am extremely excited about michigan and penn state.  Going to be fun to see how the standings play out.

GBR

Sure has turned the season around hasn’t it? Feels good. We needed it. Whew!
First it was the huge come from behind victory of a still very good Ohio State team. Defense strarted it, offense finished it. Then an off week of rest and relaxation, and then to MN to play a patsy (there is just something about Minnisota, you gotta just love em’), and now, the team that everyone (including myself) thought was going to march into Lincoln and own the place just got their butt handed to them!!!
Look at how bad it was just a few short games ago. Remember how we were all feeling going into half time vs Ohio State? Gotta give it to the coaching staff on this one…not just the Pelini’s but everybody, including all of the new guys too…I am starting to notice signs of these guys getting pretty entrentched at NU and that’s a good thing. I’ll admit I’ve been down on the coaching staff this year. I think they deserve to not be second guessed anymore. You gotta admit, they got this team turned around in a hurry, something which is REALLY hard to do. And to think…we’ve got playmakers that haven’t even begun to sprout yet! I still can’t get over the fact that our offense just beat the legitamate #2 defense in the country!!!

James,

Thanks a bunch for the Dom Whaley comments/wishes. My hope is that Coach Stoops will reward the young man with a scholarship as soon as he is able to. He is a fine player who has paid his dues. We were fortunate to be on our ‘A’ game yesterday and feel we will win out and possibly play for the title yet.

Coach Snyder has done a great job with most of his teams so to take a game from him is really rewarding.

PE in C:  Your right, it sure does feel good and our season seems brighter.  I don’t think every Husker fan thought the MSU would beat us, I had confidence that we would beat them BUT I was excited about the game.  I was also second guessing 2 coaches who were saying things that still don’t seem right to me.

I wasn’t aware of superman and T-mart having serious injuries.  How bad are they?