Texas A&M 2006

That was an amazing win: amazing that we won, and amazing we were up 21-7 (in position to make it 28-7 or 24-7) but still almost lost.

Purify’s TD to seal the deal was a great catch. Everyone will remember that he caught it—the catch itself was “up there” on the level-of-difficulty. Better late than never for our second half offense.

Taylor found a rhythm on that last drive, and as dreadful as he looked just a few minutes earlier, I have to give the guy his due. Considering his overtime performances the past two years, and the final 4th quarter drives against Kansas and A&M, Taylor has a pretty good “clutch” resume by any Husker QB standard.

Offensively, we seem to vacillate between two extremes. We are either an unstoppable juggernaut, or utterly ineffective. Glenn seemed to get hurt after his second touchdown run, and from that point on, the running game was ho-hum. I thought the offense might have benefited from using Mann some in the second half. We also miss Austin. Again, we played an entire game with no passes completed to any NU tight end. Zero, zip, nada.

Nearly all of the Aggies’ big plays came either in the passing game, or on runs when people in our secondary missed tackles. Shanle was the worst perpetrator. (Curiously, Culbert wasn’t used much in this game.) Grixby was actually close enough to his receiver to make a pick on their 4th quarter trick play, but didn’t turn around and find the ball. Even Green missed key tackles and found himself generally out of position. The only “hope” for the secondary…next year we will have at least one new safety and, in theory, Bowman will be back to full speed.

The D did come up with one huge stop when we needed it. And Turner getting his paw on their FG attempt totally saved the day. Carriker and Moore get kudos for being exceptionally solid throughout the game.

All told, it’s great to see many of these players get a shot at a Big 12 championship. Should be intriguing to see who we play…and what shape they are in.

AGAINST COLORADO

The Colorado game is probably more of a mismatch on paper than it is in reality. Many of the games the Buffs have lost, they’ve lost close. Their QB has been playing better. He’s a pretty decent runner; the key will be if he has time to pass. The Buffs’ receivers aren’t that great, but our secondary is still the same shaky unit it has been all season. I hope the CU O-line has trouble with Carriker and Moore.

Last year, we destroyed Colorado with short passes to the RB. It will be interesting to see if we can run the ball on them this year. In any case, I expect a good game.

It’s worth noting that this is the last time a home crowd will be able to see guys like Carriker, Moore, Bradley, Taylor, Herian, Austin, and others line up and play at Memorial Stadium. A year ago, we needed to win the final home game just to be bowl-eligible. Those guys deserve credit and Husker love. Hopefully they take CU’s best shot and handle it like champions, because the team will need full momentum going into Arrowhead.

The voice of Scarlet Commentary is Jeffrey A. Leever, a Nebraska native also stuck behind enemy lines in Jefferson County, Colo. He is a 1994 graduate of the University of Nebraska (Kearney) and a freelance writer and author. Some of Jeff’s writings of the nonfootball kind can be found online at Barnes & Noble (1, 2), Amazon.com (1, 2), and MenofIntegrity.net (1, 3, 4, 5). Contact Jeff at this email.