BIG RED HEAD ZONE

MIchigan Game: December 28, 2005

By Jim Meier

THE CRUX:

Toughness+ resiliency, really, really, really wanting it, believing in self and doing the work. These ingredients, mixed in the right doses at the right time in the right way produced this significant victory for Big Red.

And underlying this crux is another crux. One of the finest team players to ever wear a Nebraska uniform, Cory Ross…
CRUX=Cornhusker Runner of Unbroken Xcellence
CRUX=Cory Ross Ultra-Xemplary
Throughout his career Cory demonstrated commitment: to the program through all its continued changes, to his team and most surely to himself as a team player, individual performer and a captain worthy of his leadership role.

Cory certainly is physically tough but if I was to meet him and have time to really talk turkey I’m sure I’d understand his ever greater mental toughness.

You know, there is nothing like a truly fine pork chop. Although Iowa produces the most pork, Nebraska’s 5”7’’ “little” Ross chop is absolutely Grade A!

Note:
I watched the game, in addition to Cory Ross, I saw toughness all over the field on both teams, with both offenses and both defenses. Hats off to them all including Zach Taylor and all those injured Huskers generating energy from the sidelines, Octavien, Bradley, Rudd, etc. etc. I mean not to downplay their efforts and executions. It just seems appropriate to celebrate Cory today because he was the glue that kept binding when the stress points were threatening to separate the team.

THE QUOTE:

“Zach Taylor has never taken such a pounding”

Mitch Sherman, Omaha World-Herald Sports Section, page 5C, December 29, 2005

Mental Muscle:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. True? Not absolutely! Not even 50/50 odds. Sometimes through adversity individual athletes and teams crumble, collapse and sadly are never to return to their former levels of performance. Ever! This can also be shorter lived as in a single game ( e.g. last year’s Texas Tech game…we collapsed in that game) or a season (last year had some of this).
This is why so many fans, especially those who only like 72 degree-sunny-day games and seasons, heralded the Kansas game as the launching point for the endless downward spiral and true demise of NU football)
YOU WERE WRONG FAIR WEATHER FANS! WRONG!
And this is why:
Consider the critical, razors edge, timely bounce back. The ultimate moment of resiliency!
a) Callahan’s willingness to make a tough call, take the heat, burn a season and use Harrison Beck Vs. K-State
b) Beck’s sole completion of the year looms so big today
c) Congdon’s not-a-chip-shot-under-great-pressure-field-goal in mid-November meant so much then and even more today
…a truth that this new Cornhusker era is getting stronger.

And they did it themselves! Good for them!

P.S. The margins are vapor-thin…
AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHY THE MENTALLY STRONG WIN WHILE
THE MENTALY WEAK OR EVEN LESS STRONG DO NOT
AND THAT IS WHY I TRY TO DO MY LITTLE PART TO ADD MENTAL
STRENGTH FOR THE BIG RED PROGRAM