Oct. 12, 1998
Again I was amazed that the sun did come up on Sunday. We came of age in that fourth quarter and won't lose another game this year. The ugency we showed in the fourth quarter has been missing all year. We just ran out of time. The holding penalty after we reached the 50 was a killer on the last drive. Haafke did make a mistake on the last interception, but he was only in the game because of injuries. Bobby's fumble for the TD was a bad mistake on his part, and in the paper there is a picture of him yelling at Haafke. I found that to be very disappointing.
If Bobby is going to play QB on one leg we have to throw the ball on first down. He can't run the option, because he can't run. Also we don't have the line to run over people this year. We have to mix it up, especially on first down. Both DeAngelo and Bobby are running with no authority. With them hurt we probably would be better off with Crouch and Buckhalter. At least Buckhalter runs hard. In any case, why not give Crouch and Buckhalter more snaps to let Bobby and DeAngelo get healthy? Cousin Matt had the game of his life, but where was Jackson?
I've heard people ripping Solich for not going for field goals when we had the chance. The defense's inability to stop them is the reason we didn't kick FG's in the fourth quarter. We didn't know how many times we would get the ball back. And in the first quarter we will always go for fourth and 1 at their 30. Besides, we don't kick FG's -- we're Nebraska.
This season is not lost. We must beat
KSU, and everything will set up off of that. We can beat A&M in a rematch, then
either go to the Fiesta Bowl or the
Rose Bowl.
But to reach those goals we need an
offensive approach that is balanced
between the run and the pass, and on defense, attack the line and start playing
aggressively again. Let's pass to set up the
run and mix up the calls on first down
and get Bobby in the shotgun a lot more
and play with the same urgency that we
did in the fourth quarter -- then we will be back
in business.
-- The Colonel