Huskers suffer third straight defeat to Texas Tech in overtime 37-31

No matter what anyone says, there is no such thing as a "moral victory". The scoreboard does not lie, you either win the game or you lose it. Saturday's loss to Texas Tech was a prime example of this. For the first time in more than a month the Husker offense played up to the expectations, they moved the ball on the ground, the moved it through the air, they played a balanced well planned game, almost to perfection; but then the wheels fell off once again and the Big Red lost in overtime to a very good Texas Tech squad 37-31. Yea we can all blame this on Joe Ganz, who was a magnificent 36-44 for 349 yard and 2 touchdowns in regulation, but Joe tried to do too much on one play in overtime, threw the interception and the result was "ball game". But there is plenty of blame to go around on this one, even though Pelini and his staff had the perfect game plan and for the most part the players executed it. Tech came into their homecoming game as a 20 point favorites and ranked 7th in the county. Everyone in the county is aware of Tech's offensive explosiveness, so naturally the game plan was to control the ball and the clock and make Tech go 60-70 yards on every possession. The Huskers did this as they held the ball for 40 minutes in this game and pretty much finished off each drive with a score. However penalties once again (8 for 55 yard) killed the Huskers. Back to back holding calls again tackle Mike Smith pushed the Huskers 30 yards back after a nice 69 yard kickoff return by Niles Paul forcing a 53 yard field goal attempt at the end of the first half. Pelini and Watson scaled down the offense even more this week and it appeared to be very effective as they ran the ball effectively (4.1 yards per attempt) and finished off drives with touchdowns instead of field goals. The team is rebuilding and they definitely need more playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. For the third straight game the defense did not force any turnovers and did not record a sack. Cody Glenn was out and his absence was very noticeable as he would have made the tackle on that 24 yard screen pass in overtime and would have made several other plays during the game had he been able to play. One thing is very evident at this point of the season, that is that Bill Callahan did not recruit superior talent to Lincoln as has been previously been reported. Part of the blame for this needs to go to Rivals and Scout, as they appear to be very generous when it comes to giving out "stars" to high school players, as this bunch that Pelini inherited is not that talented, nor are they very smart when it comes to making decisions. Anthony West was burned more than a hot dog that falls down on the charcoal when you are tailgating. There were several plays that I saw West back there without a clue as to what he was suppose to be doing. Even on offense Quentin Castille may have just played himself out of the rotation with his lack of effort as he was stone-walled on that 4th down carry and got his ASS chewed out by Pelini for his lack of effort. The same thing can be said for Ndamukong Suh, who was flagged for a late hit on Harrell in the 4th quarter that kept a Tech drive alive. We are now 3-3 and face the two most important games of the season in the next two weeks to finish up October. First up this coming Saturday is Iowa State in Ames followed by a home game against Baylor the following week. Baylor is much improved this season as they just took the Cyclones to the woodshed Saturday by the tune of 38-10 in Waco Texas. Win in both of these games and you are at 5-3 going to Oklahoma followed by a home game Kansas to start the month of November off. This team appears to be mentally tougher, if not physically talented to compete with the best of the Big 12 at this point. Pelini has the right approach and method for us to succeed. This was evident with the change of strategy on both sides of the ball by scaling back the schemes to better fit the personal available to play. No way does last year's dope even consider that option. I look for a big time win on Saturday against Iowa State in Ames, GBR!