Way To Go, Maury

I’m sad to say that one of my first posts will be a negative one concerning a player who should have had a stellar senior season, despite being about as sharp as a dull marble. Senior wide receiver Maurice Purify was suspended from the team indefinitely by Coach Bill Callahan for his second run in with the law in five weeks. This time it was for driving about 55mph in a 40mph zone and on suspicion of DUI. Great job Maury.

Last month he was charged by the Lincoln City Prosecutor’s office with two counts of assault, resisting arrest, trespassing, and failure to comply with officers. What is that in English? Basically he was caught throwing a dude over a table, hitting him repeatedly and then hitting that guy’s girlfriend. I know it’s been over 10 years since the Lawrence Phillips debacle, but I don’t think anyone has forgotten about it.

This makes a huge dent in the teams plans for competing for another Big XII title, let alone a national one, missing their tall receiving threat with experience. He would have come in handy, especially against the USC Trojans that will be coming in the third weekend in September. Last year Purify caught 34 passes for 630 yards and seven touchdowns. He was second on the team in receiving. He also caught a memorable pass late in the fourth quarter against Texas A&M (above) to win 28-27 and basically seal the deal for the Huskers in the Big XII North division. The other drawback (besides the rampant law breaking) about Purify is that he sat out half the plays in 2006 because he’s too dense to understand Callahan’s complicated spin on the West Coast Offense, which is extremely frustrating to have that much talent on the sidelines because he’s got walnuts for brains. It’s a shame, but shouldn’t be a real big surprise given his troubled past on the JUCO circuit.

This is what pisses me off about players like this. In the Midwest it's a lot of kids' dream to play for the Huskers, and on a national level a team with the same national recognition. Rather than keep that in mind, he goes out and does crap like this. We see it all the time with players with all sorts of promise and it's a shame.