A Little More Than Luck

The 2007 football season kicked off on Saturday for the Nebraska Cornhuskers against Western Athletic Conference foe the Nevada Wolf Pack.

The much anticipated debut of one Samuel Michael Keller had to take a back seat to the outstanding rushing performance. Yes, you read this correctly, the rushing performance. In case you missed it the Huskers racked up 413 yards on the ground, 233 of which junior running back Marlon Lucky was responsible for. Lucky made it look like 1997 rather than 2007 on a career-high day in rushing, and I don’t think anyone in or around Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska complained. Lucky also rushed for three touchdowns and caught another out of the backfield for Keller’s one and only touchdown pass of the day. Lucky also won the Walter Camp Foundation's National Offensive Player of the Week award. He also picked up Big 12 honors for his performance as well.

Keller looked sharp most of the day with the exception of looking at some receivers for a few too many seconds before unloading. Watching Keller on Saturday shows that he has tools that no other quarterback in Nebraska history has possessed. At the end of the first half while at their own 40-yard line with less than a minute to go, Callahan decided to show Husker Nation exactly what they had in the senior transfer. On the last play Keller uncorked a pass for nearly 65 yards to senior Wide Receiver Dan Erickson with ease. Erickson dropped the pass but the “oooos” and “aaahhhs” were apparent as he launched that attempt. Keller connected on 14 of 25 passes for 193 yards, the aforementioned TD and the interception that was returned by Wolf Pack safety Jonathan Amaya for a touchdown.

When you look at the box score you can clearly see that Nebraska handed out a good old fashion, run it down your throat Tom Osborne era-type butt whoopin’ performance. That much is obvious. What may not be obvious were the struggles the Husker offense had out of the gate in the first quarter. The offense was unimpressive and mostly frustrating to watch while the coaching staff tried to give Keller scripted plays from the sidelines and Keller regurgitating them in the huddle only to get to the line, move through motions and the call only to have a five-yard penalty for delay of game. The coaching staff and Keller need to work on this during the week leading up to playing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina against the ACC Champion Wake Forrest Demon Deacons. One of the strongest assets the Huskers possessed on offense last year was their ability to be efficient on their first drive of the game. In their 14 games last year Nebraska scored on eight of their first possessions.

That being said, the one thing I was impressed with was something last year’s team did not attain, and no other Husker team has really had since the 90's. That would be a killer instinct. Last season with Zac Taylor at the helm it was all about sizing up the defense and taking what they would give you and being extremely efficient. This year it almost seems (based on one game, mind you) that the idea is to find a defense’s weakness and not only exploit it, but to take advantage of and step on the throat of said defense. It shows something else that has been lacking since the "glory days" and that is confidence. The ability to have confidence and call plays that are built to win could be (once again, it's only been one game) the deciding factor in separating the Taylor years from the Keller era of one season. For example, once the jig was up and the Wolf Pack defensive line was exposed by a 40-pound differential when stacked in favor of Nebraska’s front five, it was game over. Not only did they take what the defense gave them on the ground, they wound up racking up the most yards a Nebraska team has since the Eric Crouch era.

They amassed 625 yards. 625! That was nearly tops in the nation, and only second behind their Big 12 rival Oklahoma Sooners. Let’s also get this out of the way, the Nevada team that came in was missing their quarterback from last year, their star linebacker and a standout offensive lineman. Despite all of that this team is not chicken feed. They will compete in the WAC this year and will probably make their third straight bowl game. This is also the same team that took the Miami Hurricane’s to the wire in postseason play 10 months ago. Not that it’s saying much, but it’s still Miami. This wasn’t a team like Central Michigan that the Kansas Jayhawks played this weekend either. This team is better.

I’m not saying Nevada was a great measuring stick, because they aren't. The Huskers will get plenty of that the next two weekends playing an ACC team and conference champion this weekend and the much anticipated rematch against National Champion pick and number on overall USC. I’m just saying that it’s not a I-AA (or FCS, which stands for Football Championship Subdivision, now the proper nomenclature) team or one of the worst teams in I-A ball (now known as FBS which stands for Football Bowl Subdivision, get it?).

The Huskers also unveiled some incoming players in Quintin Castille, who rushed for almost 100 yards and two scores, and true freshman receiver Niles Paul.

Time for a prediction. Nebraska has a solid team that will compete for the Big 12 North and at the most make it to the conference championship and compete with Oklahoma or Texas in December in San Antonio, Texas. I think that the team’s speed has dramatically increased in comparison to the past, well, six or seven years. You can't teach or coach speed, and that natural talent is what you need to be a successful program in college football. Coach Bill Callahan and staff are bringing in the right kids for their system and it’s starting to become visible and will ultimately pay off. So much so, that the school’s chancellor and Athletic Director Steve Pederson decided to extend Callahan’s contract through 2011. So, I hope you like Bill.

I’ll close on this. The mark of a good team is the ability to be multi-dimensional. The Nebraska of a few years ago would have had to have stayed with the pass first plan because they didn’t have the personnel to shove the opponent’s defense around. On Saturday the passing game wasn’t working out so great out of the gate, so they switched to running the ball straight down Nevada’s throats. They seem to have enough talent to be even more versatile than they have been in the past. Having a solid passing and running game will pay dividends as the season wears on. Also, having an offensive line that averages 320 pounds a player isn't going to hurt either.