Riley’s Winning Streak Brings Back Memories

Last season Nebraska went to West Lafayette, Indiana.  They left Lincoln without Tommy Armstrong and when they started playing they realized they left their desire to play defense in Lincoln as well.  What happened that day in October of 2015 was about as low as it could get for Huskers fans.  Purdue hadn’t beaten a conference opponent in a couple of seasons and now, Nebraska, a team in the top ten in all time wins in college football was the laughing stock of the Big Ten.

I shudder to remember the game.  Poor Ryker Fife looked as if he had never played football part of the time.  Defensive players gave about half effort and by times it wasn’t even that good.

Riley had a reputation for beating better teams, but he also had a reputation of laying some rotten potatoes on the table.  The Purdue loss smelled worse than any Husker loss since Bill Callahan roamed the sidelines.  Even our loss to Wisconsin when Melvin Gordon ran for over 400 yards seemed like just a bad day against a good team.  This was freakin’ Purdue!

My how things have changed.  The next week, Nebraska came back home to Lincoln, Tommy Armstrong started against Michigan State and the Huskers upset the Spartans.  At the time, it looked like one of Mike Riley’s signature wins.  That was great, but many felt and many still feel that Coach Riley wouldn’t be able to bring Nebraska back into National prominence.

Since that Purdue game, Nebraska has gone 9-1 with the lone loss being a Friday afternoon stinkfest to Iowa.  Even though Nebraska lost to Iowa, the game was close most of the way.  The other 9 games that Nebraska has won, one thing has been consistent, and that is great effort.  We have been in some close games and found ways to pull them out in the fourth quarter.  Riley has instilled a calmness in this team and it has shown especially when the tide has turned on Nebraska and they have rallied.

Now Purdue visits Nebraska.  They themselves, no strangers to turmoil, will be coming in with an interim head coach.  Purdue fired previous head coach Darrell Hazel last week.  While the Boilermakers have managed 3 wins on the season, their athletic director has seen enough half effort and half organization that he felt like a change was needed.  I don’t know if I would have done it prior to taking on the number eight ranked team in the country, but it’s done now.  

Nebraska is playing a game that they should win and win easily.  Purdue has multiple starters missing on a defense that can’t stop the run and they have had to throw the football often to keep up in most games.  It turns out, Nebraska’s strength on defense is their secondary and the Huskers plan on running the football a lot this weekend.

Nebraska isn’t without their own warts this season, especially when it comes to injuries.  On offense, big time players Cethan Carter and Jordan Westerkamp will sit out again this week and there are numerous injuries plaguing the offensive line.  It doesn’t matter though.  Nebraska is back to being Nebraska a little bit this season.  They simply have more talent than Purdue and should beat them on talent and coaching this weekend, even at less than full strength.

Against Indiana last week, Nebraska sprinted out to a 17-0 lead, but when more players went down with injuries on offense, the team started to sputter.  No worries though, Mike Riley continued to push the right buttons and when he needed to play a great hand, he pushed all the chips into the middle of the table in the fourth quarter and salted the game away.

Indiana is much improved from last season.  New defensive coordinator Tom Allen has Indiana playing the best defense they have played in recent history.  Head Coach Kevin Wilson has had the offense playing well since he got to Bloomington.  Credit the Nebraska Blackshirts for holding the fort down for a beat up offense.  The Huskers manage to hold the Hoosiers under 100 yards rushing and kept Nebraska in the lead the entire game.

I expect the Huskers defense to dominate Purdue this week.  I expect the offense to try and shorten the game and get out of this week without any major injuries if they can.  Nebraska is about to hit the most important stretch of games in this season, they can’t let Purdue hang around in this game.  Finally, it feels like Coach Riley has the ship headed in that direction.  All of that started last year against Purdue.  Go figure.

Carriker Chronicles

ON WITH THE REWIND…

Our previous score prediction for Indiana game was Nebraska 27 – Indiana 24.  The actual score wound up 27-22, which was pretty close to our prediction.  Nebraska got out to such a big lead early, it looked like they would blow them out.  Unfortunately, with the injuries Nebraska has on offense, they weren’t able to step on the Hoosier throats.  Hopefully we won’t see a repeat this week.  Either way, Nebraska is 6-0 and I don’t know any Husker fans complaining about “how” they got there.

Cornhusker Memes Tees

Quick Notes:

Bowl eligible!  Nebraska has won more games that it did all of last regular season.  The Huskers wouldn’t have even went to a bowl last year, had there been enough 6 win teams to fill all the slots.   Nebraska won’t have to worry about that this year, they are already qualified.  Now it’s time to start figuring out what warm destination they will play in.  Each win from now on puts Nebraska in a better matchup to end the season.

Terrell Newby continues to be the man at running back.  Newby ran for over 100 yards on Indiana.  What continues to stand out is Newby’s ability to get yards when Nebraska needs them the most.  Newby basically carried the Huskers on their final scoring drive to push the lead to over a field goal.  Despite his oh so close fumble on the drive, Newby has stepped up to be the second best offensive player on the team so far this season.  Thank goodness for his play, or Nebraska could easily be 4-2.

Secondary rebounds from previous week.  Against Illinois, it seemed like Nebraska’s secondary couldn’t get it going.  Against Indiana, they made plays when they had too.  Chris Jones pick six to start the game along with Aaron Williams interception to end it were perfect bookends for a defense that played really well after an off week against the Illini.  

Nathan Gerry is starting to play awesome.  Nathan Gerry had eight tackles against Indiana, but it felt like a lot more.  Gerry made stops that were huge in changing momentum around.  Gerry was flying around and the rest of the defense seemed to feed off from that.  All of that and he was under the weather last week.  If Nebraska is going to have a chance to beat Wisconsin, Ohio State or Iowa, Gerry is going to need to have the best games of his career to make that happen.  It was a great start against a good Indiana team.

Tommy Armstrong just isn’t healthy.  It doesn’t matter if he is running bootleg action, sprint roll outs or running for his life behind a depleted line, Tommy just isn’t quite as agile as he was at the beginning of the year.  Let’s all hope that he doesn’t take a lot of hits this weekend.  Tommy will need to be the MVP of the games after Purdue.  

Introducing Cole Conrad.  Who?  Poor Cole, up until about 3 weeks ago the only people that knew the sophomore from Fremont were his teammates and his parents.  Now the kid is playing major minutes at Nebraska at tackle.  Cole stepped in after David Knevel went down on the first series for Nebraska.  While he didn’t dominate, he made some good solid plays.  He needs to cut down on missed assignments, but it’s nice that he has some experience now as Nebraska gets into the meat of their schedule.

Injuries.  We are all loving this season so far.  Nebraska has beaten all comers this year.  The thing that could derail that is injuries.  Before Nebraska goes into Madison, Wisconsin next week, the Huskers really need some luck with players coming back from injury or healing up of nagging injuries that have made a difference in play.  This Nebraska team may not blow anyone out yet, but when healthy, they are probably a top 8 team in the country.  I doubt any team outside of Alabama could continue with the amount of players missing time that Nebraska has had, and expect to come out undefeated.  The Huskers need a week of sound football for the stretch run but they need to stay healthy.

Score Prediction: Nebraska 31 – Purdue 13

This game would have been 50-14 if it was played four weeks ago, I have no doubt.  Now Nebraska just needs to play hard, smart football and get out of this game with few to no injuries.  I expect Nebraska to try and shorten the game as much as possible.  I don’t expect a lot of passing this week.  I think we will also see backup running backs get some time, so Newby can stay fresh for the upcoming schedule.  This week is about survive and advance.  Hopefully Nebraska can rest their starters in the fourth quarter.  GBR!!