Reading Between the Lines

As overkill coverage of Nebraska football begins, PYB is here to translate OWH's first story and the coaches' cliches contained in those paragraphs.

Tim Beck
1. Taylor Martinez has taken over = The team desperately needs him to be a leader so we are telling everyone he's grown up and jumped out of daddy's pocket, even though it's doubtful to happen.

2. Martinez was in a baseball-like slump but is now 100 percent = Martinez can beat up on weak competition early in the season when he has HUGE holes on the zone read and can run straight ahead for easy touchdowns. When required to elude a defender, slip a pass rush, or show an ounce of toughness against bigger, faster and stronger competition, he'll be batting under .200 once again.

3. If we are getting 5 yards a crack, I don't see why we need to go on to the next play = Shawn Watson is a fucking idiot, and I am also telling you this because it's what you want to hear.

4. I have a lot of toys to play with (on offense) = I pray to God that either Kenny Bell or Jamal Turner pans out, or this offense is FUCKED since it only has one proven RB and one WR with decent hands but no speed to stretch the field.

5. Taking a specific opportunity to laud Jake Cotton = The NU marketing machine told me to say this so Nebraskans across the state will forget for a few seconds that the school has blown about $180,000 on scholarships to Barney Cotton's kids and just as much each year on the buffoon's salary.

John Papuchis
1. NU is spoiled with lineman depth = We are going to try to sell you all this line for the fifth straight season, because we don't have any true standouts who can move the line of scrimmage when matters--just like the last five seasons. Instead, we have 10, 11, 12 mediocre turds on the front five. We hope you forget that we couldn't run the ball on the shittiest teams on our 2010 schedule including Kansas, South Dakota State and Texas.

2. We have All-American caliber players at each level of the defense = Outside of Jared Crick, our D-Line is completely unproven and got pushed around pretty badly at times last year. Outside of LaVonte David, our linebackers are absolutely awful and we don't have anyone to put on either side of him that can run under a 4.9 40-yard-dash or fill a hole on a 220-pound running back. And outside of Alfonzo Dennard, we are extremely young at CB and we are not sure who the hell is going to play the other side because we have a few talented candidates who blow enough assignments to keep us worried day after day.

3. Four or five players will compete for one defensive end spot with Cameron Meredith at the other = We know we haven't had an above-average defensive end since, well....who knows...but we hope you forget that because Meredith is kind of a zany guy and has a mustache and is from California and hopefully that makes you miss the fact that he sucks when you watch him play.

And on the other end, we have thrown a bunch of disappointments and retreads into the competition in hopes that something resembling a Division II defensive end starter will pan out.

4. Eric Martin will create a wrinkle off the edge = The guy is so stupid he could not learn the linebacker position, so we'll put him at speed rusher where he has one responsibility--chasing the QB. Considering the fact that we've had a hole at our DE spot for years, what can it hurt?

5. NU's team GPA is the highest since the team started tracking it = We have to track this shit because we don't win conference or national titles anymore.

All for now & Happy Friday....PYB