Black Saturday

PYB checks in at T-Minus five hours until Nebraska kickoff, as we wonder which Taylorina we'll get today against those nasty Spartans: the shaky little girl or the overconfident teenage boy who tries to do it all and blows the game in the process.....anyway....we thought we'd offer some CFB wagering advice.

Several games look good, and that can mean just one thing: it's Black Saturday 2011. That Saturday where all the games look good, you're sure to win money and by the time 7pm rolls around you've gone 1-8 (with the only winner being the Clemson 2H overs) and you're down $800 and debating going big on Washington over Arizona....enjoy:

Michigan State at Nebraska: Really no clue what will happen here. Take MSU's money line in a couple parlays, though, as it may ease the pain if NU follows course against another Top 15 team. Since 2001 in those games, Nebraska is 1-20. The number we like most is the over at 49.5. MSU throws well, NU doesn't cover anybody. Cha-ching. It will be best to win some money on this 11am kickoff, so when NU loses, you can withstand the pain of eight more hours of action thinking about another lost shot at Cornhusker respectability.

Missouri +10 at Texas aTm: Just a hunch. The Aggies are still overrated by everyone across the country, but have rebounded a bit after back-to-back 2H meltdowns against Okie State and Arkansas. Mizzou has hung tough with everyone except OSU last week. Just decide if you really want your money on Gary Pinkel.

Oklahoma -13.5 at Kansas State: The Sooners blew their chance at the NC last week with an awful home loss. So, since this week's game doesn't really matter, they'll play well. KSU has had some nice wins, for a team of its mediocre stature, but the winning streak is over. To steal a line from a PYB confidante: this is the week that somebody finally figures out how to stop a slow, white guy running the option. Call it 63-20. Side note: A PYB relative, who could be likened to Mush from A Bronx Tale, loves the Sooners in this one.

Oklahoma State -14 vs. Baylor: The country has already forgotten RG III. Well, ESPN has quit talking about him. Anyway, Baylor is going back to being Baylor. And the over/under....it's set at a mere 81 points.

Penn State -5 vs. Illinois: The Zooker cashed in yet another season. Penn State is terrible. Somehow they Jedi Mind trick Illinois into thinking it's 1986 again.

Texas Tech -14.5 vs. Iowa State: Letdown game alert. However, ISU has crawled under the rock where it belongs, and dropped four straight B12 games. The last two on the road were by 23 and 35 points. TT will run up the score to prove last week wasn't a fluke and to move up the rankings until they play another good team and lose.

Wisconsin -7.5 at Ohio State: As long as the Badgers don't fold after last week's tank job, this should be easy. They're better than the MSU team that beat them and OSU isn't very good. Load up.

Stanford -7.5 at USC: Andrew Luck is unreal, despite what this fatass says. USC is OK, not great, and hasn't seen an offense like this.

Washington -4 vs. Arizona: Neither team can play any defense. 'Zona rode the emotions of their new, interim coach last game against UCLA for a blowout win. This line screams "Vegas setup." We've picked a lot of favorites thus far and this seems like an easy one. We'll have to gauge the success of the aforementioned picks before deciding on this game. Should it be Black Saturday, we'll go with the underdog Mildcats and watch Huskys roll, 55-7.


There you have it. Enjoy the action. Win some money.

Beating a Dead Horse

Anyone who didn't think Taylor Martinez was a loser before shouldn't have any doubt now. This quote says it all. It doesn't matter if we lose to Michigan State? Even if NU was 0-7, it would matter. It's a matter of pride, wanting to win and not play bitch to a second-fiddle program from East Lansing that has never won shit. Never got it, never will. Only ~30 more starts with this pussy at the helm....enjoy.

Anyway, little T-Vagic has a chance to prove us wrong with a good performance, but he'll have to do it more than once to make us believe. And that, we all know, is very unlikely.

The most annoying part of this week's pre-game hype is writers who are predicting NU's bowl slots should it lose and saying the Capital One Bowl is a 'nice' option. No, it's a terrible option somehow made OK by subpar Cornhusker performances. A 7 a.m. kickoff on New Year's Day from boring Orlando. We'll pass. That, and a brutal Cotton Bowl game played on dead grass are all you generally need to remind you how hungover you are. But hey, at least they took time to design a cutting-edge logo for the game.

OK, Theo. Now win.

All for now..PYB apologizes for the spotty entries lately. The Minnesota win didn't deserve analysis--except for the fact that the Pinelli Crew butchered a rare and the last chance to get Brion Carnes some work. Duh. We'll be back later this week.

Looking Back

A top five quote from NU football history, courtesy of Mike Rozier. "They kept talkin' shit, and we kept scorin'". Thanks to the Omaha World-Herald's Jon Nyatawa for some rare footage we'd never seen.

Not sure what the dirtiest part of the Metrodome is: The horrible turf? The filthy numbers on the outfield wall in the endzone? Or the fact that the grounds crew put the yard numbers on the brown turf in chalk?

While we were at it, found more awesome highlights from the 1994 Nebraska-Colorado game--hands down the loudest game we witnessed at Memorial Stadium. So many awesome things in just a few minutes of this clip: the fact that the rankings were called "The Bowl Coalition", Kordell Stewart choking from his first play forward, Darin Erstad as a sophomore punter, Barron Miles--likely in the Top Five of all-time underrated Huskers--almost blocking a punt, Tommie Frazier weighing about 85 pounds less than he does today, Lawrence Phillips soon-to-be-wasted combination of power, speed and jukes, Tom Osborne dissecting the CU defense by using (GASP!) the tight end over and over and over, the fact the Brook Berringer was a better option runner than T-Vagic, a cameo by Rashan Salaam...Heisman winner turned NFL washout and prodigious pothead, Eric Alford starring in the game and then being outed years later as a child molester (as an aside, we remember him as the stoned guy at the corner of the bar from the mid-90s), the shovel pass to another top five underrated Husker, Abdul Muhammad, Michael Westbrook (before he beat down Washington Redskin teammate Stephen Davis), Tyrone Williams (before or after he shot at a moving car in Lincoln's rough streets), Rae Carruth! (before he murdered his pregnant baby momma!) and--AGAIN--the crowd being loud as hell for one fleeting week.

Also of note is the number of home-grown role players that NU had from Omaha that actually had talent and were glad to contribute in any way possible: Clester Johnson, Reggie Baul, Tony Veland, Damon Benning, Clinton Childs etc. What the hell happened to Omaha high school football?

--PYB wonders what the effort at Minnesota will be like today? A good effort that builds on the overhyped comeback against a bad Buckeye team? Or a turd that has become a trademark of Pinelli against bad teams: Kansas, South Dakota State or whichever school it was, Texas, Iowa State, et. al.

--Is it official that college football is more watered down than a strip club cocktail when Oklahoma State is ranked in the top five?

All we have for now. The highlights above will likely be better than anything you see in today's NU-Gopher game. Enjoy.

PYB

Violence in Lebanon

This is awesome. And then the players take a cue from the crowd of 12,000 degenerates in Tucson and start fighting because neither team can play football worth a shit. Then the smallest player on UCLA has to be restrained from beating the shit out of all the 325-pound Mildcats donned in pads and helmets. It would be different if he was In Da Club, we surmise....

The game left us with only one question: Why didn't we bet big on 'Zona?

Delusions of Mediocrity

PYB was going to take the day off. That was until we woke up at 350 am and then read the Omaha World Herald's overblown and overdone mid-season report card of the Nebraska football season. It lists Austin Cassidy as the "Standout" of the secondary. No wonder nobody signed this article as its author? Cassidy? Who blew the OU game last year. Cassidy? Who stands in cement every game while receivers run past and around him for TDs before he even moves. Nice cop out with the "coach on the field" line. Seems we hear that about every shitty QB at Alabama and Ohio State who can't throw for more than 140 yards a game despite being surrounded by talent and speed. Wonders never cease.

How about Alfonzo Dennard, now finally healthy, who locked down his side of the field all game against Ohio State and provided the secondary's ONLY good moment of the season thus far? Oh yeah, and he's All-America caliber while Cassidy shouldn't be on the field in Lincoln.

--Sorry Scum Devils, still not ready for prime time. Never will be. The Quacks, pretenders in their own right, used a second half roll to stymie Arizona State and set up a match with Stanford for the Pac-12's top dog status. Our teaser with ASU at +20.5 was still good, though.

--Look at this nerd. Came to Lincoln and tried the ice cream. Awesome. Wonder if he experienced Lincoln's divine Italian food at the Olive Garden? Or the coldest beer in town at Barry's? Or the authentic Mexican food at Carlos O'Kelly's? Jeezus....

--This is going to be trouble for NU and its Poor Man's Denard Robinson.

American Idle

PYB hates Saturdays when Nebraska is IDLE, or what is now referred to as a bye week. A bye week, even though there is no tournament taking place. Technically, it's idle, if you ever watched Jim Lampley read down the scores on Saturday afternoons before tickers existed and the only way a person got the finals on the day's upsets was watching ABC or listening to a shitty radio with bad reception.

Sure, there are a ton of other college games. But without a stake in the game for your team, there's no fire or anticipation to the day. Time to golf and gamble, and sure that's great...it's just not the same. Anyway, we hate it. So on that end, here some more things we hate from our "Shit We Hate" department.

--People who call us guy or pal.....as in "Hey, guy..." F- you, douche.

--People who bring their own pillows on airplanes

--People who close the window shade on airplanes so we can't see out

--Fuckers that lean their seats back on airplanes

--Realtors (Average IQ of 50, but are still cocky)

--Mortgage brokers

--The drooling idiots who sit in model homes and call themselves 'sales people'

--People who spray shit all over public toilets and leave it

--Dirtbags who walk around locker room toilets and urinals in bare feet

--People who drop three-inch-long pubes all over public bathrooms/showers

--Those who sit naked on locker room benches, with their nuts rubbing all over

--Those who shave naked at gyms and flop their crank all over the sink area

--Iceberg lettuce

--Cocky high school graduates. The ones who could never get into college and act like it doesn't faze them because they make $85,000 a year and have 2 Wave Runners

--Baseball fans that boo intentional walks

--People who bring outside food onto airplanes that smell up the entire cabin

--People who don't say anything when wanting to get to the seat on the other side of you on a Southwest flight. This is general admission, motherfucker, and I don't read minds.

--Free airport WiFi that NEVER works

--Cheap dress shoes

--Cheap dress pants

--Cheap dress belts

--Reversible belts

--Belt buckles that are so heavy when you undo them to take a piss the whole belt comes out of the loops and nearly plunges into the urinal

--Stoners that act like they're cooler than you because they know more about drugs than you do

--People who are so stupid they use apostrophe s when trying to denote something plural (apparently, this covers 95% of the U.S. population) Example: Taylor Martinez blew the game with three interception's

--Top 40 music

--R&B music

--DJs (any of the pricks that ruin weddings or radio stations. It's really not that great that it's Friday, or that you made it past Humpday and it's not that fucking bad that it's Monday morning either.

--People who stroke In & Out Burger like it's the greatest thing ever. It's OK. It's fine. It's not great.

--Slide shows on web pages with links that move up or down with each click so that you have to search for it with your mouse on every picture rather than just enjoying the god damn slide show.

--The scumbag live version of Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" with all the white trash clapping in the background and going apesh1t every time he says the word cocaine like they're being rebellious for listening to the song and knowing what cocaine is.

--Bands that you love ruining every song at their live shows by extending them from a kickass 2:30 to a nine-minute, overdone, watered-down travesty.

--When referring to somebody being a good person, saying "He's good people." Awful

--Public restrooms that don't give the paper towel option. Just the blow dryer that doesn't work.

--LOL, SMH, FML, LMFAO.....F U

--FM radio morning shows.

--Politics

--Andy Dick

--People who wish every one of their 555 Facebook friends a happy birthday on their wall. If you really liked them and weren't just trying to show everyone else what a great person you are, you would send them a private message, e-mail, birthday card or would have picked up the fucking phone and called them.

--David Spade

--Bermuda grass

--Crab grass

--Fans in bathrooms. They are loud and don't work. The fan's main purpose is to cover up the sounds of someone taking a dump and not exhausting the noxioius fumes.

--Chris Berman announcing the Masters and U.S. Open golf tournaments

--Tim McCarver

--Johnny Miller. Well, sometimes. Now he's so old and delusional that the self-proclaimed "Greatest Iron Player Ever" (with one major title) is good for some laughs.

--The fact that Monday Night Football sucks these days.

--Mesa, AZ

--Tucson, AZ

--Plano, TX

--Omaha (no offense, of course, to all our great friends that grew up and live there. It's not you, it's us. We promise)

--Dirty cities (Not to be confused with being old & having character. see above)

--Werner Enterprises (Ditto on the no offense thing)

--Playing golf when the course is not green

--Playing golf when trees are leafless

--Slow golfers

--Reality-show sluts confusing themselves with actresses

--Tiger Woods (as a person. complete fake)

--Lebron James (not as a person, just as a self-proclaimed "Icon")

--Karl Malone

--Kobe Bryant

--Eric Crouch

--Blaine Gabbert

--Tyler Gabbert

--The BCS (and the fact it fucking ruined New Year's Day)

--Ben Rapelisberger

--Any golf cart that is not Club Car (ie, Yamaha and EZ-Go)

--Gas golf carts

--PF Chang's (and the fact everyone creams over it)

--Chinese food

--Lettuce wraps

--Dark meat chicken

--The way food looks in advertisements with non-professional photography

--MSG (not the Garden, the shitty preservative in Asian food)

--ESPN

--Conference realignment

--Mark May

--Tony Barnhart

--Colin Montgomerie (In the 1990s, now he's just a has-been joke)

--Municipal golf courses

--The Lincoln Journal Star

--The fact that Nebraska never has cool gear for fans to wear to represent the team.

--The stupid, fat "Iron N" logo that the University of Nebraska insists on using over the classic, helmet N. Embrace tradition and realize the 1980s ended 22 years ago.

--The fact that Bill Byrne dropped the name Cornhuskers for 'Huskers. Hello, it's Nebraska, it's an agricultural state. That's your identity. Embrace it. You can't change it.

--The N/Huskers logo

--The fact that Nebraska football hasn't been nationally relevant since 2001 and may never be again.

--UNO

--Creighton

--People who try to equate the amount they spent on their education with getting a quality education and being intelligent. "You wasted $150k on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late charges from the public library."

--People who say we're too negative.

All for now....feel free to send us the Shit You Hate....enjoy your BYE week.

SAS vs. LeQueen

Thanks to Stephen A. Smith for giving us the fall off from ripping The Queen. All true.



And some words to live by for all you fatasses, courtesy of Bernard Hopkins.

Pic of the Day -- Scorpion Edition

So Sorry, It's Over

Wow. So now Bully Bo Pinelli has reporters running apologies where none is necessary. This is sad. This is not good. We cannot believe the Omaha World Herald's Dirk Chatelain caved.

Now, Taylorina has full immunity from his coach AND Nebraska media outlets. It's going to be a bumpy ride the next 2.5 seasons...or 30+ starts...however you want to look at it. Sickening. PYB can't imagine the Washington Post, New York Times or even the York News-Times kowtowing like this.

Go Cubs Go. New GM. Thank God the regime of the Creighton castoff is over. PYB watched "Catching Hell" last nite on DVR. Some interesting parts, but talk about overkill and excess drama. Two full hours on Steve Bartman, heaven & hell, Leviticus, Goats, etc. Glad we had FFWD level three on the remote.

So Nebraska loses Jared Crick for the season. Can't help the defense. But in all seriousness: Could the defensive line be any worse than it has been thus far? AND, could Crick have been playing at anything more than 60% if he had a torn pectoral all along? The best part is that now the popular theory is that Chase Rome is a star in waiting. Why? Because he has a unique name? Because he hasn't done shit on the field?

PYB remembers Baker Steinkuhler being anointed the next Blackshirt Badass on the D-Line and the guy is flat-out awful. The way he lumbers around the field gives Cornhusker fans visions (bad ones) of Mike Petko trailing plays by 15 yards. And please, on another note, can someone tell us when the last time was that NU had an impact player at defensive end? A once-proud pipeline of talent now forgotten in Lincoln.

Tiger Woods hot dog video, from his latest failure at a minor PGA Tour event.

Standing Tall and Stupid

Delusional, as always. Amare Stoudemire never has and never will get it.

Speaking of things that ruin sports, an unsurprising accusation about The Devil itself, ESPN.

Fool's Gold

Nebraska's football season is in no better place than it was before Saturday night's game against Ohio State. But it could easily be in a lot worse.

Players and fans both rejoiced from the school's largest come-from-behind win, celebrating a 34-27 victory that was expected before the game and saved the season for at least another three weeks when Michigan State visits Lincoln.

Still, we know no more about the 2011 Cornhuskers than we did prior to the contest, other than that they are a complete enigma that can play well one moment and horribly the next. They are, in short, a personification of their flake of a quarterback.

PYB let the win sink in for a couple days before offering its analysis, so let's bullet-point this thing in the interest of time....and because you've read half this shit 10 times by now...albeit from lesser football minds and the high-school-level reporters at the Lincoln Journal Star.

--Bo Pinelli filled his evening with his usual number of game-management blunders, the first being his decision to go for it on 4th and 1 from the Suckeyes' 41-yard line trailing 10-3 early in the second quarter. It was a panicked, ill-advised move that put more unnecessary pressure on a crumbling Blackskirt squad. One play, one missed assignment and four missed tackles later, it was 17-3 Ohio State as Carlos Hyde sprinted 63-yards to the end zone and showed the national primetime audience just how slow Austin Cassidy is.

Worse yet, after hitching his entire season to Taylor Martinez for the second straight season, he took the sophomore QB out on this play. He instead opted for the formerly effective, but now-little-used Wildcat formation and ran the play to Kyler Reed's side. Reed, a great receiver, is seldom (never) mentioned as a great blocker and whiffed on his attempt to kick out the defensive end. Blocking TE honors go to Ben Cotton, as coaches try their best to justify at least one of the three Cotton full ride scholarships.

Pinelli didn't wait long for an encore. With NU trailing 17-6 and 52 seconds left in the first half, the head coach decided to dust off the offense's vaunted two-minute drill. On the second play of the ill-advised drive, Taylor Martinez forced a pass into coverage and into the arms of an OSU defender for another crushing interception. Apparently, Pelini forgot that Martinez is no Harrison Beck and the meltdown in Madison didn't reinforce the lesson on when to roll the dice and when to swallow one's pride and head to the locker room with minimized damage.

Bo continued his latest amateur hour by dismissing boos with a wild wave of his play sheet....boos he apparently thought were intended for young Taylorina. This time, however, they were directed at Pinelli's lethal combination of arrogance, boneheadedness, hardheadedness and stupidity and not the quarterback. What the hell was he doing passing? Not even Frank Solich thought this was a good idea, and Pelini thankfully copped to the idiocy during the watered-down, unwatchable Bo Pelini show (another PYB rant entirely) after the game.

Apology or not, this could have been a game loser had the Buckeyes had a real offense. Maybe PYB is being shortsighted here and missing the bigger picture. The Cornhusker coaching staff did show improvement from the week before at Wisconsin: they handed the opponent 14 free points and the game while only relinquishing three points and their self-respect against Ohio State.

The second half started as badly as the first ended, as OSU took a 27-6 lead and the defense looked as lost as ever. Something is certainly amiss here. The defensive line is very slow and very bad. Cameron Meredith has still been AWOL since Chattanooga, opting instead to get caught inside on every misdirection play and to get dominated by the opposing tight end on run blocks.

LaVonte David, as great as he has been trying to make up for all the shortcomings around him, blew two glaring assignments in the first half. One gave up the long Braxton Miller run that set up the Buckeyes' first TD; the other surrendered the 63-yard TD run. His strip of an OSU runner did save this game, and this season, for three more weeks. We'll grant him some deserved leniency.

Yet another point of amazement for us at PYB is the fact that players were logging Twitter posts within two hours of kickoff. You can pencil Yoshi Hardrick and Antonio Bell as the culprits here. Bell is one matter, since his was three hours before kick and he never plays. Hardrick, however, is a starter and is tweeting inane shit just two hours prior to the game. There shouldn't have to be a rule preventing this. If players don't know better, they're obviously not cut out for playing on a Top 25 team.

As we ramble on, another question: Where was Corey Cooper this game? We thought his switch to cornerback was permanent? So a starting CB two weeks ago no longer can see the field when Andrew Green continues to be burned again and again? Stanley Jean-Baptiste was this week's guinea pig in the secondary and made a couple plays, including the INT that started the winning drive. He also chipped in a personal foul penalty, borne mostly from his inexperience than poor decision making.

Anyway, we'll give the offensive coordinator and his players credit here. Once they saw the opportunity to come back and eventually win, they seized the momentum and kept calling plays that worked. The "Diamond" formation looked great, and hopefully it is used as a staple in the offense. It gets more playmakers on the field and allows NU's scatter-armed, shot-putting QB to get the ball to them with less risk and more consistency.

Tyler Legate and Kenny Bell did a spectacular job blocking on Rex Burkhead's second-half runs. Bell showed the fire and domination that hasn't been seen out of the receiving corps since the 1990s. Burkhead was his normal, clutch self and was finally allowed to use his steady hand to take this unsteady ship into port for an unlikely comeback win.

Alfonzo Dennard locked down his side of the field like the Dennard of old, even if the other team's QB was as dangerous as Zac Lee during his prime. Still, it's good to see him move without hobbling and allows the defense to concentrate on the rest of its myriad of problems.

So, as we go forward, NU can get fat off by feasting on the Gophers in two weeks. What happens in the games following is anyone's guess. We still don't know any more about this team than we did before Saturday. Can they beat a Top Ten team with Martinez at the helm? Doubtful. Can the defense be fixed, or at least taped together? Unlikely. Would Nebraska had lost had Miller not been injured? Certainly.

We will be watching and waiting, surprised by nothing. Alamo Bowl, here we come.

Hit 'Em Up

--Should PYB accuse the Omaha World Herald's Dirk Chatelain of plagiarism? Maybe....but a great read nonetheless. Bangs out 10+ solid points.

--PYB also likes this story. Recruiting guys from the homes of Eazy-E, DJ Quik, AMG and former NU great Mike Brown as well as Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. See....how fucking hard is that?

--More from Bo Pinelli's tired bully act...

--Looks like another trunk-slamming weekend in NoCal for Eldrick Woods. Guess it wasn't the lack of practice time that was keeping him from regaining his top form from yesteryear. Which was 10+ years ago....

--Enjoy your Friday....and our track of the day. Energy booster for a Friday morning...

--Below are some guest prognostications...we'll see if this guy has any juice. His Week One picks were shit. His friend who sent them to us thinks Taylor Martinez is a good QB, so consider the source:

Boise State (20.5) @ Fresno State - Fresno State has the athletes and QB Carr can score some points but Boise State has just dominated teams on Friday nights. This is a tempting home dog but I think that Boise ends up covering this one late in the game...Boise State 41 Fresno State 21

Ohio State (11) @ Nebraska - Both teams coming off losses...Nebraska is now 1-6 ATS in their last seven games and OSU is 6-1 ATS. Nebraska's defense will come to play against a young Buckeye offense with a freshmen QB making his first start on the road. Ohio State is without their two best WRs and best RB but they still have talent...however, this is a tough spot for them as Nebraska will be well-focused after getting drilled last week in Madison. I think that the Huskers come back this week after circling the wagons and if they start strong, this one could get out of hand because Ohio State looks like a program that has given up on its coaches....Nebraska 28 Ohio State 10

Oklahoma (-10) vs Texas - This might be the lock of the season, Oklahoma is going to just destroy the Longhorns and Texas will be searching for answers...OU 53 Texas 14

Kansas (31.5) @ Oklahoma State - KU is 119th in the country in pass defense...the Cowboys are going to set some records...OSU 66 KU 20

Miami (7) @ Virginia Tech - Miami will do enough to cover this late...V Tech 20 Miami 17

Florida (13.5) @ LSU - without Brantley, Florida might not score...LSU 30 Florida 9

Michigan (-7.5) @ Northwestern - Same story as the last two seasons, Michigan starts out strong with a creampuff schedule and then comes crashing back down to earth. The Wildcats have the better defense and QB and should have a ton of confidence at home...wrong team favored...Northwestern 31 Michigan 20

Missouri (-3) @ Kansas State - Kansas State is an underdog for the third week in a row...but they won SU in the first two games and are undefeated on the season. I think Snyder has a defense he likes in Manhattan and a QB that has played very well in some very tough games...take the Wildcats...KSU 31 Missouri 28

Auburn (10) @ Arkansas - Auburn really needs this game and I don't believe in the Arkansas defense...Auburn 35 Arkansas 31

Alabama (-28.5) vs Vanderbilt - The Tide will absolutely crush Vandy...any spread under 30 is probably robbery...Alabama 41 Vanderbilt 6

NFL
Buffalo 24 Eagles 20
Pittsburgh 14 Tennessee 21
Seattle 6 Giants 24
Arizona 30 Vikings 14
Kansas City 20 Colts 17
Oakland 28 Houston 31
San Diego 38 Denver 28
New England 38 Jets 14
Atlanta 35 Green Bay 31

Succiona

--If any of you PYB readers are fathers, and are teaching your son/daughter how to throw, please follow this link and look at the still shot of the practice video. This is perfect form and will lead to a certain full ride at the school of your choice down the road. Sprinkle in a lack of mental acuity and toughness, flaky disposition and the ability to lay the ball on the turf two to four times and game and you're looking at four years of a starting job. Meanwhile, Andrew Luck sits in Palo Alto and frets about his #1 draft status should NU's quarterback make the jump to the NFL early...

In all seriousness, is T-Vag playing catch with another defender in this picture or a game of 500? Another serious question: how does someone who sucks have a nickname in the first place? Most amazing question is: how is he surprised and mad, mad, mad about taking heat for his shitty performance(s)? Props to the chick in clase de Espanol. The link says he's ready to respond....God only knows what that means.....but if he's planning on taking the game on his own shoulders we hope he knows what a loss to Ohio State's Suckeyes would bring....

--Nebraska's top unit faced off in practice yesterday (novel concept since NU did it weekly during the Osborne era). Some results of the 10-minute tete-a-tete:

-Sean Fisher missed eight tackles
-T-Ragic went 2/11 for 28 yards, 2 INT, 3 fumbles
-Austin Cassidy started, blowing three assignments
-Rex Burkhead got one carry for 27 yards
-Jamal Turner DNP
-Kyler Reed was benched due to excess talent
-36 offensive linemen saw action. 12 sustained an injury.
-The defensive played without its line to simulate live game action
-Frank Solich thought the team moved around well

--On a lighter note, link to bum fight here! Not sure which is funnier: the punch or the guy's serious analysis of the squirrel's body type.

All for now...PYB

Taylor Martinez = Born Loser

Well let's get to it, as Taylorina Martinez proves once and for all why he'll never be a good Division I QB. The spoiled brat act won't work anywhere in college, much less at Nebraska. Blaming the media for his three-interception & a fumble performance. We'll end the commentary and let Daddy's Little Girl do the rest...Tiger Woods would be proud.

On the other hand, Bo Pinelli's comments were open, honest and informative for a change. He took responsibility for the team's piss poor effort, in particular the defense. So PYB would like to recap the Saturday contributions from the starters and 'top' substitutes:

Jason Ankrah--One assist, invisible throughout the game and all of 2011.

Jared Crick--5 tackles, good pressure early, neutralized due to lack of help on DL

Baker Steinkuhler--Too slow to play D-I, yet to impact a game in his career

Cameron Meredith--MIA since Chattanooga, yet to impact a game against worthy team

Sean Fisher--Fisher brought us all back to the Cosgrove era with his woeful effort. One assisted tackle and at LEAST seven misses. Seriously.

Will Compton--Could contribute with right mix around him, but is exposed due to horrible surrounding cast

LaVonte David--Only impact player on entire team. Team MVP. NU would give up 50 per game, every game without him.

Ciante Evans--Too consistently burned by consistently wide margins.

Austin Cassidy--Been covered ad nauseum on PYB. Terrible player. Can't cover his assignments, can't run, can't tackle.

Alfonzo Dennard--Obviously not 100%. Looks like a sad end to a spectacular career.

Daimion Stafford--Lack of knowledge of defense being exposed in coverage due to bad teammates. Get him near the LOS where he can hit & impact the game.

PJ Smith--Blown assignments still trump his prototype size and body

Courtney Osborne--Where did his career go?

Chase Rome--Can't do shit on the field? Smash a paper towel machine.

Josh Williams--Why do all Nebraska DEs get fat and ineffective within two seasons?

Andrew Green--Is Erwin Swiney his personal coach?

Lance Thorell--Poor man's Austin Cassidy

Terrence Moore--Looking forward to his first meaningful play

Have You Seen This Man?

Sources tell PYB that Prince Amukamara didn't look close to ready to return to the field while attending the Rams vs. Giants MNF game a couple weeks back. But we're willing to bet he could offer better coverage than NU's current cornerbacks--even with his broken foot. Judging by the other unathletic folks in this photo, we're thinking maybe Amukamara was recruiting them for Bo & Carl Pinelli's secondary for 2012?

Send in the Clowns

Nebraska football was good enough for Barry Alvarez in building a program. Saturday night in Madison it was good enough for Wisconsin to destroy the Cornhuskers 48-17, as NU took its 16th bottle blasting in 18 games against Top 10 teams.

The only place Nebraska football is not good enough these days is Nebraska itself. The Badgers used the power running and timely passing that NU once used to dominate and demoralize teams, shoving it straight up the Cornhuskers' collective ass in a beating that was best described by NU alumni Fabian Washington's twitter account as "No Vaseline." NU, on the other hand, tried to roll out its Texas Tech offense in the second quarter and came up with Matt Cassell results.

The game started out well enough, with Nebraska mixing the run and pass and taking early leads at 7-0 and 14-7. Even when the Badgers scored to make it 14-13, it was because UW had been lucky to pull down some jump balls and continue drives. The Blackshirts looked like they had come with a Pinelli-type effort, with defensive linemen pressuring Rusell Wilson and defensive backs managing to stay within five yards of receivers.

Anyone with a football brain figured the deep passes were going to set up the power runs between the tackles in the second, third and fourth quarters. Wrong. Over a 14-play span in the second and third quarters, Tim Beck called 15 pass plays. Was he not around to watch Shawn Watson lose game after game after game in Lincoln?

The first interception was bad, but if NU was going to pass on that third down, it should have been deep down the field so an interception would have pinned the Badgers deep in their own territory like a punt would have. The second pick was inexcusable, as three run plays and a punt would have put NU in the locker room down six points with a chance to rest the defense and adjust strategy.

The third interception, on the first drive of the second half, when it was quite apparent that Pinelli & Company needed to shorten the game and establish the run to have any shot at all, was unfathomable. Moreover, how does every 22-to-40-year-old, who has played EA Sports NCAA Football from 1993 to present day have better game-management and playcalling skills than the meathead coaches pulling down between $500,000 and $3.25 million? We'd offer our coaching services for a mere $250,000 and promise we have bigtime connections in Nebraska's C-2 high schools to keep the defensive backfield stocked.

Obviously, we could go on and on and on about the shortcomings last night. Let's hit some more specific points, in order to keep this diatribe under 10,000 words:

--The defensive back situation is tragic. The only good DB is hurt, as Alfonzo Dennard continues to limp noticeably. He still manages to keep the ball away from his receiver. Every safety sucks, as they all miss tackles, consistently blow assignments...or both. PJ Smith, Austin Cassidy, Lance Thorell. The only safety with potential, Daimion Stafford, is getting exposed more each game as he is forced to take on more responsibility prematurely while not being surrounded with the talent and depth to ease his transition. Remember Dejon Gomes? He didn't start impacting games until late in his first season. Stafford has been forced to play from day one without a safety net.

--Bo's specialty, defense, is a huge liability. The number of holes on the Blackskirt squad is alarming. If they didn't have LaVonte David, they would give up 50 points a game--to Fresno, Wyoming, Northwestern, whoever. The defensive line doesn't have a player that is even average outside of Jared Crick. Outside of David, the linebackers aren't worthy of low-Division-I scholarships. Sean Fisher does not belong on the field and looks foolish on nearly every snap he plays. He makes Cassidy look like Ed Reed. The defensive ends are nonexistent, the safeties can't cover anybody, neither can the cornerbacks, and nobody outside of David can tackle. Not a good formula. In year four of the Pinelli era, how can so many key components of a defense be missing?

--Added to NU's game management woes are its personnel management. Remember NU's new starting cornerback in Laramie, Corey Cooper, and his "permanent" move from safety? Didn't play Saturday. So in a matter of two weeks, Cooper went from backup safety and special teams contributor, to STARTING cornerback, to can't even see the field? Andrew Green and Ciante Evans both look awful, but were good enough to start three games, then ride the pine against Wyoming, only to be deemed good enough to start the very next week? PYB remembers Tyrone Williams struggling mightily as a sophomore before eventually becoming one of the best CBs in NU history. Of course, he had a lot of talent around him to help him through the learning curve. Do Green and Evans have that in them, or are they overmatched, or is the Pelini system not taking hold like it used to? Probably a combination of the latter two factors.

As we said next week, healthy competition is necessary to keep players vying for playing time throughout the season. But when 25 percent of the travel roster changes from week to week, and players have no idea when or why they will or won't play, that will crush confidence and consistency in a heartbeat. Cornerback Antonio Bell, left of the travel squad Saturday, says so here. Mutiny can't be far off.

--Taylor Martinez played one of his vintage games, completing a couple big pass plays early, dodging first-quarter trouble when a teammate jumped on yet another one of his fumbles, then eventually panicking over and over when things got tough and melting down with three interceptions in 10 plays. Whether or not Martinez is the best option for the rest of this season is immaterial. NU will lose games it shouldn't with or without him, and they surely won't win a game against a good team with him under center. It is IMPOSSIBLE to imagine him as the starting quarterback and face of this team for 2.5 more years. If he does stay, it may just be the most painful span Husker fans will ever endure.

The sophomore is inept at running the option. Can't make proper reads on the zone run plays. Fumbles often. Can't read zone pass defenses. Throws a lot of interceptions in critical situations. Can't evade even the slightest pressure in the pocket. And he must be the slowest player in the nation when running in any direction that is not straight ahead. In all honesty, NU would be better offensively if it had any of the starting QBs from its 2011 opponents--outside of Chattanooga. Derek Carr, Keith Price, Brett Smith. All better. Fewer turnovers. Distribute the ball. Focus on getting the ball to the running backs. It's time to start whoever could be a long-term solution, obviously to anyone who is not a Nebraska coach--Jamal Turner.

--Even though Martinez is not the answer and sends NU into a deeper spiral with each bad start, what the coaches did to him Saturday night was unacceptable. Tim Beck refused to support his quarterback with the interior run game after NU staked its 14-7 lead. Inexperience, arrogance and panic all arrived in that second quarter. Most importantly, the $3 Million Man, Bo Pelini, was too stubborn or too shell-shocked to rein Beck in. Three turnovers later, it was game over. For the first time, Pelini had the Frank-Solich-deer-in-the-headlights look on the sideline. The only thing missing to complete the look was the wide-eyed, Leprechaun-like jump following the pre-game jet flyover.

NU has been badly outcoached by Fresno State's Pat Hill, Washington's Steve Sarkisian and now UW's Bret Bielema. Tom Osborne keeps raising the bar on Pinelli's salary, and Pinelli keeps lowering the results on the field. Other coaches play chess against Nebraska, while Pelini keeps playing checkers. Too many meltdowns. Nine penalties for 80 yards, with Courtney Osborne's cheap shot capping the night. Another negative turnover margin game (-2) on the road. Another embarrassment on national television, against a team that is not that good but doesn't beat itself. What NU used to be, even in the worst of years. Welcome to the Big Ten, they say. Thank god, because if NU played the Big 12's best team last night they would have lost by 55 points.

Most disappointing is that there is finally depth of playmakers on offensive, and they're wasting away, unutilized: Kenny Bell, Turner, Quincy Enunwa, Kyler Reed, Aaron Green (DNP), Ameer Abdullah, Braylon Heard (DNP). And, oh yeah, Rex FUCKING Burkhead....who got 18 carries for 98 yards while Taylorina got his requisite 20 carries that included two bad sacks.

The capper Saturday came with NU on the goal line, down 48-17 and trying to punch it in to reward all the bettors with the 2H overs on their wager card. After calling timeout, then failing to score on the next play, NU inexplicably let the clock expire instead of calling another timeout and going for the score one more time. In essence, quitting. Rolling over and playing dead--a trait that is all too familiar with recent NU teams. If you doubt us, just watch Dennard's post-game comments.

Has Pelini already lost this team? Has his hair-trigger-benching tactics for some players with full-immunity-for-others created a double standard that has divided the program? Who knows. All that is certain is that something ain't right, and it's something big. In addition to all the mental and physical errors, the consistent effort and fire is not there--not even close.

NU has a chance to get healthy next week by blasting a bad Ohio State team in Lincoln. Changes needs to happen next weekend...establish some defensive consistency and get the ball to those who can be prime-time players---not Martinez. A loss to the Suckeyes would be disastrous, but we're certainly in for the 'just another game' speech. Just another game of more poor coaching, poor throws, poor ball security, poor tackling, poor coverage. Send in the Clowns.

And for one more season, the 14th straight, we sadly say: Maybe next year.