You Cannot Be Serious

Nebraska beat Penn State Saturday in Happy Valley 23-20. Cornhusker fans and local media outlets rejoiced. Apparently, another nearly blown victory was more proof positive that 'something special is going on in Lincoln.' The Omaha World Herald's Tom Shatel said so, just like he did two weeks ago. Apparently, he forgot that Nebraska pissed the bed last week and got blasted by a mediocre Michigan State team.

Steve Sipple, Lincoln Urinal-Star columnist and renowned NU athletic department mouthpiece, said so. (Who can blame Sipple? If we wrote at the level of a ninth grader and stayed employed, we'd be loathe to upset that apple cart too.)

The only thing special about
yesterday's victory was just how fantastically Private Pinelli's crew botched another opportunity to take home an easy road win. Only a crew this poorly managed can manage to turn 14-point wins into overtime 'thrillers.' Only teams this devoid of fundamentals and instincts can turn should-be 45-3 romps into 27-13 Buckeye Blowouts. Only teams without a leader can turn down-to-the-wire games against other so-so teams into 21-point losses or outright disasters.

So for everyone painting a Rosy -- or Wild Wing -- picture, save it. In the words of the great Johnny Mac -- You cannot be fucking serious! Answer these questions:

1. Is Nebraska a well-managed football team? We offer the following items as proof that the answer is a resounding 'No.'

--Offensive coordinator Tim Beck continues to ruin Tommy Armstrong's confidence, with a bevy of shitty play calls and poorly designed strategies. They even pulled the "Roy Helu" on Armstrong yesterday, convincing him he was hurt enough to sit out, despite the fact that he jogged off the field without any sort of a limp after his last play in the first quarter.

--On NU's first offensive series, Ameer Abdullah broke a 24-yard run. Obviously, he tapped out of the game. Strength and conditioning, anyone? Imani Cross stayed in the rest of the series, even on 3rd-and-4. Drive over.

--After backup Ron Kellogg III came into the game with seconds left in the opening period, Beck called 34 pass plays. Those plays averaged 5.5 yards per attempt. Hello, Blaine Gabbert. PYB thinks it's safe to assume that both a freshman quarterback and his walk-on backup could use some easy throws to build confidence and create a rhythm.

The most glaring example: 3rd-and-3 from his own 24. Kellogg standing in the shotgun at his own 19. Seven step drop. Hold the ball three counts too long. Fumble. PSU recovers at NU's 8. Scores easily. Instead of leading 14-6 early in the second half, NU trails on the road 13-7. Luckily, Kenny Bell hadn't dropped any balls yet and was healthy enough to return the ensuing kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown.

In another shockingly positive development, NU's tight ends did catch two balls for 19 yards. Sadly, all of their targets were outside the numbers on the field. How about using the middle of the field with tight ends? Seems to work for every other team in college football.

--Punt returns. Nebraska tallied exactly zero yards on its returns. They went as follows:

• Minus three yards before Jordan Westerkamp took a knee when he got scared.
• Fair catch on knees.
• Four players halfheartedly rush, zero yard return.
• Penn State dropped the snap, and NU still barely got a finger on the kick.
• Fair catch.
• No return, ball not fielded.
• Fair catch, Westerkamp fell on his ass.
• Fair catch from a knee.
• Fair catch, let the ball hit the ground, no return.
• Fair catch.

Do we need to expand on just how bad the above list is, considering Big 10 football is terrible and is all about field position every damn game? At least Penn State's kickoff coverage was bad as usual and gifted NU an important touchdown. Somehow, Nebraska uses its starting running back and wide receiver (despite the fact that they're both allegedly battling injuries) to return kickoffs but then uses a punt returner who has no chance to make a play with the ball. Most amazingly, Private Pinelli continues to overlook a phase of the game that many times means 14 points and countless yards.

--Turnover margin. Nebraska began yesterday's game ranked last in the conference and added another -1 to that. Sound familiar?

--Beck used the Wildcat formation for the first time all season yesterday. Remember, the formation that was so successful with Rex Burkhead for the last few seasons but was horribly underused? Well, it hadn't been worthy of usage until yesterday -- on the goal line. Unfamiliar formation. Unfamiliar situation. Fumble on the goal line. Blown opportunity at a touchdown. Familiar result.

2. Does NU consistently capitalize on its opportunities during games? Yesterday's results were indicative of the pattern we've witnessed during the Youngstown era:

• Blocked punt. Ball at midfield. Wildcat formation for the first time all season on Penn State's goal line. Abdullah: Another back-breaking fumble.
• Ciante Evans interception at midfield. Drive stalls. Field goal.
• First and goal at the two-yard line with a chance to take a lead late in the fourth quarter. Cross in at running back. Stuffed on first down. False start. Two Kellogg runs sandwiching a blown timeout. No touches for Abdullah. Field goal ties game.

3. Does Nebraska play smart football?

• Four fumbles Saturday. Two lost. Two inside its own 15-yard line. One giving up an easy touchdown and the other on its own one-yard line when all NU really needed to do was run clock.
• Seven penalties for 54 yards.
• Corey Cooper lets a receiver run right past him for a touchdown, supposedly because he didn't want to hit him close to the sideline and get a 15-yard penalty.
• Sam Burtch ruins a 62-yard touchdown run with a meaningless block five yards behind the play. And YES, we know it was an awful fucking call but well-coached teams with smart coaches and smart players don't give stupid officials any opportunity to take over a game with an awful fucking call. We all know that if officials get the opportunity to impact a game at the worst possible time, they will. Leave it alone.
• On its final drive in regulation, Nebraska was fortunate to convert a first down on a pass interference call after being pinned deep in its own territory. Just like last week against Michigan State, Beck was too dumb or too proud to leave well-enough alone, force Penn State to use all of its timeouts, punt, and go to overtime. Still in a precarious position, but with the Lions having just one timeout remaining and just over a minute to go, the sequence went as follows:
• Pass. Abdullah runs out of bounds.
• Kellogg forces pass between two PSU defenders in zone coverage. Near interception
• False start.
• Droppped screen pass
• Holding
• Now it's really time to get the fuck outta Dodge, riiiiight?? Nope!
• 2nd-and-25. Abdullah goes out of bounds to stop the clock once more. Penn State keeps last timeout and is looking at getting the ball near midfield with a timeout left and needing only a field goal to win.
• 3rd-and-20. THROW the fucking ball ONE MORE TIME!!!! Even BTN color announcer Chuck Long nearly blew his load at this point.
• 4th-and-20. Punt and luckily PSU coach Bill O'Brien pulled a Pinelli and decided not to field the punt and let the clock expire instead of trying to set up a game-winning field goal drive. Dumb and Dumber.
• On its winning 'drive' in overtime, Nebraska gained five yards on first down. On second down, Diamond formation with Cross, Abdullah and Terrell Newby. What does any smart play caller do? Of course -- hand it to the worst of the three! (Cross) No gain, but with the ball in the middle of the field, all is still well. What does any smart play caller do at this point? OF COURSE -- throw a four-yard pattern that was dangerously close to an interception. Had NU even caught the damn thing, it would have created a bad angle for the NU placekicker. This really happened.
• Alas, Nebraska kicked the game-winning field goal -- twice. No game would be complete without one final error for the day. This time it was a false start on a field goal, forcing Pat Smith to make a 42-yard kick in swirling winds after he'd just kicked one from 37. Luckily, in a rare glint of clutch play from Nebraska, Smith booted the second attempt right down the cock and sealed the result. 

So, let's take stock. NU won, despite all its injuries and in spite of itself, to move to 8-3. Apologists point to what heart the team must have to beat all the bad teams on its schedule while losing to any that are mediocre or better. PYB did take away some positives:

• The defense, despite being pushed around to the tune of 149 yards by a slow running back, can now at least follow assignments.
• Penn State dropped three key passes, all on third downs where receivers would have made first downs
• No matter what NU would have done to embarrass itself Saturday, it couldn't have topped the fact that PSU had a male cheerleader tiptoeing around midfield at halftime twirling flaming batons. 
• The young defensive tackles look like up-and-comers
• The defensive backs are decent, for the most part.
• The offensive line is Nebraska's best in 15 years, despite a myriad of injuries. John Garrison took over most of the teaching duties from Barney Cotton before the season. Coincedence? Paging Sherlock Holmes...
• NU may have the best running back in the Big 10. If he could just quit fumbling at the worst possible moment, that would be swell. UCLA in 2012 and 2013. Georgia in 2012. Minnesota in 2013. Penn State in 2013. 
• No Taylor Martinez. It's amazing what a team can do, even without a great starting quarterback, without a pussy like T-Ragic at the epicenter of the dysfunction. Despite all the team's warts, we'll root for a team with a chance. A team with Martinez taking the snaps has no chance at all. NU fans saying T-Vag haters "didn't know what they had until it was gone" are either stupid or dishonest.

Does PYB look for reasons to nitpick every Nebraska performance? No, and yes. We don't nitpick for sport. We do so, because with today's watered-down state of college football, teams can't win on talent alone. Teams must maximize every opportunity and competitive advantage. An opportunity lost is one that will bite you in the ass by the fourth quarter.

If excellence ceases to be the goal, all direction is lost and a fan base becomes happy with eking out a win against a bad team just because it has a big stadium. Private Pinelli's 3M System: Missed Opportunities, Mismanagement and Mistakes can turn just enough solid road wins into nail-biters and just enough close wins into bad losses to get him fired. 

For another week, a Nebraska fan base can see what it wants to see instead of seeing the obvious truth. It can use a narrow win against a bad team from a bad conference without a good win all season as a convenient smokescreen to commend another subpar coaching effort. Or it can root for the best from this flawed bunch, while demanding better from future teams. Teams that are organized, effiicient, and well-coached.

Whether that fan base will demand better or conveniently forget the past, remains unanswered. Whether Pinelli and his staff can deliver better than their current poorly-managed product, remains doubtful.

PYB

Happy Ending Valley?

PYB awakes this Saturday in a puzzled state. Puzzled by the fact that Nebraska is a two-point underdog to a terrible Penn State team that it should beat by 21 points but to whom it will most likely lose. Puzzled by the fact that the city of Dallas has two sources of pride: the stupid fake cowboy outside the Texas State Fair and the fact that J Edgar Hoover took a projectile to the throat 50 years ago -- perhaps we're confused on that one.

Puzzled by our trip to the gym, as we watched double-barrel action in the men's shitters at the gym take place while washing our hands....complete with one party violently blowing ass while leaning forward to tie his shoes while the other navigated his cell phone as it lay on the dirty stall floors. Disgusting. Amazing. Mostly horrifying. Puzzled finally by the woman who banged out 45 minutes on the treadmill in front of us, only to take the elevator down the one floor to ground level. Whatever. Let's drop in with a quick pre-game post:

--We finally watched the Nebraska-Michigan replay last night. Good win. Horribly inefficient, as always, as offensive coordinator Tim Beck couldn't get out of his own way. Develop a good rhythm with runs and option. Good gain on first down. Long bomb for no reason on second down. Third-and-long remaining. Mystifying.

--Why is Terrell Newby taking repeated blame for 'dropping a pitch' from Tommy Armstrong? It was badly off target. The rest of the turnovers against Michigan State were Armstrong's fault, with Beck partly to blame for an awful play call on the interception. Inefficiency is thy name. We expect more of the same today but hope we're wrong.

--Is Nebraska basketball coach Tim Miles on the hot seat after consecutive losses in South Carolina? How many bandwagon fans have cancelled their season tickets and Final Four reservations?

--PYB met Cornhusker legend Mike Brown last week after the NU loss to Michigan State. Sadly, we were concentrating more on staying upright after seven hours of self-medicating -- which is an obvious necessity when watching Nebraska play -- especially during a trademark meltdown. We'd have loved to have been more coherent, so we could have grilled him about what is wrong with Private Pinelli's Huskers. Either way, it was one of the few pleasant turns on another Nebraska season on the road to nowhere.

--Derrick Rose with another possible ACL tear last night. Bad news for NBA fans, who need more gamers like Rose who aren't about the bullshit lifestyle that defines many league 'stars.' Good news for ESPN, who can parlay this into another 15 months of 'news' stories.

--Is anyone else as excited as we are for this announcement? Can't wait to hear the future of a 5-foot-10 NFL quarterback prospect....

That's all we've got for now. Lot's of interesting, but not necessarily good, games today. Baylor at Okie State. Oklahoma at Kansas State. ASU at UCLA. MSU at Northwestern. Michigan at Iowa. aTm at LSU. BYU at Notre Lame. Mizzou at Ole Miss.

If the fact that College Gameday's set is in Stillwater today doesn't tell fans all they need to know about the state of college football, nothing does. We'll see you on the flip side tomorrow.....and hope by that time we're fully clear from media reports celebrating the heroic deeds of another Kennedy crook...

"Nebraska's back, and we're here to stay..."

System on the Down

PYB got close to Memorial Stadium in Lincoln Saturday, as we visited the Cornhusker State for a weekend with friends at a pregame tailgate. We had a free ticket offered our way an hour before kickoff. We knew better than to accept.

During all the back and forth chatter that goes along with each Nebraska football season, fans debate whether or not Head Coach Bo Pinelli has a signature win during his tenure. It’s a pointless back-and-forth, but if we must answer, the answer is no.

What he does have, however, is a full series of signature losses. Losses so bad that they're all of the worst, piss-the-bed variety. From opening kickoff to final gun, his teams have come out scared. Sloppy. Disorganized. Plug the leak in the dike with one finger, and another leak springs up elsewhere. As a friend of ours eloquently stated when we discussed it Sunday morning: “He’s about out of fucking fingers.”

What we learned on our fall vacation and from another horrible loss, this time to an overrated Michigan State team, is that the problems aren’t chance occurrences. They’re systemic. They start from the rotten core of the NU football program. Because as we’ve seen, the actors in this tired play change, but the director, and the horrible-yet-predictable outcome stay the same.

Let’s continue on today with a free-form flow of ideas as they occur to us. We’re on an airplane without WiFi access, so can’t refer to the internet to statistically back another post-mortem. At this point, any numbers outside of wins and losses don't mean much.

--Three turnovers in the first ten minutes of the game. Five total. The piss-the-bed feeling on Saturday was the same as when NU came out and laid eggs against a bad Texas team in 2010 and an even worse Iowa State team in 2009. It was immediate. It was repeated. It was fucking embarrassing.

--Tommy Armstrong had another turnover-laden game. A bad pitch to Terrell Newby (who comes in for one play on every opening drive and is not heard from again) started the festivities. A poor decision on a 2^nd-and-1 pass play resulted in an interception. Why, you ask, was Offensive Coordinator Tim Beck throwing a two-yard pass on 2^nd-and-1 when Ameer Abdullah was slicing through the Spartan defense up to that point and Beck had been crowing all week about taking deep shots against MSU’s press coverage. We have no clue, and we’re certain he doesn’t either.

 

Either way, Beck does Armstrong no favors while trying to develop a freshman quarterback with less than half a season under his belt. Despite its early mistakes, NU was still in the game and trailed just 13-7 with a chance to head to the locker room. Instead of kneeling the ball and then punting, Beck ran a quarterback draw—a play he usually favors on game-deciding 3^rd-and-long situations. Inexplicable.

Armstrong fumbled again. 20-7. Holy shit. A guy who makes $800,000 a year can’t see what every fan across the country can see needs to happen? Take a breath. Thank your lucky stars. Get to the locker room. Regroup. Hope to play a cleaner second half. Stop the madness.

Also, how about mixing a tight end into the game plan? Even better, add a few patterns where the tight end goes over the middle of the field.  Diamond formation. Rollout passes. Option pass. Play action. Instead of throwing deep on every 2^nd and 3^rd-and-long play, take a few yards and keep a young quarterback in manageable conversion situations.

After four years of Taylor Martinez, PYB would think Beck would have learned that getting a mistake-prone quarterback to play Hero Ball does not work. Build a young player’s confidence slowly but surely. We’re not ready to give up on Armstrong this early, but if Beck continues to refuse to protect his players and keeps setting them up to fail it won’t be long before TA's days as starting quarterback are over.

--Private Bo Pinelli was his normal, reactive self Saturday. He failed to challenge a crucial first-half spot that gave the Spartan offense a first down, when it was clear the referees gave MSU at least an extra yard-and-a-half. Hell, if the brain trust in the press box can’t understand they need to kneel the ball before halftime, can we expect them to grasp advance concepts like instant replay? Tech-MOL-ogy….what is it? Either way, the Spartans continued on to score a touchdown. Seven charity points, courtesy of Youngstown.

--Speaking of wasteful, Jordan Westerkamp fumbled another punt return. What, exactly, does he bring to the table in this role? He sways around like he’s on roller skates before fair-catching damn near every ball. Lose the ha-ha mustache and play some fucking football.

Nebraska continues to lose huge yardage in the punt game and refuses to try to impact games on special teams, and nobody seems to think anything of it. This is a level of negligence that is unfathomable for a Division I college football coach.

--Abdullah ran for more than five yards a carry. And his team lost. At least it wasn’t nine yards a carry, like the Minnesota loss. Sadly, his stellar season may end up as one of the quietest, underappreciated and wasted in Nebraska history.

--PYB has heard some folks say NU could have used Martinez yesterday and would have likely won with him. That’s laughable. A quarterback who lost at Minnesota when his running back averaged nine yards an attempt is going to beat one of the nation’s best defenses when he can’t run, pass or manage a game?

--Thad Randle got hurt.

--The Big Ten is a pathetic menagerie of shitty football teams. Instead of playing its own brand of football when joining the conference, NU tried to be more like its fellow Legends and Leaders. They got fatter and slower and have fallen to the middle of the pack, behind such stalwarts as Michigan State and Wisconsin, and ahead of pigs like Illinois and Indiana. Circling the drain….

Need we go on? Coaches couldn’t explain the most recent Husker turd. Sadly, fans could believe another unbelievable meltdown was happening in front of their eyes. If they’re like us, they’re too tired to fight anymore. Let Pinelli and his merry band of Buckeyes sink or swim. Right now, they’re wearing a lead vest that they designed for themselves. It’s apparent that nothing has changed for the better. Mistakes of all sorts arise at the worst possible time, every time. Players lose confidence. Players don’t get better. Many times, they get worse. The program gets false confidence by beating a couple awful teams in a row and somehow gets local media to spew propaganda heralding NU's return to relevance. The next week, another on-air meltdown ensues.

By no means does PYB want Nebraska to have to undergo another brutal coaching turnover, but Pinelli has produced teams with the same warts year after year, while offering no proof improvement is likely. Will he be back on the sidelines in Lincoln next year? In the next few weeks, that’s a decision that much richer, but not smarter, men than us will have to make. 

But we do know that any organization needs a vision and an ultimate goal, with a clear, step-by-step process to get there and a leader powerful enough to drive it. Exactly where the Nebraska football team stands in Pinelli's process is anybody's guess.

For now, we'll all suffer the pain of another horribly mismanaged loss and another wasted season on the Plains.

Greener Pastures

PYB is flattered to return after a long absence -- one driven by a two-week work road trip that caused us to miss most of the Nebraska-Michigan football game. We've still yet to watch the whole thing, and have seen only the action following Jordan Westerkamp pissing the bed. Special teams, anyone?

Regardless, we're flattered by all the "Where the fuck are you?" comments. We promise to execute better, and if you think we've forgotten how to blog, you're sorely mistaken. Let's go:

-Dwight Howard would give MMA a shot. So, a guy that can't even intimidate Marc Gasol in a preseason scuffle and who can't even outmuscle Andrea Bargnani is going to try professional fighting? Sounds good.

We suggest actually trying to make free throws and becoming a good teammate. The Houston Experiment sounds all too familiar to the last few seasons for Wonder Woman, who bemoaned the fact he couldn't dominate Bargnani because Howard is a "conventional" center and Bargnani plays on the perimeter. PYB thought that conventional centers were tough and had post moves. Maybe the game has passed us by.

--Anyone got four more weeks to drone on about racial insensitivity? Either do we. Do we have to play the "shocked citizen" game, when any of us who have played pickup basketball hear this 100 times a week? So, even thought Matt Barnes sounds like a retard when saying it, he's right.

--Non-sports note: Are outlet stores still cool enough to warrant gridlock? Has anyone else caught on to the fact that the prices are the same as most of the normal stores? Does anyone else know that they can buy items online, rather than scratching and clawing their way to a store that 55 other cities in America already have? Just checking, and for the record Southwest is a "discount" airline. Ding!

--ESPN College Gameday is at USC today for the Trojans' matchup against Stanford. Can anyone argue that college football isn't watered down?

--Florida State's Jameis Winston may be suspended if he's charged with a felony for an alleged sexual assault. Can prosecutors decide quickly? We have a season win total bet that we'd like to win. We have the unders.

--Something special is happening in Lincoln. After beating a winless Big 10 team on a hail mary and a bad team on the road, it's all rainbows and unicorns again. Awwww.....

--That said, isn't amazing that protecting the ball (for the most part), managing the game with a leader at quarterback and playing defense can win games -- especially in an awful conference against a team that somehow turned a mobile quarterback into an immobile version of Ron Kellogg III?

Can NU and its decimated offensive line do it one more time, against a Michigan State defense that is apparently a peer to the 1985 Chicago Bears unit that dominated the NFL? Or will the Spartans remember that they're Michigan State and choke on that proverbial cock once more? It's in their blood. We shall see.

--Finally, can Private Pinelli try to do something positive in the punt game? We always learned that it was valuable to gain field position and ultimately points in games against strong defensive teams when touchdowns would be rare. Football apparently has passed us by as well. We're not from Ohio, so I guess that's a given.

We promise to check in tomorrow. Enjoy your Saturday. PYB

Sponge Bo, Square Peg

PYB pops in this Sunday with limited time due to a failing laptop battery and a flight to catch later today. We'll get to it, with no promise of an organized series of thoughts. But, as always, we'll offer our keen insight fresh off watching the game a second time on DVR at 4:15 this fine morning:

--Nebraska's offense, led by Tommy Armstrong at quarterback, looked great on its first drive. Its scripted drive. Hell, there was even a Terrell Newby sighting. NU cruised into the endzone, using (Gasp!) the Diamond formation, for a 7-0 lead.

--Armstrong, unfortunately, channeled his inner Taylor Martinez and threw three more picks to make it six in the last two games. Again, he had no help from his offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, who insists on turning another running quarterback into John Fucking Elway. Armstrong isn't overly fast, but he's a crafty runner who can keep defenses off balance with his option acumen. 

PYB takes solace in the fact that most of his interceptions thus far have come from poor reads that are typical of a freshman quarterback. PYB is sad that Beck keeps forcing his run-first QBs to drop back and pass, time and time again despite repeated failures. He keeps dialing up passes outside the hash marks or deep slants where opposing safeties wait, champing at the bit, to step in for an easy interception.

In no way are we excusing the mistakes, but the three INTs came on: a dropback pass, a 3rd-and-20 where Armstrong was forced to try to make a play and the turnover served as a punt, a last-minute drive where he was dinged up on the prior play before Beck called another dropback pass.

On at least three occasions before the waterfall of interceptions, Armstrong made ill-advised throws into tight coverage and got away with it. Most fans had to see that as a cue to protect a young signal caller with a better mix of plays, but an offensive coordinator making $800,000 a year made no such connection.

--The Blackskirts embarrassed themselves on the first Northwestern drive, blowing multiple assignments as is par for the course and relinquishing an easy touchdown as the Wildcat offensive line pushed the entire defense four yards backward.

--Jeremiah Sirles said he had a panic attack at the bottom of the dogpile after the game-ending Hail Mary touchdown. This, the same week that the Miami Dolphins lost a starting lineman to a seventh-grade cafeteria prank that we all went through ourselves. PYB thinks it’s safe to say football players are softer than in years past.

--Bo Pinelli actually described the injuries that his players sustained during the game. Kenny Bell – groin pull. Jake Cotton – MCL sprain. Will Richards – broken ankle. There. Was it that fucking hard? Was national security put at risk? Did he look more like a real, sane person to the media and the fans? Yes.

Hell, he even admitted taking a page from Andy Reid's book and mismanaging the clock on Northwestern’s last drive. He lamented the fact that he only had two timeouts remaining on that drive – guess it’s not prudent to blow one on defense every single half of every single game. Especially the close ones. Groundbreaking revelation there.

--Ndamukong Suh attended the game. He did a BTN interview. The growth on his upper lip made it look like he’s been munching on some of the finest stripper box in all of Detroit.

--It’s quite apparent that opposing offenses are targeting David Santos with an “isolate him and then just toss it up because he can’t cover anyone” strategy.

--Somewhere along the line, the Nebraska defense turned awesome. It decided to follow its assignments. There were still several breakdowns that relinquished yardage, but the massive series of consecutive errors went away. The ‘Skirts got stops. They got sacks. They 'got off the field.' They kept Northwestern from scoring from the Wildcat drive that began at 6:37 of the second quarter, all the way until the field goal in the final two minutes on a short field following Armstrong’s turnover.

--That said, PYB may soon require to Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald to turn in his chess pieces and sidle up to Pinelli at the checkerboard. After Kain Colter gashed Nebraska in 2011, he hardly played last season and played sporadically at quarterback yesterday. The Wildcats became the only team (and that includes South Dakota State) that couldn’t gain at least eight yards on every 3^rd-and-1 play against the Blackskirts. So, did the ‘Skirts get awesome in the middle of the game, or did Fitzgerald piss away another win?

--Beck kept dialing up long bombs, after none of the preceding bombs had been open all day. None were even close.

--With Nebraska trailing 21-14 and on the ropes, Beck got the ball back with 1:01 remaining in the second quarter. Pass. Pass. Pass call and sack. Shanked punt. Ball back to Northwestern at midfield. Christ! Run the ball, force Fitzgerald to waste his two timeouts, and get to the fucking locker room!!

--PYB read that NU was hosting a big tight end prospect from New Orleans. Good thing almost every pass play called was outside the hash marks and that the Huskers completed zero passes to tight ends. We remember just two TE targets during the game, one being a drop by whichever Cotton plays tight end and the other a flag route to Cethan Carter – who by the way is quickly going the way of Kyler Reed and Mike McNeill in the wasted talent department.

--At some point watching the replay of the game, we had a horrifying thought cross our mind: If Jenny Manziel played against Nebraska, how many yards would she have and how many points would aTm score?

--Does Nebraska try to make any plays on special teams? Ever? Don’t rush punts. Fair catch nearly every punt received. Horrifying.

--Can the Imani Cross experiment be terminated?

--Reminder to Beck: when Armstrong is continuing to force throws into coverage and throw off his back foot, it’s time to change it up and help him with some easy reads, and a stud running back. Wait, NU has a stud running back? The one that averaged 8.7 yards a tote last week averaged five yards a carry this week. His name is Ameer Abdullah.

--We’re pretty certain we saw the Blackskirts swarm and gang-tackle a ball carrier on more than one occasion but can’t be certain.

--Abdullah was actually gashing the Wildcat defense, as NU drove toward a game-winning score on two occasions. With the defense playing well, of course the Huskers had to screw up in another facet. Two holding penalties and a chop block penalty killed those opportunities. If it ain’t one thing with a Pinelli team, it’s another.

--On its final drive, NU worked the ball down the field four yards at a time. Abdullah made a great play to convert a 4^th-and-15. Quincy Enunwa let a pass that would have put the Huskers in field goal range slip through his hands at the 28-yard line. Tough chance, but at some point, winners make at least some of those plays.

--Alas, Ron Kellogg came through, tossed it as far as he could, and Jordan Westerkamp found the ball. We’re just glad he caught it inside the endzone. We’re not sure he knows how to run after catching a ball.

So, we’ll enjoy the win because it was a fucking amazing ending. But, we all know this was a stay of execution. Unless the defense can prove that its mid-game turnaround was an “Aha!” moment instead of an aberration against a beat-up quarterback whose backup is a statue for a team playing its fifth-string running back, blowouts will ensue.

Unless Tim Beck decides to take care of his young quarterback and prove that he can keep defenses off balances with a decimated offensive line, good defenses (Michigan State) will annihilate the Husker offense.

Unless Private Pinelli has a surprise-ending to his formulaic scripts, a 7-5 record is definitely in play. The nine-win chant won’t, then, be in play as a safety net to another season-ending turd.

Whatever, let’s enjoy this one. Enjoy that the flawed team that we hate to hate won a game for the program we all love so much. For all the misery we endure, one play like Saturday’s Hail Mary can make it all better for at least a few hours, a few days.

Pinelli and Co., regardless of what we say, will make it or break it for themselves. We’ll figure out the rest later.

Parental Discretion Iz Advised

PYB wakes this Saturday, with the normal Nebraska gameday excitement, despite the program's continued floundering. It's part of any fan's DNA. We'll watch and commiserate accordingly. For now, we ask ourselves questions, because we have no answers.

--Why hasn't anyone talked about why NU quarterback Taylor Martinez felt the need to wave his arms and encourage Minnesota's crowd to cheer louder before the offense's final drive last week? A few readers have mentioned it, but no media outlets did. Is he that stupid? Is he that confident in his own abilities to lead clutch drives? The amazing occurrence was a perfect display of why T-Ragic should have been riding the pine years ago.

--Will the Nebraska defense benefit from its new shuffling of players to permanent starters at new positions? David Santos was good enough to start last week, but now has a new position. Michael Rose has looked good in spots so far, didn't play last week and now is the starter at a new position. This formula certainly can't breed the knowledge, consistency or confidence to succeed in the Rugged Big Ten, can it?

--Will a dinged-up Kain Colter gash the Blackskirts like he did in 2011? Why didn't Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald play him more last year?

--Is Private Bo Pinelli dusting off his checkerboard once more, while Fitzgerald hones his King and Pawn endgame in preparation of jamming his wing-ding-ding-a-ling down Pinelli's throat?

--Will any of Nebraska's defensive backs feel the need to stay within two steps of Wildcat receivers?

--Why are Nebraska's receivers blamed with 'dropping' so many passes, when most of the throws in question are balls that are thrown to the wrong side, with the wrong velocity? (For example, a six-yard slant thrown 90 mph a yard to the receiver's left as he runs right while completing the pattern.)

--How many Huskers will fake injuries today after bad plays?

--Will Nebraska be successful on first down today, after averaging just five yards on first down last week? Any knowledgeable football fan from Ohio knows that 2nd-and-5 is an impossible situation for an offense to overcome.

--Will Richie Incognito be punished for his alleged role in a cafeteria prank? Sounds like small potatoes, but he was run out of Lincoln after beating the shit out of someone who walked into the bathroom while he railed a Husker slut....supposedly. Should anyone sensitive enough to storm out of the team complex after such a prank be playing in the most savage professional league there is, the NFL?

--Is Carl Pinelli really that big of a dolt? Is Justin Blackmon a bigger idiot?

--Is ESPN that infatuated with Derrick Rose that it breaks in to a live telecast to report that he's "day-to-day" to play in his next game, two games in to the season? Or has Commissar Stern ordered that the Chicago Bulls will win the NBA title this year and that all media must build the brand from now until June?

--Did anyone else see Dwight Howard shove Marc Gasol while "protecting" a teammate in a preseason game, only to see Gasol step right up to Superwoman herself with no fear whatsoever?

As always, so many questions and so little time. We've got to roll for now, but will be back following the latest installment of the Pinelli Era, for better or for worse...

Enjoy your day....PYB