Transcript

The 4th Quarter · Husker Buzz

0:00
Speaker 1: Okay, Shano, I'm an educated man, but there was much
0:03
Speaker 1: about that game that I do not understand. And the
0:06
Speaker 1: first one is, why was Nebraska not blitzing Dylan Raiola
0:10
Speaker 1: on either of those last two drives?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was almost like they overcompensated with how they
0:17
Speaker 2: finished out the game the week before. Against Indiana, they
0:21
Speaker 2: got kind of bit for being too aggressive with just
0:24
Speaker 2: the way they played. And Indiana got those two big,
0:26
Speaker 2: long touchdowns. This week, they're like, all right, we're going
0:29
Speaker 2: to play it safe. Our defense has been playing at
0:31
Speaker 2: such a high level. We can force them to make
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Speaker 2: a mistake or win on earlier downs and get them
0:39
Speaker 2: off the field. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The ball was
0:42
Speaker 2: getting out of Ryla's hand much faster. They were checking
0:47
Speaker 2: in to run. If Nebraska is maybe bringing one person
0:50
Speaker 2: with pressure, It was being recognized by Oregon, and they
0:54
Speaker 2: would check into a run call, and the runs were
0:56
Speaker 2: keeping them on schedule. So it just was the perfect storm,
1:00
Speaker 2: and Oregon executed. They decided to play that last drive.
1:04
Speaker 2: I've never seen guys a quarter with 36 plays for
1:07
Speaker 2: one team. That's a pace of 140-play football game in
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Speaker 2: your normal Big Ten game. 13 minutes time of possession.
1:13
Speaker 3: That's brutal.
1:20
Speaker 1: That's structural. So Nebraska loses the headset battle for another week.
1:23
Speaker 1: And the other one is, and I grant you that
1:26
Speaker 1: it had been hard for both teams to run the
1:29
Speaker 1: ball through the three quarters. But Oregon ran 18 times
1:34
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. Nebraska ran two times. And I
1:38
Speaker 1: don't think you can win consistently in college football. Frankly,
1:41
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you can win at all in football
1:44
Speaker 1: if you don't have a commitment to a power running game.
1:47
Speaker 1: And I don't know if Dana Holgerson just simply doesn't
1:49
Speaker 1: believe in it, but to not have a running game
1:53
Speaker 1: for a second consecutive week and just abandon it is
1:56
Speaker 1: hard for me to understand.
1:57
Speaker 3: Enlighten me on this.
1:58
Speaker 2: Well, they were in a real pickle in the fourth quarter.
2:01
Speaker 2: Jamal Rule had left the game in the second, and
2:04
Speaker 2: then Isaiah Mosey left the game with a leg injury
2:06
Speaker 2: after that long run that he had. So they were
2:09
Speaker 2: down to just Mekhi Nelson in terms of the backs
2:12
Speaker 2: they were playing. And so their running game, was a
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Speaker 2: shell of what it should be at that point. And
2:18
Speaker 2: it essentially just became Calandrian. It looked like he got
2:22
Speaker 2: that first down, but he didn't. He was about a
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Speaker 2: yard short, half a yard short when he dove out
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Speaker 2: of bounds. And then, you know, that was it. I mean,
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Speaker 2: I felt like if they could have extended that drive,
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Speaker 2: even just another first down. I mean, they needed to
2:35
Speaker 2: run more clock in that situation with the running back.
2:39
Speaker 2: thing for Nebraska. It's a tough spot. Oregon has a
2:42
Speaker 2: lot of talent. You look at that defense. Today, there's
2:47
Speaker 2: five top 100 NFL draft picks on that duck defense.
2:51
Speaker 2: They were loaded. It showed on just the closeout speed.
2:55
Speaker 2: Stuff that should have gone for more, they closed it
2:58
Speaker 2: down pretty quickly. That was a very good Oregon team.
3:03
Speaker 2: that was very talented on defense. In terms of draft picks,
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Speaker 2: there's eight top 100 draft picks on that Oregon roster
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Speaker 2: right now today for next year's draft. So you won't
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Speaker 2: see a team like that the rest of the year.
3:15
Speaker 3: Ohio State.
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Speaker 2: Other than Ohio State. But I still think in terms
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Speaker 2: of total draft picks, Oregon might be ahead of them.
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Speaker 2: That was a really, really good team. It's unfortunate Nebraska
3:27
Speaker 2: had an opportunity to pull it off, and again, they
3:29
Speaker 2: come up short.
3:30
Speaker 3: Well, they did. They did have an opportunity, and they
3:32
Speaker 3: did come up short.
3:33
Speaker 1: But, you know, Shano, we remember back in 1994 when
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Speaker 1: Nebraska goes to Manhattan, Kansas, with a third-string walk-on quarterback
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Speaker 1: in a hostile environment where they had had 10 days
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Speaker 1: to prepare for Nebraska. And Lawrence Phillips had a broken hand.
3:48
Speaker 1: And Nebraska's offense in the second half was Lawrence Phillips
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Speaker 1: up the middle. Not running wide, but up the middle.
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Speaker 1: You have to have a power running game. And I
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Speaker 1: don't think this coaching staff believes that. And you're not
4:01
Speaker 1: going to beat Iowa, and you're probably not going to
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Speaker 1: beat Ohio State, and you may not beat Illinois without
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Speaker 1: a power running game.
4:07
Speaker 3: Is this part of the DNA here?
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Speaker 2: Well, it comes down to this. How many NFL draft
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Speaker 2: picks does Nebraska have on their own line? And if
4:15
Speaker 2: you don't have a lot of NFL talent up front,
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Speaker 2: it's hard to move NFL defensive linemen. And we've seen
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Speaker 2: this now in the Big Ten. Nebraska in the four
4:25
Speaker 2: conference games has not run the ball well in any
4:27
Speaker 2: of them. They just have not been able to move
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Speaker 2: Big Ten defensive linemen at a consistent level. The Jamal
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Speaker 2: Rule injury at Michigan State has really turned the running
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Speaker 2: game for Nebraska. When he was able to do what
4:41
Speaker 2: he did at the early part of the year in
4:43
Speaker 2: the non-conference, which is, I know, meaningless in terms of
4:45
Speaker 2: level opponent, They were much better with that offensively, but
4:50
Speaker 2: when you take that out of it, they have just
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Speaker 2: not had that consistency where they can rush for 200
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Speaker 2: yards a game. You make that K-State reference. Oregon, on
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Speaker 2: the other hand, Brock Thomas was their version of Matt Turman.
5:02
Speaker 2: We're just going to try to run the ball, play
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Speaker 2: physical defense, and hopefully force some turnovers and beat you.
5:09
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, that's why he's the KFB Husker. Strongman,
5:12
Speaker 1: that's the kind of insight... that.
5:14
Speaker 3: You're not getting anywhere else. Okay, Shano, thanks.
5:18
Speaker 1: You know, you're still suffering from sleep deprivation, so we'll
5:20
Speaker 1: give you the rest of the day off.
5:21
Speaker 3: How's that?
5:22
Speaker 2: We're hanging in there. It was an all-nighter, though. There's
5:24
Speaker 2: no other way to say it.
5:25
Speaker 3: Well, you're used to that. You're a South Omaha boy.
5:28
Speaker 3: Come on now.