Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Holiday Bowl Beatdown: A Season Early

I thought very highly of the Huskers early this season - turned out I was a season too early. They lost a close one to VA Tech and were 4 points away from an 11-1 record (and 1 second away from a Big-XII title). Now, I can't really explain what happened exactly against Texas Tech, other than to say sometimes that kind of shit happens in the wacky-ass Big-XII. But, more importantly, I can't really explain what happened tonight; it was not supposed to be such a beatdown. Arizona was - is - a good team and Mike Stoops has that program headed in the right direction, but Nebraska just laid the smack down en route to a 33-0 Holiday blowout. There is no doubt that Ndomukong Suh and the Blackshirts were the catalyst, but once they were down a couple scores, Arizona just looked like they gave up. Speaking of Suh, he'll be moving on next year - probably as a number one pick - leaving a huge hole on the NU D-line. But, Jared Crick is good enough to step in, and Suh actually thinks Crick's better. There's no doubt that Pelini has the Blackshirts back on track and with just a little tweaking, I think we're looking at a serious Big-XII contender next season. And with that, we'll see more prestige returned to a conference that, quite frankly, has seemed overrated the past few seasons. It just didn't seem like the "Big-XII" with a down Nebraska, no matter how much OU and Texas did.

Non-conference-wise, Nebraska trades a trip to Blacksburg for a trip to Seattle and a quickly-improving Huskies squad that will still have Jake Locker at QB. In league play, the Huskers should be favored in all their division games, they get to skip Oklahoma and get a strategic bye-week before their showdown with Texas. A potential stumbling block? That uppity Idaho squad we saw earlier today...

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