Editors Note: Apologies for no post last week. Experienced some technical difficulties and by the time I got it fixed/had time, it was already Saturday afternoon. Which stinks because last week was one of the biggest weeks in football. Oh well.
Update: Incorrectly stated that Nebraska hasn't allowed a passing touchdown this year (lol that would be the dream right?) Instead the stat I was thinking of was that they didn't allow a passing TD to just Oregon. Not quite as impressive but still cool. Statement has been properly updated.
As much as I thought we’d win last week, I’m still in shock
and a bit confused that we still won. They played like crap, how did they win?
Like…they weren’t shitty per se…but they certainly were not stellar. It was a
very Nebraska game…they did enough to win, which for the first few games of
their schedule, good enough is all we can ask for. We’ll ignore the fact that
Oregon was stupid enough to go for 2 every single damn time. I can understand
the first time, Oregon being Oregon (which also you’d think Mike Riley would
know they’d do on the first touchdown after playing them what, 14 times at
Oregon State?), I can understand the second time “It worked once let’s do it
again!”. But you’d think after getting stopped you’d be like “oh darn they
stopped us. Let’s just take the point” Guess not. Kicker issues I guess? They
were never really in field goal range (either being too far away or just ended
up scoring anyway) so the world will never know.
What a beautiful game that was, or at least what a beautiful
second half. Getting drenched on the way and off and on during the first half
wasn’t fun, neither was seeing Nebraska only up by 4 at the half. But they got
it together enough for a solid win. It wasn’t the prettiest by all means, but
for a first game against Fresno State, we can settle for good enough…for now. I
was actually preparing for all of the feels for the Foltz tributes, and while
they were touching, I was expecting some more water works (and not from the
rain). The 10-man formation was well played, and is always great to see 90,000+
people be on the same page for these kinds of things. He will always be missed
and I anticipate more tributes as the season progresses.
But let’s get back to the game for a bit. There was an
interesting sequence of three pass attempts in a row by Armstrong at some
point during the second quarter (think it was before halftime-ish?). It went
like one really great throw followed by another, and at that point I’m like
“Hey he’s throwing the ball better at least, that’s a great sign” and then the
third throw was off the back heel, shoulders not square, and thrown into double
coverage and almost intercepted. Jk lol. Take back everything I said. I didn’t think much of it at the time
because the offense seemed to be firing on most of their cylinders, then I saw
some numbers after the game: 13 pass attempts against 51 run attempts. Well damn
that explains a lot. The good ol’ 2014 Cowboys method of not letting your
mediocre quarterback throw the ball and run the damn ball with your tanks! But
that does perplex the question: With so many talented receivers, what do they
become? Well we saw some nice sweeps from Moore and Pierson-El, Reiley is known
to run some sweeps as well when he returns to the team, Westerkamp not so much.
However there seems to be a bond between Armstrong and Westerkamp. So here’s my
proposition: If Armstrong throws, throw it ONLY to Westerkamp! There problem
solved.
Wait, you’re saying Nebraska still has problems? You’re
telling me there’s a thing called a defense? Ok ok. The run defense is picking
up where they left off, which is fantastic to make teams one dimensional. Sure
Fresno threw it 50 million times, but I don’t blame them when the run defense
is that good to shut it down and they’re constantly playing from behind, they
pretty much had to abandon any run game they had. I also don’t blame them
because the secondary still looks non-existent and still shops at Target. I’d
throw the ball all day long if my receivers got a 5 yard bubble all to
themselves and the defender can’t tackle them properly.
(Editor’s note: The
first targeting call was BS. The second one actually should’ve been, really
surprised they picked up the second one. But to those playing along at home; a flag WASN'T EVEN THROWN FOR THIS
The Big Red Breakdown:
But I digress. It’s a new day tomorrow and it’ll be against
Wyoming. Last time Wyoming was underestimated, they almost won. But I have a
tough time buying that one of the worst teams last year (by my rankings) can
turn it around enough to be remotely competitive. They needed triple OT to put
away Northern Illinois, who also hasn’t been relevant since Jordan Lynch
graduated. Sure their coach was an Osborne-ling, but you’ll need some talent to
back up your pedigree. Wyoming will just be Nebraska’s final tune-up before
#350 against Oregon.
(I also have some questions as to why Pierson-El wasn’t
returning punts at all during the Fresno game, do they know something we don’t?
Whatever the case is, he better be back there tomorrow so he can get warmed up
for Oregon. Again, whatevs, digress)
Nebraska O vs Wyoming D: Advantage Nebraska. Run the damn
ball! Except for the few times you toss it up to Westy.
Nebraska D vs Wyoming O: Advantage Nebraska. Prevent them
from running the damn ball! And let’s work on that secondary k? I’m sure Oregon
will love to slice that secondary in half if it remains in its current state.
Special Teams: Advantage Nebraska. Besides not having
Pierson-El field punts, I will make a few more comments about our special teams
play last week. They were actually kinda bad. Like one of the worst I’ve seen
in a while from them bad. A couple close times they almost turned the ball over
by not getting away from it on punts. Maybe that’s the power of Pierson-El
they’re missing. One punt blocked, they just kinda let them through, but I’ll
allow one. How about that new punter though? Through one game he’s filled in
some pretty big shoes fairly nicely, hoping the trend continues. RIP Foltz
Nebraska 48, Wyoming 17 (Since I apparently generously
overshot last week)
The Rest of the World in College Football:
Wow what a week. Two of my initial top 4 teams went down already...and as a response to all of the upsets some teams got a very very very generous bump in the rankings (cough Wisconsin, Texas cough). My personal rankings are always a work in progress and won't be released until Week 3 due to lack of sample size, but this new formula is already looking interesting...so we'll see how it turns out.
We split the other games last week but thanks to Nebraska I'll take the 3-2 winning week. No ranked v ranked match-ups this week (sadface) so instead....
THE NFL IS BACK:
The Panthers and Broncos kicked off the season last night in a very excitable game for a Super Bowl rematch, with unfortunately the wrong team winning yet again. But it was fun to watch as I was procrastinating on my homework. Siemian was actually impressive in his debut, maybe they're on to something. One of his turnovers wasn't totally his fault, so we'll give him credit for only causing one. But I'll still hold off before jumping on him for my fantasy lineup, already gambling on the Dak Attack
The only tough game the Patriots have while Brady goes on a 4-week vacation, even with Brady around it's still a tough task to go to Arizona and come out with a win
Neither team can play defense so that'll be fun to watch, however I trust the skills of Big Ben to get the job done better than Cousins. And I'm not just saying that because I have Roethlisberger in one of my fantasy teams this year again (Yes I said one of oooooo spooky)
Well...these teams have to start somewhere? It will be a very blah match up, but it could tell how these teams will shape up for the rest of the season
The absolute best time of the year has begun. That is right
college football is back! I apologize for not exactly doing what I did last
year in terms of giving a preview of each conference and what not, but due to
time constraints, life, etc., and pondering over some modifications to my
formula for my rankings this year, decided against it but instead will be a
very very very brief summary later in this post. So stay tuned.
I will give a brief summary of what I did over this summer
to those who care (and if you don't feel free to jump down to either The Big Red Breakdown or the paragraph before it. I know my summer was pretty lame compared to other peoples). It basically consisted of taking a summer calculus class
(0/10 would not recommend summer calculus) in order to prepare for graduate
school, and working as a teller and somewhat of an intern for a bank. The
experiences were cool, but also very time consuming and away from my computer
more often than not. Which brings us to now and this statement/story/lesson I
took away from my “internship” that applies very nicely to this blog:
In the Accounting department we (we = me and my supervisor/head accountant) were
doing some end-of-month reports, which was cool to get that experience, but we
were also dealing with forecasting and projections on their balance sheets and
what not, which for someone who's looking at stats/analytics grad school, is pretty badass. If you don’t know anything about accounting, all that matters is that
the debits and credits have to equal on the balance sheet and you are pretty
much good to go. So we run the next year-to-date forecast and we’re about
$10,000 ish off. So my supervisor goes “Ok I think I know the problem, try
changing this number” and every ethical business lesson I have learned comes into play
with me being “wait what we can’t just change the numbers” but also I did what
I was told and we end up now being only $2,000 ish off on the forecast. “Ok
works for me” goes my supervisor. Again I’m like “lolwut we’re still out of
balance”, but then she tells me this statement that I should probably have
plastered somewhere on this blog: “It’s just a projection. Not the actual
thing. We can change projections all we want when we want because it won't affect the real thing.”
