Category Archives: College Football

Big Ten, College Football, Huskers

Sunday Evening Hot Take: Michigan State Edition

While the Huskers’ dramatic, come-from-behind win over Michigan State was one for the ages, its best highlight was that it reinforced the power and importance of maintaining a positive attitude and never quitting.

Earlier this week I found out a buddy from high school who also lives out here in Los Angeles had been in a severely life threatening motorcycle accident.

Nestled in my Facebook feed among the cat pics and the usual daily outrage from both ends of the political spectrum was a post from him letting everyone know what had happened but that he was going to be OK. Accompanying his post were some gut wrenching photos from the hospital that would make Evel Knievel cringe.

About a month ago, he left his studio and hopped on his motorcycle to run home and walk his dog over the noon hour.

He never made it.

He was struck by a Ford F-150 whose driver was on a suspended license and apparently considered stop signs to be optional. He did what he could to lessen the damage but when you’re getting creamed by a 4,000lb truck, there’s not going to be much you can do.

His bike literally exploded on impact. He broke both legs, his pelvis, his right arm, and jaw despite wearing a full face helmet. He spent two weeks in a coma and needed eight units of blood which is pretty much a full oil change. And if that wasn’t enough, he contracted pneumonia while comatose and required a tracheotomy.

But you know what?

Even though his bones are now infused with as much titanium as Wolverine has adamantium, he’s far from being down for the count.

In fact, he’s already weeks ahead of schedule with his physical therapy and I have a solid hunch that this will only be a minor detour on his path towards becoming the heir apparent to the title of Most Interesting Man in the World.

I’m not kidding either. This is just a brief rundown of the stuff he’s done: served in the Army, owned a bar on O Street, took up metal fabrication and moved to California to build bikes at West Coast Choppers before striking out on his own. In his free time, he travels around the world and recently began installing some rad guerrilla street art around LA. That’s a pretty good start, wouldn’t you say?

Not long after the news of what happened started flying around the Facebook, a plan for a visit down at the Long Beach VA Hospital was made. Thanks to some good timing (and a hall pass from the hospital staff) we ended up having mini high school reunion down in Huntington Beach. Some fellow classmates had coincidentally picked the perfect weekend to come out from Arizona and rent a beach house.

Even though some of us hadn’t seen each other in nearly 20 years, it took all of five minutes to pick up where we left off. The next few hours were spent laughing our asses off and getting mildly day drunk without of fear of getting busted by our parents. If it weren’t for the wheelchair in the room, you’d never know that anyone recently had a very near miss with death. The mood was that bright.

As it got closer to kickoff, the Huskers began to dominate the conversation. Even though we all went on our own adventures after high school, it was amazing to see how our fandom for the Big Red has never waned.

Not long after the game was underway, it was time for my road trip partner and I to return to LA so that he could celebrate his wife’s birthday.

On the drive back, I put my phone up on the dashboard and we listened to the game on the Huskers App. We hung on every word with suspense and hunched forward with our heads cocked like we were trying to hear the ocean in a conch shell. It had to be one of the more ridiculous sights on the 405 that afternoon.

I made it to our local Husker spot in the middle of the third quarter. I couldn’t miss the chance to celebrate a Husker win with the people I’ve been suffering with every Saturday.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any swearing or dread (or Ohio State fan friends who moseyed over to our side of the bar just to bask in our misery) but when the Huskers got the ball back and Tommy threw that first frozen rope laser to Westerkamp, it became clear that this game was finally going to have a different ending.

And boy, did it ever.

The Huskers never quit and my friend sure won’t either.

After yesterday, they’ve both gone a long way towards getting back to their old selves.

A Couple of the Usual Sunday Things… 

Our Score Prediction: Granted things got more than a little hairy at the end but we’ve been saying for weeks that the Huskers would beat Michigan State.

Mike Riley’s Balloon Watch: Somebody got his balloon back.

Mike Riley Balloon Michigan State

Now let’s get that bowl game and wreck Iowa’s season.

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College Football, Huskers

Nuvi Don’t Lie. The Huskers’ Season is a Disaster.

Nearly every week this season, my Mondays have started with finding an email with the subject line “Sorry, man” lurking in my in-box.

Those emails come from my buddy Austen Jorgensen. You might remember his interview where we chatted about his days as a BYU linebacker and he all but predicted Cougars’ shocking win over the Huskers. (Still can’t believe he called that one.)

These days Austen works for a company called Nuvi which is a high powered social media monitoring platform used by a wide range of companies to track how their brand, new product, or movie, for example, is performing in the “social space.”

If you think it’s time to bust out the tinfoil hat, don’t sweat it. This is not NSA level stuff we’re talking about here. Nobody cares about your militia having a bake sale this weekend. However, if you recently tweeted about how much you love a new TV show or are mad at Chipotle for that pesky E. coli outbreak, someone out there knows about it.

So this leads to this Monday’s email when Austen suggested that I check to see how the Huskers’ season is looking through the eyes of Nuvi. He might have just been trolling me in an attempt to get me to wallow in the slop of quantifiable misery but it was good idea either way so I pulled some data from Nuvi and here are some of the highlights.

Or should I say depressing lowlights?

To keep things simple and to keep this site from turning into the social media version of Baseball Prospectus we’ll be comparing week one to last week’s debacle at Purdue. (Note: Click any chart to view full-size.)

HUSKERS PRESEAON MAP

Things look good for Husker Nation leading up to the season opener against BYU. Positive (green) and negative (red) sentiment is calculated based on a series of keywords. Chatter that can’t be classified is considered neutral (blue). Based on what we’re looking at, Nuvi indicates optimism is high for the 2015 season.

Here’s a slightly broader look.

HUSKER PRESEASON WEEK BEFORE

Then just a couple days later…

MIKE RILEY SUED

No, Global Thermonuclear War did not break out. This is what the it looks like when your team’s new head coach is sued for allegedly fostering an environment in which a sexual assault was allowed to happen. As you’ll see, the negative sentiment shot way up. Just as a gauge, you’d pretty much have to be the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department to run all the way in the red.

That giant red circle that wiped away most of the East Coast?  That was a tweet from Sports Illustrated that came from their NYC headquarters. The bigger the circle, the bigger the reach and impact.

MIKE RILEY SUED SI TWEET

Then, here’s what happened when the wait was finally over and the Huskers got the season started against BYU. The image below covers about an hour and a half of chatter. See if you can pinpoint when the Hail Mary occurred.

BYU HAIL MARY

And here’s a map of the post game reaction. The fire Mike Riley tweet from Lost Letterman was quite popular.

BYU POST GAME

Below is a list of the day’s big winners as far as Twitter goes. Considering how many Husker fans hung on every moment of Gabrielle Union’s visit, it’s not a shock that her twitter account received nearly twice as much attention as Sports Illustrated. I do say that it warms the cockles of my little heart to see Tunnel Walk of Shame was the most viral.

BYU POST GAME 2

Now, let’s skip ahead  a couple months and five frustrating losses later to examine the current landscape for Husker Nation.

This is what it looked as the Huskers lost to Purdue. 55% negativity is this season’s all-time peak of despair. (So far.) Compared to the season opener, the reach of the chatter is over 10 times higher. Why? Because the big outlets had plenty of time to tweet throughout the game as the Boilermaker beat down reached its inevitable conclusion. Lucky for the Husker brand, not may people shared this news as the “spread” was more than 3 times lower than the jaw dropping ending to the BYU game.

HUSKERS LOSE TO PURDUE

At least the mood quickly dissipated as Husker fans suddenly became too drunk to tweet.

ESPN TWEET AFTER PURDUE

Here’s the day as a whole.

PURDUE OVERVIEW

And here’s the build up and fallout of the Huskers’ worst loss since that time they were beaten by Hawaii before Hawaii was even a state.

Darren Rovell
Darren Rovell dropped some major shade even by his standards. The only thing that kept him from a clean sweep were the thumbs of God.

PURDUE POST GAME TWEETS

What’s most telling about this list is how the volume of chatter about the Huskers has dwindled and what remains shows this latest loss has become a national story.

Or dare I say national laughing stock?

Here’s hoping things turn around tomorrow and beating Michigan State makes Nebraska run green with joy.

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College Football, Huskers

Monday Morning Rage: Who Woke Up Angry About Purdue?

Normally, the Monday following a Husker loss is a hotbed of rage and hot takes on the Twitter but today the pickings are awfully dang slim.

Have Husker thumbs grown weary and no longer have the power to vent their anger in 140 characters or less or are the majority of fans still wiped out from the Royals winning the World Series?

That was quite the game, huh?

Maybe she wasn’t so much a Husker fan as she was distraught that she couldn’t get an Uber Kitten delivery on National Cat Day. Don’t know anyone who actually got the kitten delivery to work. So much hype. So few kittens.

Did anyone else get the final of the Packers game spoiled in extra innings when Joe Buck came back from break and announced the outcome?  (Notice how that was a spoiler-free question?)

Good plan. Oh, and does anyone know what movie the GIF is from? It’s driving me bananas.

You’re dang right. After Saturday’s game, I accepted my fate and wore my Husker shirt proudly like the scarlet letter that it has become. It was hours before I made it back home after the game and not a single person said a word to me about the Huskers. Even back to just last year, a Husker loss would mean a hug and some encouraging words from at least one stranger if I repped the Big Red in public following a loss.

Brilliant Twitter handle, Mr. Freedom.

I had to do a double take on this one. Very clever swapping the ‘w’ for a ‘u’ and I’m surprised Mr. E or anyone within the Athletic Department didn’t lock down such a close misspelling. If that account gets more than its current three followers, it might get shut down.

Seriously? WTF happened here? Is it time to break out a tinfoil hat if Husker conspiracies are afoot?

And finally, just because it’s Monday.

I hope David thanks the Bankshirts for making his award winning performance possible.

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Big Ten, College Football, Huskers

Sunday Morning Hot Takes: Purdue Edition

As Purdue closed out the third quarter by scoring their third unanswered touchdown to go up 42 – 16 , this Huskers’ season reached a turning point.

If you stuck it out to the end to see the Big Red almost steal a victory with a 29 point fourth quarter, congratulations. You are not afraid to go down with the ship.

Yesterday’s game was 3 hours and 45 minutes of gallows humor at its finest. If there was a scene in Titanic where some rapscallions from steerage said F-it and broke into the liquor storage instead of trying to escape,  that would have been the prefect summation of what it was like to watch this game in an empty bar where the staff outnumbered us Husker faithful who showed up for our weekly gut punch. (And no, the scene with the Brandy sipping Guggenheim does not count. He was far too classy.)

Hats off to Ryker Fyke. Dude played his ass off and made up for running game that didn’t make the trip to Indiana by throwing for over 400 yards and leading the Huskers to 45 points but with the Bankshirts getting torched worse than Thích Quảng Đức, his heroic effort was all for naught.

At the rate things have gone so far this season, it honestly won’t be surprising if the Huskers somehow end up rolling Michigan State next Saturday. 

On to the assorted random stuff!

Headlines if the New York Post covered Husker football

Huskers step in big pile of Purdue-do

The Huskers’ Season is Pur-done

Purdue or do not. There is no try. (The Huskers did not try.)

Boilermakers run a train on the Huskers

Mike Purrriley Won’t Be Purring Over Losing to Purdue.

Our Score Prediction

Purdue Score Prediction
Left the house dressed like a champion and couldn’t have been farther off-base with the final score. Get your own “Gamer Tee” at Nebraska Red Zone.

Mike Riley’s Balloon Watch: We have reached DEFCON 1.

Thermonuclear Balloon

Sam Mckewon: Throws absolute hot fire in his post game video. It is a performance for the ages and is a must watch.

Oddest Paragraph In Dirk’s Post Game Column About a Road Trip From Hell: Suddenly it’s 2:30, your iPhone is dead, your wife forgot hers and the baby is waking up. Another turn. Wrong. Another turn. Wrong. 

Uh… Dirk, not keeping a phone charger in your car is just bad planning. You can get one for $8.99 and extra lightning cables are just $5.99. C’mon, buddy. You’re better than that.

And this leads to…

Important Piece of Life Advice #1: Even though you’ve been invited to a friend’s annual Halloween party for five years running, always take a moment to actually read the Evite to save yourself and your lovely wife the hassle and embarrassment of getting all dressed up, slogging through traffic for an hour, only to arrive in beautiful downtown Burbank to discover that the party happened the night before, on Halloween Eve. Lucky for us, it wasn’t a total surprise to our friends that I would pull such a move and they invited us in help them put a dent in the leftover party fare which included scarfing down a container of Jell-O shots.

Important Piece of Life Advice #2: Don’t skip dinner and hope that whatever nutrients are found in a container of Jell-O shots will be an appropriate substitute.

NUMBERS TO DEPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WITH

31,351: The announced attendance at Ross-Ade Stadium which holds 62,500.  Yeah, right. Check out all the empty seats.

55: This was Purdue’s highest point total since they took down Indiana State 56-35 back in 2012. The last time the Boilermakers hung 60 or more points on a team was when they put up 62 against Indiana in 2008.

50: Back in the 1994 Matt Turman game, the Huskers ran the ball 50 times for 168 yards against Kansas State and three-yard-and-a-cloud-of-dusted their way to a 17-6 win on the road. Yesterday, the Huskers ran 22 times for 78 yards with Andy Janovich accounting for all of 2 yards on a pair goal line carries. This was the first time the Huskers have been held to under 100 yards rushing this season.

10: Purdue’s ten point margin of victory was the largest for any of the Huskers’ opponents this season. The next closest was BYU and a Hail Mary that led to a five point blowout. With Purdue’s win factored in, the Huskers’ average margin of defeat has ballooned to  3.83 points.

Even with the annual blowout or two factored in, the last four seasons under Bo Pelini, the Huskers’ average margin of defeat was 11.75 (2014), 16.25 (2013), 21 (2012), 19.75 (2011).

6: The number of Los Angeles fans who had the courage to step out into public to cheer-on the Huskers at our local watch site. We nearly cracked double digits when a UNL professor in town for a visit arrived with her son and daughter-in-law. She teaches leadership at Husker U. and had some great insights about how much work it really is to change the culture of a team but she still doesn’t like to see the Huskers losing how they are.

Husker Fans
Back when the season was still full of hope, this place was standing room only.

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College Football, Huskers

Hey Ryker Fyfe, Your Dad Hated Me. Here’s a Pep Talk.

Hey Ryker-

We’ve never met but I’m pretty sure I saw you as a baby at least once or twice. I know that isn’t exactly grounds for feeling qualified to give someone a pep talk but bear with me. This might all make sense in a moment.

You see Ryker, I was a student at good ol’ Grand Island Senior High when your dad got his career started a year or so before you were born. Can’t recall the specifics of why, but way back then, the only class he “taught” was afternoon study hall in the cafeteria.

Your dad wouldn’t have been much older than you are now and he carried himself with a swagger far beyond that of someone whose job description broke down to sit in a room and make sure no one gets stabbed or pregnant.

He may have also been an assistant football coach back then too but either way, as a former jock himself, he took an instant liking to the current jocks in the room. As a member of the tennis team, I was not worthy of jock status and was treated with the same disdain as the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, and dickheads who filled the cafeteria.

As one of several highly observant Grade A smart asses in the room, we didn’t take kindly to this double standard. Dude was in our world now and to us he was nothing more than fresh meat. A rookie who needed to be broken. So we let it rip with all the Barney Fife jokes and assorted heckles our 15-year-old minds could come up with. One of our favorite gags was to see who could do the most blatant impression of your dad’s pigeon-toed strut and not get busted. Oh what a fun gauntlet it was to walk up to him pretending to be him and ask for a hall pass to use the restroom. If things went a step too obvious, you’d get to see him later in detention.

He supervised that too.

There’s no denying that we were huge little assholes back then but when you put a few years between things (along with some introspective and enlightening psychotherapy) it’s clear we were just slightly misguided dipshits in need of positive support and some ADHD meds.

Anyway, your dad was able to welcome a few of us study hall knuckleheads to his world that summer as the head coach of our American Legion Baseball team.  GI High didn’t have a team yet so that was our equivalent to getting to play high school ball.

After tryouts ended and the roster was announced your dad summoned me into a dingy storage room underneath the Ryder Park grandstand. While I had made the team, he told me straight up I should never expect to play and that it might be a better use of my summer if I just quit.

I told him I was just glad to be there and would be happy to contribute however I could. (Getting to the level of fitted hats and metal spikes was a goal I really wanted.) I then went home and proceeded to break some stuff.

Baseball shouldn’t have even been my favorite sport but it was. My “career” got started early when my dad fudged my age so I could get a jump on the competition with a bonus year of tee-ball. He kept this ruse under wraps by also coaching the team but with my parents in middle of a nasty divorce, there were quite a few games where he intentionally forgot to pick me up. For the games that I attended, he refused to let me call him dad and didn’t acknowledge I was his son.

Good times.

Still, I enjoyed baseball and continued to play long after he split. It took a few seasons but I developed into a decent player. Granted, it’d take me until I was halfway to second to show any semblance of speed and my throwing motion made it clear my mom had taught me how to throw but I made up for it at the plate and played hard and mostly smart.

Under your dad, I went 6 – 21 for a robust .286 (a stat I remember only because it still sticks in my craw that I didn’t hit over .300). Still, it wasn’t too shabby for someone getting an at-bat every few games. When the season ended in the playoffs, that was the last time I really interacted with your dad. Never had an actual class with him and the invite to shoot hoops in your backyard that he extended to so many others must have gotten lost in the mail.

The next year I moved up to the Senior League and put together a pretty solid season. After a decade of playing, I notched my first game winning hit, coming off the bench for a 7th inning pinch hit double that earned a four paragraph write up on page 3 of the sports section of The Independent. It was one of the few times I got my name in the local paper for sports and it was a nice moment that still has a spot somewhere in my personal top 100 achievements.

Ryker, when you chose the Huskers over the Lopers, it was because you believed you could play quarterback at the highest level.

It doesn’t matter what the message board heroes or media have to say about how doomed the Huskers are going to be with you at the helm. You’ve been waiting years for a chance to prove your detractors wrong and it has finally arrived.

When you take the field tomorrow, the only person who needs to believe in you is you.

Go out there and have fun, live your dream, lead the Huskers to a win, and get your name in the paper.

You got this, buddy. GBR.

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College Football, Huskers

Halloween Huskers 2015

As if this season needed to be any more frightening, it’s time continue a tradition that started last year. Here are some fresh Halloween costume ideas for Husker players, coaches, and a few hangers-on.

Mike Riley as Roy Munson

Mike Riley Roy Munson

As much as Mike resembles the pride of Ocelot, Iowa, this choice is also symbolic as Coach Riley has found himself Munsoned in the middle of nowhere with a fan base that’s making their pitchforks a little sharper with each passing week. As someone who happens to share Roy’s cursed last name, I’ve somehow never dressed as him for Halloween but I did get to meet his landlord this past summer so I’ve got that going for me.

Mark Banker as Kevin Costner

Mark Banker Kevin Costner

Maybe Kev could use some of the spy skills he picked up from his recent flops to help Banker solve the mystery of what happened to the Blackshirts.

Mike Cavanaugh as Jim Ross

Mike Cavanaugh Jim Ross

You can almost hear the legendary WWE announcer screaming “My God, the  man never substitutes his offensive line!”

Danny Langsdorf as Dorf

Danny Lansdorf Dorf

Because nothing shows your relevance to a bunch of 18-year-old kids by dressing as a character from the 80s so forgotten that a good photo doesn’t even exist on the internet.

Shawn Eichorst as The Shermanator

Shawn Eichorst Shermanator

We can only hope that one day a sophisticated robot Athletic Director will be sent back from time to change the future for the Huskers.

Mark Philipp as Leonidas

Mark Philipp Leonidas

You know Mark has this outfit hanging in his closet ready to go at a moment’s notice whether it’s Halloween or not.

Sam Foltz as Joe Dirt

Sam Foltz Joe Dirt

As a fellow Grand Island native, I can say on good authority that Thunderleg is just one sweet IROC away from absolutely nailing this look.

Andy Janovich as Dalton

Andy Janovich Dalton

If the Huskers don’t make it to a bowl game, here’s hoping Andy commemorates his Senior Day by ripping out the throat of an Iowa player in the middle of a touchdown run.

Tom Shatel as Bobby “The Brain” Heenan

Tom Shatel Bobby Heenan

At the rate this season has been unraveling, the brains of the World-Herald will be turning heel before you know it. Going as Bobby for Halloween will be a great warm up.

Mike’l Severe as Mickey, the guy who cut the tag off a mattress

Mike'l Severe Mickey

Possibly the only costume choice of the 80s more random than Stiles from Teen Wolf but Mike’l has the obscure film knowledge to make it work.

Dirk Chatelain as Jared from Subway

Dirk Chatelain Jared from Subway

Yes. This one is in absolutely poor taste but when all you need to pull off a costume that will get the whole neighborhood talking (and the police making unannounced visits) is a pair of glasses and foot long, you just gotta do it.

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Big Ten, College Football, Huskers, View From the Boneyard

View from the Boneyard: Northwestern

Ahh, yes. Northwestern. The team that the Huskers always seem to have oddly-close games that go to the very end. The team that fell victim to the Westerkatch. The team I always yell “Nerdwestern” at whenever we play them. Good ol’ Northwestern.

For this game, to go along with the alternate uniforms, The Iron N planned a shirt switch where students were told to arrive in red, and once the defense made their first appearance, put on a black shirt. On top of this, 6,000 Boneyard shirts were given out as students arrived to the stadium.

While I was super excited to hear about the plans, there was one problem: nearly everyone I sit with had to give out the shirts before the game.

My friend Bri (@brihoesing) and I, the two of us not responsible for shirts, arrived at Memorial Stadium before doors open and created our game-plan for saving two entire rows of seats despite only being two people.

There was one problem with our plan, though— Bri has two stress fractures in her foot and is in a boot. I had to pull this off on my own.

Luckily, it was an 11 am game against Northwestern and the Huskers had a 3-4 record, so there weren’t many people there to fight for spots. I found myself spreading out everything I could to stretch out over the rows: my sweatshirt, wallet, sunglasses, cell phone, new Boneyard shirt. Everything.

Bri eventually hobbled down the stairs and was able to help save seats, but we quickly discovered that spreading out our sweatshirts and everything else was going to make the windy 48 degree weather a joy to wait in.

With The Iron N’s directors helping with the shirt distribution, the marketing department needed help carrying the Go Big Red banner to the East Stadium student section. Normally, I’d count myself out as a candidate due to my lack of upper-body strength and my continued fatigue from mono, but when they bribed us with a free sweatshirt, I couldn’t say no. Everyone knows the best kind of sweatshirt is a free sweatshirt on a 48 degree day.

When it came time to actually carry the banner back and forth, I quickly realized that I was pretty much useless. But I was wearing a free sweatshirt, so at least I was useless and happy.

GBRbanner
The GBR banner is ready for action.

If there is one way to get today’s Husker fans on their feet and cheering, it’s bringing out the 1995 championship team during the Tunnel Walk. The student section was deafening with the arrival of the team, despite almost every student being in diapers when the team played, if they had even been born at all. But one thing’s for sure, they can all appreciate everything that team had accomplished.

The shirt switch had happened right away to start the first quarter, creating a sea of black Boneyard shirts for the annual blackout-the-student-section game. I know a lot of the more traditional Husker fans don’t really like the blackouts, but… come on. They look awesome.

The Huskers made it on the board on their first possession with a 43 yard field goal. Much like every other time the Huskers start out with a field goal, a sea of red balloons was released prematurely, causing a domino effect with everyone else that hadn’t released their balloons yet.

Northwestern responded quickly with a 1 yard run by Clayton Thorson, putting the Wildcats up 7-3. (Editor’s Note: Thank you for not mentioning his previous 68 yards.)

The mood in Memorial Stadium changed as Ross Dzuris sacked Thorson for a safety, in which the entire student section danced around with their hands clapped above their hands.

Both teams went scoreless until a pick-six caused the Wildcats to be up by 14-5 on the Huskers with 7:17 left in the half.

The Huskers didn’t take long to respond; a 10 yard pass to Brandon Reilly lead to Nebraska’s first touchdown of the game. Even though it was the first touchdown of the game, there was only a small handful of balloons released since everyone had jumped the gun earlier. Good job, guys.

During the second quarter, students were joined by the President of the University of Nebraska, Hank Bounds. Bounds posed for pictures as the Boneyard waved their flag and held up a fathead of him, which had been staring at me for nearly the entire half. Definitely not creepy, though. Definitely not.

president
This fathead was custom made. It’s not available at the campus bookstore.

Northwestern brought their marching band along for the trip and had them sit in their fan section. Naturally, I had to make a few dumb jokes about how they probably did that because they didn’t have enough fans to sit there, to which most people just rolled their eyes at me. Their band played songs from the Wizard of Oz and Wicked to start off halftime.

The Cornhusker Marching Band came out afterwards and had an entire set dedicated to classic karaoke songs. Nothing makes me realize how bad I am with lyrics like singing along to the marching band, but dang was it fun to scream-sing songs like Sweet Caroline and Livin’ on a Prayer with 89,000 of my closest friends.

The second half saw a lot more scoring, with a touchdown and a field goal for Nebraska and a field goal for Northwestern, putting the Huskers up 22-20.

If you’ve ever been to a game with me, you’ll know that one of my absolute favorite pump-up songs is Higher Ground by TNGHT. I’m sure you can only imagine my reaction to finding out that the Scarlets were dancing to it before the fourth quarter instead of the Huskers using the song to pump up the crowd in between plays. Kind of offended that my partner-in-crime Allison (@aliredredwine) and I weren’t invited on the field during the performance, because we put on quite the show when that song plays.

Normally, having a fourth quarter lead would be an exciting thing. After the past few years, I wouldn’t think twice about having a close game with Northwestern towards the end of the game, considering how close recent wins have been. But this season has conditioned me (and other fans, I’m sure) to not get too comfortable with anything once the final 15 minutes of the game come around.

Suddenly, a completed pass to Dan Vitale for 37 yards for a touchdown put the Wildcats up 27-22. A 27 yard field goal put them up 30-22. The familiar ending was near.

The Huskers answered on the next possession as Tommy Armstrong ran for 3 yards for a touchdown, bringing the score to 30-28. A failed two point conversion kept the Huskers from tying it up.

TommyTD
Tommy Armstrong scores his second touchdown of the day.

At this point, all anyone wanted was to keep Northwestern from scoring and get the Huskers to score something… Anything. These dreams were crushed as an unsportsmanlike conduct on Nebraska gave Northwestern the automatic first down, allowing time to expire.

Fans poured out of Memorial Stadium as the final seconds ticked down. Feeling defeated, I felt it necessary to scream at the Northwestern team to ask them if they remembered the Hail Mary from two years ago. Got ‘em.

Let’s just hope this team likes playing against road games enough to beat Purdue next weekend.

Hayley Archer is a senior Broadcasting major at UNL. Follow her on Twitter at @Harchinator.

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Big Ten, College Football, Huskers

Sunday Morning Hot Takes: Northwestern Edition

Just when you thought it was safe to assume the Huskers had stopped finding new and cruelly inventive ways to lose, the Big Red laid their biggest egg of the year with a mind boggling 28-30 loss to Northwestern.

The game summed up in two gifs.

DwEoXpx
Hans Moleman does his impression of any Husker receiver trying to catch a pass.

Sad-Cornhusker
The speed at which unbearable anguish turns grudging acceptance of one’s fate is incredible.

Mike Riley’s Balloon Watch: Mike’s balloon is now a flaming pile of monkey poo ready to explode.

Mike Riley Poop Balloon

In case you didn’t notice, Back to the Future was in the news a little bit this week for some reason or another. One of the signature gags in the 2015 Marty visited in Back to the Future II, was that the Jaws franchise had worked its way up to a 19th installment.

Back to the Future 2 Jaws 19

As someone who saw BTTF2 in the theatre back in 1989, I can say with good authority that it was a legitimately funny moment because just two years earlier, Jaws: The Revenge delivered the franchise down to Davy Jones Locker and the thought of 15 more Jaws movies was even more preposterous than the idea of the Cubs eventually winning another World Series.

Should the time ever come where Universal gets bored with making Fast and Furious movies and decides to dust off Jaws, they could pick no better team to write films  5-19 than Mike Riley and his coaching staff. In the span of just eight games, they have shown they are the absolute masters of finding new ways to terrify an audience week in and week out.

It’s still too early to give up on these guys but you’d think that after eight games they’d start correcting the problems (pick a problem, any problem) that have been there since the season opener.

NUMBERS TO DEPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WITH

30: More plays the Huskers ran than Northwestern.

21: Jordan Stevenson‘s longest kick return of the day and career so far. His still smoldering red shirt is not going to waste.

18:04: The Huskers’ time of possession advantage over Northwestern.

10.04: How many seconds it took for Northwestern quarterback Clayton Thorson to sputter 68 yards in the first quarter. By comparison, Taylor Martinez‘s 92 yard touchdown run at UCLA in 2012 took 10.92 seconds and he coasted the last 20 yards.

10: The number of different Huskers who, believe it or not, actually caught a pass.

7: The 1995 Huskers’ average yards per run.

6.06: The 2015 Huskers’ average yards per pass with the 1995 squad in attendance.

2: Number of times Andy Janovich carried the ball for a total of for yards.

0: Number of times Devine Ozigbo, aka the running back of the future three weeks ago, carried the ball for a total of 0 yards.

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Big Ten, College Football, Huskers

Sorry, Northwestern. It’s Time For a Vintage Husker Ass Whoopin’.

Northwestern, you had a good three year run as a brainy thorn in Nebraska’s side but know this: last year’s 38-17 throttling on your home turf was just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s high time you accept the fact that your rightful place is down in the dregs of the Big Ten as the purple clad Wildcat that gets an annual beat down from the Big Red.

Christian Peter Huskers
It was really nice of the Big Ten to ensure that the Huskers would still be able to pummel some purple every year just like the good ol’ days of the Big 8/12.

Speaking of good ol’ days, the 1995 Husker squad, aka the greatest college football team in the known universe will be in attendance to celebrate the fact that 20 years have passed since they graced us with their presence on the gridiron. Just the fact that they’re assembled within the same area code as Memorial Stadium is good for at least two bonus touchdowns for the Huskers.

Tommie FrazierThe over/under for the number crab legs Tommie Frazier would take down was set at 62, as in 62-24. Don’t ever think Vegas doesn’t have a sense of humor.

With Mike Riley finally taking down his first legit opponent as head coach of the Huskers last Saturday, he got his first taste of Big Ten blood just like C. Thomas Howell in Red Dawn.

And if that wasn’t enough, we have it on semi-good authority that Coach Riley is ditching his Mister Rogers persona like a prom night dumpster baby for something with a little more attitude thanks to the help of Killer Mike from Run the Jewels.

Killer Mike and Mike Riley
Killer Mike and his new protege Killer Mike Junior.

In other words, you’re doomed, Northwestern.

Granted, you little Wildcats had a nice win against Stanford in the Nerd Bowl and looked pretty impressive blanking Minnesota but you’re coming in to Lincoln just when things are starting to click for the Huskers. The offense is starting to remember what it’s capable of and while the Blackshirts might still be more than a little shaky defending the pass, they at least remembered they too can catch passes and score touchdowns of their own.

And if that wasn’t enough bad news, Northwestern, one of your dozen or so loyal fans had to go make a video that proves Evanston truly is the place where Ivy League rejects find refuge.

Northwestern should really be thankful that Andy Janovich and Jack Gangwish probably haven’t seen this.

That revisionist history lesson was so much worse than Dick Cheney‘s recollection of Iraq War Numero Dos that we were forced to reply via the Twitter just to set the record straight on Cabbage Patch Kids and parachute pants. Seriously, WTF?

Look for Tommy Armstrong to run wild against Northwestern like it’s 2014 all over again.

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College Football, Huskers

Did Tommy Armstrong Roll to a Press Conference on an NCAA Violation?

Tommy Armstrong sent Twitter aflutter and into confusion when he took the podium astride a self-balancing board at the Huskers’ weekly press conference on Monday.

Despite the World-Herald referring to Tommy’s gadget as both a hoverboard AND a Segway, it is neither. Until a catchy name is found for this decade’s Razor Scooter, we’ll go ahead and keep calling it a self-balancing board. There are many of brands on the market but you can find one that adjust to your person at the Electric Rider.

A quick search of the internets tells us that Tommy’s gizmo is not a “Swagway,” (oh, you were so unintentionally close, OWH) which can be found at Modell’s for the bargain price of $399.99.

And while it cosmetically looks similar, Tommy’s wheels aren’t the ones listed on AliExpress for the low, low price of $208.00 (just lookout for that $99 shipping charge).

Based on the slew of photos and videos, it’s most likely that Tommy is rolling around on a Vengatti in the “Fire and Ice” series which boasts an MSRP of $649.99.

Here’s Tommy in action.

Now, watch this video from Dodgers super utility player Kike´ Hernandez.

Other than a slightly different deck, the two devices look identical all the way down to the LED side steering lights.

One look at Vengatti’s Twitter account and it’s obvious that they are in the “influencer” stage of building brand awareness ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. Seemingly anyone with the right amount of hair gel and enough social media followers is getting hooked up with a free set of wheels. You can get the latest updates on hoverboard technology from the Hoverboard Lab right here.

This is just a small sample of what you can expect if you follow Vengatti on Twitter…

And then there were these two tweets that stood out for their lack of spray tan.

According to Austin’s Twitter bio, in addition to being part of the University of Indiana’s class of 2018 and a fresh contender for most obnoxious guy on campus, he’s an “official promoter of Vengatti” which likely means he got a discount code, a few stickers and something to put on his resume.

If Lovey “As seen on season 14 of American Idol” James getting 13 retweets is enough to garner a free Vengatti, Tommy’s little press conference stunt is a total “Then Again Maybe I Won’t” moment for Ventgatti. It will easily rack up at least 100 times the exposure by the time Husker Nation gets distracted by the next shiny thing on social media.

With it getting harder for coaches, boosters and other nogoodniks to hook up college players with free cars, are self-balancing boards the next frontier for dolling out swag?

Let’s hope not.

And let’s hope Tommy and his teammates used some of their new stipend money to pay for their toys and not a credit card that came with a free cheeseburger down at the Student Union.

As someone who took until the early years of the 21st century to pay off a top-of-the-line VCR and 35mm camera bought back when Scott Frost was under center, I can say with reasonable authority that college years purchases don’t have much of a shelf life once you’re out in the real world.

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