The straight scoop from
Colonel Mustard
Sept. 15, 1997
This hurts just thinking about it. Where do I start? On offense, we ran off right guard every first down. Let's just hope this was our vanilla plan and not the sort of thing we think actually has a chance of working in Seattle. Green is still running soft and going down easy. But Buckhalter is already reminding me of one of my all-time favorites, Richard Berns. They can barely tackle him, and he makes them pay. Two others who can make them pay are Alexander and Miller -- we need to get them into the game.
Frost is playing better and looks good. Booing him was idiotic. But here's an idea -- next time London goes in, why not keep him in until he doesn't get us a TD? He looks like the better QB. The team clicks and seems to have more fire with him in there.
On defense, here's something you don't need to be told: we're playing a cornerback who just isn't ready. I won't even mention his name, because he's been picked on enough already. UCF was even pointing at him at the line. If we don't make a change against Washington, I'll be afraid to watch. But it's more than just one guy. That was a one-dimensional offense that was giving us fits. The Blackshirts had better be ready to turn it up three or four notches against UW, who can both pass and run a little.
Back in the early '80s I had this problem. We would have Nate Mason in at quarterback (why?), and after two or three series I just couldn't take it anymore. Someone needed to pull him out of the game, and it looked like it was up to me. I'd go storming out of my seat down towards the playing field, but my friends would always stop me. Same thing almost happened Saturday when we kept putting Wiggins back there to field punts. And that brings us to our overall problem: We cannot expect to beat Washington this week, because we won't play our best people. This year reminds me of '81 and '92, when we waited until midseason to play our best guys. We need to reshuffle the deck, but we won't until it's too late.
Some of you will say, "Shut up, Colonel. The coaches are the experts and will do what's best." Well, guess what? You don't need to be a gourmet chef to know that your soup has been served to you cold. And what we have so far with the '97 Huskers is cold soup.
-- The Colonel