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The Carriker Chronicles
Fresno State @ Nebraska review – Sept. 6, 2016
 
Former Husker Adam Carriker will post his commentary every Monday at 8 a.m. CT and Thursdays at 2 p.m. CT. Follow him on Facebook at OfficialAdamCarriker and Twitter at @AdamCarriker94.
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Welcome Husker Nation to a brand-new season of Carriker Chronicles. You may have already noticed something a little bit different this year. Yeah, that's right, I'm even better looking in person than you thought I was. I hope everyone had a great labor day weekend. It's the one day of the year where you take time out to celebrate and honor all the women giving birth to babies. Now let's get right into the football aspect of things. To me this first topic is bigger than the game of football itself. I love what they did honoring Sam Foltz on the first punt of the game -- the players the fans and Fresno State as well. They clapped, they declined the penalty and even wore stickers with SF on the back of the helmet. I'm a fan of them for the rest of this year. Now to be honest I'm gonna want to address that right off the top but now let's get into the X's and O's of things start with the elephant's let the offensive play call with calling a little bit conservative a little bit of vanilla if you will. They didn't have too much of Tommy but they really didn't have to but they ran the ball 20 of the first twenty one plays they had 51 rushing attempts on the day for 292 yards 5.7 a pop not too shabby and it's interesting because last year the first game they threw the ball 41 times and they only threw 13 times this game so I think it shows you two things: number one, a change in offensive philosophy for this year and also i think it talks to speaks to Fresno because last year Fresno State's defense struggled. They are 116 nationally against the run. They also gave up an average of 235 yards a game rushing so I think that had a lot to do with running the ball eighty percent of the time, almost eighty percent of the time this game. So my only concern is last year's screaming run this year we've got to keep in mind we're only up 14 to 10 at halftime and only 21 just 21-10 at the end of the 3rd quarter. We were not blowing them out. It wasn't until we get that deep ball on the first play of the fourth quarter on a 57-yard touchdown pass to Alonzo Moore to find the Fresno safety had to come back and i had to respect the pass and that best receiving corps the entire Big Ten and always done running lanes were a lot more open and we ended up scoring more points in the fourth quarter, 22, than we did the first three quarters combined, 21, so I love the run-first mentality. I think a lot of it had to do with Fresno so there are two vanilla going forward. I also love how they took care of the ball-- no turnovers in this game versus that 27 a year ago. The Blackshirts over forced two turnovers, they also only gave up one pass play over 30 yards and essentially no other big plays which as we know was a huge problem last year especially defending the pass. The communication that core discovers that the Blackshirts run was much improved. The defensive line is a question mark coming into this year. They've only got one senior on that two-deep on the depth chart up front, and that you guys leaving the offseason. Greg McMullen got his degree and other things you want to pursue had some physical issues from what i understand. I wish him the best and I wish Kevin Williams the best as well apparently he thinks Kentucky's a better factory than Nebraska. He wanted to go to an SEC school which is why you want to Michigan State. But as far as this game, the defensive line showed some flashes and they also showed some things that need to work on. They held Fresno to only 31 yards rushing. You got to keep in mind president there were rushing offense office about last year since 2002 take that with a bit of grain of salt. The special teams -- i got to address that blocked punt . i don't know that i put that on the kicker, that's the protection up front. But one thing I like was in the return game Tre Bryant, it's gonna be fun to watch it -- he's got an extra gear. It's like he starts out second gear when he gets the ball when most people start out in first gear. Another thing that's got to be addressed as these penalties and we had a procedure penalty took away first down the the targeting penalty. I'll get into that. Actually allow them to could present continuous drive and get their only filled go all 10 of their points came off and Nebraska miscues a certain points during the game in my opinion to sum it up the b-team they should be they ended up blowing out a team late they should have blown out keep in mind Fresno had 105 players report to camp, 68 were freshmen this Nebraska started slow finish strong. Now as far as that targeting penalty, for the love of all that is holy I cannot think of another sport on God's green earth where you get penalized for playing the game -- not throwing a punch, not biting someone's ear off -- for playing the game. Now I understand player safety and i'm all for altering the game to make the game safer. Do not change ruin the game. Thinking that iowa game last year had Nate Gerry not gotten rejected from the game for what i think is a BS targeting call. He gets ejected. Iowa, after he was kicked out of the game, had two long touchdown runs and to me that was a difference in the game. Gerry probably would have tackled the running back before scores back up just clearly didn't have the speed. So alter the game to make it safer do not change the game in ruin. Now I love talking football, like talking Husker football. I want to hear what your fans have to say i want you to hit me up on my social medias only got two -- Adam Carriker on Facebook, look for that little blue check mark everyone else is an impostor, and @AdamCarriker94 on Twitter. Until next time, Husker nation, Go Big Red and always remember to throw the bones.

 

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