Nebraska Football Tickets

Team draws coach's frustration after 31-10 defeat

The Nebraska football team didn't come to play Saturday in their 31-10 loss to Texas Tech, and if there's one way you can get coach Bo Pelini's blood pressure to skyrocket, you can play the way the Huskers did.

From the inability to execute offensively to the seemingly endless mental mistakes that led to ill-timed penalties to the inability to stop a solid offense when the situation called for it, the second-year Husker mentor was not at all in the mood for conversation after the game.

Pelini did speak to reporters, but it was clearly obvious he was unhappy with his team's performance.

"I knew what we had coming up in Texas Tech," he said. "I knew the challenge we had and we didn't meet the challenge. We got our butts kicked."

Texas Tech drove down the field on their opening drive and scored, then took a 14-0 lead when Niles Paul failed to cover a lateral pass from Zac Lee and the fumble was returned 82 yards for a touchdown. It was that kind of day for the Huskers, and it never got better.

Even when Cory Green found Khiry Cooper with a touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter, the hope fans of the Nebraska football team were clinging to faded away quickly, as Texas Tech put together a methodical scoring drive on the ensuing possession to quash any hopes of another fourth-quarter comeback for the Huskers.

The Nebraska football team will look to bounce back from last week's loss, which dropped them to 4-2 overall and 1-1 in the Big 12, as they play host to Iowa State Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium.

The Cyclones are coming off a rare conference road win and will be looking to make it two in a row this weekend as they come to Lincoln, a place where Iowa State traditionally has had little to no success.

You can get your tickets to see Nebraska take on Iowa State now at Ticket Express -- where no Husker football game is ever sold out.

Getting over the rated bump

There was once a time when Nebraska was consistently rated among the top teams in the country and had little trouble beating unranked opponents.

These days, the shoes are on the other foot and the Huskers are having a hard time walking in them -- Nebraska takes an 18-game losing streak against opponents ranked higher than 20th into Saturday's road matchup at Texas Tech and is looking to break what is becoming a very difficult losing streak.

The streak got an ugly start in 2001 when the Huskers, ranked No. 2 at the time, walked into Boulder and got waxed by then-No. 14 Colorado 62-36. At the time, it was the most points a team had scored on Nebraska in its long and storied history, but it started a streak that continued Saturday when No. 4 Missouri beat Nebraska 52-17.

In fact, Nebraska has just one win against a ranked team since that time, a 32-28 win over 20th ranked Michigan in the 2005 Alamo Bowl. Nebraska's struggles against ranked opponents since the Nov. 23, 2001 at Colorado is as follows (team rankings in parenthesis):

Nov. 23, 2001 -- (14) Colorado 62, (2) Nebraska 36
*-Jan. 3, 2002 -- (1) Miami 37, (4) Nebraska 14
Sept. 28, 2002 -- (19) Iowa State 36, (20) Nebraska 14
Nov. 2, 2002 -- (7) Texas 27, Nebraska 24
Nov. 16, 2002 -- (11) Kansas State 49, Nebraska 13
Nov. 29, 2002 -- (13) Colorado 28, Nebraska 13
Nov. 1, 2003 -- (16) Texas 31, (12) Nebraska 7
Nov. 13, 2004 -- (2) Oklahoma 30, Nebraska 3
Oct. 8, 2005 -- (15) Texas Tech 34, Nebraska 31
Sept. 16, 2006 -- (4) USC 28, (19) Nebraska 10
Oct. 21, 2006 -- (5) Texas 22, (17) Nebraska 20
**-Dec. 2, 2006 -- (8) Oklahoma 21, (19) Nebraska 7
#-Jan. 1, 2007 -- (10) Auburn 17, (22) Nebraska 14
Sept. 15, 2007 -- (1) USC 49, (14) Nebraska 31
Oct. 6, 2007 -- (17) Missouri 41, (25) Nebraska 6
Oct. 27, 2007 -- (17) Texas 28, Nebraska 25
Nov. 3, 2007 -- (8) Kansas 76, Nebraska 39
Oct. 4, 2008 -- (4) Missouri 52, Nebraska 17

*--2002 BCS championship at Rose Bowl
**--2006 Big 12 championship game at Kansas City
#--2007 Cotton Bowl at Dallas

Nebraska has at least three games remaining against teams that should be ranked in the top 20 when Nebraska faces them -- Saturday at No. 7 Texas Tech, Nov. 1 at top-ranked Oklahoma and the following week at home against 16th-ranked Kansas.

Tough stretch ahead for Nebraska

Nebraska was able to get through its first three games in pretty good shape, posting a couple of impressive wins and coming back to win a third.

They take a 3-0 record into what will be a very difficult stretch of games over the next three weeks, and this could very well determine the path the Huskers will travel on the road back to being among the nation's elite.

First up is Saturday's matchup with Virginia Tech, a team that finished in the top 10 and is playing fairly well in spite of a variety of injury and discipline issues. Coach Frank Beamer brings a team in that can mix things up offensively, and this will give Nebraska a different test after facing three teams that feature variances of the spread offense.

Next is the Big 12 opener against Missouri, which will undoubtedly be Nebraska's toughest homecoming game in a long, long time. The Tigers feature 2007 Heisman finalist Chase Daniel and All-American speedster Jeremy Maclin, and the Tigers have been lighting up the scoreboard like a pinball machine early on. They also have a very solid defense, one that absolutely embarrassed Nebraska last year. The only negative working against Missouri is that they haven't won in Lincoln since 1978, and will be looking to end three decades of road frustration when they come to town Oct. 4.

The final game in the trifecta is Nebraska's first road game of the year, and it won't be easy as they'll have to head down to Lubbock, Texas to take on another high-powered offense in the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Coach Mike Leach has developed one of the most potent offensive schemes in all of college football, and Tech knows how to move the ball vertically early and often. Quarterback Graham Harrell has a lot of great targets to throw to, including All-American Michael Crabtree, and they have developed a defense that is doing better at stopping opposing offenses from finding the end zone.

The Huskers do have another tough stretch later in the season with Oklahoma and Kansas in back-to-back weeks, but this three-game run will go a long way to telling us how much this team has improved from last year's train wreck of a 5-7 season. If Nebraska can win one or two games in this stretch, it can position itself for a good finish and a quality bowl game at season's end.

Don't miss out on catching Nebraska football in action. You can get tickets for all Husker games, home and away, with Ticket Express -- where no Husker game is ever sold out.

Kickers need attention, too

You'd think the guys who do the kicking would get a little more notice. It is, after all, football we're talking about.

Nebraska's kicking situation looks to be pretty set for the coming year, with Dan Titchener handling the punting and Adi Kunalic and Alex Henery taking care of the placekicking duties.

The Lincoln Journal-Star said that coach Bo Pelini likes the kickers he has on board, but knows they -- like everybody else on the team -- need to get better before the season opener Saturday, Aug. 30 against Western Michigan.

"It's good to have proven kickers, guys that have been there in that situation and have done it under the lights," he told the paper. "That obviously gives us an advantage."

But there's always room for improvement, he added.

"You can always get better," he said. "No one on this team is even close to reaching the potential that they have, including the punters and kickers. We want precision, we want them to be perfect, so we want them to keep working."

Can we just forget 2007 even happened?

As the Nebraska football team gears up for the 2008 season, the media seems fixated on reliving the past.

If we could go one day without the print hacks, radio blabbermouths and the empty talking heads on TV trying to relive the disaster that was the 2007 season, we're pretty sure the media would be left with nothing more to say (which, when you think about it, doesn't seem like such a bad alternative).

The Nebraska football team is certainly over last year's 5-7 debacle and are moving forward with plans to have a successful season in 2008. And coach Bo Pelini is doing what he knows is best -- preparing for the future.

"As long as you focus on the process to get there and you have a vision of where you're going, then what happened in the past . . . that just becomes for the fans and the media to talk about. Because the players will forget it," Pelini said in a story in the Omaha World-Herald Tuesday.

He's certainly got his team thinking toward the future, a future where the sky is literally the limit for a team looking to recapture the swagger and dominance that made Nebraska football such a special entity for over four decades.

Players told the media Monday that Pelini has the entire team's attention and that last year is forgotten and it's time to get to work.

Nice problem to have at I-Back position

With the 2008 season ready to kick off in less than four weeks, the Nebraska football team is looking to nail down its starting lineup for their Aug. 30 opener against Western Michigan.

There are several positions that are up for grabs this season, including the I-Back position. You wouldn't think this would be a topic for discussion, with returning I-Back Marlon Lucky the leading returning rusher in the Big 12 Conference. But the emergence of sophomore Roy Helu Jr. has created a nice problem for the Husker coaches to consider -- which one will be the starter?

The duo are listed as Co-No. 1 on the preseason depth chart, and you can expect both backs to see plenty of action during the 2008 season. And that's just fine with both athletes, according to a recent column by Steve Sipple in the Lincoln Journal-Star.

The two are not only teammates on the field, but good firends off the field. And having each other to compete with is making for a spirited discussion as to which one will get the start.

Regardless, the Huskers will need two quality players at this position, especially if coach Bo Pelini wants to get back to the smashmouth football the Huskers were known for before the pass-happy days of the Bill Callahan era. Pelini wants his team to be more physical on offense this year, and that is not only good news for the offense, but good news for a defense that was obliterated in 2007.

The best defense, sometimes, is in keeping the other team's offense off the field, and if the Huskers can get back some of that offensive swagger it had in years past, that might help a defense that has had its nose bloodied quite a bit in recent years get back some of that aggressive Blackshirt mentality.

First day of practice is Monday

The long, cold, dark and dreary offseason ends in just two days for Husker football fans.

The first day of fall practice is scheduled for Monday as the Huskers prepare for their 2008 season opener on Saturday, Aug. 30 against Western Michigan. The Huskers will practice from 3:45 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the first day, and coach Bo Pelini and some of the players will talk with the media after that first day's practice.

The team will work out twice a day on six days between now and the season opener. Two-a-day practice sessions will be at 9 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. and will be held between Aug. 9 and Aug. 22.

The Lincoln Journal-Star reported that the Huskers will practice six days a week during the month of August, taking Sundays off.

Huskers Fan Day set for Aug. 17

Husker football fans will be able to meet the Husker players and coaches during a special Fan Day event at Memorial Stadium.

The event will be on Sunday, Aug. 17 beginning at 2 p.m. Fans can meet the players and coaches, who will be on hand to sign autographs and pose for pictures with Husker football fans.

The Huskers Authentic store will be open that day and fans can pick up posters and media guides at the store.

The Huskers kick off the 2008 season on Saturday, Aug. 30 when they host Western Michigan. Get your tickets now at Ticket Express -- where no event is ever sold out.

Sporting News praises Pelini hiring -- sort of

It might not be the most ringing endorsement in history, but The Sporting News gave the Nebraska football program props for last winter's hiring of Bo Pelini as head coach.

In ranking the 16 coaching hires in Div. I football over the winter, Nebraska's hiring of Pelini came in at No. 7. Pelini, who served as Nebraska's defensive coordinator under former coach Frank Solich in 2003, came back to Nebraska after one year at Oklahoma and three at LSU, where he helped the Tigers win last year's national championship.

"No head-coaching experience and a little quick tempered," the magazine said of Pelini. "But Dr. Tom Osborne loves him. We'll take his word for it."

Pelini's hiring was the publication's second best in the Big 12, finishing just behind Baylor's choice of Art Briles. The top five were all high-profile hirings, led by Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson. The other top five hires were Rich Rodriguez by Michigan, Rick Neuheisel by UCLA, Houston Nutt by Ole Miss and Bobby Petrino by Arkansas.

Five coaches the publication said are on "the hot seat" for 2008 are Tyrone Willingham of Washington, Mike Stoops of Arizona, Kirk Ferentz of Iowa, Greg Robinson of Syracuse and Ron Prince of Kansas State.

Football 101 benefit is June 3

If you want to learn about football and help benefit cancer research, the Football 101 program at Memorial Stadium is just for you.

Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini's foundation and the Southeast Nebraska Cancer Center is putting on the day-long event on Tuesday, June 3 at Memorial Stadium. Fans can learn about football and spend time with members of the Husker coaching staff during a day-long event that will benefit the Southeast Nebraska Cancer Center Foundation and the Eppley Cancer Center in Omaha.

Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and concludes with fans taking the traditional Tunnel Walk into Memorial Stadium at around 5:30 p.m. Husker coaches and some former players are expected to be a part of the experience.

Cost for the event is $80 and registrations can be made online at the Bo Pelini Foundation website.