[Husker] 1st half - not so good, but could be worse

[Pat Gaule]

Nebraska was very lucky Mizzou's last pass before the half was ruled 
incomplete.  That was clearly the wrong call (at least on my HDTV), and 
I'm guessing the only reason it didn't get overturned was because it was 
so close that the booth officials didn't feel it was sufficient to 
overturn the call on the field.  Nebraska has actually given up almost 
300 yards of total offense, albeit the defense improved slightly after 
Mizzou's first two possessions.  They are fortunate that Mizzou only has 
20 points on the scoreboard, but they're still in somewhat of a hole.

NU has been inadaquete on offense, having a mere 139 total yards.  They 
can't keep settling for field goals if they want to get back into the 
game.  I don't think Keller has been the problem....he has made plays 
when he had a reasonable amount of time, and even when he didn't have 
much.  The offensive line simply isn't protecting him as well as they 
should.

I do not have a good feeling about the 2nd half.  At best, I think we 
will make it close, but I can't help but feel Mizzou's defense will 
storm out in the 2nd half and finish off our defense.  I hope I am 
wrong.  I will gladly eat my words.

By the way, this was not a good day for Nebraska's opponents...

ISU got obliterated by Texas Tech 42-17
Ball State was beat handily by a 3-3 Central Michigan team (58-38)
Wake Forest only beat 1-5 Duke by 5 points (41-36)
Nevada lost to Fresno State (49-41)

And the most shocking of all...

USC was beaten by 2-3 Stanford (24-23) AT HOME.  Stanford has played 3 
other Pac10 teams and they were beaten by at least 24 points in every 
single one of them.  After USC beat NU handily, I believe I posted that 
some other team with much less talent than NU would take Stanford to the 
wire, and possibly win.  Well,  this has now happened in consecutive 
weeks.  USC barely survived a game at Washinton last week (winning 
27-24).  This week, it actually resulted in a loss.  I'll leave it at 
that for now

Go Huskers...