[Husker] Comments

[Steve Stone]

Most HuskerListers, myself included, tend to view the Husker football 
season as a series of discrete events (games) connected by six days 
of anxious waiting. The players see it as an extended process 
stretching out over four or, hopefully, five months. The coaches, 
however, see it a four-year round-the-calendar project that requires 
unremitting dedication.

Pellini said as much just a few days go in talking about keeping the 
red shirt on all remaining freshmen no matter how critical the need, 
referring specifically to frosh linebacker Compton. In doing so he 
came the closest I've yet heard to criticizing Callahan's use of a 
dozen or so freshmen each of the last two years. So far only five 
freshmen have played, one of them, Holt, being a walkon.

Pellini and the coaches knew long before autumn camp that in order to 
be competitive in 2009 and thereafter, they would have to keep 
talents like Compton and Baker Steinkuhler off the field this year to 
let them find their feet, adjust to life on campus, and get settled 
in their studies while building strength and gaining maturity. Next 
year they'll get on the field bigger and faster with four remaining 
years of eligibility.

That's called "thinking ahead." I like it and would much rather see 
the Huskers pay a relatively small price this season in return for 
greater gains next season and thereafter.

That's the main reason Bo's on-field antics don't bother me at all. A 
second one is that his capers are largely theatrical, meant to show 
his players that he'll back them until the last zebra fades. It's a 
physical demonstration that he'll never, never - - as in "not ever" - 
- quit on them.

Next season and subsequent ones when the Huskers are winning more 
often than these days, such behavior will diminish because the need 
will diminish.

Steve Stone