Nebraska Football: Are good times ahead for Nebraska quarterbacks?

Can the Nebraska football quarterbacks have a big game on Saturday?

When I wake on Husker football Saturday at home I plant one of my two Cornhuskers flags into the front porch flag pole holder depending on if it is a home or away game, usually flip on ESPN Game Day to see what the talking heads say and start my busy day of following College Football.

This season I have not changed that routine but that excited anxiousness that crawled into me the night before and daytime hours before the kickoff of a Cornhusker football game has changed slightly over the past decade. I know why. My emotions now shifted often to nervousness before games because I more than likely will be cheering but watching more impending mediocrity showing up again and again on the field of play whether at home or away. It is still my undying passion to watch them play but the mood for me is much different than in the spoiled days of the 70, 80s, 90s and even some brilliant spots of the early to middle 2000’s.

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I attributed the lack of confidence in our program rebuilding over the last two decades to the POWER I days is largely due to the NU quarterbacks being fairly forgettable except for Zach Taylor and Eric Crouch. Often like Adrian Martinez’s short career as a Cornhusker’s starting quarterback, they have a greater start to their career showing awesome skills and potential at the helm but then show regression or little improvement to their overall game the following seasons! This is an astonishing indictment on a program whose longtime banner is ‘Nebraska Football a winning tradition.” You cannot have a winning tradition with mediocrity calling the signals on offense for a long period of time now!

Look at it this way, the Missouri Tigers in the last decade and a half have found talented enough quarterbacks to consistently start or roam the sideline in the NFL the past 15 years yet not the Huskers, except Taylor’s cup of coffee with Tampa Bay as an undrafted rookie.

I am not saying that our current quarterback situation cannot turn into a positive and we could see an explosive offense going forward with the proper guidance and mastery of the complexities of it but you better jump start their learning curve very quickly or your young team’s talented freshmen and sophomores will lose an opportunity to pick up on their rout running, yards after contact and building their skills in what might be a short one as coronavirus spiking may force more football games cancelled.

Bring on the stud dancing horses Omar Manning and Marcus Fleming who quickly need to be put in a position to be successful and hone their craft. They should be sent out often to stretch the field more this year along with Wan’Dale Robinson. So far NU offensively is ‘dinking and dunking” at a ridiculous ratio of pass plays below the first down marker and that really makes me feel nervous when I am also seeing it on third down and long. Yikes! I hope coach Frost and the quarterbacks do not continue underutilizing the speedy players.

I think for the most part the Cornhusker’s offensive problems are due to a lack of practice reps or Frost is not allowing our quarterbacks to be thinking throw down the big plays. Unleash those guys, put them in a position to be successful against a pretty below average Penn State defense secondary against long balls. Cornhusker’s can spread the ball around as they have done this year but just go deep more often. We don’t want those studs to jump ship like JD Spielman and start to wonder if there are greener pastures after the football season because our quarterbacks are not that good.

There are many similarities between these two team. I think our defense is improving enough to slow down Penn State’s offense and we may see their regression continue led by another quarterback, Sean Clifford, who looks often lost, overthrowing wide receivers and losing his poise in the pocket throwing wild picks. Their offense and defense is plagued with mistake to start this season and are 0-3 for a reason however their play is a mirror in many ways of the performance of NU’s two groups.

This is collision of teams trying to mend a wildly unpredictable offensive performance thus far in 2020 shall be interesting to watch and defenses that look at many time like lost children trying to find their way through the forest. Let us see a sense of urgency against the Penn State like Cornhuskers had often on defense last week, protect the damn ball but be more daring with our offense and play calling. Yeah that is easier said than done with youngsters all over Tom Osborne field tomorrow but the rudderless ships that Penn State and Nebraska are so far will change as I see that both improve after four quarters Saturday. They have too! I like Nebraska because they are at home (I know just a handful of fans but its home sweet home anyway) and Penn State is traveling in for a very early game, so Cornhuskers have a better game overall and win it.

Cornhuskers 35 and Nittany Lions 24 is my prediction.