Nebraska football Tailgate Talk: Avoiding another black eye at Buckeye stadium

The Nebraska football team plays in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday at 11:00 am. It will be televised on FOX and their gameday show will also be in attendance. Weather forecast is for a high of 63 with a partly cloudy morning and clearing as the day goes on.

The Buckeyes are coming off a bye week after a frustrating loss by 1 point to Oregon. The Huskers are coming off an atrocious and embarrassing loss by a kazillion points to Indiana.

Buckle up. I'm still salty. In full disclosure, I do know the Nebraska football team is a good team. Seriously. I believe they are better than what happened on the scoreboard in Indiana. That's the extremely frustrating part for me.

Nebraska football coming out of left field

This came out of left field, or as Huskers HC Rhule said, "I didn't see this coming." It's even worse to know that Northwestern hung with Indiana into the 4th quarter, and the Huskers were way out of the game before the end of the half

. A complete failure on all 3 phases of the game. The Blackshirt defense would have had better luck shedding a social disease than shedding a block on Saturday. The O line couldn't push a mop across the floor let alone the Hoosiers D line. They had a better chance at picking up supermodel Adriana Lima's phone number than picking up the blitz.

Big Red wide receivers couldn't block on the perimeter, or anywhere else. Special teams... rinse and repeat meltdowns. This game has been rehashed all week. It was a knockout series of punches that reminded me of Bud Crawford fights. It definitely had Husker coaches' heads spinning. Indiana head coach Cignetti didn't take his foot off the gas either and made no apology for it. indiana made good plays and was scalpel precise on their routes.

Their defense clogged up any option of a score for Dylan Raiola and the Huskers. While I'm jealous of Cignetti's swagger (because he backed it up on the field) he's now supplanted Minnesota's PJ Fleck at the top of my most obnoxious B1G Ten coach list. I know. He doesn't care.

All 3 Husker coaches (Rhule, White & Satterfield) took responsibility on Monday by saying "it's on me." Great. Glad that you recognize it. Now what are you going to do about it? They are paid the BIG bucks for a reason, right? It did kind of help stave off full panic to know that Rhule, in year 2 at Baylor, was blown out 14-58 by 13th ranked West Virginia in the middle of the season too.

The 3rd year he was 11-3. Right now Nebraska is 5-2 having lost to a ranked team. That takes the sting out of it, but only by a little. There needs to be more consistency from the Huskers. However, the only consistency lately is that the offense has regressed in every game since playing Colorado. It baffles me how this has happened now that there is a gunslinger at QB.

Coach Rhule admitted "the perimeter blocking is awful for Nebraska." I gave this some thought. I even talked it over with a former Husker wide receiver and return specialist. Despite QB Dylan Raiola's strong arm, the majority of his passes are the dink and dunk short yardage type we saw from Heinrich Haarburg last year. Is it any wonder why the receivers aren't aggressive in their routes to get open, or blocking down field when they know the ball is never coming to them past the first 10 yards? Or is it the fact that a 25-year-old former QB and Wide Receiver Coach has no way to articulate to his wide receiver room how to play the position because he's never had to do it?

Do they even respect him enough to listen? Husker fans were spoiled with wide receiver Coaches Keith Williams and Mickey Joseph who would break it down on the regular. They could also SHOW the players why it's important to keep your hips low so that you can execute the break in, or out on a route (thanks De'Mornay Pierson-El). Husker Nation deserves better from the offense and Wide Receivers because this is the deepest the WR room has been since the Pelini years.

Offensive Coordinator Marcus Satterfield admitted he needs "to commit more to the run game." Wow, That's some deep analysis in week 20 of play for a guy stealing a felony level of 1.4 million a year. If you haven't seen his epic fail at a 7-8 minute press conference from Tuesday, you can read about it here. To cut to the chase, he was clearly rattled. He was speaking 100 mph. He stumbled over admitting he didn't know basic Husker offensive stats. Kind of your job.... It's especially perplexing when his boss is constantly tossing out stats. Why the big disconnect between those two? Is it as simple as one wants a huddle, the other doesn't. That's just the surface.

In the words of former Husker linebacker Will Compton, there is "No time to bleed." Ohio State is up next. Rhule's statement that the "last thing we're going to do is sit around and be victims" is a positive. It's definitely a character check for the team. And in a half full perspective, everyone had this game as an "L" on the schedule anyway so zero pressure. Huskers will get knocked around but it's by a 4th ranked team. I would just prefer to not be knocked out by the end of 1 half. I say get creative. Let Co-Offensive Coordinator Glen Thomas call plays. Why wait for the next bye week to start that transition? A "bounce back" this week just looks like not getting molly-whopped for a second week on the road.

Ohio State is the same as usual, mostly. The red and gray team scored 56 points in its first two games against FCS opponents, a bye week, and then scored 49 points. Conference opener against Michigan State it was 38-7, next against Iowa 35-7, and then the one-point loss to Oregon 31/32. I'll be thrilled if the game ends up 35-14 against the Huskers. However, It's going to take a group effort but it can be done. Huskers have nothing to lose this game and should let it all hang out. Take a chance and throw a post route.

Kansas State transfer OSU QB Will Howard isn't Heisman quality but he gets the job done. He was 21 of 25 targets with 4 touchdowns against Oregon. Husker DC said they have "phenomenal physical specimens" for players. He said the Blackshirts are up against "the best backs in the league" in Ole Miss transfer Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson whose combined stats are 5470 rush yards and 81 TDs in their careers. Wide receivers Emeka Egbuka (grad student) was 10 catches for 10 targets against Oregon. And beware of freshman Jeremiah Smith who was the leading receiver against Michigan State.

This is also a huge character test for Nebraska. I say they respond well, but what does that look like? It isn't 56-7. That would put them on the same level as the FCS opponents of OSU. Co-Offensive Coordinator Glen Thomas was the OC at Temple with Rhule. Give him the play sheet. Let Thomas Fidone eat touchdowns for breakfast. Last week he finally got some plays to go up and get it and he succeeded. The fact he doesn't have a touchdown yet is crazy.

The offense must find any way to have a run game to kill some clock against the tough Buckeye defense or it gets ugly. Tony White needs to get his guys back to Blackshirt form. Dylan Raiola needs to not force things and convert 3rd downs. To his credit, forcing things is the want to win rather than I'm desperate to win (in my humble opinion). I suspect you will find out which of the wide receivers "are willing to do it" this week (credit Husker receiver Jamal Banks).

I'd love to say I have all the answers. If I did, I'd call important people. I just don't want to be embarrassed again because this team is better than they showed last week. I haven't lost faith. I'll still be cheering on Saturday. I've just lost some respect for the highly paid people on the Nebraska football team. To be fair, some never had my respect. End of rant. G! B! R!