• Missouri clobbers the Huskers 52-17
• Penalties and mental mistakes doom the Huskers
• Huskers and Hokies are ready to face off
• Former Husker Thunder Collins arrested for murder?
• Nebsports.Com is back online!
• Nebraska - Virginia Tech game to be shown on ABC
• Huskers have no problems with New Mexico State
• Nebraska lines up future games with Miami and Fresno State
• Huskers are ready for New Mexico State
• Andy Christensen re-instated by Coach Pelini
• Vote for Cornhusker cheerleader Katie Rockwell
• Huskers stuggled against San Jose State but win 35-12
• Huskers are ready for San Jose State
• Nebraska Football Tickets available
• Andy Christensen found not guilty

The NFL Draft happened over the weekend and only three Husker players were drafted.  Sure shows you what NFL staffs thought of the players that Nebraska has had lately… Not very much talent they thought.

Zack Bowman was the first Husker picked as he went in the 5th round to the Chicago Bears.  They Bears said they drafted Bowman hoping that he would be 100% over his knee injuries and back to the he had during his junior season.

Carl Nicks was drafted in the 5th round as well as he went to the New Orleans Saints.  Nicks was once thought to be a 2nd or 3rd round pick but slipped to the 5th round.  You have to think that his off the field incident and not being able to work out at the Nebraska Pro Day really hurt his stock.

Bo Rudd was picked up by the New England Patriots in the 6th round.  Rudd will have to really impress the Patriots during mini camps if he wants to make the team.

So far three other Huskers have signed free agent contracts.  Steve Octavien with the Kansas City Chiefs, Courtney Grixby with the Carolina Panthers, and Lance Brandenburgh with the San Francisco 49ers.  Brett Byford has signed on with the New York Jets.

Maurice Purify will take part of the Cincinnati Bengals mini camp but has not signed a contract.  The same deal with Corey McKeon who will take part in Tampa Bay Bucs minicamp and Tierre Green who will take part in Green Bay Packers mini camp.  We have also learned that Frantz Hardy has signed with the Philedelphia Eagles.

Marlon Lucky and Carl Nicks have been named to 2nd team All-Big 12.  Ten other Husker players were added to honorable mention as well.  Not too bad overall for a team that finished below .500 and not going to a bowl game.  Hopefully Lucky decides to come back and play his senior year for the Big Red, and will be first team next year.

The players that received honorable mention are:

Brett Byford
Lydon Murtha
Jacob Hickman
Maurice Purify
Zach Potter
Bo Rudd
Steve Octavien
Larry Asante
Cortney Grixby
Dan Titchener

Well Well Well what is everyong going to be talking about this week? A HUSKER WIN!  The Nebraska Cornhuskers came out to play on Senior Day against the Kansas State Wildcats and they dominated them.  The final score was 72-31.

Junior Quarterback Joe Ganz led the Huskers by throwing seven touchdowns and throwing for 510 yards.  Yes, you read that right!  Seven touchdowns and 510 yards!  That is a great performance by the Husker offense today.  All the way from the quarterback to the linemen, and onto the running backs and receivers.  Everyone did a great job!

Maurice Purify led the Husker receivers with six catches for 108 yards.  Todd Peterson grabbed four balls and two touchdowns while Frantz Hardy caught three balls for 83 yards and three touchdowns.  Marlon Lucky and Terrance Nunn both caught a touchdown pass from Ganz as well.

Lucky led the Husker rushing attack with 103 yards and freshman Quentin Castille finished with 50 yards on 11 carries.  Not as many rushing yards as I thought they would get but that is what happens when Ganz passes for over 500 yards.

Onto the defensive side of the ball.  Sure K-state scored 31 points, but in a closer game, I don’t think that would have happened.  Steve Octavien playing in his last game at Memorial Stadium led the team with nine tackles and one sack.  Armando Murillo finished with six tackles and one sack.  Larry Asante also had six tackles, while Corey McKeon had five tackles.

I think Courtney Grixby’s kickoff return in the first quarter ignited the Huskers. It gave them the spark to go out there and whoop some butt.  After that play, it was all downhill for the Wildcats.

Now we move onto Colorado after a bye week.  The Colorado game is always a big one for the players and fans. Lets get another win in Boulder!

Oh yeah, lets see if those K-State fans come back and leave some comments now after they all the doggin they have been doing on the Huskers.  Maybe you guys need to ask yourself if Prince should really be your coach!

GO BIG RED!

Will Nebraska come out and play balls to the wall on Senior Day in Lincoln?  I would sure hope so as the seniors want to go out on a high note during their last home game of their career.  They need to put everything aside that has been happening and go out there and just dominate these Wildcats.

Steve Octavien needs to have a huge game in my opinion.  This is one player that everything thought would be an All-American and it seems like we really never got to see the real Steve Octavien out there.  He needs to be in a system that just lets him fly around, and that is not Cozgrove’s defense.

Courtny Grixby, the guy everyone was on a few years ago because he was too small to cover anyone.  This man is a true Husker.  He bleeds red and goes out there and tries his best every single time.  Great athlete and Grixby needs to know the Husker fans really appreciate his play.

Another senior I see having a big day is Mo Purify.  Mo is going to get the ball thrown to him quite a bit this game I think.  Expect Mo to come down with atleast one touchdown today from Ganz.  It will really depend on how the games goes and how well the Huskers are running the ball, but I expect Purify to have a huge day.

My final prediction.  Huskers 35 K-State 27

The Kansas Jayhawks took the Nebraska Cornhuskers back behind the woodshed for an old fashioned butt whooping on Saturday.  The 76 points put up on the Husker defense is the most points ever scored on a Nebraska team.  The offense didn’t play too bad for the Huskers, except Joe Ganz had a couple of interceptions in the second half that stopped the Huskers drive and gave the ball right back to the Jayhawks who knew what to do with it.

One bright spot for the Huskers was wide-receiver Maurice Purify who had three touchdowns on the game.  He made a spectacular one handed grab for his second touchdown that you will probably see on the Top 10 plays on Sportscenter tonight.

But once again, it will be the terrible Nebraska defense that everyone will be talking about for another week.   There are plenty of “fans” out there that wish the season was just over.  Well we have Kansas State and Colorado left on the schedule.  Lets try to win these final two games and then wait for all the changes to be made.

Goodjob Jayhawks, you guys got us and it was an old fashioned butt whooping.  Good luck the rest of the season.

It wasn’t what Nebraska fans had expected on Saturday as Nebraska struggled against Ball State in a 41-40 victory.  Thanks to Sam Keller and the offense, the Huskers improved 3-1 on the season.  Should they have won though?  Probably not but some teams have to get lucky at some point.

I’ll start off a good note and that was the offense.  Sam Keller and company were scoring on almost every possession.  Keller finished the day with completing 29-of-37 passes for 438 yards and three touchdowns.  A big play of the game came in the 3rd quarter when Keller connected with Sean Hill on a 73 yard pass.  Keller also connected with Maurice Purify on the final drive of the game to give the Huskers win.  Keller looked great 90% of the time yesterday and the receivers were all catching the ball instead of dropping them.  A+ for the passing game!

Marlon Lucky, Quentin Castille, and Roy Helu all carried the ball the Huskers.  Lucky led all the running backs with  21 carries and 102 yards.  Lucky also caught 11 passes for another 81 yards.  Castille caught a nice swing pass and then ran it in for a yard out in second quarter.  Helu was the suprise as he got quite a bit of playing time as Cody Gleen sat out the game.  Helu is a quick back that finds the hole and gets to it quick.  He needs to add some weight but he will be pretty good down the road.

Now for the bad part of the game.. The Blackshirts or I think we should start calling them the pinkshirts.  What a disgrace the way the defense is playing right now.  Ball State ran and passed all over the defense and should have put up more points but four dropped balls really hurt them.

I did like the fact that Ricky Thenarse and Phillip Dillard played more, and they need to continue to get more snaps every day.  Tierre Green, Bo Rudd, and Corey McKeon all sucked once again, and only Rudd had one good play on the interception and td.

Nate Davis is a hell of a quarterback, but the Husker defense made him look like a first team all american all day long.  If Cosgrove doesn’t start making some adjustments during the game, it is going to be a long season for the defense.

In the end I’m happy with a win and that is what really matters, but it doesn’t really feel like a Nebraska win.  It was ugly, and one of the worst performances by the defense in a very long time.

First Quarter (Nebraska 7, Ball State 0)
NU - Marlon Lucky 28 run (Alex Henery kick), 4:43

Second Quarter (Nebraska 14, Ball State 10)
BSU - Darius Hill 20 pass from Nate Davis (Jake Hogue kick), 2:58
BSU - Hogue 45 field goal, 3:40
NU - Quentin Castille 1 run (Henery kick), 4:10

Third Quarter (Ball State 31, Nebraska 28)
BSU - Davis 14 run (Hogue kick), 0:59, 3-39
NU - Sean Hill 73 pass from Sam Keller (Henery kick), 1:22
BSU - MiQuale Lewis 43 run (Hogue kick), 1:44
NU - Nate Swift 18 pass from Keller (Henery kick), 2:40
BSU - Love 58 pass from Davis (Hogue kick), 1:15

Fourth Quarter (Nebraska 41, Ball State 40)
BSU - Madaris Grant 21 pass from Davis (kick failed), 1:29
NU - Bo Ruud 34 interception return (Henery kick)
BSU - Hogue 22 field goal, 2:10
NU - Maurice Purify 11 pass from Keller (two-point conversion failed), 3:45

Things didn’t go as planned on Saturday night in Lincoln when the Huskers and Trojans met at Memorial Stadium.  It was awesome seeing all the fans jacked up at the beginning of the game and through the first quarter.  It was electric and the Huskers were on top 10-7 but that was about as good as it got as the Trojans went on for a 49-31 victory.

USC quickly came back and put up 14 points to close out the first half and take a 21-10 lead at halftime.  A lot of Husker fans were mad about the USC player being left on the field for 12 minutes and taking a lot of the momentum away from the team and fans but you have to come back out on the field with the same emotion.  If you can’t get up for playing USC after sitting for 12 minutes something is wrong.

The second half of the ballgame was pretty much how the first half ended with USC running ball right down the throats of the blackshirt defense.  Our defensive line was getting manhandled the entire game.  USC had a game plan going in that they were going to double team Suh and make Potter, Steinkuhler, and Turner beat them.  Well that didn’t happen as they forced 0 tournovers and never sacked Booty the entire game.

The Husker offense got things going late in the second half when USC had their second team defense in but it wasn’t enough.  Sam Keller had a good game overall (minus the two interceptions) but it was the offensive line and running backs that performed poorly.  Well I will put most of that blame on the line because a running back can’t run the ball if the line is getting pushed back into him everytime.

The widereceivers played a really good game.  It was awesome to see Maurice Purify and Nate Swift get into things early in the ball game and then Todd Peterson making some grabs and even two touchdowns.

Nebraska still isn’t ready for bigtime football.  They have weaknesses and USC exposed them all night on Saturday.  The good news is that Nebraska plays Ball State on Saturday and will hopefully get things back on track before Big 12 games start up.

Scoring (USC 49, NU 31)

First Quarter (Nebraska 7, USC 7)
USC - Stanley Havili 5 pass from John David Booty (David Buehler kick), 10:49, USC 7-0
NU - Cody Glenn 1 run (Alex Henery kick), 1:03, 7-7

Second Quarter (USC 21, NU 10)
NU - Alex Henery 37 field goal, 9:04, NU 10-7
USC - Havili 2 run (Buehler kick), 6:50, USC 14-10
USC - Stafon Johnson 7 run (Buehler kick), 3:52, USC 21-10

Third Quarter (USC 42, NU 10)
USC - Anthony McCoy 2 pass from Booty (Buehler kick), 11:29, USC 28-10
USC - Chauncey Washington 1 run (Buehler kick), 9:14, USC 35-10
USC - Chauncey Washington 1 run (Buehler kick), 5:03, USC 42-10

Fourth Quarter (USC 49, NU 31)
NU - Glenn 1 run (Henery kick), 12:09, USC 42-17
USC - Allen Bradford 6 run (Buehler kick), 6:45, USC 49-17
NU - Todd Peterson 20 pass from Sam Keller (Keller to Sean Hill 2PAT pass), 4:32, USC 49-25
NU - Todd Peterson 18 pass from Keller (Keller 2PAT pass failed), 0:51, USC 49-31

Coach Callahan fresh off signing a new contract extension, released the depth chart for the Wake Forest game this Saturday.  Most notably is Maurice Purify back in the rotation.  Purify is listed behind Nate Swift and Callahan said that Purify has to earn his starting position back as nothing will be handed to him.  I still expect to see Purify get plenty of reps so I wouldn’t worry about it.

Cody Glenn has also moved up to #3 at running back behind Marlon Lucky and Quentin Castille.

Coach Callahan has issued a statement saying that senior wide receiver Maurice Purify will only be suspended for the first game of the year for his alcohol problems.  Callahan said that Purify has followed all their rules, has gotten the help he needs too, and done everything he has been asked to do so he feels that one game is enough.  Purify will be doing a lot of community service around Lincoln, take random drug / alcohol tests, and cannot be seen in a bar or he will be off the team for good.

I know a lot of college football fans are going to be like, “WHAT, ONLY ONE GAME?”  I agree that it should have been atleast two, but it seems like Mo has really been doing what the coaching staff and legal system has wanted the past six weeks.  Lets hope he keeps his head on straight!

Maurice Purify appeared in Lancaster County court this afternoon and pleaded no contest for counts of trespassing, failure to comply, resisting arrest and driving under the influence. The alleged assault charges to a female against Purify were dropped in court.  Purify received 12 months probation and fines totaling $1250 after pleading no contest for the four charges.

Maurice did have a few things to say afterwards and said he is sorry for his actions as they were all when he was drinking and said he is taking professional help to help him with the alcohol problems.  He also said he hopes to play football for Nebraska again, if Coach Callahan gives him a second chance.  If Coach Callahan  chooses not to have Mo back on the team, he would respect his decision.

It has been rumored that Callahan could give a statement in the next few days, but don’t be suprised if it doesn’t happen until after the Big12 Media days later in the month.

Hope for the best with Maurice!