The 2011 NFL Draft was held Thursday-Saturday in New York City and when it was all said and done seven Nebraska Cornhuskers were picked by NFL teams. The Washington Redskins picked three Huskers which had a lot of people thinking what’s going on in the nations capital?

Prince Amukamara was first to go as he was the #19th pick in the 1st round the New York Giants
Roy Helu was the 8th pick in the 4th round to the Washington Redskins
Alex Henery was the only place kicker taken in the draft and he went to the Philadelphia Eagles with the 23rd pick in the 4th round
Dejon Gomes was picked next by the Washington Redskins #15 in the 5th round
Niles Paul was the the other player picked by the Redskins as he was selected with the 24th pick in the 5th round
Keith Williams was chosen by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 6th round with the 31st pick
Eric Hagg was the final Husker picked in the draft as he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 7th round

Overall getting seven players selected was nice. Former players like D.J. Jones, Mike McNeill, and Ricky Henry will get looks at by teams that can sign free agents once the lockout is lifted. Right now players can’ t do a whole lot but sit back and see how things go as far as the lockout is concerned.

Congrats to everyone that got drafted and to those that did not, good luck in the free agent pool!


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It was a hell of an offensive performance by Nebraska on Saturday as they won a shooting down in Stillwater against Oklahoma State. Taylor Martinez led the explosive offense with five passing touchdowns and the defense got a couple of stops in the second half as the Huskers pulled away for the 51-41 victory. With the ten point win, the Huskers control their own destiny in the Big12 North and can take a big lead in the standings with a win over Missouri on Saturday.

So how did the Big Red put up 51 points and not score a rushing touchdown? The receivers came up with most of the balls that they should have and special teams came up huge with the kickoff return by Niles Paul and field goals by Alex Henery. Great job by the special teams units for scoring. Brandon Kinnie was the main target for Martinez as he hauled in three touchdowns to lead the receiving corps.

I liked the fact that Shawn Watson put Martinez behind center for some plays this game. It allows the defensive ends to stay in a little bit longer and not have a full look at the quarterback. Mix that in with some play action like they did you can see why they had such success through the error. The Cowboys defense may not be that good but Martinez looked pretty good throwing the ball and hit the receivers right on the hands. I would never have thought T-Magic would threw for five touchdowns and not run for one. The freshman sure grew up in my eyes and did so at a hostile environment on the road.

The bad part of the game? The secondary still missed a ton of tackles. No matter who is at safety it seems they cannot wrap up and tackle a running back. The big time match up between Prince Amukamara and Justin Blockmon was dominated by Blockmon. Prince had a hard time picking up the ball on underthrown balls and also got caught looking in at the line of scrimmage on a trick play that Blockmon took to the house. A bad game by Price but one that he can learn from. It also didn’t help that the d-line wasn’t stopping the run to help out.

Overall I’m happy with the ten point victory but the defense really needs to step up. Saturday’s match up with Missouri is basically for the Big 12 North title and a return trip to Dallas for the championship. Nebraska’s defense is setup to stop the spread attack that Missou will bring into Lincoln but the defensive line needs to show up and shut down that running game for the Big Red to win. It will be very interesting and I cannot wait!


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Hey Husker fans, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and a great Halloween! Things go started pretty good on Saturday for all us fans as the Huskers traveled down to Waco, Texas to play the Baylor Bears. The Huskers came away with a 20-10 win even though it was pretty ugly once again on the offensive side of the ball.

True freshman Cody Green got his first career start as Coach Pelini and Coach Watson wanted to spark the offense. It worked a little bit but then there were some of the same old mistakes that have been happening. Green finished the day 12 of 21 for 128 yards and one touchdown. He did have a costly interception and also fumbled once.

One thing that I did like with Green at quarterback was that he can hurt the opposing defense with is feet. On more than one occasion he took off and scrambled or ran a qb draw to pick up 5-8 yards.

Had the running game actually worked on Saturday I think Green would have had a lot better day and put more points up on the scoreboard. It really seems that Roy Helu Jr. needs to rest his shoulder because having him for a couple of plays a game does nothing. If he can’t run with authority and the way we have been accustomed to seeing him run, he should not be out there on the field in my opinion.

The defense once again basically won this game for the Huskers. They shut down the Bears rushing attack to the tune of just 54 yards. Thanks in part to the dominating play of Jared Crick who was named the national defensive player of the week. Crick led the team with 13 tackles (ten solo) and five sacks. Crick also recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter to add to his impressive stat total.

The blackshirt defense also pickd off two Baylor passes as Prince Amukamara and Dejon Gomes both came away with interceptions.

Special teams was great on Saturday as well as freshman Eric Martin blocked a punt that was scooped up and returned for a touchdown by Justin Blachford. Martin once again shows why he is going to be a stud for the next three years.

So now it’s time to start looking forward to a huge game in Lincoln this coming Saturday. Oklahoma will be coming to town for a night game that will be televised on ABC. Memorial Stadium needs to be rocking and we need to have confidence that this team can pull off the upset!


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It was another good day for the Nebraska Cornhuskers as the defeated the Arkansas State Red Wolves on Saturday afternoon. Zac Lee led the Huskers with four touchdown passes as the Huskers dominated the game to the tune of 38-9 when the final whistle blew. Overall they played well but there sure are some things that need to be worked on before the Huskers board the plane later in the week for Blacksburgh.

Lee showed a very strong arm and didn’t make any mistakes as far as throwing interceptions. He did make some good reads and finished 27-of-35 passes for 340 yards and four touchdowns.

Mike McNeil caught two touchdown passes from Lee. A 13 yarder in the first quarter and then a 32 yarder in the third quarter.

Fourteen different Huskers caught passes in the game. Niles Paul led the way as he had his best day in a Husker uniform with six catches and two touchdowns. Paul had touchdowns on a reverse play and also caught a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Now that Paul is not behind players like Nate Swift and Todd Peterson, expect him to really jump out and be the receiver everyone was expecting when he enrolled at NU.

There were two downsides to the game that I didn’t like. Roy Helu Jr., didn’t get as many touches as I would like to see but that was mostly due to the fact that Lee was throwing ropes all over the field and the Huskers were moving the ball through the air. Helu finished with just 60 yards and no touchdowns. The running game just wasn’t there on Saturday. Roy did add 44 yards on 4 receptions so he still had over 100 total yards.

The other thing I didn’t like was the play of the young linebackers. These young guys are out there flying around but they need to do a better job of wrapping up and making good sound tackles. Stop trying to go high every time, take better routes and make a good formed tackle. These linebackers are going to have to grow up fast if they want to slow down the Virignia Tech running attack in their next game.

The rest of the defense played a pretty good game. The d-line had pressure on the Red Wolves and held the entire team to just 271 total yards. One player that really stood out was corner back Prince Amukamara who finished with seven tackles.

Overall it was a good game for the Huskers and they found some things that they will need to improve on. They will go into the Virginia Tech game on Saturday being ranked #19 in the AP poll. We will have a preview to the Va. Tech game in the middle of the week so look ahead to that!


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