Throughout this famed "Nebraska Week," I have had a cloud of doubt and fear that has hung over my head like the smog hangs over Beijing (glad I don't have to run an Olympic mile in those conditions). Despite the obvious crappiness displayed by Nebraska this year, I can't shake the fear that we may, somehow...not win. As such, I turned to Corn Blight over at Corn Nation.
"Despite all of Nebraska's troubles, I'm terrified of playing them on Senior Day in Lincoln. Tell me either why this fear is well-founded, or why I'm acting like a little kid, scared of the imaginary monster in his closet."
When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother. With her, Pandora had a jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, and that was Hope.
"Hope is all that remains for Husker fans coming into the last two games of the season. The good news is that the last two games are against the two teams that, since the formation of the Big 12, are Nebraska's biggest rivals. The Cornhuskers aren't a bad team in terms of players or athleticism. There are some holes in the team, but our defense isn't as bad as the statistics show. The imaginary monster that is Nebraska football lurks within them.
Unfortunately in terms of team chemistry (psychologically), Nebraska is a very bad team and it's reflected by having the worst run defense in the nation, as well as 112th overall in total defense. Before the Texas game, ESPN had Lou Holtz do his motivational speech for Nebraska. The gist of his speech - "if enough of us care, we can do anything". As much as I can't stand that ESPN segment, Holtz was right. If the Cornhuskers can somehow can find it in themselves to care we can easily defeat the Wildcats.
Nebraska has a lot of seniors, so you'd think they'd have enough pride to rise up in their last couple games and play well, win two games and get a trip to a bowl game.
The bad news for Kansas State is that the Wildcats are coming off road loss against the worst team in the conference. It's a mystery to me how they lost that game so your fears aren't unfounded. Who knows what's going to happen this weekend in Lincoln!"
BOTC: As you can see, he was very realistic, if not particularly comforting to this troubled K-State soul. Oh, and he misquoted Lou Holtz, as I'm sure it was more like, "if enough of uth care, we can do(spit) anyth(spit)ing!"
"Kicking the Tires" will be posted later tonight, along with an open thread for the first basketball game of the season. If any of you make it to Bramlage tonight, feel free to leave your thoughts in a diary, which I could then bump to the front page.