Shooting Pointe Blank: Western Michigan

Hey folks! Long time no see. I’ve been out with what some thought was a career-ending case of humidity driven rage, but despite it all I managed to find some nicely air-conditioned confines. Nebraska football is back, heck, college football as a whole is back. All is right with the world. Let’s hit on some bullet points regarding the WMU game, shall we?

- The first half was nearly perfect. I say nearly because I expected a bit more of a running game (more on this later).

- Damon Benning selected Cody Glenn to be his player of the week on a local Omaha radio sports talk show. Turns out that the problem was that Cody didn’t want to help offensive players. He wanted to destroy them. 12 tackles, 9 unassisted, 2 TFLs, a forced fumble, three pass break ups and a partridge in a pear tree. Crimeny.

- The passing game appears solid and Ganz showed some mobility that I was certainly unaware of, but Watson went to the well far too many times on the option and the little dump pass to Castille that always seemed to land at his feet.

- I still remain impressed with James Dobson’s S&C weight loss program, but in the second half bodies were dragging and hands were on hips. Not good.

- Throughout the game safety play was atrocious. Asante and O’Hanlon best get their acts together or there are several teams on this year’s schedule that will have a field day with our pass defense. Glenn spent far too much time cleaning up messes and saving TDs for these two.

- Anthony West and Prince Amukamara a.k.a. Lake Minnetonka look good for their age and in a season-opener when they were counted on. I look forward to watching them mature as the season progresses and was excited to see West get his first pick.

- Nate Swift is a gamer. Accept it or look the fool. When he scored his first touchdown, I got into a fight with a spackled ceiling and lost.

- The defensive line looked far better than I anticipated. This is not to say that they played out of this world, but they did their job. Come the second half, however, adjustments on the WMU sideline nullified them and they seemed gassed.

- By the end of the night Joe’s arm looked like cooked spaghetti. Nebraska’s offensive line needs to establish itself so that a proper running game can be formed or this season can and will end badly.

- Why was Pat Witt not in with at least five minutes to go? What’s the worst that could happen? Nebraska wins by another three to seven points? He might throw a pick? Heck Joe threw one directly into the chest of a defender. Pat could do that if he wanted to. I understand that Bo probably wanted the biggest margin of victory possible, but that mentality did more bad than good last night.

Summary: If Nebraska can find its four quarter conditioning program, a running game and a pass defense, this season exceed all expectation. If not? The predictions of 7-5 look more accurate. I still think it’ll be a little of both and a nine win season is the end result. I seem to remember a well-regarded individual stating that the most improvement was made between the first and second games.

That seems like a good unit of measurement, so we’ll call this game what it was: An opening game where weaknesses were defined and can be addressed. We’ll see how well they are addressed as it will tell us a lot about this team and this staff.

Up Next: San Jose State (W over UC-Davis 13-10)