Bo Pelini was involved in a traffic accident Wednesday evening in South Lincoln. Pelini was headed eastbound when he swerved to avoid a westbound car that made a sudden left turn. Nobody was injured, but Pelini's car didn't fare well. It was damaged too severely to drive, though it may not have been totaled.

(Insert appropriate jokes about Pelini being too tough for an ordinary car...)

Pelini used another car and successfully made it to LaVista for a recruiting dinner, where he joked about the accident later that evening.

It'll be a battle of the undefeateds when Nebraska travels to Laramie this Saturday. But let's put that in perspective: Wyoming has defeated two 1-AA teams (defeating Weber State 35-32 and Dennis Franchione's Texas State 45-10) and needed a blocked extra point with three seconds left in the game to defeat Bowling Green 28-27 last Saturday.

Freshman Brett Smith is the Cowboys' starting quarterback, completing nearly 62% of his passes for for five touchdowns and three interceptions. He's averaging 265 yards a game passing and 51 yards a game rushing. The running back situation is by-committee, with Alvester Alexander, Brandon Miller, and Ghaali Muhammad all sharing the load.  The three combine to average 166 yards a game on the ground as the snaps seem to be split fairly evenly.  An interesting statistic is that five Cowboy receivers have catches that gained more than 40 yards this season.

Defensive end Josh Biezuns earned Mountain West co-defensive player of the week for blocking the extra point that would have sent last week's game to overtime. The Cowboys' have blocked three kicks this season. What's notable about Biezuns' heroics last week is that he had suffered a foot injury earlier in the game, yet continued to play. His foot was in a walking boot on Monday, and is listed as probable for Saturday. The Cowboys have been awful against the pass this season, ranking 109th in pass defense and 95th in pass efficiency defense.  And remember, that's against a MAC team and two 1-AA  foes.

After the jump, you'll find our preview of the Wyoming Cowboys from this summer.

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Each week we will go over Nebraska's non-conference opponents and how they fared against their competition.

Tennessee-Chattanooga - Last week - fall camp.  This week vs. Nebraska. They are currently a 34.5 point underdog to the Cornhuskers.

Mocs making good use of extra practice hours | timesfreepress.com

"We'll definitely notice [the extra time] in the meetings, preparing for each game each week," said fifth-year senior safety Chris Lewis-Harris. "And when we come out [to practice] we get more time to do individual [position drills] to work on our technique." During the past three seasons, because of penalties handed down by the NCAA for poor Academic Progress Rate performance, the Mocs have been shorthanded in practice time, as well as scholarships. In 2008, UTC was allowed 18.0 hours per week and the past two seasons it had to squeeze everything into 16.0.

Maybe "recommended-readings-gate" will prove to be the edge Nebraska needs to outsmart the Mocs on gameday.

Tennessee and UT-Chattanooga Preview

"I think we are headed in the right direction," comments Huesman, a former Mocs defensive back from 1978-1981. "If you look at our two 6-5 seasons, the first year we got six wins, but I’m not sure how. Last year, we had a better football team with five wins in the league and a tougher schedule. We can continue to improve this year and make significant strides."

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The Omaha World-Herald's Tom Shatel got Bo Pelini to admit something that most Husker fans have surmised ever since the Huskers stormed off the field after a 9-6 loss to Texas A&M last November. In that game, Nebraska was flagged for 16 penalties, while A&M was only flagged for two. Let's put that in perspective:  Ben Cotton got as many flags on one play as the entire Aggie squad the whole game. And of course, there was that horrific roughing the passer penalty that led to the winning field goal.

It's pretty much a universal conclusion that Courtney Osborne's "roughing the passer" penalty was one of the worst calls of 2010. But Shatel gets Pelini to admit that he was warned by the officials that something like this was coming:

"Did any of those officials tell you during the game you were going to get jobbed?'' I asked.

"Yes,'' Pelini said.

What did they tell you?

"I won't say,'' he said. "But it was highway robbery. An absolute joke. I've moved on.''

So while you were yelling all night, were you sticking up for your players?

"No doubt,'' Pelini said. "I have their back. I always will. But if I had to do it over again, I would have done it different.''

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Concluding an investigation that began last fall, Nebraska announced that they had reported the athletic department to the NCAA for violations of granting athletes benefits that were not permitted under NCAA rules. Nebraska will put themselves on probation for the next two years and will pay a fine.

What's the violation?  Is it cars or selling of memorabilia? Nope.  It was textbooks.  Specifically, when students went to the bookstore to pick up their books, any books recommended by their professors were bundled with their required books. And while the NCAA allows schools to pay for required books, optional books are not allowed to be covered by scholarship money.

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"It ain't where I been, fat boy, it's where I'm going."

This response to Warren Sapp's query of "Where've you been?" in the 4th quarter of the 1995 Orange Bowl probably sums Tommie Frazier up more than any 2000 word article ever could. And it was that constant attitude that cements him in my mind as the greatest college quarterback to ever to play the game.

Okay, I might be a little biased.

But note that I said best quarterback - not strongest or most accurate arm, not fastest or most powerful runner, not quickest or most nimble dual threat guy or anything like that. Just the best quarterback in the entire sense of the position. He directed offenses that scored, scored often and, in most cases, scored at will. He ran the option flawlessly, was a fast and bruising runner and could kill you with a rollout or play action.

And he had "it".

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