Cobs of the Week: Purdue, Army, Urban Meyer and Bruce Read

This week’s Cobs turned out to be a little like good barbecue. With all of the focus on the big games of the day, some of the suckage didn’t jump right out at you...but oh, it’s there. One of the secrets of good ‘que is the "rest", where you simply wait for the juices to redistribute themselves throughout the meat. Well, we didn’t find one of the Cobs until Sunday, and another needed a full two days of rest to reach it’s full potential. Thank goodness we do these on Tuesdays now, because we would have missed it otherwise.

Purdue

No, it’s not for losing to Iowa. I mean, I understand the frustration that causes and the desire to fire your coach. This cob nomination is for muffing a kickoff after falling behind the Hawkeyes 35-7. The kickoff was muffed at the one yard line, and then after recovering the ball, Purdue took a knee in the end zone. WHICH YOU CAN’T DO. Arguably, it was a safety...but the officials, having mercy, just spotted the Boilermakers the ball at the one where the kick was muffed.

Army

Late in the first half, Army found themselves in a fourth-and-44 situation after a couple of big penalties. Time to punt right?

Wrong. Not only did Army not get the first down, punter Nick Schrage didn’t even make it back to the line of scrimmage...before he fumbled. It didn’t really matter, as the Army marched all over Lafayette...but it still was one heck of a dumb move.

Urban Meyer

You may have caught this video of Urban Meyer getting clocked by an official on Saturday night.

Personally, I liked the looped version better.

To add insult to injury, Meyer was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for interfering with the referee, as Meyer had encroached into the white box that’s supposed to serve as a buffer between the bench area and the field. Monday, when asked about the penalty, Meyer was not apologetic. In fact, he railed about the rule being unfair to his players, and that it shouldn’t be a rule in the first place.

Yes, it’s Urban’s world, and the rest of us are all just loitering in it. Especially that referee, who really should have been arrested for assault.

Bruce Read

Nebraska freshman punter Caleb Lightbourn has one of the most difficult jobs of anybody in college football this season, and he’s done very well dealing with it.

But he’s not getting much help this season. On Saturday, Indiana blocked the second Nebraska punt of the season; only UNLV has had more punts blocked than Nebraska and 124 other teams have fewer.

And it’s not like Nebraska is putting their focus on stopping punt returns either; the Huskers rank 113th in punt return yards allowed. Nebraska isn't just struggling on blocking and tackling on punts; on an extra point, the Huskers were flagged for a substitution penalty. This is after Nebraska had multiple occurrences of being short-handed on extra point tries.

This is where we remind Husker fans that Nebraska has a dedicated special teams coordinator in Bruce Read. Not sure why; maybe Mike Riley is afraid to let Read touch anything else.