Sadly Prophetic...

If you saw my answers on Boi From Troy, you might have noticed I was eerily spot on.

"I expected a fall off after replacing all four starters up front, but didn’t think Wake would exploit us the way they did. Battling injuries or not, I expect USC’s talented stable of running backs to get to the second layer of the defense all night long. I’m hoping that our linebackers and secondary actually make some tackles in the open field this week. If not it will be USC that doesn’t attempt a pass this year."

Nobody made tackles and let's be honest USC didn't need to actually throw a pass tonight. In fact, they might have kept the game closer by deciding to let Booty throw some.

I was also right about the return of the screen and shovel passes.

"Against Texas we later had success against their speed with screen and shovel passes which counteracted their pass rush. I expect a healthy dose of those on Saturday night as well."

I guess charting all those plays paid off a little.

Post Game Thoughts: Not Shocked, Not Satisfied

· I liked Callahan’s gameplan early. The ball just didn’t bounce our way to give us more of a chance.

· I also wanted us to go vertical to Purify early. After halftime the USC DBs were simply sitting on the short stuff. Thus the INTs.

· Note to Tierre Green, you’d stop injuring your shoulder if you got more of your body in front of the runner. If you continue to dangle it out there like a railroad crossing arm, it will get ripped off your body.

· I’m ready for a change at two of the linebacker spots. I’ll let you guess which two need to sit.

· If the upperclassmen can’t execute – why not give the younger guys some experience for next year?

· This is our worst front four EVER. I don’t know why or how I tried to convince myself otherwise.

· Am I the only one frustrated by our backs and receivers? Stop juking and jiving when you’re out in space and get up field.

· If Mike Brown retires, can we please, please get him to come tutor our safeties in the off-season?

· Don’t look now, but Stafon Johnson just found another huge hole in the middle of our defense.

· We are a long, long ways from being a Top 10 team. My optimism took a big hit today. USC’s 2nd and 3rd stringers are better than our starters.

· Todd Peterson can play for my team anytime.

· We need a running game to win the Big 12 North. The pipeline looks too leaky to have that happen.

· Overall, I’m ready to move on, and really nothing has changed from what I wrote here.

Five Questions With Boi From Troy

Scott of Boi From Troy was gracious enough to answer some questions about tomorrow night's game. He is making his way to Nebraska and will hopefully be greeted by friendly fans but a Husker ambush at Memorial Stadium. My answers to Scott's questions should be up on Boi From Troy later this morning.

1. What kind of challenge do USC fans truly expect from Nebraska on Saturday?

I think that USC expects the same kind of challenge we expected from Nebraska last year--an aggressive passing attack that could exploit the weaknesses of our secondary, potentially leading to a shoot-out ballgame. These expectations are perhaps tempered by what actually happened last year, but I cannot believe Callahan would make the same mistake twice...or would he?

2. When compared to USC teams of the past five years where would you put this year's Trojan team in terms of talent and ability?

Of USC teams in the last five years, an optimist will tell you that this team feels alot like the 2003 squad that won the National Championship. Leinart struggled early then came into form, we were breaking in some promising but young running backs and the defense was the most highly-touted component of the team. Now a pessimist will tell you that this team is looking more like the 1995 Trojans who were supposed to compete for a championship but ended up losing two big games to UCLA and Notre Dame and playing Northwestern in the Rose Bowl. Luckily, Notre Dame is making all of us feel like optimists this year.

3. USC looked rather pedestrian against Idaho what did/do you attribute this to?

In case you haven't gotten the memo, USC has this bad tendency of playing to their competition. I think there was good degree of "It's just Idaho" complacency. There certainly was amongst the fans who had to ask whether it was appropriate to "make noise" on third down against such a lowly opponent.

I also think that the coaches treated it like an NFL exhibition game, cycling in players who otherwise would have been reserved for junk-time play. I mean, John David Booty actually THREW the ball to Brad Walker--and unlike when Reggie Bush did that against Texas in the Rose Bowl it was not ruled a fumble!

4. Nationally USC fans are often critiqued for their "bandwagon-esque" nature. Come clean, how long have you have been seriously invested in the Trojans? Are we talking Rodney Peete/Mark Carrier, Rob Johnson/Curtis Conway, Carson Palmer/Troy Polamalu or Leinert/Bush?

Yeah, you're right. I had been going regularly to USC games since I
was a grad student there but only when others could get me free
tickets. So I suffered through the Otton/Johnson and Van Raaphoorst
Eras.

When I first bought season tickets in 2002--good timing, eh?—I couldn't find a soul to go to the Oregon State game because it was drizzling. Now, I have a waiting list of people to use my fourth season ticket--even for games against Stanford or Arizona. It took three years of winning before USC sold out a game not involving Notre Dame or UCLA, let alone an entire season.

However, if it were truly a bandwagon school, demand would have dropped off in the post Leinart/Bush era as expectations for the team waned. Instead, it has only grown to the point that they are no longer guaranteeing new major donors that they'll get season tickets. And wait until 2008 when our home schedule includes California, Oregon, Arizona State, Washington, Notre Dame and Ohio State!

5. LA Times writer T.J. Simers has been rough on the state of Nebraska and its fans over the past two seasons. As you prepare for your trip to "the Good Life," what are your honest expectations for your time in Lincoln?

We're hoping not to get beat up and tied to a fence somewhere because we were wearing the wrong shade of red.

Honestly, we're staying in Omaha where I hear there is some of the best nightlife in "the five-state area" so we're expecting it to be better than a trip to, say, Lawrence, Kansas.

This is probably our only chance to visit Lincoln, which I am told has one of the best game-day experiences in the Country, and people tell me that Nebraskans are actually friendly--unlike our hosts at Hawaii a few years ago, so we're looking forward to it. I may just have to wear my Bush jersey, however, since it is a Red State in more ways than one.

The Oddsmakers Top 25 and a Fighting Duck

Apparently these guys are ready to take on the often questionable and unpredictable rankings from the Coaches, AP, and Harris polls of college football. This poll, which was released last December and is in the DXP archive ranks college football teams according to who the Vegas gambling gurus would make favorite on a neutral field if they played. This is so interesting in so many ways.

As of today, they keep the top 3 the same with USC, LSU, and Oklahoma, but then things change dramatically. It then goes from Texas to West Virginia to UCLA and then to, yes, NEBRASKA at #7. Florida? Wisconsin? Cal? Wisconsin is actually at #14 and Arizona State, who is unranked, is at #17. There is a reason that these fellas bring in a BILLION dollar gambling industry to Las Vegas every year. It’s their job. Not taking away anything from the coaches and the AP writers, but they don’t study every game, every team as in depth. It’s not their job. They have film to study, game plans to make, and articles to write. Trust me, it won’t be this year or even next year, but eventually this will have a significant impact on the BCS and on the college football polls when we realize they know more about teams than any of us.

(Thanks Chris Fowler for some of this information. I wonder why you paid to see these rankings? Let me know who you are taking this week.)

Now to the fighting Duck…

Two weeks ago, Donald or Puddles (both accepted by the U. of Oregon) the Duck had a little incident with U. of Houston Shasta the Cougar. This is from a Oregon perspective and misses to show Shasta with a pile drive. I bring you Puddles vs. Shasta.



That reminded of the Stanford Cardinal ‘Tree’ vs. the Cal Bears’ ‘Oski’, which is still hands down the best mascot fight ever. The quality isn’t good, but it is narrated by the late great Charlie Stein and how good is a mascot that gets arrested and taken to jail?



Stay tuned for Lil’ Red vs. Ralphie the Buffalo……

Sammy Vegas and Timmy Rose: Take the Double Extra Points #3

Last Week: 6-4 (60%)
Season: 14-9 (64%)

We are off to a pretty darn good start this year on DXP. So good in fact, we decided to have a low- key party last week to celebrate. These smokin’ hot ladies promised us even more next week if we stay above 60%.



SAMMY VEGAS

INDIANA (-13) over Akron: Akron was able to stay close to Ohio State last week thanks to 5 OSU TO’s and they managed to put up a whopping 69 total yards. Also this is Akron’s third straight away game with their conference opener on deck. Indiana is coming off a win over Western Michigan where they had over 440 yards of offense lead by 6’7 WR James Hardy who had 4 TD’s and 180 yards. Indiana expects to win games nowadays and they should be all over Akron like A. Rose on every unsuspecting 21 year old in the bar after 10 p.m. And yes, those are actual IU students to the left, and Dr. D is probably in jail as we speak.

NAVY (-7) over Ball State: Navy returns home after a tough loss last Friday night at Rutgers. They are averaging a great 5.7 ypc on the ground while Ball State gives up over 5.1 ypc on the ground (against lesser competition). I truly believe Navy coach Paul Johnson is one of the best coaches in college football and Navy showed it last year by coughing up over 1 million a year to keep him. He better win this one by 7.

LSU (-40) over Middle Tennessee State: There is no point in getting into stats here - LSU is good. The only problem here is obviously not their drubbing of Va. Tech (48-7) last week, but having South Carolina on deck. However, Freshmen LSU QB Ryan Perriloux should get a good chance here to mop up and build some confidence. This is just a sad case of having your 3rd and 4th stringers overmatch the starters on a much inferior team.

NORTHWESTERN (-16.5) over Duke: Northwestern’s bowl chances could ride on getting a victory here at home after a comeback win over Nevada last week. Duke is so bad that their QB averages 143 ypg with 2 TDs and 4 INTs, their rushing attack is getting 50 ypg, and the offense line has given up 9 sacks – and these are against UCONN and Virginia. Northwestern is in great shape here.

Louisville (-6.5) over KENTUCKY: The REDNECK bowl here should be high on hot girls but low on class. This was a tough one here, but I do think Louisville got a serious wakeup call last week on Thursday vs. MTSU. An interesting stat I found here regarding two of the best QBs in the country: Brohm from Louisville is 5-0 all time vs. Woodson from UK by a total score of 219-60. Louisville is 7-1 the last 8 here.

PENN STATE (-34) over Buffalo: I am simply picking Penn State in this one as we need to ride their early season dominance out as long as possible. Penn State is by far the best team in the Big 10 right now, but they do have Michigan on deck. Buffalo returns 18 starters and looked great last week as they blew up Temple – but offensively, they face a team that hasn’t given up an offensive TD this year against Notre Dame and FIU.

TIMMY ROSE

Houston (-14.5) over Tulane: The Cougars once again lead the nation in awesome nicknames and have had a week off to think about falling apart in Eugene two weeks ago. Houston piled up the offense against Oregon in Week 1 and look to have a balanced attack against a defense that gave up almost 34 points a game last year. The score was 45-7 in Houston last year and I don’t think this one will be much closer. Did I mention Tulane didn’t get a singe first down in the second half last week? Much like the second half at the bars for Sammy Vegas last Saturday night.

BYU (-6.5) over Tulsa: Had I known that BYU would rack up 435 yards of offense last week and hold UCLA to 236 yards, I would have called the 7 pt dog Cougs a bigger lock than Tom Cruise’s homosexuality. However, UCLA got a pick-six early in the game and then scored a garbage TD with a minute left to pull off the front-door cover. This is a vastly underrated BYU defense and there is great line value here as BYU is coming off a misleading loss and Tulsa off a misleading win in Week 1.

Virginia Tech (-20.5) over Ohio: The spread on this game would have been 28 before the start of the season. Ohio returns just 11 starters from last year’s MAC East Champion squad and lose their entire LB corp from last year, their strongest unit. Virginia Tech will look to rebound from their worst loss in 25 years and I call for Coach Beamer to leave the starters in well into the 2nd half as he starts a freshman QB for the first time. Ohio gave up over 500 yards of offense last week in a game that saw them down 10 points at half. There will be no 2nd half comeback this week and Ohio’s point total is likely to be lower than Frank Solich’s BAC.



Florida State (-4) over Colorado: I bet against shitty QBs more often than Dr. D puts his cell phone number on a class syllabus. Cody Hawkins was so bad last week only Ivanka Trump could appreciate the brand of nepotism that is stinking up Boulder. Andy Reid is having better luck with his sons. This is another one of those games where the spread would have been double digits before the start of the season and FSU has yet to show the talent they have on offense. Last week, Colorado’s defense wore out faster than a Diddy single and I see no reason they will keep this one close down the stretch against a team with much greater talent.


Boston College (+7) over Georgia: There has been a lot of talk about how great Georgia Tech’s defense is with 8 starters back from a solid unit in 2006. Surprisingly, Boston College has allowed fewer points/game than G-Tech in each of the last 3 years and have 9 starters back from last year’s team that allowed just over 100 rushing yards per game. The Yellow Jackets have two talented RBs, but Matt Ryan does just enough on offense to keep this one close in very low scoring ACC game in Hotlanta.

Louisville-Kentucky OVER (77): This game is simple. Match up two of the best QBs and offenses in the country against two of the worst scoring defenses in the country. There will be very few FGs in this match-up and the OVER could hit by half. Brohm is now a front-runner for the Heisman and you can bet Steve Kragthorpe will do everything he can to get him the award.

One quick note from the DXP Pick ‘Em contest ...

Brandon Vogel from the great Hi Plains Drifter is dominating not only our DXP pick ‘em contest, but rather every college football fan as well. He is currently ranked ahead of everyone who dared to challenge him at ESPN.com. Well done – you told me that I would have to hit 70% to beat you, but come on, now we are all gunning for 99.9% to have a chance. Here is the top 10 list from the first 2 weeks….

1. HiPlainsDrifter: 100%
2. Jeffie Husker: 99.3%
3. Siffring: 97.9%
4. Timmy Rose: 97.9%
5. Sammy Vegas: 96.9%
6. TX Cornhead: 95.8%
7. Thiele: 94.6%
8. justmp: 91.5%
9. Mead: 89.6%
10. Fish-Slapping Dance: 87.5%

This obviously shows why we are the most knowledgeable fans in the country. Note - The percentages indicate where we rank nationally in the contest and not how many games we have hit.

HiPlainsDrifter… this one is for you. You earned it.

Nebraska - Texas Volleyball Live on CSTV Online PPV

I don't cover other Husker sports very often, but thought this was worth a note. Tonight #1 Nebraska takes on 7th ranked Texas in women's volleyball. You can watch the action live at CSTV.com. The match is being offered on a PPV basis and costs $6.95 for tonight only or $99.95 for all an access annual pass. So whether you're a huge volleyball fan or just really enjoy the scenery the games offer, you can catch the game live tonight.

As a sidenote, CSTV has great things going on related to their online coverage of college football. I have the opportunity to be a part of some of this and I'm looking forward to this new relationship.

BlogPoll - Final Ballot

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	--
2	LSU	--
3	Oklahoma	1
4	West Virginia	1
5	Florida	1
6	Louisville	1
7	Ohio State	--
8	California	--
9	Penn State	--
10	Texas	1
11	Oregon	1
12	Wisconsin	2
13	UCLA	6
14	Rutgers	1
15	Clemson	11
16	Georgia Tech	10
17	South Carolina	4
18	Nebraska	1
19	Arkansas	1
20	Virginia Tech	7
21	Boston College	5
22	Texas A&M	2
23	Alabama	--
24	Hawaii	10
25	Missouri	1

Dropped Out: Georgia (#16), TCU (#22), Auburn (#25).

Previous version overlooked Georgia Tech. Oops.

BlogPoll Ballot

I really sat down and watched a lot of football this weekend and finally saw a litte separation. Oklahoma is looking for and more like a national title contender. Same can be said for LSU. I've yet to see Florida and Ohio State, but they have plenty of time left to impress. Texas woke up in the second half and might have remembered how talented they are. The Pac-10 also has some teams playing well now. I'll be keeping an eye on UCLA, but Oregon really impressed me with their offensive style. The Ducks are a tough match up. The bottom of the poll remains less clear. But everyone is likely to have the same teams in a different order.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	--
2	LSU	--
3	Oklahoma	1
4	West Virginia	1
5	Florida	1
6	Louisville	1
7	Ohio State	--
8	California	--
9	Penn State	--
10	Texas	1
11	Oregon	1
12	Wisconsin	2
13	UCLA	6
14	Rutgers	1
15	Clemson	11
16	South Carolina	5
17	Nebraska	--
18	Arkansas	--
19	Virginia Tech	6
20	Boston College	6
21	Texas A&M	1
22	Hawaii	8
23	Alabama	--
24	Missouri	--
25	Georgia	9

Dropped Out: TCU (#22), Auburn (#25).