Game 1: Nebraska 25 Maine 7
Nebraska kicked off the 2005 season last Saturday with a win over the Maine Black Bears.
Any win is a good win, and if Nebraska fans don’t think that after last years 5-6 season, then your expectations are way to high. Nebraska’s offence sputtered at times but did just enough to get the win. Let’s look at the QB play. Zach Taylor, I think, is already many steps ahead of Joe Daily. As you recall last year, Joe threw as many touchdown passes as he did INT’s. We were all excited that Joe had 4 TD passes but do you remember those INT’s? Many were poorly thrown balls. Joe forced balls and he would let passes get away from him and they would sail. Zach threw 30+ passes on Saturday and I can recall one or two that were bad throws. Many of Zach’s throws were either right on or places where only a Husker could catch them. A lot of Zach’s passes were at WR’s knees but that’s better than sailing over their heads. I don’t remember a lot of Zach’s throws behind recievers. Zach also had a grasp on the plays from the sideline where as last year it seemed Joe was going to the sideline after every play. So even though Zach went 15 for 36, I think we have a major upgrade at QB. It looks like Cory has a bit of the slips on the new turf (which looks awesome by the way) but he can fix that. Cory’s fumbles, while dissapointing, were solid hits on the ball by a helmet. Top of the line RB’s hold onto those but it’s understandable why he lost them. The WR corps average but we were starting some new faces because of injuries. As a result, there were dropped passes, but all in all the WR’s looked ok.
The defence looked outstanding. I heard many people after the game that the defence was sarming just like it was in ‘03. We have athletes and we can put pressure on the QB, which is always critical. I
‘m still a bit concerned about the secondary because they did not get tested at all on Saturday. But, we had 11 sacks, and at least some of those probably came because of good downfield protection. Steve Octavian is a big loss, but it looks like we are very deep on the defenceive side of the ball and if the injuries are contained to Octavian, we’ll be fine.
Obviously the biggest improvement that my grandma in Minnesota could have pointed out was our kick/punt returns. We had more return yards yesterday than we had all of last year. I understand the coaches thinking last year because if I recall early we had big troubles with dropping punts. Panico was sure handed and that was it. We were not as deep in “athletes” last year as we are this year. That’s why Panico was catching punts last year. Definitly the most exciting special returns teams we’ve had since Groce in ‘02.
Next up is Wake Forrest. I predict we’ll get better and win but the opponent will be of a better quality so we have to step it up.
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