Never in my 40 plus years of being a Big Red Fan, have I ever witnessed a game such as the Huskers played this Friday November 23, 2007. Here we were in Folsom Stadium in 25 degree weather at half-time against the Vermin of Bolder leading by the score of 35 to 24 and looking very good, both in our "once every 10 years all-white uniforms", and on offense at least, now the defense. Well, what more is there to say about this defense of Kevin Cosgrove's? Well, how about allowing 5 straight touchdowns to start the 2^nd half. Which, as we all know, is average for this years Husker team. Let me ask any of you a question, should your team lose if they gain more than 600 yards on offense in a game? Or do you keep a coach around who can't win when they do gain that much? We were outscored 41-16 in the second half to lose the game 65 to 51, chalk this up as just another basketball score for our football team of 2007.

Now for a couple of positives for this season, Marlon Lucky eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark in both rushing for the season and receiving for his career to become the first Husker in school history to record both 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in a career. Lucky finished with 69 yards on 12 carries and one touchdown and eight catches for 115 yards. I would venture to guess that Marlon will be voted this seasons, team MVP, although strong consideration will go to Joe Ganz also, he just did not play enough to earn it. Since becoming the starting quarterback, Joe Ganz, the junior from Palos Heights, Ill., has led Nebraskas offense to score a total of 163 points for an average of better than 53 points per game. Ganz has also thrown for three of the top five single-game passing totals in his first three starts. As a team we averaged almost 32 points per game. So whoever the next head coach will be will have some nice offensive tools to work with next season.

Unlike the defensive side of the ball, where the team gave up an average of 35 points per game and 228 yards rushing per game. The defensive line played poorly the entire season, so bad that even in the 12^th game of the season they could not maintain their lane assignments and the cut-back run was there every single time. Linebackers and defensive backs still did not have a clue on how to shed a blocker and make a tackle, our safety Larry Asante was our second leading tackler, now that says a lot about how porous our defense was, our coach was unable to even once devise a defensive game plan to produce any turnovers or important stops when necessary. No, The Blackshirts didn't deserve or earn that name this season. This was another game with no sacks, no turnovers or no stops in the red zone as Colorado went a perfect 8 for 8 with 7 touchdowns. For the season our opponent scored 92% of the time when it entered the Red Zone with 75% of those scores being touchdowns. Consider this: The Huskers have forced exactly one turnover in the past seven games. A grand total of 13 sacks or 1.08 per game for the season a very impressive isn't it. If that doesn't scream for help, then nothing does. No I think your local "Pop Warner" league coach could do better than that.

All in all, what this game did was give Dr. Tom Osborne one final look "under the micro-scope" of what this team is made of, and made his decision, not the actually job, but the decision on firing Callahan and the majority of his staff an easy one.

Since the season is now over, it looks like I will now be down to writing maybe one Husker article every week or two. I guess I will turn to the NBA and the Houston Rockets to give your DeathRattleSports.com fans something to laugh about. Of course I will post my article with the actual firing announcement when the time comes and then give my opinion of the next coach (Bo Pelini) that Dr. Tom should hire. GBR "Bug Out"!

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