LINCOLN, Neb. — I talked to Bo Pelini after he came out of church Sunday. He has a lot to pray for. A better defense. Depth. A little maturity. No. 4 Missouri (4-0), with two weeks to prepare, comes to town Saturday night, way too early in Pelini’s reclamation project that is Nebraska football.
However, tailbacks are not on his prayer list.
This is a lousy running team. It gained a paltry 55 yards on 25 carries in Saturday night’s 35-30 loss to Virginia Tech. The Hokies are good defensively, but Nebraska shouldn’t get stuffed by the likes of Western Michigan and San Jose State. Count out the 330 rushing yards on a New Mexico State team that ran an inept, three-man front, and Nebraska (3-1) has gained 292 yards on 86 carries (3.4 average) in three games.
“I like our running backs,” Pelini said. “We’re just not executing in the running game.”
His tailback trio consists of senior Marlon Lucky, last year’s 1,000-yard rusher who’s leading the team with 186 yards; sophomore Roy Helu Jr., whose 12-yard TD run was Nebraska’s lone rushing highlight Saturday; and sophomore Quentin Castille, a bruising Texan who has gained only 95 yards this season.
Four linemen had starting experience last year. Joe Ganz’s arm keeps defenses honest. What’s the problem?
“Just breakdowns,” Pelini said. “It’s the same thing as on the defensive side. All it takes is one guy. It’s not the same guy all the time.”
Oklahoma’s turn.
With seven top-25 teams losing and the SEC already cannibalizing its own, don’t expect the Oct. 11 showdown against No. 5 Texas to be top-ranked Oklahoma’s only test. The Big 12 is loaded. It has four teams ranked in the top seven and six quarterbacks ranked in the top 10, topped by Texas’ second-ranked Colt McCoy, whose numbers are obscene: 1,018 yards, 80 percent completion rate, 14 TDs, one interception.
Good night, Badgers.
One team that won’t have a say in the national title chase is Wisconsin. Some moron actually picked the formerly eighth-ranked Badgers as sleepers for the title game. Maybe I was counting my bratwursts before they were bunned. How was I to know a solid defense would give up 20 points in the fourth quarter to an inept Michigan offense in transition that pulled off the biggest rally in Michigan Stadium’s 81 years, a stretch covering 500 games?
First-year bliss.
Michigan’s Rich Rodri- guez finally had a good game in his first year, but David Cutcliffe is having a good first year. At Duke. The Blue Devils’ 3-1 start is their best since 4-0 in 1994, thanks to underrated junior quarterback Thaddeus Lewis, who had thrown for 4,564 yards his first two years and is second in the ACC in total offense at 242.2 yards per game.
Groh in trouble.
Virginia papers were filled with speculation on Al Groh’s hot seat, and not because losing 31-3 to Duke automatically puts you on the hot seat, although it should. The 1-3 Cavaliers have scored only two offensive touchdowns and also lost 52-7 to Southern California and 45-10 to Connecticut.
If Groh goes, look for Virginia to go after Mike London, Groh’s defensive coordinator who took over Football Championship Subdivision school Richmond this year and held Virginia without an offensive TD in a 16-0 loss. The Cavs may also go after Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe, a 1975 Virginia grad.
Rice SID remembers CU.
Rice’s 56-point first half in its 77-20 win over embarrassingly awful North Texas brought back memories for Rice sports information director Chuck Pool. In 1983, Pool worked in Nebraska’s SID office and kept the drive chart during the Cornhuskers’ 69-19 win over Colorado when they scored 42 points in the third quarter. He remembers networks kept calling him for scoring updates.
“I thought my head was going to explode,” Pool said. “Points came so fast and furious, and I didn’t have speed dial. I was falling behind. I’d get on the phone with ABC Sports and say, ‘I have two scoring updates for you.’ They’d get flustered because I didn’t give them a score between each touchdown. I couldn’t keep up.
“The same thing yesterday. I’d get calls and they’d say, ‘Is that right?’ “
