LINCOLN, Neb. — One embarrassing loss won’t shake Bo Pelini’s confidence.
The Cornhuskers’ first-year coach has faith in his plan to rebuild the once-great program, despite Saturday’s 35-point loss at home to Missouri.
“I know how to get the job done,” he said. “I know exactly where we want to head and how to get there, and I’m committed to doing it. I’m working day and night to get it done.”
The Cornhuskers (3-2, 0-1 Big 12) go into Saturday’s game at No. 7 Texas Tech off back-to-back losses to Virginia Tech and Missouri.
In last week’s 52-17 beating, Missouri scored on eight of its first nine possessions, with two Nebraska turnovers leading to touchdowns.
The Huskers still are looking to establish a semblance of a running game, and their defense, a huge problem last year, ranks no higher than 50th in any major statistical category.
“There is enough talent here to play better than we did Saturday and to compete and win,” Pelini said. “I’m not a guy who sits here and makes excuses, and I’ll never be that way.”
Pelini again offered a mea culpa for the Huskers’ performance against Missouri.
“I look back, and sometimes as a coach you try too hard,” he said. “I regret some of the things we did in our plan, especially defensively.”
Pelini declined to go into specifics about how the plan fell short. Nebraska came out using three down linemen and had defensive end Pierre Allen, a Thomas Jefferson High School alumnus, float behind them, looking for a pass-rush lane.
Pelini said the situation at Nebraska is similar to the one he faced in his first year as LSU’s defensive coordinator in 2005. LSU won its opener 35-31 at Arizona State but gave up 560 yards, including 461 passing by Sam Keller, who later transferred to Nebraska. LSU lost its second game 30-27 in overtime to Tennessee after blowing a 21-0 halftime lead.
“Believe me, after my first two games at LSU, they wanted to run me out of the state,” Pelini said. “You can ask anybody down there. I was No. 1 on the hate list in Louisiana for a while, and we changed that around.”
Pelini said there is good chemistry and character on the team and that he isn’t letting a blowout loss affect the way he goes about his business.
“At no time do I feel I have to crawl in a hole,” he said. “That’s not how I approach things. I’m the same guy I was two weeks ago.”
