Ganz, offense keep Huskers in game
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
LUBBOCK, Texas — Joe Ganz kept repositioning the gargantuan ice packs that were constantly slipping off his shoulder.
He readjusted them several times during a postgame news conference Saturday. An ice pack would fall to the side. Ganz, in mid-answer, would pick it up.
It’d slip again. Ganz would bring it back.
So on, so forth.
Some good those stupid ice packs were doing. Besides, where Ganz hurt the most wasn’t his arm or his shoulder.
It was his stomach.
“It’s just a sick feeling,” Ganz said, “to end it like that, after we played so hard, and played so well.”
Nebraska’s senior quarterback had just completed a career-high 36 passes. He kept the Huskers, heavy underdogs against No. 7 Texas Tech, in the game.
He converted third-down throws. He dove for first downs. He coolly led Nebraska to a game-tying touchdown with 29 seconds remaining.
In overtime, he made, on this day, a rare mistake. On second-and-10 from the Texas Tech 25 — on the second play after Tech had scored for a six-point lead — Ganz dropped back to throw.
He was under pressure. He scrambled. He darted to the sideline and tried to throw the ball out of bounds.
Instead, Jamar Wall, a player in another colored jersey, caught it.
Game over.
Texas Tech 37, Nebraska 31.
“When I let it go, I thought maybe it had a shot to get out of bounds, and the kid (behind me) just pulled me down,” Ganz said. “It hit the kid right in the face, I think.
“It’s just a terrible feeling. A terrible way to lose the game.”
That play may have ended the game — Nebraska’s 11th straight loss against a top-10 team — but it certainly didn’t lose it.
Not so, says Nebraska coach Bo Pelini.
“There were a lot of plays out there for us to win the game,” Pelini said. “We would not have been in the situation without Joe Ganz.”
True enough.
Ganz threw for 349 yards, completing 81.8 percent of his passes, and two touchdowns. He directed an offense that possessed the ball for more than 40 minutes, keeping Texas Tech’s potent air attack sidelined.
He darned near led Nebraska to an improbable victory.
“A good game plan, and we executed,” Ganz said, explaining the offense’s success. “We have a good offense. I don’t think we get enough credit.”
Consider that Nebraska punted once all day. It came after the Huskers’ first possession stalled at their 45-yard line.
Nebraska advanced into Texas Tech territory on every drive thereafter. Not only that, the Huskers chewed clock with scoring drives of 15 plays, 14 plays and 13 plays. Those drives took 8 minutes, 3 seconds, 7:00 and 7:37.
“But we’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot,” Ganz said, “and we did it again today, too.”
Like after Niles Paul returned a kickoff 69 yards to the Tech 24 late in the second quarter. It appeared Ganz had hit tight end Mike McNeill on a pass to the Tech 13.
A holding call negated it. Another holding call on the ensuing play pushed Nebraska to the 44, and the Huskers had to settle for a 53-yard field-goal attempt by Alex Henery.
It fell a couple of feet short on the final play of the half, and Nebraska trailed 17-7.
“We still have to clean up little things,” Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said. “We’re going to look back on it. There were some missed opportunities that we had. That’s what hurts all of us.”
Nebraska also stalled at the Tech 30 in the first half when the Raiders stopped running back Quentin Castille inches short on a fourth-and-1 run. It was the only time, aside from two sacks of Ganz, that Nebraska failed to gain yards via the ground.
A rushing game that’s sputtered in recent weeks showed a pulse, at least, with 114 yards. Marlon Lucky had 66 of them, but the senior back was most impressive receiving the ball.
Lucky had a season-high seven catches for 80 yards, including a 26-yard gain on a dump-off from Ganz that put Nebraska into Tech territory on the game-tying TD drive in the fourth quarter.
“Basically, that’s what they gave us,” Watson said, explaining the emergence of Lucky. “We just don’t throw it to one guy. We have a progression read, and they gave us Marlon.
“Marlon had a nice day, and Joe did a good job of checking it down to him.”
Ganz finished the drive by hitting Todd Peterson on a 17-yard TD pass with 29 seconds left.
His next pass, in overtime, overshot Nate Swift inside the 5. His final pass was the game’s only turnover, and only the eighth one in 44 attempts that didn’t land in a Husker player’s arms.
“We had other chances early,” Ganz said. “It shouldn’t have been that close. We should’ve punched it in two or three more times.”
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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