Huskers rally past Baylor
Print
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Trouble was lurking on Vine Street. A freshman with quick feet was doing his best to torment, leaving defenders gasping for air and Husker fans grasping for Rolaids.
Baylor was unafraid, hard-hitting, fast — real fast. Nebraska was not just in a ballgame. Nebraska was losing.
Down three points at halftime, the coaches done talking X’s and O’s, Husker veterans spoke up — Larry Asante and Phillip Dillard among them.
Related Link(s):
“We told the offense, ‘We got your back. We got your back,’” said Asante, a junior safety. “We just went out and played as a family.”
Good talk. Nebraska rallied. Fans exhaled — the 32-20 victory didn’t come easy, but at least it came Saturday at Memorial Stadium. It might not have last year.
Baylor freshman quarterback Robert Griffin was worthy of the hype, but Nebraska’s experienced players — having seen too many of these games unravel in previous years — stood taller in the game’s biggest moments.
Look no further than this stat: Nebraska was 11-of-17 on third downs. Baylor was 0-for-10.
“That’s why they’re patting each other on the back and we’re consoling each other,” Baylor coach Art Briles said.
It also didn’t hurt Nebraska that it had seniors like Marlon Lucky and Nate Swift — who provided key answers for a Husker offense that piled up 497 yards, held the ball for more than 38 minutes and still were not fulfilled.
“We’re sitting here today with 500 yards of offense, going, ‘Man, we’re disappointed in a lot of things because we could have been better,’” Husker offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said. “We’re relentlessly going to pursue perfection.”
Lucky accounted for 165 yards — 83 rushing and 82 receiving — and Swift caught a career-high 11 passes for 121 yards and two touchdowns. And, oh, yeah, he moved past a guy named Johnny Rodgers for most career receptions by a Husker.
But it wasn’t just the veterans on offense who stepped up.
Just consider who came through for the Husker defense on its two biggest plays of the day:
* With Baylor already ahead by three and facing a third-and-goal from the NU 1-yard line in the third quarter, veteran players Asante, Zach Potter and Dillard popped Griffin at the 2. The Bears then missed a short field goal.
* And early in the fourth quarter, with Nebraska hanging onto a 24-20 lead and Baylor facing a fourth-and-4 at the NU 31, it was Asante who came on a safety blitz and sacked Griffin.
Four plays later, Husker quarterback Joe Ganz hit Swift for a 53-yard touchdown with 12:11 left — not a knockout punch, but close.
“Our guys aren’t getting rattled right now when things happen — not as rattled as their head coach does,” Bo Pelini said. “That’s not doing much for my blood pressure.”
Pelini was boiling for much of the first half.
Baylor (3-5) led 20-17 at halftime and had 234 total yards. Griffin had already rushed for 93 yards on eight carries, accounting for 168 total yards.
“They’re not as fast as we are,” Griffin said. “They are a good, tough defense, solid. But when it comes to running laterally and up and down the field, they couldn’t stick with us.”
Griffin’s success wasn’t making Pelini happy and neither were some of the Husker penalties — two personal fouls on linebacker Cody Glenn aided two Baylor touchdown drives.
Pelini had an especially loud outburst after a facemask call on Glenn took away a sack.
“I’ve got to look on the film before I comment on (those) and even then, I’ll have to lock myself in the closet so I don’t get fined,” Pelini said.
On top of the penalties, there was poor tackling.
“We were our own worst enemy in that first half,” Pelini said.
But the Huskers’ response to that first half had Pelini smiling afterward. “We make it interesting, don’t we?” he said.
The Huskers outgained the Bears 297 yards to 116 in the second half. And Griffin had just 87 yards in the final 30 minutes.
“You are going to find yourself in games like this,” Ganz said. “It’s just how you respond. I thought we responded well.”
Watson said part of that response can be attributed to the seniors, who he says have really taken to Pelini’s message about “leaving a legacy for us to build our program on.”
It was a victory with plenty of flaws, but at 5-3, the Huskers have matched their win total from last year and now sit in a three-way tie atop the Big 12 North standings with Missouri and Kansas.
All considered, things are looking up.
“This is a team that after the season we went through last year, there was some confidence that we had to rebuild, that we had to rekindle, all kinds of things — trust, patience, all those things that make a team a team,” Watson said. “We have developed that as this season has worn on. We have become a pretty persistent group of guys. There’s no panic in this team right now.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
Most Commented Football