At least Nebraska's fans showed up to play.
Winding my way through the crowds before NU's 28-10 loss to No. 2 USC on Saturday, it was nice to see numerous Cornhusker fans, some tossing footballs around, outside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
After all, I didn't see much from the Cornhuskers on the field.
It would be easy to say, "I told you so."
I knew the Huskers would lose Saturday, not because I am a pessimist, but for the sheer fact that the odds were stacked against the No. 19 team in the country.
USC had the home field advantage, the home-opening anticipation and a 27-game home-winning streak going into the much anticipated matchup. The Trojans also sport the top receiving corps in the country, along with one of the best defensive lines and four of the last five No. 1 recruiting classes.
But what I couldn't have predicted was the tentative game plan from the Nebraska coaches. For whatever reason, it seemed like they were satisfied with playing just to stay close rather than playing to win.
While senior linebacker Stewart Bradley asked me, "Why play if you don't want to win?" I counter with the following - then why didn't NU take more risks?
In a game like this, a chance to break out after a sour few years, why not try out some more passes, some more trick plays?
Overall, the Huskers threw just 17 times in the loss - one on a fake punt. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, except that on 36 rushing attempts, Nebraska averaged only 1.9 yards.
The conservative game plan of running the ball obviously wasn't working. NU's trouble on the ground was obvious after the first quarter, when I-backs Marlon Lucky - who broke for 103 yards against Nicholls State - and Kenny Wilson, a sophomore and junior, respectively, still hadn't surpassed 10 yards rushing.
But no matter how many times the Huskers failed to convert runs into big yardage opportunities, NU Coach Bill Callahan refused to switch up his game plan.
"We felt we could run," Callahan said. "You need to be able to run to win championships. Let me be clear. We want to run. On the road, that's a challenge. But we want to establish the run."
Once again, it wasn't working.
In last Tuesday's press conference, I asked Callahan why sophomore wide receiver Nate Swift got only one ball thrown to him against Nicholls State. I wanted to know if NU was saving him for something special. Callahan replied, "We're not saving anything."
He was right. Swift didn't see any passes against USC.
By the end of the first half, NU senior quarterback Zac Taylor was 5-for-9 for 54 passing yards, 10 more yards than the Husker rushers had earned.
Leading receivers?
Don't be confused that one of the leaders was junior I-back Brandon Jackson, who caught four balls for 36 yards on the night. Senior tight end Matt Herian had a 36-yard reception - NU's longest of the night - while wide receivers Terrence Nunn, a junior, and Todd Peterson, a sophomore, had 31 and 28 yards respectively.
But Peterson earned those 28 yards off a pass from sophomore punter Dan Titchener in a punt-fake the Huskers successfully completed in the first quarter.
But the momentum-shifting fake punt proved to be an anomaly. It wasn't the proof we sought that Nebraska was going to pull out all the stops on national television and keep USC from dominating the entire game. But needless to say, in the end I was utterly disappointed.
In a six-minute second quarter drive, the Huskers went a total of 23 yards in 11 plays. Within that time, Lucky and Wilson tallied three runs for no gain. Taylor completed two passes, one to Nunn for 10 yards and one to Lucky for 12. And yet the grinding continued.
The end of the third showed a glimmer of hope, however, when the Huskers drove down from the Nebraska 26-yard line to the USC 3 on three passing plays. Taylor completed a 10-yard pass to Jackson, a 21-yarder to Nunn and a 36-yard spiral to Herian to set up Nebraska's only touchdown of the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
But NU struggled to pound in that yard needed for the touchdown, resorting to a quarterback sneak where Taylor jogged, anticlimactically, into the end zone.
With its senior quarterback throwing only 16 passes all night, NU refused to challenge the Trojans' young secondary, the perceived weakness of their defense.
USC Coach Pete Carroll commented after the game that Nebraska wanted to burn the clock and wait for the Trojans to make mistakes - that time never came. Counting on that was the least proactive plan the Huskers could have thought up.
Next time the Huskers match up to a USC-caliber team, they need to bring more edge, more common sense and a lot more courage.
