De ja Vu

On a cold rainy November night in 1990, #9 Colorado traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to take on the #3 Nebraska Cornhuskers. After three quarters, Nebraska led 12-0 before being stunned in the 4th quarter by 4 Colorado touchdowns on route to a 27-12 loss.

On a cold rainy October night in 2009, #21 Nebraska traveled to Columbia, Missouri to take on the #24 Missouri Tigers. After three quarters, Missouri led 12-0 before being stunned in the 4th quarter by 4 Nebraska touchdowns on route to a 27-12 loss.

On January 1, 1991, #1 Colorado defeated Notre Dame 10-9 in the Orange Bowl to win a share of the National Championship.

On January 8, 2010, OK, I am not going to go that far, but you have to admit that the circumstances surrounding those two games were eerily similar; however, this time around Nebraska was on the right end of the scoreboard.

Is Nebraska a National Championship contender? Not at this point; however, the Huskers do sit at #15 in the Associated Press poll and with wins at home over Texas Tech and Iowa State, along with a victory over Robert Griffin-less Baylor, the Huskers will be 7-1 and sitting possibly in the top ten with Oklahoma coming to town on November 7. It does not get any easier in November for Nebraska, with visits to Kansas and Colorado sandwiched in between with hap-less Kansas State team.

Nebraska still has issues on offense as it has only produced touchdowns in one of eight quarters against BCS eligible teams. This is not the Sun Belt anymore so Nebraska will need to be more consistent on offense if they want to compete for a Big 12 North Championship. Based on the schedules of Kansas and Missouri, Nebraska may win the North by default, but that will not make it easy for the Huskers on December 4th if they fail to have a solid offensive game plan week in and week out.

The Nebraska defense is playing about as good as any defense in the country right now with maybe USC being the exception. Nebraska is giving up an average of 8 points per game, and that includes games against Missouri and Virginia Tech. Texas Tech obviously provides the most explosive offense to date and they will test Ndamukong Suh and Co. Tech has a habit of releasing the ball right after the snap so Suh may not be as effective of a weapon this week. Nebraska’s linebackers and secondary will have to step it up this week to slow down this gimmick offense.

Now, Texas Tech is far from the team they were last year; however, they are still a formidable foe with QB Steven Schilling appearing to now be the Red Raiders signal caller for the rest of the year. Last year, Nebraska needed the perfect game plan just to force overtime with Texas Tech. I do not think that will be needed this year and Nebraska should come out on top on Saturday.

Nebraska 38 Texas Tech 24

P.S. Ndamukong Suh has to be mentioned as a Heisman Candidate right now. He is a man among boys out there right now. Also, look for College Football predictions on Thursday.