Huskers survive dogfight with Ball St.
Nebraska didn’t used to need to pray to beat a team like Ball State.
That’s what Husker junior running back Marlon Lucky was doing with 17 seconds left Saturday.
Ball State, a good team, but still a team out of the Mid-American Conference, a team that scraped past Navy in overtime after losing to Miami (that’s Miami of Ohio), was lining up for a field goal to beat Nebraska at Memorial Stadium.
“Praying. That’s all I was doing. Praying. Sam, he wasn’t looking,” Lucky said of quarterback Sam Keller. “I was just sitting there with Sam telling him everything that was happening.”
There are people who question the power of prayer, but don’t count Lucky among them.
After Nebraska twice iced freshman Jake Hogue with timeouts, the Ball State kicker pushed a 55-yarder wide-left.
“I shook him. I grabbed him,” Lucky said of Keller. “Man, it went wide-left.”
Nebraska had survived Ball State, 41-40.
“These wins are hard to come by, this day and age, the way people are playing football,” Husker coach Bill Callahan said. “I think we see that across the country. ... Any time you win in this business, you know, there’s all types of wins. All types of wins. I’m really proud of the fact that our kids found a way to get this one done today.”
This type of win required a missed field goal, dropped passes, a rally from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit and a school-record passing performance by Keller.
Only two plays before Hogue’s missed field goal, Ball State receiver Dante Love — who had 214 yards receiving — dropped what would have been a 38-yard touchdown pass.
You were looking for defense? Sorry, haven’t seen it.
For the second straight week, the Blackshirts gave up more than 40 points. That hasn’t happened since Oklahoma and Georgia Tech put up 45 against NU in the 1990 season.
It is the first time that the Huskers have given up more than 40 points in back-to-back games at Memorial Stadium.
Under Tom Osborne, the Huskers did not surrender 40 or more points until his 16th season.
The defense was so lacking Saturday that even the home fans started booing during various parts of the third and fourth quarters.
“Fans get upset,” Husker senior tight end Sean Hill said. “We weren’t playing up to their expectations. We weren’t playing up to our expectations. But we knew that if we kept playing hard, we’d pull it out.”
The boos became the loudest when Ball State went 96 yards in five plays to take a 37-28 lead. Right then, the Huskers could not have been more in step with the mediocrity from which the program is so desperately trying to distance itself.
In a game that featured eight lead changes, the Cardinals amassed 610 yards of total offense, the fourth-most given up by a Husker defense and most since Washington put up 618 in 1991.
Ball State quarterback Nate Davis rarely was pressured, and even when he was, he still completed passes. His 422 yards passing would have been even greater had his receivers not had a case of the drops.
But there was one mistake — one of those big mistakes a team like Ball State can’t make.
Late in the game, Davis threw his first really bad pass, overthrowing his receiver, right into the hands of Husker linebacker Bo Ruud.
Ruud returned the interception 34 yards for a touchdown, pulling the Huskers to 37-35 with 9:21 left.
Boos turned to Ruuuuuds.
“I felt that lifted our football team and gave us hope and the encouragement to come right back and put points on the board,” Callahan said.
Keller called it “the play that allowed us to win the game.”
Given the defense’s performance, Ruud wasn’t about to take such credit.
“To me, what the offense did, answering every time we were down, that, to me, won the game,” he said.
He was right. It’s hard to find much fault at all with Keller, minus one fourth-quarter interception.
Probably more impressive than his school-record 438 passing yards was the cool he displayed on Nebraska’s game-winning drive.
Trailing 40-35, he completed 7 of 7 passes, the final one to Maurice Purify for an 11-yard touchdown with 3:13 left.
Despite the close call, Keller remained the face of optimism.
“We had to claw back three or four times. Our defense was down and out and had things go wrong, but they made plays when they had to,” Keller said. “Bo Ruud made plays, Steve Octavien made a play late. That’s the way games go sometimes. Not everything goes as scripted. A win against Ball State scripted 48-17 — that doesn’t happen all the time.”
It used to be the script around here, but this is 2007. College football has changed and Nebraska is best to say its prayers.
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
That’s what Husker junior running back Marlon Lucky was doing with 17 seconds left Saturday.
Ball State, a good team, but still a team out of the Mid-American Conference, a team that scraped past Navy in overtime after losing to Miami (that’s Miami of Ohio), was lining up for a field goal to beat Nebraska at Memorial Stadium.
“Praying. That’s all I was doing. Praying. Sam, he wasn’t looking,” Lucky said of quarterback Sam Keller. “I was just sitting there with Sam telling him everything that was happening.”
There are people who question the power of prayer, but don’t count Lucky among them.
After Nebraska twice iced freshman Jake Hogue with timeouts, the Ball State kicker pushed a 55-yarder wide-left.
“I shook him. I grabbed him,” Lucky said of Keller. “Man, it went wide-left.”
Nebraska had survived Ball State, 41-40.
“These wins are hard to come by, this day and age, the way people are playing football,” Husker coach Bill Callahan said. “I think we see that across the country. ... Any time you win in this business, you know, there’s all types of wins. All types of wins. I’m really proud of the fact that our kids found a way to get this one done today.”
This type of win required a missed field goal, dropped passes, a rally from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit and a school-record passing performance by Keller.
Only two plays before Hogue’s missed field goal, Ball State receiver Dante Love — who had 214 yards receiving — dropped what would have been a 38-yard touchdown pass.
You were looking for defense? Sorry, haven’t seen it.
For the second straight week, the Blackshirts gave up more than 40 points. That hasn’t happened since Oklahoma and Georgia Tech put up 45 against NU in the 1990 season.
It is the first time that the Huskers have given up more than 40 points in back-to-back games at Memorial Stadium.
Under Tom Osborne, the Huskers did not surrender 40 or more points until his 16th season.
The defense was so lacking Saturday that even the home fans started booing during various parts of the third and fourth quarters.
“Fans get upset,” Husker senior tight end Sean Hill said. “We weren’t playing up to their expectations. We weren’t playing up to our expectations. But we knew that if we kept playing hard, we’d pull it out.”
The boos became the loudest when Ball State went 96 yards in five plays to take a 37-28 lead. Right then, the Huskers could not have been more in step with the mediocrity from which the program is so desperately trying to distance itself.
In a game that featured eight lead changes, the Cardinals amassed 610 yards of total offense, the fourth-most given up by a Husker defense and most since Washington put up 618 in 1991.
Ball State quarterback Nate Davis rarely was pressured, and even when he was, he still completed passes. His 422 yards passing would have been even greater had his receivers not had a case of the drops.
But there was one mistake — one of those big mistakes a team like Ball State can’t make.
Late in the game, Davis threw his first really bad pass, overthrowing his receiver, right into the hands of Husker linebacker Bo Ruud.
Ruud returned the interception 34 yards for a touchdown, pulling the Huskers to 37-35 with 9:21 left.
Boos turned to Ruuuuuds.
“I felt that lifted our football team and gave us hope and the encouragement to come right back and put points on the board,” Callahan said.
Keller called it “the play that allowed us to win the game.”
Given the defense’s performance, Ruud wasn’t about to take such credit.
“To me, what the offense did, answering every time we were down, that, to me, won the game,” he said.
He was right. It’s hard to find much fault at all with Keller, minus one fourth-quarter interception.
Probably more impressive than his school-record 438 passing yards was the cool he displayed on Nebraska’s game-winning drive.
Trailing 40-35, he completed 7 of 7 passes, the final one to Maurice Purify for an 11-yard touchdown with 3:13 left.
Despite the close call, Keller remained the face of optimism.
“We had to claw back three or four times. Our defense was down and out and had things go wrong, but they made plays when they had to,” Keller said. “Bo Ruud made plays, Steve Octavien made a play late. That’s the way games go sometimes. Not everything goes as scripted. A win against Ball State scripted 48-17 — that doesn’t happen all the time.”
It used to be the script around here, but this is 2007. College football has changed and Nebraska is best to say its prayers.
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
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