Inside Texas Nebraska Game Picks

Bill Frisbie, Lead Writer – What accounts for my gut-level feeling that Texas goes into Lincoln and yanks Nebraska’s chain one last time?  Texas’ October 16 excursion to revenge-obsessed Nebraska was the lone regular season loss I had projected for the Longhorns. Why should I pick Texas now that it’s clear the Horns are not nearly as good as we had thought, and now that Nebraska boasts a prolific rushing offense to complement its rock-solid defense?  Texas couldn’t move the ball against mediocre defenses, and now faces one of college football’s premiere units on the road.  Nebraska is a fast-starting team, scoring on its first series in six of its last seven games.  Texas has been anything but.  Everything suggests a Texas team that can’t get out of its own way is running into a Big Red buzz saw.

Yet, some of the rhetoric from UT players and coaches this week suggests Texas will arrive with a more aggressive game plan, augmented by the return of WR Mike Davis and an improving Garrett Gilbert.  The buzz is that Texas’ ground game will feature a little more of speedster D.J. Monroe with Cody Johnson summoned for the heavy lifting. 

More than that, Will Muschamp has had two weeks to prepare for a Nebraska offense which, despite its jaw-dropping rushing stats, could hardly be more one-dimensional.  Nebraska is No. 2 in rushing offense (337.6 ypg) but its passing game checks in at No. 106 (156.8 ypg). There is no question Texas will ‘spy’ on freshman QB Taylor Martinez all day and try to seal the corners. 

If Texas can eliminate the devastating penalties it suffered against OU, and if it can continue to protect the ball as well as it did in Dallas, then this becomes a defensive epic that comes down to, a-hem, a last-second field goal.

My gut says Texas pulls the upset; my brain says Texas drops a hard-fought battle but then runs the table starting October 23. 

First one to ‘21’ wins Saturday, and nearly everything indicates Nebraska will get there first. Nebraska 27, Texas 20.

Ross Lucksinger, InsideTexas.com Editor – There's a game plan in place: stop Taylor Martinez and make him throw the ball.  The problem is this isn't some sort of secret.  Other teams have attempted to stop Martinez and come up very, very short.

But there is hope.  Texas may have looked confused in the second half against UCLA's pistol, but at halftime the Horns had held the Bruins to just 77 total yards.  The Longhorns have shown that if they don't get desperate and play assignment football that they can stop opposing rush offenses.  Even in the loss to OU the Texas defense held the Sooners to just 2.4 yards per rush.  Oklahoma still managed to out-rush Texas because the Sooner offense was on the field for 91 plays thanks to ill-timed penalties.

The Texas defense is only a few steps away from returning to its former glory and those steps could have been made up over the past two weeks of practice.

I don't have as much faith about there being a plan in place on the offense.

Following the loss to UCLA the Texas coaches revealed they didn't know what to do with the Longhorn offense.  After spending the week “figuring out” what to do, the result was the same sort of sideways game plan we've seen against Oklahoma in the past.  To me, that said the Texas coaches were not able to successfully solve the offense's identity crisis.

Even if the Texas defense improves the offense won't be able to score enough and this is a team Texas needs to score against.  The Cornhuskers have held each of their last 13 opponents under 21 points and that streak will extend to 14 Saturday.

Just like against Nebraska last December, the Texas offense will again put up just 13 points, but this time it won't be enough.  Nebraska 24, Texas 13.

Mike Blackwell, Inside Texas Magazine Editor – See Dear Children of the Corn, Part II. Texas 13, Nebraska 12.

Michael Pearle, Co-Publisher – Two weeks. The Longhorns have had two weeks to listen to how horrible they are. Two weeks to take shots from the media and fans, and hear former Nebraska defensive lineman Jason Peters publicly call their offense "garbage." Two weeks to find some semblance of a running game and a threatening vertical passing game, and to devise a defensive scheme to bottle up Taylor Martinez and force him to beat them with his arm and not his legs.

Yes, they've had plenty of time to build up some serious anger and to try and figure out a way to stop what truly looks at this point like a big red machine, fueled by an almost insane desire to beat Texas. Can the Horns go into Lincoln Saturday and win their fourth straight game in Memorial Stadium dating back to 1998? I'm just not seeing it.

Sure, the Huskers will almost certainly feel the weight of the intense pressure heaped on their shoulders by their administration and fan base and make some mistakes that will keep Texas in it. But the Longhorn offense can't expect to suddenly morph into an elite unit in this environment against this defense. Although the Horn D will keep Texas in it all day long, the offense just won't be able to scare up enough points to put them over the top. So enjoy it Huskers, you can always take pride in the fact you went 2-8 against Texas in the Big 12. Hope you enjoy those road trips to East Lansing. Nebraska 24, Texas 17.

Clendon Ross, Co-Publisher – As I said on yesterday’s podcast, I believe Nebraska is beatable, and beatable by this Texas team, I just don’t have faith in the Longhorn coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball to implement a game plan that does what it takes to beat the Huskers and I don’t have faith in the players on the defensive side of the ball to successfully execute the plan that Will Muschamp will put in place. The lack of faith in Greg Davis is years in the making but particularly reinforced with the terrible performance we’ve seen from his group over the first five games of this season. The lack of faith in the defensive players is, essentially, two games in the making, which means I’ll be far less surprised if the defensive players step up and execute than I will be if the offensive plan is actually designed to, ya know, score rather than make Garrett Gilbert comfortable or limit turnovers or tire out the defense of whatever the excuse du jour is for conservative scheming and play calling.

But I also won’t be at all surprised if Texas has trouble stopping Taylor Martinez, even if it executes at a fairly high level. He’s the most explosive offensive player Texas will have faced so far this year, and others have managed to make Muschamp’s defense look silly (think UCLA’s Kevin Prince, who’d probably lose a 40-yard foot race to Martinez by 10 yards).

I know a lot of folks are hanging their hats on the fact that, without about 20 bullets in the foot vs. Oklahoma, Texas beats the Sooners. I agree that that’s progress from the Bruin beatdown the previous week, but OU is not a great football team, and certainly not at the level of Nebraska. Texas has now lost to a mediocre UCLA team (did you see what Cal did to the Bruins last week?) and a decent OU team. What in world makes anyone expect the Horns will beat a really good Nebraska team, in Lincoln, in perhaps that program’s biggest game since the 2001 season?

Well, I know the answer to that, and I’m prone to give the “Texas owns Nebraska” angle some credence. I do think that the Huskers are going to be under an enormous amount of pressure in this game and that could very well effect their play, particularly early, and perhaps late if the game is close. My thought is, the Horns won’t be aggressive enough early to take advantage and thus it ain’t gonna be close late.  The Cornhuskers are finally going to exorcise some burnt orange demons Saturday. As Michael said above, wear that 2-8 mark vs. the Horns with pride, Huskers. Nebraska 38, Texas 13.

Pat Culpepper, Special to Inside Texas – See Culpepper's Commentary: Horns Have 'Best Chance' To Beat Huskers. Texas 27, Nebraska 21.

Average of IT Members Picks: Nebraska 24, Texas 21.

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