Last Saturday, after Nebraska's football coach left a blue cloud wafting over the scorched moonscape of the Husker sideline in the wake of a ref-assisted loss at Texas A&M, I mistakenly mentioned to my lovely and charming wife that "I get Bo Pelini."
"Really?" she asked. "You get Bo Pelini? Really?"
I am not a bright man, but neither am I Forrest Gump. I was starting to think there might be sarcasm in play here.
"You understand Bo Pelini? Really?"
Yeah, it was sarcasm, all right. You don't have to throw a yellow flag with "SARCASTIC" written on it at me and hit me right in the eye with the weighted end and scratch my cornea or anything. I'm not Nancy Pelosi, for pity's sake.
"Honeybun, you areBo Pelini."
The woman always goes for the kill. Every time.
And after 27 years of marriage, the woman also still doesn't understand those of us with a majority of Mediterranean blood hotly coursing through our bulging veins. I blame the Swedish blood treading cautiously, yet efficiently, through hers. ON THE OTHER HAND, after watching this press conference this evening after Nebraska's 45-17 final beatdown of Colorado, she may have a point. If you're in a hurry, skip to the 4:55 mark.
Here's a transcript of the relevant exchange:
Reporter (who really should have known better):Do you tell the guys to just, to celebrate this? I mean, do want them to enjoy tonight, or is it something you don't even want to. . . .
Pelini: No, I want 'em to be pissed off and feel like they got their butts kicked.
I mean, come on. Yeah . . . yeah I hope they would enjoy it. They earned it. They did a lot. They've won 10 football games -- that's not easy to do, it's nothing to sneeze at, you know? I'm proud of these kids. They better enjoy it.
I WOULD HAVE said exactly the same thing. Exactly the same way.
I even may have added a gratuitous "Are you some kind of @#$&*#! nut???" as an exclamation point. Maybe not. I don't know.
All I do know is that Coach Bo might be the brother I never had. Now, #@!* you, you #@$%!&% #$*&!. No, really.
Football fans, particularly of the Husker variety, were mystified at how a clean hit on the Aggie quarterback could magically turn into a late hit, and how Nebraska tight end Ben Cotton could get 30 yards of personal-foul penalties for trying to stop an A&M player from grabbing his junk.
This unfathomable mystery nearly drove Coach Bo Pelini mad with frustration on the NU sideline. Hell, I know that watching this trademark Big 12 fiasco on television in the comfort of my Omaha home had me yelling obscenities even I seldom use.
And that's saying something.
Well, I think I have the answer. I was searching the Internets up and down for some elusive enlightenment, and I came across this -- the secret behind-the-scenes Big 12 Conference video meant for its secret archives in Irving, Texas.
Apparently, there are confused people on the LSU campus -- apart from those trying to figure out what the hell the Death Star (a.k.a. Gov. Bobby Jindal) is going to zap them with next.
And these confused people happen to reside in the Tiger football program (not to mention the sports section of Baton Rouge's daily newspaper).
Interestingly, none of them are Coach Les Miles.
Nebraska's athletic quarterback is "Zach Martinez"? Who dat?
The Huskers have a Zac Lee at quarterback, and they also have a Taylor Martinez. I assume Rueben Shepard was talking about (and the Advocate scribe was writing about) the Husker starter, Martinez.
Whose jock strap the LSU quarterbacks are not fit to hold.
If you watched the Nebraska-Texas football game Saturday, it became clear to you that something was horribly wrong with the Huskers.
Of course, we all chalked it up to nerves. To anxiousness. To the Huskers letting their brains slip into R (Revenge) before ever engaging in D (Drive the @#$%!*% ball down the #$%!@*+&! field, you jerks!).
Face it, we just chalked it up to Husker coaches yet again letting Mack Brown and his Tejas 22 get under their skins and into their heads.
Of course, we are fans. That means we are wrong. Horribly, embarrassingly, ignorantly and knuckle-draggingly wrong. Just ask NU Coach Bo Pelini.
No, really. Coach Bo explains it all in Sunday's Omaha World-Herald.
IT WASN'T emotion, or nerves or anything like that. See?
Bo Pelini says the outside influences did not factor, that emotion played no role Saturday for Nebraska and that the Huskers again lost to Texas only because they failed to make plays.
A mountain of evidence from this 20-13 UT win suggests another conclusion: that NU wanted it too badly.
How else to explain the three dropped touchdown passes? Or the opening seven minutes that included uncharacteristic missed tackles and a key fumble by senior Roy Helu? It led to a 10-point hole from which NU never climbed.
“A terrible start,” said Pelini, who dropped to 1-4 in October home games as the Nebraska coach.
AND HUSKER receivers dropping something like 873 passes during the game -- about four of them sure touchdowns? It couldn't be nerves, or . . . PSYCH!!!
Nuh uh.
In this doomed series of Big 12 heavyweights, frustration climaxed for Nebraska on Saturday as Texas improved to 4-0 in Lincoln since 1998.
The Longhorns (4-2, 2-1) won for the ninth time in 10 games against NU as a conference foe. UT denied the Huskers and their fans of the moment they all so desired: redemption against Texas before the Huskers bolt next year for the Big Ten.
Barring a December rematch in the Big 12 championship game, they'll never meet again as league foes. And if this is how it ends, what a disappointment for Nebraska.
“Losing to anyone is not a good feeling,” NU defensive end Cameron Meredith said. “but especially Texas.”
The all-too-familiar scenarios played out often for Nebraska on Saturday.
Notably, there were the drops by Rex Burkhead, Niles Paul and Brandon Kinnie. All three passes were thrown well — the first a Taylor Martinez pass on the opening play of the second quarter; the others from Zac Lee, who replaced Martinez midway through the third quarter.
“It's pretty obvious,” Pelini said. “We had our opportunities to make plays. We didn't make plays. They did. They won the football game.”
BUT NOT making the plays, in which "not making the plays" means "dropped every thrown football laid perfectly into your outstretched hands?" And knowing for sure -- after all, Coach Bo said -- that it wasn't AT ALL due to . . . PSYCH!!!
Well, then. This could be serious, and it seems to me -- given the unlikely repetition of such specific inaction by skilled professional student athletes -- we need to start looking at environmental and medical causes.
Perhaps so many dropped passes could be traced to identical symptoms spread among a number of Nebraska players. (In this, we can use the Longhorns as our "control group." They spent only 24 hours or so in Lincoln, and they exhibited few of the symptoms associated with affected NU players.)
Several things come to mind as a possible reason for so many dropped passes Saturday -- and, indeed, so many fumbles by Nebraska throughout the present football season. The likeliest place to start would be some kind of numbness and/or paralysis in players' extremities, particularly the hands.
Now we're thinking diabetes, nerve damage, ministrokes, Reynaud's disease, peripheral artery disease (Thanks, pharmaceutical TV ads for the heads up!) . . . or multiple sclerosis. A mass outbreak of one of these maladies, however, is highly unlikely in this case.
What we need is something that would cause these symptoms in significant numbers within a group, and cause these symptoms virtually simultaneously. Something that's not nerves, or excessive emotion, or . . . PSYCH!!!
Searching Internet medical databases up and down, I could find only one explanation, and it is indeed a frightening one. In fact, as soon as this post goes up on the blog, I'm firing off an extremely urgent E-mail to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, with a copy forwarded to Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman.
LIVES ARE at stake, and I'm not talking about some unhinged Husker fan doing something stupid to a player or a coach.
* irritability[Pelini brothers (Bo and Carl) --R21] * anxiety/nervousness, often with difficulty in breathing[NU fans at Memorial Stadium] * restlessness[Ditto] * exaggerated response to stimulation[Pelini brothers] * fearfulness[NU fans in stadium] * emotional instability [Pelini brothers] -lack of self control[Bo Pelini] -fits of anger, with violent, irrational behavior[Pelini brothers] * loss of self confidence[Entire state of Nebraska] * indecision [Offensive Coordinator Shawn Watson] * shyness or timidity, being easily embarrassed[Entire state of Nebraska] * loss of memory[What were we talking about?] * inability to concentrate[Jenn Sterger is HOTT!!!!!] * lethargy/drowsiness[Entire Nebraska offense] * insomnia[Who can sleep now?] * mental depression, despondency[Are you kidding me? If you're not depressed, you must have flown in from Tejas.] * withdrawal[Leave me alone.] * suicidal tendencies[Life has not been worth living since 1998.] * manic depression[Fiddle dee dee! After all, tomorrow is another day!]
* numbness and tingling of hands, feet, fingers, toes, or lips[Taylor Martinez, NU receiving corps] * muscle weakness progressing to paralysis[NU offense] * ataxia[?????????] * tremors/trembling of hands, feet, lips, eyelids or tongue[Husker receiving corps during game; NU coaching staff after game.] * incoordination[Husker offense] * myoneural transmission failure resembling Myasthenia Gravis[NU receivers -- couldn't see the football coming.]
SEE WHAT I mean? Mercury poisoning. It clearly affects the entire Nebraska football team, and probably everyone spending any significant time on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. Possibly it could be a statewide crisis, I am not sure at this point.
We was robbed? Hell, no. We was poisoned!
This is urgent, and it is incumbent upon the state government to act immediately.
Unless, of course, the state's political and bureaucratic establishments are, at this moment, flying into fits of rage and trying to beat up one another, thwarted, however, by lack of coordination, paralysis of the extremities and an inability to see straight.
In other words, an average mercury-poisoned day at the office.
"Honeybun, you are Bo Pelini."
