Thursday's Display

#21 Nebraska-27, #24 Missouri-12

Missouri finally plays a decent team aaaaand loses. Nebraska had come close to winning a game in a hostile environment and, in this non-professional semi-journalist's opinion, that helped with their victory on the road in Missouri.

As for a breakdown of the game, it was a dark and stormy night, and both teams seemed to be totally insistent on passing the ball, regardless of conditions. The result? 9 points in the first half. Heck, if it weren't for a dreadful snap on a Nebraska punt in the second quarter, you might not have seen any scoring at all, since both Missouri scores came on the play in question (a safety) and on the ensuing possession from a free kick.

Nebraska won again in this rivalry, one that they dominated before 2003, and one which they could realistically dominate again. Nebraska's headed in the right direction under Bo Pelini, though they still have a fairly massive amount of work to do on offense. In the 2 Nebraska games I have watched closely this season, they have scored all their touchdowns during this game's 4th quarter. (NOTE: That sentence was a grammarian's nightmare. I am on Ny-Quil and do not care.) Since their other 3 opponents were Sun Belt teams, we will use these 2 games as the sample size. (NOTE: This is a statistician's nightmare. Still on Ny-Quil. Still don't care.) Nebraska has played 2 teams that stood a chance to compete with them, and has scored touchdowns in one of the 8 quarters they have played against those teams.

Missouri and Nebraska will both make bowls because of the fact that there are 857 bowl games and because they are in the weaker division of the Big 12. The Tigers are an alright football team, meaning that they are simply that: alright. They can beat more than half of the teams in college football, but they can't beat the truly good ones, meaning that they'll hover around the mid-level bowl range for the next few seasons. Enjoy your trips to places like Paducha, Kentucky, Tiger fans!

As for this season, look for the Huskers/Kansas game in November to be the deciding factor in the Big 12 North, which will lead to a showdown (most likely) with Texas for the conference title. Still, since neither of these teams have played tough opponents in consecutive weeks, I'm curious to see how they do in conference play. And now, sweet sardonic sleep.