2008 Final Stats - compiled from cfbstats.com

NEBRASKA FOOTBALL FINAL RANKINGS - 2008
Category	National	Conference
Scoring Offense	#17	#6
Rushing Offense	#37	#4
Passing Offense	#15	#6
Total Offense	#12	#6
Punt Returns	#22	#2
Kickoff Returns	#47	#9
Punting	#95	#9
Field Goals	#9	#1
PAT Kicking	#39	#5
First Downs	#20	#7
Penalties	#99	#11
Turnover Margin	#108	#12
Sacks	#13	#3
Tackles for Loss	#36	#4
Interceptions	#59	#6
Fumbles Recovered	#112	#12
Fumbles Forced	#59	#8
3rd Down Conversions	#14	#6
4th Down Conversions	#89	#12
Red Zone Conversions	#28	#5
Kickoffs	#32	#5
Scoring Defense	#81	#6
Rushing Defense	#22	#3
Passing Defense	#89	#2
Total Defense	#55	#2
Opponent Punt Returns	#66	#7
Opponent Kickoff Returns	#105	#10
Opponent Punting	#25	#2
Opponent Field Goals	#18	#3
Opponent PAT Kicking	#15	#2
Opponent First Downs	#36	#1
Opponent Penalties	#116	#12
Time of Possession	#2	#1
Sacks Allowed	#45	#7
Tackles for Loss Allowed	#106	#11
Passes Defended	#26	#6
Fumbles Lost	#111	#12
Kicks/Punts Blocked	Tied #6	#2
Opponent 3rd down Conversions	#23	#1
Opponent 4th Down Conversions	#61	#4
Opponent Red Zone Conversions	#20	#3
Opponent Kickoff	#83	#8

Life Lessons

I hope this link stays active for a long long time. This is exactly what Tom Osborne ment when he said "Athletics is more than winning".

We need more of these types of coaches and players in high school and college athletics.

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=914609

To the coach and to the players involved. My hats off to you. Excellent display of sportsmanship!

Thoughts from a Husker fan

Well this month I have been extremely busy and I was to make it my goal to post my thoughts on Husker Football at least once month in the off-season.

AJ - read you last blog entry and I must say I am going to miss your writing. Although I agreed with basically none of it, It was very entertaining to read.

This month I am going to institute a new "law" for my posting. When I see something I like, I may elect to post it rather than writing my own :). I am the blog owner, I can do that.

The following I ran across on redbeerman's blog today. And unlike AJ's blog, this post I agree with 100%. This comes from Nemesis:

I wasted four years trying to explain the basics of Husker football to these fucktards. What a waste of valuable time.

The Husker football program was unique in many ways. From 1968 to 1997, the Huskers were the winningest program in college football by a long shot. Our winning percentage was 0.83699. Second place was a distant 0.80112. That is incredible! Our winning percentage is over 3.5 points higher than second place. That's twice as big of a gap between #1 and #2 as exists between any other consecutive places from #2 to #110. We dominated that 30 year span, thanks almost entirely to the brilliant systems put in place by TO. And I'm not talking simply about offense or defense or Xs and Os. I'm talking about the whole spectrum, from academics to fan support to off-season training to S&C to walk-ons to nurturing traditions and family atmosphere to academics. And TO didn't put these systems into place in secrecy. He documented it all so it could be continued when he was gone.

Well, did Coach Solich maintain the dominance? Many shortsighted fanny-come-latelys don't seem to think so. Many so-called "fans" from the dark realms of bigredboard hate Frank with so much palpable passion that he should probably thank his lucky stars that they are hidden behind keyboards in their moms' basements. It's shameful that they propagate the lies about Frank created by the evil Pedey's minions. Frank is a good man. But was he a good coach?

Let's look at what happened to our dominant winning percentage during Frank's tenure. If we look at 1968-2003, we see that we're still number one, but our overall winning percentage dropped from 0.83699 to 0.82280. But what about our lead over second place?

Second place dropped from 0.80112 to 0.78322. Under Coach Solich's care, our lead increased from 3.5 percentage points to almost a full 4 percentage points over the second best team from that same era.

And that's all we should have ever hoped for from Frank. He wasn't a brilliant offensive mind. He wasn't a good public speaker. He didn't put a pretty face on Husker football (actually, this is probably the biggest factor that made the shallow, hateful and insecure BRB-types hate Frank so much.)

But he was a perfectly adequate caretaker. He was the best person at the time to keep TO's systems chugging along. And he did that quite fine, unless you're a spoiled simpleton who doesn't understand the basics of Husker football. He kept us in or near the top ten most of the time. Played for an NC one year. How much more can you hope for? '94-'97???

Frank maintaining TO's systems at Nebraska is a much better and more effective option than almost any other coach doing something different at Nebraska.

Now we have Bo back, who is a much better coach than Frank IMHO. However, the most important thing is that we have TO back helping Bo to put the tried and true systems back in place.

Firing Frank after 9 wins and hiring a career mediocre hack like Callahan to "flip the culture" was the biggest mistake ever made by an AD in D1 college football. Like our winning percentage over the 36 year TO-FS span, there isn't even a close second. True Husker fans must remain diligent and help to insure that NOTHING like that ever happens again in the Husker football program. Don't put up with the spoiled fans. If someone doesn't like to watch good coaches running effective systems for the most successful team in the country and feel like they need a "name" coach who will move on in 5 years anyway and who won't have as much success doing his own thing, then they can find another team to support. Practically every other team in the country could fall in that category.

In college football, there is the Huskers. And then there is everybody else. Let's keep it that way.

I want to thank Nemesis for allowing me to post this here!

Oh and the comment made about the spoiled fans: It's right on the money. The fans almost ran Tom Osborne out of town and in our own efforts to "improve on" our current coaching situation, we almost ran it directly into the ground.

See Nebraska football for what it is and what is stands for, rather than what we sometimes want it to become.

We, as fans, are as much responsible for the 4 years in Husker history most of us would like to forget. Steve Pederson didn't do this on his own, He is quoted as saying he was giving Nebraska what they were asking for. Like Nemesis said, and I reiterate, let not let this happen EVER EVER again!