Seriously, This Was Never Meant to Be A Husker Blog Site

But I guess that's what happens when you lose two games in a row and their coach "SELLS" you on the idea that the greatest thing in the history of college football is winning the Big XII North Division. So before The Corn comes in...

• Mackenzie immediately dismissed The Departed as overrated, and then spent the next 48 hours coming around on recommending it, up to the point of actually saying that Leonardo DiCaprio was a shoe in for an Oscar. Each time he'd praise it, he'd have to follow it by saying, "OK, it was good, but it certainly isn't Goodfellas." And really, since Goodfellas is one of the top 5 greatest cinematic achievements of our lifetimes, do we really have to compare everything Scorsese does to it? So what if he gets a "lifetime" Oscar for this movie, when he should have been handed a slew of awards for Goodfellas or even Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. But let's not forget, Taxi Driver made John Hinkley Jr want to impress Jodi Foster so he attempted to assassinate Reagan. No matter, Goodfellas is Marty's crowning achievement, no matter if Leo, Jack et al walk away with all the trophies for a movie everyone seems to really like but is in no hurry to overpraise.
• Great argument about Matt Damon came from this movie when talking about how great his career has been since Good Will Hunting compared to his boy Ben Affleck. My opinion is that Damon isn't that much better an actor, it's just that he seems to have taken George Clooney's advice regarding career choices (something you'd think Marky Mark would have done by the way, but he did give us Entourage, for better or worse). No matter, with The Departed now on his resume, it's amazing at how much better Damon's career looks compared to Affleck's. Damon is officially Michael Jordan to Affleck's Scottie Pippen, and that's probably being a bit too kind to Ben Affleck, who really hasn't been in a decent movie since Chasing Amy.
• I have really good friends who I swear have never said two words to me about something called Borat EVER, and yesterday I had text messages from all of them saying that they just had to go see the premiere of Borat on opening night. I don't think these friends ever have mentioned Ali G to me, and one said it was the first time he wanted to see a movie on it's opening night since...well, Ghostbusters. Yes, he has no dick.

Anywho, on to the Corn....

Jimmy Johnson had a famous line that he used to great success in his Miami (college) and Dallas (pro) coaching stints. "Treat a player like he is and remains the player he is," Johnson would famously say. "Treat a player like the player he could become, and he becomes the player he could and should be."

Billy C has constantly preached that the only thing that matters this year was winning the Big 12 North title, and anything else was simply gravy. But if the team lost six games (Still a distinct possibility, when you consider they could lose next week at A&M, the Big 12 Championship game to Texas, and then whatever bowl game the Corn gets sent to), it wouldn't matter as long as the trip to Kansas City was punched. For all intents and purposes, that ticket was punched earlier today with the Corn beating Missouri 34-20 in Lincoln, a game that the old school Huskers (read: circa 1993-97) would have won 65-7.

I just can't figure this year's team out. They should be doing so much more, but their leader limits their potential by strictly keeping them satisfied on only feasting on the appetizer, but not even getting a sniff at the Filet Mignon. I think it all goes back to Jimmy Johnson's philosophy. I think Billy C has his team thinking that they're about as good a team to win the Big XII North and nothing more. Consider:

• Two of their three losses were to Big XII SOUTH teams (Texas and Okie State), and that other loss was to a program that Billy C is trying so desperately to emulate but knows, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, is not only not in the same ballpark with, it might as well not be in the same sport (that would be USC, having a down year by the way).
• The Corn seems to come out blazing during every game, often hanging a big early lead (including today, where the score in the 2nd quarter was 27-3 at one point) only to lay off the pedal and let the opponent right back into the game (which led to last week's disaster at Stillwater). Remember the Kansas game, where NU had a 24-3 lead in the 2nd quarter, only to watch KU come back and force overtime? Or the games at Iowa State and Kansas State, where the old Al Davis "Just Win Baby" mentality came into play (just escape with some sort of a semblance of a victory and we'll sell them all at the post game buffet).

So I was stunned when the goal posts didn't come down following today's win against Missouri, because if you drank the Kool-Aid from August on, you knew that this team had just did the only thing Billy C wanted to see them do. Be in a position to win the Big XII North. And again, if this is what we call progress, if this is why the University had to fire Solich following a decent 9-3 season, if this is all it takes to make Husker fans happy anymore, then maybe Stevie P's famous quote about not allowing the program to continue to slide towards mediocrity is simply all the more telling.

Face it Corn fans. Nebraska is now and looks to be in the near future nothing beyond mediocre. And until you can treat your players and expectations to levels where the SHOULD be rather than where they really are, well then I guess you're all just going to have to deal with enjoying the bang band shrimp as an appetizer while Texas and Oklahoma and the rest of the real programs feast on the real stuff.