Opening with BYU

                The setting sun cast long shadows through the canyons of downtown. The looming towers yawned as the last few dribbles of humanity dripped out and oozed across the sidewalks. The reflection off one of the towers cast an eerie orange glow through my office.

            If I had to match it to a paint chip, I'd call it somewhere between 'Atomic Haze' and 'Boiling Sea'. Maybe that's why Glidden never called back.

            I had my feet up on the desk, the brown in the bottle offering a modest accent color to the ambiance of the room. The brown in the glass hinted at what had already added to my internal ambiance.  The piles of papers on the desk marked the last round of progress in the endless war between my debts and revenue. Debts had taken Hill 238, and gained control of the surrounding territory. I was hoping for reinforcements to help Revenue begin a counter-attack, but it was a dismal stalemate that would probably grind on as a war of attrition.

            There are a couple of distractions when the bills, the strife and the hassle get to be too much. One is that class is back in session and the neighborhood is flooded with young, fresh, enthusiastic students. Full of life, full of vim and full of it. The t-shirts were tighter than ever, the shorts were tighter and shorter than I'd ever seen. The girls weren't much better, but I granted them some leeway.

            The other distraction was football, yes football. The season that is more important than moisture harvest season on Tatooine. Everything tied into it. Economics, psychology, history, science, politics and sometimes, even a little sports. I don't get into it quite as much as I used to, but my friend, Lloyd, is my go-to ubergeek for all things related to, or associated with the once-mighty, currently slumbering behemoth that is Nebraska football.

            Go Huskers.

            Its been a rough year for Huskerfan. We don't like change.

           Tom Osborne had been at the helm of the Big Red Battlewagon for 25 years. He's the guy who has been the paragon of coaching not just here, but at a national level. He exchanged his whistle and headset for his fly rod and reel 17 years ago. Since the end of that era of stability, we are on our fourth ship's Captain.

           Frank Solich inherited the ship and a fine crew. He couldn't quite maintain the efficiency and was the target of a new Admiral that wanted to make over the fleet. Just when it seemed he had gotten it figured out, he was relieved of his command and sent packing to Ohio.

            Bill Callahan was brought in and tried to convert the battleship to an aircraft carrier. Offensively, it packed a lot of punch, but defensively, it couldn't stop anything. Huskerfan was unhappy with what had happened to the beloved ship, and the Admiral who was responsible. Both were sent packing by Osborne, who assumed control of the Fleet. 'Winston is Back' as it were. A gruesome, terrifying fate awaited Callahan as Huskerfan kicked his dumb ass all the way back to the NFL.

            Then we had the Bo Pelini experiment. Pelini was a Bull Halsey or George Patton kind of guy. He motivated the players with tough love and an 'us against the world' mentality that ended up alienating a good chunk of the fan base. He was profane, but his players loved him. He was mercurial, but his players knew he had their back. He was a defensive-minded coach whose scheme was revolutionary at stopping the Spread, but his players couldn't stop Melvin Gordon.

            He was sent packing to Ohio, too.

            The new guy who is in charge of re-fitting and or rebuilding the Husker flagship is Mike Riley. He seems like Jack Fletcher. Mr. Nice Guy, the Anti-Bo, reserved, steady. Huskerfan is giving him the benefit of the doubt, since he's a newbie, but they aren't too sure about him.

            He was hired away from Oregon State. What does Oregon State know about football?  Not exactly an Alabama a Texas or Oregon, even.

            While he coached at the NFL level, his record was not great. He was also Johnny-on-the-spot for the whole Ryan Leaf fiasco, and had to make do with ancient re-treads at quarterback like Doug Flutie and Jim Harbaugh. I wonder if he ever visits Ryan in the Montana Grey-Bar Hotel.

            He's not 'One of Us', gooboo gahboo. Huskerfan likes to trace connections to football coaching like Victorian era godmothers did with family trees. He didn't play here (like Scott Frost). He didn't coach here (like Turner Gill, who played here, too), so we're not quite sure that he 'gets it' when it comes down to Nebraska Football. We're not sure he understands that he needs to establish an 'offensive identity' for the team. Around here that means 'running offense' like Osborne or Ground Chuck, way up there in the People's Democratic Republic of Seattle. Huskerfan codes 'offensive identity' to the option the same way segregationists coded 'States Rights' to racism. Maybe not as ugly, granted, but it longs for a historical era the same way.

            It looks like he's a disciplinarian, though. He's got five dudes suspended for the first game. The difference between Bo and Mike is that Bo would have yelled and screamed and cussed and thrown stuff around the room as he listed off the players transgressions. Mike would have sat down, flipped open a folder, read silently, closed the folder and said, 'I'm very disappointed in you, son.'

            I don't know which is worse.

            This year will be a test for Huskerfan, I'm going to break it to you, gently. This team will not be in the College Football Playoff. There, I said it. This team might, just maybe, get in to the B1G Championship, and get crushed by Ohio State. This team probably will win eight or nine games and go to a bowl game. The true test will come for the Huskerfan that has publicly avowed support for the team, as long as they don't get blown out. I think it is very realistic that this team might go 6-6, but Huskerfan will be fine if those six losses are close ones, right?

            Riiiiight.

           The first opponent is BYU. The Cougars roll into town with a dynamic, mobile, Heisman-candidate quarterback Taysom Hill. He's like a bigger version of Taylor Martinez but can actually throw the ball, a little bit. He wants to beat you with his feet. This is where Huskerfan wants to see if scheme can make better use of the talent on the field than what Bo did with it. Mobile quarterbacks have been the stuff of nightmares for the last few years.

     The Huskers are without five players who were naughty to an unknown degree and unknown identity, Riley suspended them. BYU is supposed to level a number of suspensions against as many as nine players that got into a fight in their bowl game, last year. BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall...wait...Bronco? Anyway, Bronco says he won't announce the suspensions until after the Nebraska game. Hmmmm, something isn't adding up and smells rotten in the state of Deseret, but we'll see.

     I think Nebraska's speed on offense will be tough for BYU to deal with. I've been hearing that Tommy has been working hard and even worked with Bret Favre in the off-season. Tommy's biggest issue at quarterback has been over-trusting his arm and ability to force the ball between defenders.

     I don't know if Favre is the best counselor for those issues.

     Nebraska has about five running backs that could start at BYU. I have a feeling that the game plan is to send wave after wave of running backs at BYU, force the safety to cheat up in run support and hit them with the play action. If I have depth at running back and offensive line, I run lots of plays to the outside to wear the defense down. I use my ground game to keep Hill on the sideline, as much as possible. I shorten the clock.
     I had been talking to Bookie T, earlier. He's one of the infamous 'O Street Bookies' that have been known to run action on sporting events and get the occasional college kid into trouble. He was saying that Nebraska should win by eight points. That was a bit much for my blood, I am thinking more along the lines of four points. I wouldn't be shocked to see BYU win this one, either.
     There are so many variables heading into this one, that the only things that are certain is that it will be hot, a new P.A. announcer, and Harvey Perlman has a thin skin.
     I decided that a change of scenery was warranted. The sun was down, darkness enshrouded the areas where the street lights held no sway. It was time to go to work and try to gather some scratch.
     As I put on my hat, I scratched out a prediction on my desk blotter, 24-20, Nebraska.