QB Controversy in Lincoln?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just when we thought with the nil era of buying
a starting quarterback and hoping he doesn't get hurt, thus
ending the long standing college football tradition of a quarterback controversy,
Nebraska's does get hurt, and the backup looks like an
All American welcome back to the future. Despite what the
coaches will say, and their words on this subject will

(00:20):
be many. Thanks to an almost perfect performance by true
freshman TJ Latif and what was easily Nebraska's best night
of offense in the ten games of twenty twenty five,
Nebraska has won, and nothing could be better or worse
for the program. Granted, UCLA provided the worst, least physical,
least fundamentally sound, least capable defense of any so far,

(00:44):
including Akron and Houston Baptist. You gotta plug in program
limitations for them, but Nebraska was borderline fantastic over the
ball in that win. Statistics may be the mother's milk
of excuse making, but far be it for us to
miss on a chance to buffer this morning's premise to
whipt He was thirteen of fifteen through the air for

(01:06):
two hundred and five yards and three touchdowns, zero interceptions,
ran another five times for thirty one yards, zero fumbles.
His offense was five of eight on third down, and
the fact they only had eight third down plays all
night is eye popping. Three hundred and sixty one total
yards of offense, which may not seem like much until

(01:28):
you consider UCLA controlled the ball for thirty minutes. If
the Black Shirts had been able to get off the
field occasionally Saturday night, Latif and company are knocking on
five hundred yards of productivity, zero offensive penalties. That is
the kind of performance you hang on the refrigerator. It
was better than anything dl in Roola has done in

(01:50):
two plus seasons. Now, that's not a slap at Riola,
because bad performances weren't all his fault, but it all
worked for TJ. He has two more games as the starter,
both against visably better defenses and the bowl game. If
we get three more outings like this, he's your man.
Dylan either becomes your first three million dollar backup in
college football or he enters the transfer portal. And it's

(02:14):
a controversy that gets to ferment through the winter, the spring,
and summer. Now, how much fun will that be? It's
not new. Back in the early seventies, Van Bronson, Jerry Taggi.
Few more gifted athletes of his time than Van, few
better leaders than Jerry. Late seventies the Battle of walk Ons,
Jeff Quinn and Tim Hager. Hager never lost a start

(02:36):
the two games Quinn started in seventy nine, Oh You
and the Cotton Bowl. We lost to the Glory years
ninety four to ninety five, Nebraska does not play Miami
for number one without Brooke Bharinger. He takes over for
te phrase after the blood clots and even with a
collapse to lung leads Nebraska to wins. The two were
literally neck and neck for the job through the last

(02:57):
scrimmage before the ninety five season open. Coach Osbourne's data
only metric for picking the starter had him dead. Even
Brooke made one wrong read on a checkdown in the
last scrimmage which made Fraser number one. Remember Nukomb v. Crouch.
Crouch was a perfect fit for that offense. Nukeom could
have been another Johnny Rodgers catch passes, run jet sweeps,

(03:21):
return kicks, but somebody promised him quarterback took a half
day's exodus from the program by Eric to shock the
staff back into reality. Two years later, number seven was
our third Heisman Trophy winner, one more Scott Frost and
Frankie London. Frost is booed in the first half of
the ninety seven Central Florida game. London goes in the

(03:44):
stadium erupts, proving again the most popular player on the
team is always the back up quarterback. Frost game the
following week at Washington shut down the critics for another
twenty years until he returned as head coach, and then
we really wanted Frankie London. Our quarterback controversy is bad. No.

(04:04):
They promote competition and earn respect from the fellas. We
managed to keep winning through all of the quarterback battles
because the players all wanted to and the coaches were
impartial and consistent. The guy who makes the least mistakes
and can inspire the other ten dudes plays only becomes
a team crisis when politics, favoritism, and nil value trump

(04:27):
the good stuff.