Nebraska tries to get out of reach
The no. 8 ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers will trying to add to their conference lead as they play against the lonely and unimpressive Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday 13 November. Nebraska currently has a 4-1 conference record in the Big 12 north division
and is heavily favoured to win the division, barring a late season melt-down.
Kansas’ season to date
The Jayhawks started the season with an extremely odd loss to Colorado, 6-3. The offence, which was clearly minimal in the loss, came back in week two against a heavily favoured Georgia Tech team and won 28-25, but followed that riveting win with
another loss to Southern Mississippi. After rebounding against New Mexico State, Kansas went on a four-game losing streak to opponents Baylor, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and Iowa State.
They ended their four-game skid with a win last week against conference foe Colorado with an offensive explosion of 52 points. The negative side to that victory is that the defence left a lot to be desired, giving up 45 points. After the win it was all smiles
for the Jayhawks though.
"We're going to continue to move on a little bit and yell and scream and continue to celebrate," first-year coach Turner Gill said, according to espn.go.com. "This is a great win for our program."
Nebraska’s previous games
The Cornhuskers have played excellent football to date and there would be no reason to suspect they would not continue this trend. They opened their season reeling off five straight wins over Western Kentucky, Idaho, Washington, South Dakota State
and Kansas State.
Their national championship hopes were dashed away in week seven when the Cornhuskers suffered their one and only loss this season, to the unranked Texas Longhorns.
Since that loss however, Nebraska’s victories have been a lot closer than expected. They followed up the loss to Texas with a win over Oklahoma State, Missouri, and last weekend’s win over Iowa State, 31-30.
"You win a football game -- I don't care how you do it -- you enjoy it," coach Bo Pelini said according to espn.go.com. "I don't care if you win 101-100. In the end, you have to win. You find a way."
Keys to victory
Nebraska will be welcoming back their commander and chief of the offence quarterback Taylor Martinez, who is having an excellent season rushing the ball. That’s all that the offence really does though, is run the ball, giving them a ranking of sixth
in the nation. Martinez has rushed for 886 yards on 112 touches while his actual running back, Roy Helu Jr., has carried the ball 124 times for 906 yards and nine touchdowns.
Martinez’s arm has thrown for only 1161 yards and nine touchdowns, giving the Cornhuskers' aerial assault a ranking of 110th in the nation.
The Jayhawks need to be prepared for the run, plain and simple. Bring as many people as you can up to the front line to clog the holes, and make Martinez beat you with his arm. If the Jayhawks defence can handle the Nebraska offence, they should remain in
the game long enough for the Kansas offence to make a move against a tough and stingy Cornhuskers defence. If the game is close in the dying minutes, Kansas should have an opportunity to pull off the upset.
Prediction
Nebraska cages the Jayhawks for good.
Cornhuskers 35 – Jayhawks 10
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