We Found the First Page of Drake Martinez’s NCAA Transfer Request Papers

And it’s got some really interesting stuff.

 

I really hope he just signed it “Take Care, Drake”.  Because how awesome would that’ve been?

FIN

Who Says Nebraska Isn’t Mopping Up in the Post-Season Awards?

FIN

Those Little Piggies Went to Market: An Amateur Podiatrist Examines Taylor Martinez’s Injuries

Monday at Bo Pelini’s weekly presser he was asked a lot of questions about the health of Taylor Martinez, the one-time starting quarterback of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  He deflected.  He dipped, dodged, ducked, dove, and dodged.  When asked for specifics on Martinez’s toe-situation, he gave generalities and when asked to comment further on the most controversial little piggies in Nebraska history he said something to the effect of “I don’t know.  I’m not a doctor.”

Thankfully non-Dr. Pelini cleared that up.  Everyone just stop asking him about Taylor’s toes.  He doesn’t have the answers.  I mean, honestly guys.  Why would the head coach take an interest and/or have — maybe — casually mentioned his 4-year Starter’s, All-Time-Offense-Leader’s potentially season-imploding injury?  He’s not Doogie Howser, damn it!

Well, anti-Patch Adams, as it turns out you’re in luck.  Because I just so happen to be an amateur podiatrist.  And I think I may just have a few ideas on what is going on with those toes.

Theory #1: This Happened

Amateur Medical Prognosis: After watching Bloodsport on loop mode for 26 straight hours, T-Magic decided that not only was Jean Claude Van Damme the single greatest actor of the 20th century, but that any pent-up aggression and angst that he was feeling could be worked out by repeatedly spin kicking cinder blocks into dust.  This resulted in him shattering his toes and turning them into human bone-shrapnel.  In medical terms: he’s boned.  Get it?  You see what I did there?

Theory #2: This Happened

Amateur Medical Prognosis:  After a hard practice in early September Taylor went to blow off some steam.  He grabbed his favorite floatie and rode his ten speed to the lake immediately after practice to catch a few waves at Oak Lake.  Little did he know, that far beneath the placid, idyllic, crystal waters of Oak Lake something was lurking.  Something ancient.  And something vile and wicked and with rows and rows of serrated teeth.  Something that was hungry.  For toes.  After suffering a debilitating Piranha injury, Martinez has been sufficiently hobbled that we may not see him back on the field until we inevitably end up playing in the Capital One Bowl again.

Theory #3: This Happened

Followed up almost immediately by this:

Amateur Medical Prognosis:  That’s right.  It’s my amateur medical opinion that what probably fully did Martinez in this weekend was that he was visiting a former girlfriend at a giant, multi-national corporation.  He had taken his shoes off, on a tip from a fellow traveler, to help avoid the typical jet-lag malaise that effects so many of us, and quickly found himself embroiled in a life or death battle against terroristic criminals led by none other than Minnesota coach, Jerry Kill.  Moments before making his move and sprinting to the team bus, Kill and his evil henchmen had Martinez barefoot and stranded behind a giant wall of glass windows.  Kill and his boys then busted multiple caps into the windows, shattering them, and Martinez had no other choice: he either had to sprint across the floor of glass shards or stay there and be murdered.  He took the first option and that’s what rendered him so ineffective at running  the option.  That’s a long way of saying: he could be out for a while.  Thanks a lot, Jerry.

Theory #4: This Happened

Amateur Medical Prognosis:  Bo Pelini is an under-achieving head football coach who demands he be called “The Rude.”  After a series of insane events, in which his life becomes inexorably intertwined with a local millionaire who has a very similar name, The Rude and his offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, are tasked with paying a $3 million dollar ransom in order to get back their star quarterback, who is being held hostage by a group of nihilists from the University of Iowa.  (*Author’s note: because if you’re an Iowa fan, life really is meaningless.)  After an angry debate over the price of the ransom, The Rude refuses to pay and hangs up on the Iowan nihilists after shouting, “3 Million dollars?!?!  Who do you think I am, Kirk Ferentz?!?!?”  To show The Rude that they mean business they chop off the toe of his former starting quarterback and mail it to UNL Chancellor, Harvey Perlman’s office.  Once Perlman finds the toe, he immediately digs into the university’s Scrooge McDuck sized pile of money and pays the ransom.  However, the damage is done.  Martinez is down to 9 toes, one shoulder, and 3/4 of a hip.

In Conclusion:

Medically speaking?  Martinez’s only hope is if Pelini and his sidekick, the Hunchbacked Igor Papuchis grave-rob some human parts and re-attach them to Martinez, then shock him with lightning-harnessed electricity and attach bolts to his neck.

FIN

Huskers V.S. Minnesota: A Brief Post-Mortem Exam

Last Saturday was just another treadmill game from our treadmilling program.

We got on.  We worked up a sweat.  We pumped our arms.  We threw one foot in front of the other.  And then we got off.  In the exact same place.

I haven’t written much about Husker football this year.  A few quick jokes.  A few poorly photoshopped images poking fun at Taylor Martinez’s walking boot or Bo’s f-bomb A-bomb on Husker nation’s “fair weather” fans.  To be honest it all feels a little tired.  A little tried.  A little too much like the exact same shit that I wrote last year.  And the year before.  And you get the point.

Even now, feeling the need to sit down and try to thousand-word out my thoughts on the current situation doesn’t lend itself to any kind of urgency or passion.  I just feel the same.  I feel the same as I did in 2010 when we lost 23-20 to Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game.  The same as I felt when we lost 25-28 to Northwestern at home in 2011.  Pick a game in 2012.

. . .and I just ran out of ways to say that we’re stuck in an inner-circle-of-hell, state-wide Groundhog Day remake that has exactly zero Bill Murray’s and is precisely as funny as getting a deep tissue massage from Edward Scissor Hands.  I’m out.  Even that Groundhog Day reference was literally my 45^th use of the movie to describe the Husker program.  (*Author’s note: full disclosure, I’ve used all my analogies that you’re seeing in this post at least 4 times a year for the last 4 years when attempting to describe the Huskers.)

After getting utterly manhandled by a terrible program, a school we haven’t lost to since JFK was taking over the presidency, we’re forced to once again pull the same tired-ass “taking stock”, wide-angle views of the program to try to figure out where we go from here.

We have a defense that is heinously young.  That appears talented, but one that let more football players through their line than a college town nightclub bouncer.  A defense that gets bullied and bruised and doesn’t seem ready to stop a team no matter how vanilla the scheme is.

We have a quarterback who is injured.  Or isn’t.  Or is?  Or whose actual physical ailments may be so secretly guarded that only Edward Snowden can actually divulge them to the public.  A quarterback who is an occasionally-brilliant enigma but throws when we wish he would run and runs when we wish he would get rid of the f-ing ball and seems to be about as healthy as John McClane at the end of Die Hard.

Our coach is stuck on the same page of Roget’s Thesaurus in 2013 that he has been for the past few years.  Literally and figuratively.  We hear the same things, time and again.  We see the same results, time and again.  It’s a dreary monotony, despite how desperately we love the team,

So what happens next?  That age-old refrain, that bounces from lips to blogs and back again around the state of Nebraska.  As fans we don’t know.  The rhetorical is met with rhetoric and our concentric circle maze spins towards what we hope are some answers in the coming weeks and not just  that old pit-of-the-stomach hollow dizziness that comes with another jogging-in-place effort from our jogging-in-place team.  The pieces are there, potentially.  But this puzzle only has one master architect and whether he’ll adapt or whether he’ll “die” is entirely up to him.

FIN

Burnpoetry Exclusive: Taylor Martinez’s Walking Boot Revealed!

Nebraska quarterback, Taylor Martinez, is still struggling to get over turf toe.  The nagging injury is threatening to keep him out of the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ Big Ten opening game, this Saturday against Illinois.  In order to better keep his precious little piggies protected, the Nebraska staff has him roaming around in an orthopedic walking boot.

Since he’s confined to a boot, Martinez did what any 23-year-old male would do and — of course!!! — had his boot signed by some of his favorite people (*Author’s note: and one guy who’s apparently still bitter about losing his starting gig back in 2010).

Burnpoetry was able to obtain an exclusive, first-hand look at the boot, the signatures, and all the multi-colored gel pens.

FIN

Dr. Hatchyll and Mr. Fan, the Internal Debate Between Rabid Fanhood and Cautious Pragmatism, 2013 Edition

The season is coming!  The season is coming!  Somebody hit Paul Revere with two lantern flashes and start spreading the word.  We’re 11 days away from the best time of year; from Christmas wrapped in Mardi Gras, stirred in with beers and larynx-rupturing screaming and shaken into a sublime Molotov Cocktail of reckless fanhood that finally gets to come bubbling to surface like Old Faithful on A-Rod levels of HGH.

Yeah, we’re 11 days away from that.

From football.

We’re 11 days away from finally being able to wipe the drudgery of Mid-July WNBA “highlights” off our brow like summer’s sheen of Midwest sweat.  For the past 2-3 months we have been waiting for our football chaser to wash the taste of baseball highlights on loop-mode out of our mouths.

Hang in there just. . .a. . .little. . .longer.

I’m so excited by the mere prospect of football that I could wax poetic about it for 132 words.  (*Author’s note: see: above.)

Every year about this time, as I sit down to nerdily pore over the schedule, the statistics and to angrily shake my Twitter fist at pre-season polls, I begin to have an internal battle between the two halves of my fanhood.

There’s Dr. Hatchyll: the calm, collected, rationalizing fan who realizes that college football is an imperfect game played by 19-25 year olds and that you can’t win them all, all the time.  Dr. Hatchyll understands that the Huskers are off the grid right now.  You never truly know what to expect and he can come to grips with that fact in a semi-sane manner.

Then there’s Mr. Fan.  He’s a die-hard watching Die Hard.  He’s a wild, recklessly impassioned human version of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil.  He’s the guy who just got done watching 17-straight YouTube videos of the Huskers’ Tunnel Walk and once tried to sneak a photo of Bo Pelini outside a theater after a showing of Wicked.  (*Author’s note: true story.  My wife nearly pushed me out into traffic when she realized what I was doing.)

It’s these two warring personas that always meet in one body this time of year.  It’s two diametrically opposed forces attempting to inhabit the same heart and the same mind from now until early January.  Think Siamese twins trying to go in different directions.  Think The Nutty Professor except that both personalities are fat.

For the past two seasons, I’ve brought this internal debate to you, the reader.  I’ve attempted to un-internalize the monologue between these two vastly different dudes.  Here’s from 2011.  Here’s from 2012.  And here’s what Dr. Hatchyll and Mr. Fan have been thinking about this offseason.

Does Taylor Martinez take another leap forward as a quarterback?

Dr. Hatchyll:  It seems like a logical thing to conclude that, after last season’s big step in the right direction as a passer, Martinez continues to move forward this year to address his biggest issue: turnovers.  But things with Martinez are rarely logical.  He’ll make a dazzling pass, scramble for a massive gain, and then he’ll try to squeeze a pass into the most miniscule of windows when he could just throw the ball out of bounds.  He’ll nearly commit foot-arson as he torches across the field but then, instead of running out of bounds, he’ll fumble the ball trying to go for two extra yards.  Make no mistake, Martinez is at the helm.  Will he continue to progress, fine-tuning himself into an elite dual-threat QB?  Martinez tries to take lemons and, instead of just making lemonade, he attempts to make a frozen lemon meringue custard with a Crème brûlée topping.  Just drink the lemonade this year, Taylor.  That’s all we want.

Mr. Fan:  Of course he will.  All he’s heard this entire offseason is one thing: protect the f-ing ball.  He knows that this is his year.  He’s a 4^th year starter, seems far and away more comfortable with his role on the team than he’s ever been before, and has a bevy of talented tools around him to work with.  Last year was a gigantic jump forward and there’s no reason we shouldn’t find out that that was only the second phase of his triple-jump-to-glory career.  This is his legacy on the line.  We saw last year that Martinez is getting more clutch late in games than we expected and with Tim Beck’s guiding influence he’ll continue to mature.  Martinez will deliver.

How will the young, untested defense look this year?

Dr. Hatchyll: Young.  And untested.  While cleaning house off of last year’s at-times putrid defense doesn’t seem like a bad idea, we’re not exactly re-loading.  We’ve got youngsters all over, and in the front seven especially, and I’m worried that our “fountain of youth” will turn out to be more like a “creek-water-fed well just outside Mexico City.”  It’s going to be trial by fire and, even though I’m excited to see the speed and athleticism that has been highly anticipated from this group, we’re going to have to hope that leaders and playmakers emerge early to get us through the tougher portion of the schedule.

Mr. Fan:  Speed.  Athleticism.  You said it yourself, Debbie Downer.  So we lost a few veterans off last year’s squad.  Have you heard some of the buzz about Randy Gregory?  Have you watched some of the tape of our young, athletic, dynamic linebackers?  Speed and talent can erase mental mistakes.  I think we’ve got both.  They’ll have two games to get ready for the first test and lurking somewhere in those crappy stats is BO PELINI, DEFENSIVE GENIUS.  He’s there.  We’ve seen how it works when he gets the right guys.  Maybe we’ve finally got the right guys again.

What’s the schedule look like this year?

Dr. Hatchyll: Early on the only test is UCLA.  But they’ll be a significant test.  They very nearly won the entire Pac-12 last year and if Brett Hundley can take another step in his maturation as a QB, they could pose some problems.  Fortunately, since it’s a home game and we’re playing at what would be 9 A.M. their time, I think that tilts the game in our favor.  From there we have tough home games against what could be the best Northwestern team in a long time and a Michigan State team with a defense that’s stouter than a hipster’s microbrew.

The two toughest challenges seem to be Penn State and Michigan on the road.  Penn State seems like a team that could be all over the map.  They could be tougher than we expect, or they could come back down to earth after a shockingly good year last year.  If Michigan’s Devin Gardner plays like he did last year?  That game instantly becomes more difficult.  If he turns out to be more of a flash-in-the-pan?  It’s still tough.  Even though this year will be Nebraska’s easiest since joining the Big Ten, it’s no cakewalk.  Especially with our propensity to drop home games or watch as road games spiral out of control after a few costly turnovers.

Mr. Fan:  Here are the teams we’re playing this year, in chronological order.  Dirt, Dirt, Decent, Crap, Crap, Crap, Dirt.  Followed up with decent, overrated, okay, decent, and dirt.  In short: We’re going undefeated and shocking the world by meeting up with Ohio State in the Big Ten Title game with exactly zero losses, baby!  The schedule is shaping up in our favor!

What’s your take on the black jerseys the Huskers are going to wear when they play UCLA?

Dr. Hatchyll:  I’m all for them.  While I understand that there’s always going to be a portion of Nebraska fans who want to make sure we don’t lose the traditions that have made our school what it is, I think that a one-game alternate uniform is a fun way of adding a little extra excitement to an already fully-crunk fanbase.

Mr. Hatch: Did you say, black jerseys?????????????  Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Think of the tunnel walk!  Just THINK OF THE F-ING TUNNEL WALLLLLLLLLLKKKKKKKKKKK!  (*Author’s note: at this point Mr. Fan’s head explodes like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.)

FIN

The Taylor Martinez App Store Collection: Does the “T” in T-Magic Stand for “Technology?”

Taylor Martinez had a story come out on CBS Sports’ web page a few days ago.  It was, to be perfectly honest, a fairly un-noteworthy piece.  It wasn’t particularly revelatory, incendiary, or chalk-full of candid talk from the soon-to-be-fifth-year senior at Nebraska.  It was mainly just a brief piece that attempted to give us a little insight into an enigmatic, mysterious player that is constantly rumor-mongered about in the state of Nebraska.  I don’t think that it did any of that.  There was one piece of the story that did jump out at me.  One stunning, eye-opener, that was casually atom-bomb-dropped on us as though it was of lesser significance.

Here’s the link for the story.

In case you didn’t want to stop over and read the article.  Here’s what the headline looked like:

What?!?!?

And here’s what I saw when I read the headline:

!?!?

The article, which was fine in the same way that eating Vanilla ice cream tastes good (*Author’s note: nothing against the author.  Martinez seems more guarded than Guantanamo Bay around media types and I truly don’t blame him.) didn’t really touch too much on the App part of the headline but that was what intrigued me.

The article briefly alludes to Martinez’s enjoyment of playing the stock market and of his hobby of creating iPhone apps within the first  3 paragraphs.  He went from a monotone, unintelligible purveyor of clichés to The Most Interesting Man in the World.  Suddenly the possibilities were endless for what Martinez could be doing in his free time.

What if he was actually a savant?  A boy-genius that was misunderstood?  What if he was not going to be playing on NFL scout teams to simulate Colin Kaepernick next year, but kicking it with Gordon Gecko on Wall Street or hanging with Mark Zuckerberg in a tech lab?

Before I let this sled dog team of inane thinking run away with me, however, one key piece of this article kept sticking out.  Taylor Martinez was a creator.  Of phone apps.  The only one they mentioned in the article was a puzzle-type game involving pattern repetition called, “Follow the Pattern.”  That got me thinking. . .

What other games might Taylor Martinez have invented for iPhone?  He’s had some free time this offseason.  In between trying to hold off the on-rushing tidal wave of co-eds and working on his throwing motion, here are a few of the games I found on iPhone’s App Store that appear to have been created by none other than Taylor Martinez.

Chasebook

Sleeve Tats, Red Hair, and social networking. . .

This relatively new app is a terrifically entertaining game, based on the highly regarded life and times of former Husker Chase Rome, that allows you to choose from these hilarious options the moment you open it up:

If you select “no.”  Here’s what pops up on the next screen:

Tough one, right?

It goes on like this for roughly 256 levels.  The fun never stops.  That’s the whole game.  You see, the fun part is quitting, changing your mind, and then quitting again.  It’s great!

For Whom the Bell ‘Fros

Shout out to Hemingway!

This game, based incredibly loosely on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, is all about ‘Froing people Kenny Bell style.  You have a teacher that’s driving you wild?  ‘Fro ’em.  Parents won’t get out of your room, tweenagers?  ‘Fro those misunderstanding parents.  Not only will your parents look like they had their hair styled by a soul train dancer, but they just might develop into the best wide receiver Nebraska’s seen in years.

Check out defensive coordinator John Papuchis after he got Bell ‘Fro’d:

As you can see, this one’s still in Beta.

The fun never ends.  As you can see from the terribly placed ‘Fro, this one’s still in Beta.

T-Magic The Gathering

Like a card game. . .but on your phone.

This one appeals more to the fantasy nuts out there. As the cards in the deck are played, using up your Martinezmana, you attack your opponent.  Based on what kind of deck/cards you have, you are then able to either Oklahoma State 2010 someone or they will Wisconsin 2011 you.  It’s kind of complicated, but just know this: phonecardgames are about to taste the majesty of a T-Magic revolution.

And finally, the Magnum Opus of Martinez’s iPhone App creations:

Angry Bos

Run, piggies. Run!

This game has gone totally viral.  In it you bombard your pig-like nemeses with none other than the angriest of all birds, Bo Pelini.  Each bird has a different colored crewneck, as well as a different Bo-Pelini-is-probably-going-to-murder-you-than-cannibalize-your-dead-body Pelini face.  You play through various levels, attempting to destroy, explode, and bomb everything in your way.  You know, just kind of treat the pigs like the referees that are constantly out to destroy your team and everything that’s good and just in the world.

These are just a few of the marvelous Apps that Martinez has developed.  The future looks bright for this budding young techno-whiz.

FIN

#Caponebowl: Huskers Lose, Dogs Win, Hashtags Get Confusing

The Nebraska Cornhuskers’ 2012 football season is over.

RIP, yo.

With the Huskers’ loss to Georgia in the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day, a stunningly, jarringly wild journey has finally come to an end.  We can take off our seat belts and our carny friends in their grimy, pit-stained polos can take off the lap bars jammed down on the tops of our thighs.  We can climb shakily up from our deeply bucketed seats and try to find our footing on solid ground.  The ride is over.

The season ended with a tough loss to the University of Georgia.  While I will still crank out my “Season in Review” column, I’ll seek to touch on the bowl game itself today.

When I was a kid I used to watch MadTV for the half hour or so that it was on before Saturday Night Live came on.  It had a few skits that I really enjoyed and one of them was about a terrible dating service called “Lowered Expectations.”  As you can probably guess by the title, “Lowered Expectations” was a dating service that provided any number of losers/whack-jobs/strange characters a chance to try to find true love.  The introduction for the bit had two obese people, walking hand in hand near a drainage ditch with barbed wire.

I feel like Husker fans went into this bowl game like they were submitting a tape to the “Lowered Expectations” dating service.  We didn’t expect much.  We knew we weren’t quite in the same class as Georgia, talent-wise, and that if we did pull off a win it would be a pretty good-sized upset.  But we still wanted to see how things would play out.

I turned off the T.V. weirdly satisfied with a 14-point loss.  Maybe that’s what repeated curbstompings will do to you.  Maybe I’ve been so traumatized by losing by 35 and 40 points that – aw, shucks – if we can hang in there long enough against a good opponent, I’ll end up feeling like our boys should get a participation ribbon.  Capri Suns for everyone!  I know that a lot of Husker fans didn’t share my strangely-okay-with-it feel to taking our 4^th loss of the season, and our third straight bowl loss, merely because it seemed that our effort was there, but that’s what I’ve been reduced to.

All the deficiencies of the regular season were still there on Tuesday, in various forms.  Although the Husker defense played very well at times, their inability to stop the Bulldogs from racking up big plays ultimately spelled their demise.

Often times the Husker defensive back was in the right position, at the right time, but simply couldn’t make a play on the ball when it was in the air.  Oh-so-close-but-really-so-far.  **MICROCOSM OF THE SEASON ALERT**

Taylor Martinez was good at times and frustratingly bad at others.  In an age of advanced statistics and Sabermetrics, nothing can quite quantify the type of impact Martinez has on the game.

The best way to describe what Martinez can do us in an advanced statistic I like to call “Taybermetrics” (*Author’s note: hiiiii-ooooohhhh!”).  This cutting edge, revelatory process pulls back the curtain on the enigmatic Husker QB just a enough to try to put his good/bad qualities on display.

The key to Taybermetrics hinges around the f- word, and its use once Martinez has the ball in his hands.  While in the past, we have only been able to determine the total number of F- words used to describe his play, now we have developed a key +/- stat to better capture what he actually does.

What Taybermetrics does, is balance out the times you drop F- Bombs at the amazing play he has just made (*Author’s note: the 92-Yard run against Wisconsin, where he looked like his blood could be distilled into pure rocket fuel) against the times you drop an F-Bomb about a terrible, game-altering decision to throw it into double coverage off his back foot (*Author’s note: read, every Huskers loss).

For instance he had a +5 Taybermetric rating from the home opener against Southern Miss, a game in which he threw for 345 yards and 5 touchdowns.  Against Ohio State, he had a Taybermetric rating of -9.  Unfortunately for Nebraska fans, too often this season Martinez’s Taybermetric score on Tuesday was a solid 0.  He was good-not-great and had some poor decisions.  The loss, though, didn’t fall solely on his shoulders.

Other items of note from the self-glossed #caponebowl:

–  The Capital One Bowl’s MVP?  It should’ve been the 2nd buffest referee in history(*Author’s note: Long live Hochuli!).

Every time this guy signaled a first down it looked like he was hitting his money pose at Mr. Olympia.  Each holding call was like watching a juicehead ripping through a set on the delts machine.  I thought he was going to ask someone to spot him when he signaled that it was halftime.  I couldn’t tell if he was signaling a first down, or telling us, “The Gym is THISSSSSSSSSSSSS way!.”  After the game was over someone should’ve dumped a Gatorade cooler all over this guy that was full entirely of protein shakes.  Also, does he have any eligibility left?

–  I know we know live in a society where everything has #s in front of them but shouldn’t the crew at ABC have realized that they were going to be confusing a bunch of people by shortening up the Capital One Bowl to the #caponebowl?  Did they really want to be associated with the kind of organized crime, corruption, and murder of Al Capone?  It left me wondering, what exactly would the winner of ‘The Capone Bowl’ get?  Federal Racketeering charges?  Kevin Costner hunting you down with the help of the Canadian Mounties?  Syphilis so bad that it literally rots your brain?  Maybe it’s a good thing we lost the Capone Bowl.  Just a #thought.  #sorry.  #lastone.

–  It is strange to think that 2 of the biggest cult heroes of Husker Football for my generation will be gone next year.  The Rexbox 360 will finally get unplugged and Cornhusker Jesus is retiring as the AD at Nebraska.  Both will be sorely missed, not forgotten, and wildly, recklessly cheered anytime they’re shown on the bigscreen at Husker home games from now on.  Adios, and happy trails to 2 of the classiest Huskers we know.

FIN

Burnpoetry Presents: More Failed Christmas Presents

A sexy new thriller from up-and-coming author B.O. Pelini.

Might want to rethink the pen name, though.

FIN

You’re Welcome, Brett Bielema: A Big Ten Title Game Postmortem Exam

(*Author’s note: to former Wisconsin head coach, Brett Bielema, who was hired yesterday as the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, let me offer this heartfelt and sincere message)

Have you ever drank an unhealthy amount of Barton’s Vodka – you know, the black labeled fiend that costs a mere $8.99 — and made the foolhardy mistake of passing out before getting a chance to brush your teeth?  When you wake up, your mouth tastes like a firepit after a wild summer bonfire, your mind is tilt-a-whirling so crazily you’re sure your head is pulling an Exorcist and spinning 180 degrees.  You’re fully ready to slap your signature on a bloody contract with the devil if he’ll just make the cremation of your taste buds stop.

That’s what losing by 39 points in the biggest game your program has had in 2 years tastes like.  That’s what giving up 539 yards to a 7-5 team tastes like.  That’s what botching a golden opportunity to win a league that was giftwrapped for you by a bizarre string of completely fortuitous circumstances tastes like.

Quick, does anyone have a chaser?

In the last 8 years, we Husker fans have had to swallow a lot of our pride.  Saturday night we were beer-bonging it down like a Frat Boy going for the record.  There are painful, scarring losses.  There are Rodney King-ings of the first degree.  And then there was Saturday night.  At some point, I found myself laughing like a lunatic, clapping my hands scornfully like The Joker in The Dark Knight and pouring myself as tall a glass of beer as I could find.

I didn’t know what else to do.

Montee Ball ran for 50, Mon-tee Ball Ran for 150, and Mon-tay Ball pitched in another 50 to cap the night off.  At one point, I grabbed my X-Box 360 controller and desperately tried to “Ask Corso” for help.  When that didn’t work, I just tried to reboot the whole damn game.  The points kept piling up.  Video game stats were flashing across the screen and Facebook was suddenly a place to share own iteration of the f- word.  The Indianapolis 500 was playing out on turf, right before our very own, hub-cap-sized eyes.  And we were riding on a horse and buggy, watching the cars go zooming past us.

So what went wrong?  Why did the Huskers come in, ranked 12^th in the BCS standings and riding a miraculous 6 game win-streak, and leave feeling like we’d just gotten Brett Mahered in the crotch?  How did a team whose defense seemed to be improving steadily get backhanded by a team that finished 3^rd in their own division and backdoored their way into a title game?

We couldn’t quite seem to wrap our minds around it, as fans.  The players looked mystified.  Bo Pelini didn’t have the answers either, or so he said in his postgame presser.

I have written throughout this year that my approach to this season has been different from most years.  My fanhood came into this season as damaged goods.  It had been mistreated in the past, loved too deeply, trusted too soon.  This year would be different, I told myself.  I would come into this season determined to keep the Huskers at arm’s length; to be-fan them casually, instead of immediately jumping into a committed relationship and looking for one-bedroom apartments to share.  But things just kept going right.  The Huskers kept sending me flowers.  They kept surprising me with spontaneous wins and with sweet, love-letter comebacks.  As the Big Ten title game neared, I felt myself starting to fall for this team.

But then I caught myself.

What was really different this time around?  We had a suspect defense, a brilliant-at-times but turnover prone offense, and a head coach who seems to fluctuate between excellent and sub-par in such wild swings that it’s never easy to identify which Bo is rocking the crew neck on what particular Saturday.  Sure, it seemed like we were finally “all grown up.”  That we had “matured” into a legitimately good partner for my fanhood.  But we’d seen this before.  I had willfully put myself in harm’s way.  I quickly threw together some bricks, some mortar, and cobbled my wall back up.

And it wasn’t a moment too soon.

See, it turns out that Mr./Mrs. Right?  The stunningly good-looking, witty and seemingly reformed-to-marriable-perfection Huskers?  Yeah, they were still a bed-wetting, heroin addict, that was wanted in multiple states for felonies.  They weren’t ready.  Not for what we wanted.  Not for the big time.

Those weren’t wedding bells we heard in the distance, they were police sirens.

The game’s singularly awesome Husker play came from quarterback Taylor Martinez early on in the first quarter.  Had this run come during a Husker victory, or had the ensuing 3 quarters not turned into the football version of Rocky Balboa’s face post-Apollo Creed-ing, than maybe this would have turned into one of the football plays of the year.  They did.  And it didn’t.  But, we should give it it’s just due, since we really have nothing else to cheer about.

Here’s the play:

Just like Tim Beck drew it up right?

In fact, we here at Burnpoetry have obtained an exclusive look at what the playcall looked like when Bo and Tim Beck put it up on the chalkboard before the game.

And suddenly the Huskers find themselves playing in the Capital One Bowl Game.  Again.  Against a pretty good SEC team that could spell trouble for a Husker squad whose identity was ripped from them and tossed against the wall, shattering like an empty beer bottle.  Again.

Have you ever drank an unhealthy amount of Barton’s Vodka – you know, the black labeled fiend that costs a mere $8.99 — and made the foolhardy mistake of passing out before getting a chance to brush your teeth?  We have a month to wash that taste from out mouths and then we find ourselves facing a Georgia team that will easily be our toughest contest of the season.  A Georgia team with boatloads of NFL players on both sides of the ball.  A Georgia team that was 10 mismanaged seconds away from being in the BCS National Title Game.  Somebody pass the Colgate.  Let’s get to scrubbing.

 

FIN