2006-2007 Off-Season Review

17 days left and down the stretch we come.

I told you guys a while ago that posts would be a bit further apart all the way up until the start of the season. I have my reasons..but trust me; By 9/1, you'll get your (almost) daily dose of Husker hatred. Just leave that part to me. All you have to do is go to your favorites and double click.

Anynow, let's gear up for the season by looking back at the off-season. In case you've been in a cave (or on the international space station with your Husker flag), here's the drivel that you've missed being slobbered about by the Husker media:

- Nebraska has already....6 months before signing day....received commitments from the greatest collection of high school athletes ever to play the game of football.

- JC Keller was viciously attacked by the media and a lame-duck coach at Arizona State who lost his job for letting such a great talent leave the program. JC made them pay by winning Scout Team Player of the Year last season..taking home the trophy, and the gift certificate to Village Inn.

- Mo Purify likes to drink...a lot.

- The Huskers have a new offensive coordinator, but nobody has noticed, since the greatest football mind since Bill Walsh (RIP) is running the Huskers with a 15,300 page playbook that requires a PhD from Harvard to master.

- Some backup tight end nobody has ever heard of likes to drink a lot as well. You'll never hear another peep about him again due to the fact that he caught 7 fewer touchdowns than Purify.

- Apparently Nebraska still has a basketball team, although 99% of Husker fans now wear blue sweatshirts to games and sit in the Qwest Center instead of the Devaney.

- Zach Bowman will be featured on the Discovery Health network, as well as the New England Journal of medicine because of his human race record recovery of a devastating knee injury. (12 months? 4 months? What's the difference?)

- John Blake was one of the greatest recruiters in the history of mankind....until he left NU. Now he sucks and was never that important anyway.

- Jay Norvell was one of the greatest offensive minds in the history of mankind...until he left NU. Now he sucks and was never that important anyway.

- Several members of the prized Bill Callahan class of 2005 ventured into the witness protection program. The ones who didn't weren't very good anyway. (Not that you'd ever read about them)

- DB's who ranked 79th in the nation against the pass last year will suddenly become strong enough to stop Bowman, Sweed, Rucker and the entire USC receiving corps by running some extra wind sprints over the summer. (See Bowman reference as well)

- Joey Ganz is the most improved backup QB in the history of college football.

- You all owe Steve Pederson an apology for being right all along.

- Jim Rose still thinks Josh Freeman's mom is a bad parent.

- No new steroid scandals were uncovered this off-season.

- Former Husker players continue to insist that there "is no rift" within the program in terms of former players being a part of the program. Yet 19 different golf tournaments are held because none of them can stand each other.

- Mo Purify did NOT hit a girl...because 583,533 Husker fans were at the same time and saw completely different actions than the police report states.

- America's drug problem is completely out of control as personified by the Big 12 media's choice of Missouri as pre-season Big 12 North champs.

- Husker practices this fall are already the toughest, most grueling tests of physical endurance this side of Navy SEAL training. (Even though nobody is allowed in to see them except for the last 5 minutes.)

- Do NOT park in JC's parking spot.

- Barry Sanders, the greatest player in the history of Michigan High School Football, signed with the Huskers this past August. Recruiting coordinator Blaine Gabbert was ecstatic and is setting his sights on landing Tom Brady, Larry Johnson and the corpse of Walter Peyton to round out the 2008 class.

- Marlon Lucky is set to be the workhorse of the Husker rushing attack, despite the fact that he's carried the ball more than 13 times once in a single game. In a related story, his reputation as a collegiate iron-man continued with a slight concussion during Tuesday's practice when linebacker Corey McKeon sneezed on him.

- Nebraska used to have a good baseball team. No word yet on whether pending NCAA sanctions (if/when they arrive) will change that. I'm guessing not, but in a related note, Creighton got plenty of coverage this past spring.



Coming up this week: The much-anticipated week-by-week Husker preview