Defense ready to plant Cornhuskers

It is entirely possible that Nebraska head football coach Bill Callahan is a bit rusty with… It is entirely possible that Nebraska head football coach Bill Callahan is a bit rusty with his geography.

Why else would he be installing a West Coast offense in Cornhusker country, where passing is as foreign to the program as a losing season, something not seen in Lincoln since 1961?

Nevertheless, Callahan’s newly installed offense, which features a balance of outside runs and short passes, appears to be working, despite Nebraska’s notorious reputation for keeping the ball on the ground. The Huskers are averaging 528.5 yards of offense per game, going for more than 200 yards rushing and passing each game. Pitt as a team managed only 217 total yards on offense in last weekend’s 24-3 victory over Ohio.

“We’re looking to take the pressure off of each other [this week],” said junior tailback Raymond Kirkley who is fresh off his first career 100-yard game. He said the team’s objective is to balance the run and pass. “Our goal every week is to mix it up on offense.”

Mixing it up is exactly what makes this year’s Nebraska offense, a program notoriously known for deadly rushing attacks, so different and unpredictable. Most Husker teams don’t even pose the threat of being able to air it out, let alone succeed in a West Coast offense.

But that may have been because the program hasn’t had a quarterback as capable as Joe Dailey.

Dailey, on a school record-tying 42 pass attempts, threw four touchdowns to go along with 218 yards in Nebraska’s 56-17 opening-day win over Western Illinois. The Husker record for touchdown passes in an entire season is only 20, with Dailey having already tossed six through two games.

“They’ve got players,” Harris said after practice Wednesday. “Their quarterback has been very effective [so far].”

The Huskers’ newfound love for passing has proven to be a double-edged sword, however, as more passing attempts bring more miscues. The Huskers have turned the ball over 11 times in their first two games, including seven interceptions thrown by the young Dailey. Southern Mississippi turned five Husker turnovers into 18 points, giving the Golden Eagles the 21-17 upset. The contest, which was in Lincoln, Neb., was the first non-conference home defeat for Nebraska since 1991.

Defense has not been to blame for Nebraska’s 1-1 start. The “blackshirts,” as they are called in their home state, have limited the opposition to 229.5 yards per game and have generated five turnovers thus far.

“They do a lot of motion in their shifting trying to get us out of our alignments,” Co-Big East defensive player of the week Malcolm Postell said Wednesday night. “We just have to do a good job of reading our keys and communicating with each other.”

“When an opportunity comes, we’re going to have to make them pay for it,” Postell added. “We can’t let [the quarterback] get too comfortable back there.”

The game may come down to who can control the ball and create the most turnovers. Harris knows that Pitt will have to get to the quarterback like it did last week when the defense forced three Ohio turnovers, rejuvenating a defense that once was Pitt’s strength.

“We hope to be very physical and put pressure on the passer,” Harris said on generating turnovers tomorrow afternoon. He does not just want to intercept Nebraska’s quarterback, but also create fumbles to get the ball back to Pitt’s offense. “If you win the turnover ratio, you have an excellent chance of winning the game.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 12:10 pm tomorrow, and the game will be available on television sets all around the United States as ABC has the game on its national schedule.