Huskers beat Kansas State, claim Big 12 North title
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By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Oh, sure, look hard enough and you can find some flaws in what happened Saturday night. Like when some Huskers tried to douse coach Bo Pelini with a celebratory water bath. Even the execution of that wasn’t without fault.
Most of the water landed on Larry Asante.
“Coach came up and gave me a hug and was telling me how much he loved me and how I’ve come along as a player, and then out of nowhere I got dumped on,” Asante said.
Asante was smiling. And Pelini was smiling as he vowed to find out who dumped water on him. “Somebody sold me out,” Pelini said. “But I’ll take it.”
Yes, these Huskers will take this 17-3 win against Kansas State at Memorial Stadium and the Big 12 North championship that comes with it. No apologies needed. But what you might need are some hotel reservations — and fast.
You are now allowed to hum the theme song from “Dallas.” The Huskers, their imperfections be darned, have secured a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game against Texas in two weeks.
“That was a good win, a good win for the program,” Pelini said. “I’m happy for our football team. We’ve kind of been through a lot up to this point. They persevered. I still think our best football is out there for us to play.”
It was truly a bend-but-don’t-break performance by the Husker defense. Four times in the second half the Wildcats journeyed inside the Nebraska 35-yard-line. Four times the drives ended without K-State scoring.
“I think you see a mental toughness on how we play defense,” Pelini said. “I’m still not happy with how we gave up too many yards, and we had some little things (like) assignment mistakes and some execution mistakes. But we held them to three (points) and we found a way.”
There were probably two plays that stood out the most. The first came from the offense. Facing a third-and-1 from its 39, the Huskers went deep. Zac Lee carried out play action, then hit a wide-open Niles Paul for a 47-yard gain to the KSU 14.
Roy Helu scored one play later to make it 17-3 with 13:21 left in the third quarter.
From there, the Husker defense stood tall.
Don’t confuse it: The Blackshirts were not dominant. The Wildcats had 19 first downs and outyarded the Huskers 293-267. K-State running back Daniel Thomas rushed for 99 yards, averaging 5.2 a pop.
But Nebraska’s defense made plays it would never have come close to making two years ago. And it was the defense that made the second major play of this game — with senior safety Asante playing the lead role.
It looked as if K-State was going to make it 17-10 late in the third quarter. Running back Keithen Valentine caught a pass on third-and-9 from the Husker 13. But as Valentine reached the 1, Asante popped him. The ball came out. Nebraska’s Prince Amukamara fell on it at the 5.
“We needed to make a play,” Asante said. “Luckily, I hit the guy as hard as I could and he fumbled the ball. … We take it personal as a unit. We don’t want to give up any points. We play each play like it’s our last.”
Nebraska’s defense again stiffened in the fourth quarter as the Wildcats tried to mount one final charge. K-State moved to the Husker 25. But then came a shared sack by Ndamukong Suh and Barry Turner on third down and an incomplete pass to the end zone on fourth down.
Nebraska fans began to party.
Nebraska vs. Kansas State game highlights
As Husker junior tight end Mike McNeill said, the season’s been “a little weird.” No one could have envisioned eight turnovers and a home loss to Iowa State. But since then, Nebraska (8-3, 5-2 in the Big 12) has won four in a row.
“It’s just guys being resilient,” McNeill said. “You just have to keep fighting and keep pushing through and things will turn out the way you want them to.”
Pushed by their coach to rise from the depths of a 5-7 season two years ago, it was players doing the pushing late Saturday with a chance to lock up just the program’s second Big 12 North title in the past 10 seasons.
Facing fourth-and-1 from the NU 36 and with 2 1/2 minutes left, the Huskers pushed Pelini to have faith they’d get the yard.
Their coach believed them.
“We kind of went in there and said there’s no way we’re going to punt this ball,” senior center Jacob Hickman said. “We’re going to get this and go to Dallas right here.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at bchristopherson@journalstar.com or 473-7439.
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