Sport Shorts!

The NU baseball team romped Minnesota today 12-3 with lots of extra base hits. The game was in honor of Laney Ledbetter. "Love for Laney"  What a day to make aware the benefits of donating your organs. Laney is the granddaughter of Scott and Michele High of Bertrand, Ne.

The Red-White game is over and it was fun and refreshing to watch. The hard part of watching this game is if the offense is going well does that mean the defense is not good and vice versa. The running backs ran very well so does that mean we still can't stop the run especially when we face the Big 10 competition. But let's look at the good and maybe a little bad.

At quarterback here was what I saw and how I would rate their performances. I didn't take a lot into which players they were going against at the time.

1. Tyson Broekemeier-I know he is probably the No. 6 quarterback but he had such touch and he did look at his second and third receivers. He hit the open man consistently. He was 4-6 for 65 yards and one touchdown and there was at least one dropped pass. Very efficient.
2. Zach Darlington-He's got confidence, he throws a nice pass, and he hit his second and third options like nobody we have had for a while. He looks smart. They say he doesn't have a great arm to throw deep but he played so well I wanted to watch him a lot. He was 7-11 for 70 yards and one touchdown. He h3ad one run for 19 yards.
3. Tommy Armstrong-He did well. Receivers dropped some passes. He didn't throw a lot of short passes. Good runner. He was 6-12 for 77 yards and no touchdowns but no interceptions either.
4. A J Bush-He's very athletic and has lots of promise. His downer was the two interceptions and missed receivers at times. If he would of thrown a couple of passes in the right spot, he could have been number one. He looked great at times with his ability to run the pocket to avoid the defense. He was 12-22 for 124 yards and had no touchdowns. He also ran once and got stopped at the six on a fourth down. If he keeps improving, who knows?
5. Ryker Fyfe-Looked bad to start and then settled in. He was 2-6 for 57 yards and one touchdown. Looked ok overall.
6. Johnny Stanton-Didn't have a good day. He had a very good run but he missed receivers a few times, twice for easy touchdowns. He was 3-11 for 19 yards and no touchdowns. He will have better days.

Now when you look at the competition they played against, you probably look at Tommy Armstrong and Zach Darlington and AJ Bush very close behind. But I would still like to see Tyson Broekmeier a little more.

Terrell Newby was very good. He is the No. 1 back right now but behind him who knows? There were some impressive performances by Graham Nabbity,  Pierson-El, Mikale Wilbon, Jordan Nelson, Imani Cross, and Adam Taylor. The White offense averaged  .1 yards per carry rushing and the Red offense averaged 16 yards a carry. Great but too much when you look at the defense.

De'Mornay Pierson-El had a great day as a runner and receiver. Jamal Turner looked good also. He may make the Jet Sweep famous. He could have had three touchdowns but was overthrown twice. Brandon Reilly looked really good on a kickoff return and was open a number of times but the quarterback couldn't hit him. Jariah Tolbert had a nice day with three catches for  55 yards and a touchdown. Lane Hovey will play this fall. Jordan Nelson caught a 52 yard touchdown along with his 40 yards rushing. I liked the play of Gabe Rahn, tight end, He seemed to get open a lot but dropped a couple of tough catches.

The defense is hard to evaluate. Kieron Williams was impressive with seven tackles, one being a great hit on Tommy Armstrong. Josh Banderas led all tacklers with ten tackles and looked quick and hit hard. Creighton Koley had eight tackles and played real well.

Probably the best player of the day was Sam Foltz. He may be the best punter in the nation!


Nu quarterbacks combined for 34 of 69 passes which is 50%. Not good enough.

Nathan Gerry didn't play due to an injury and coach Riley says he should be going again in June.

I think NU should continue the Big Red Breakfast. I never have been there but it is a big deal to a lot of donors and fans.

The top two Kansas recruits were at the game Saturday. The are defensive end prospects and there names are Amani Bledsoe and Xavier Kelly. Cool names. Bledsoe already has over 20 offers.

Recruits that were in this weekend for the game included:

TE Jack Stoll from Colorado
2017 recruit-WR-Jaevon McQuitty from Missouri
TE Hayden Johnson from Missouri
2016 OL commit-John Raidon from Iowa
RB Martiez Prather from Lincoln Southeast
JUCO LB Chris Baccus
DE Amani Bledsoe from Kansas
JUCO OT Quinn Mittermeier 6''6" 305lbs
TE commit Jared Bubak from Lincoln Christian
2017 LB Avery Roberts from Delaware
JUCO WR Taj Williams from Iowa Western