We're back again - and remember - anybody who guesses score right on the button wins a throwback poster - offense or defense - your choice.

Last week, Gassman came quite close to Nebraska's odd-looking 27-12 victory with a 25-13 prediction. Who makes the grade this week? Post and let's find out!

Also: Give us your offensive and defensive MVPs for the game!

Have at it Husker fans and check out our prediction podcast for our take right before the game! We have a...surprising prediction. Is it in favor of NU? Find out!

See also: Inside The Air Raid Offense!

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Our MVPs and Report Card after NU's 31-10 loss to Texas Tech:

OFFENSIVE MVP: Roy Helu, Jr. Playing with a bum shoulder, Helu mostly maximized gains on what few holes there were. His effort on the 27-yard screen pass was easily the best individual offensive play of the game. Should Helu sit vs. Iowa State? Maybe. He needs to be truly healthy for the stretch run.

DEFENSIVE MVP: Phillip Dillard. Arguably his best game. Dillard chased Tech's backs on passing plays, rendering them ineffective after the opening drive, and imposed his physical will on receivers and linemen. He's catching fire at just the right time in his career.

GRADES

QUARTERBACK: D Zac Lee played his worst game – because it was his most hesitant game. He didn't push the ball downfield. He ate two or three drive-killing sacks. And he didn't get deep enough on a couple of his drops. Playing to avoid mistakes is really no way to play quarterback unless you've got a top-grade running game. And Nebraska doesn't. And while Cody Green gave NU a spark, he could've easily thrown two or three more interceptions.

RUNNING BACKS: B Helu played bravely, but he's not 100 percent, and he's not much of a pass-blocking option when he isn't. Marcus Mendoza caught a few passes, and played aggressively. The coaches erred in not playing him before the Texas Tech game. We'll see more of Tray Robinson next week.

WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS: D Drops, drops, drops. NU's receivers might have been open, and Lee should have found them, but who's to say they would have caught the ball? Niles Paul's blunder is elementary stuff. Cover the ball! Chris Brooks and Khiry Cooper at least catch the ball consistently. Cooper needs to block better. Not a good game for Ted Gilmore's unit, and he's running out of motivation tactics. The tight ends were mostly a non-factor.

OFFENSIVE LINE: D Marcel Jones and D.J. Jones get an F, while the rest of the unit gets, oh, a C or so. The Jones duo was awful, getting manhandled play after play, committing penalties, whiffing on blocks. Jacob Hickman and Keith Williams were fair, but not dominant. Ricky Henry played OK until his bonehead personal foul in the fourth quarter.

DEFENSIVE LINE: B+ The front four generated a terrific pass rush throughout the game, especially ends Pierre Allen and Barry Turner. But they got a little gashed late in the fourth quarter by Tech's quick running game.

LINEBACKERS: B Will Compton had a bad first drive and was replaced by Dillard, who played one of his best. At times, Dillard was mismatched against Tech's speedy receivers. In spot duty, Sean Fisher and Compton were fine against Tech's running formations.

SECONDARY: B- More than one of NU's sacks were thanks to the Huskers' coverage, but two pass interference penalties, plus a couple missed tackles by Prince Amukamara, bring the grade down. The good news: Only Kansas has better receivers, and no team has faster receivers.

SPECIAL TEAMS: C Alex Henery had a poor game, missing a 51-yarder and shanking a punt. Nebraska gave up a big kickoff return at wrong time. The punt coverage units were OK, and Alfonzo Dennard had a nice kickoff return of his own. The snaps by PJ Mangieri were much better.

GAME MANAGEMENT/PLAYCALLING: D Before we even get to Shawn Watson, let's start with Bo Pelini. Stop deferring every won coin toss. Stop calling blitzes on third-and-long on the opponent's first drive of the game. Stop wasting two timeouts per game on the defense. Now Watson, who has a lot of work to do. He wasn't given a lot of options, but he needs to use his tight ends better, and more of them. He needs to have a sense of urgency in the third quarter, down 21 points. He needs to stop giving his quarterback so many options at the line of scrimmage.

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“We have Blackshirts there at Texas Tech, too. Every one of our guys is wearing a black shirt underneath their pads. I'm proud to say the Blackshirts won this one.”

It's pretty safe to say that little nugget from Mike Leach will find its way to Nebraska's bulletin board. The Texas Tech coach, is his own, inimitable way, praised his bunch and poked a little fun at NU's top defensive unit at the same time.

Let's just hope head coach Bo Pelini uses it to motivate the right bunch. Not the Cornhuskers' defense, which forced five punts, notched five sacks and only gave 259 total yards to one of the best offenses in America.

Rather, the quote needs to find its way to the offensive line, which can use every bit of fire, at this point, it can get. May Mike Smith, Keith Williams, Jacob Hickman, Ricky Henry, Marcel Jones and D.J. Jones tack it to their lockers to remind themselves of a performance that left offensive line coach Barney Cotton drained and a little crestfallen.

“I think I've got to do a better job preparing,” Cotton said. “We didn't play the physical ballgame that we had planned on playing...this is a league where you have to be physical to play well.”

Cotton and head coach Bo Pelini both called it “putting a hat on a hat.” The final tally - just 70 rushing yards, and most of those coming via improvisation from Roy Helu, Jr. - suggests the Huskers didn't do it. Couple the leaks with five sacks and a slew of tough penalties – including the drive-killing personal foul by Henry – and it was the sloppiest performance in recent memory.

“We'd always leave a hat open,” Hickman said. “Or a guy jumps. It's just one guy who can kill you...just one guy missing his block, and the play doesn't work. Gotta have 11 guys on the same page. You could really call any play at that point – and it should work.”

Hickman said the line affected quarterback Zac Lee's vision and performance. Although Lee held on to the ball for ten seconds on two different occasions – he was sacked once and threw another pass away - Hickman said some early hits on No. 5 - especially on two playaction passes where Lee couldn't even turn around without being hammered - set a bad tone.

“It threw him on his rhythm,” Hickman said. “It goes through the line first.”

NU planned to physical running game in the opening quarter; the playcalling was balanced through the first four drives. But Helu and Lee's rushing lanes were few; Tech slanted its defensive linemen into gaps, and the Huskers' front unit was unable to clear them away.

The Red Raiders weren't fancy, Cotton said. They just beat Nebraska's linemen into the backfield. When Cotton would gather his unit on the sideline, he'd talk to them – sometimes through the entire Tech offensive possession – about effort, and toughness.

“This was not a game where we were doing a lot of drawing things up,” Cotton said. “We talked about putting hats on hats, and keep those hats on hats. We've got to fight more aggressively and more relentlessly.”

What's that going to look like in practice?

“It's going to be physical,”Cotton said. “Everything we do during the week should be darn near live anyway. That's the way we prepare. But it'll be even more physical.”

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It was a simple bubble screen gone bad. But it was the wrong time – the wrong game – to get caught with such a mistake.

Inside Texas Tech's 20-yard line, still in the first quarter, Nebraska quarterback Zac Lee flipped wide receiver Niles Paul, who promptly – and rather casually - dropped the ball. Tech defensive end Daniel Howard scooped it up, darting past an unsuspecting Paul and tackle Mike Smith. Only Lee gave chase, and wasn't quite able to catch Howard at the goal line.

The Red Raiders had just scored the easiest defensive touchdown they're ever likely to enjoy to take a 14-0 lead in front of 86,107 stunned NU fans at Memorial Stadium. It was more than enough, as Lee and the Cornhuskers' offense imploded again and again with penalties, drops, curious playcalling, and shoddy blocking. A late touchdown drive led by true freshman Cody Green was answered by another Tech touchdown as Mike Leach's mercurial team cruised to a 31-10 victory that should send No. 15 Nebraska spiraling out of national polls.

The Red Raiders opened the game by converting two long third-down plays on the arm of quarterback Steven Sheffield, who completed all seven passes on the drive for 93 yards. Sheffield his passes of 34 and 22 yards, and finished off the drive with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Baron Batch.

The Huskers (4-2 overall, 1-1 in the Big 12 Conference) were in business on its second drive of the game following Paul's punt return to the Tech 33-yard line. Five plays later, Paul fumbled and Memorial Stadium seemed drained of energy.

Tech (4-2 and 1-1) scored its third touchdown with a 12-play, 65-yard march in the second quarter, highlighted by a 21-yard run on fourth down and a 18-yard pass on a third-and-eight from NU's 21-yard line. Nebraska answered by going 74 yards in 11 play for an Alex Henery field goal, the drive dying inside Tech's 5-yard line. The Red Raiders finished the half with a field goal of their own after Sheffield hit receiver Detron Lewis for 58-yard pass, Lewis slipping the grasp of cornerback Prince Amukamara.

Most of the second half was a defensive struggle, more painful for NU, which squandered two opportunities for points when Henery missed a 51-yard field goal (after the Huskers had started at Tech's 25-yard line) and it wasted a ten-minute drive on a personal foul penalty by offensive guard Ricky Henry and Lee's overthrow of Niles Paul in the end zone.

Green was inserted for the second time after that play, and promptly led a 40-yard touchdown march, culminating in a 13-yard pass to redshirt freshman Khiry Cooper. On NU's final possession, he threw an interception on a slant route.

Tech ended scoring with another touchdown drive capped off by a Sheffield sneak and aided by a long kickoff return and pass interference penalty on Anthony West that left Pelini infuriated. For the game, Nebraska had 12 penalties for 95 yards, and Pelini spent a good chunk of the TV timeouts thundering away at the officials.

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"People are going to draw conclusions. That's what this is here in Nebraska. The football world we live in."

Zac Lee said it with a smile, but he said it just so, too.

Credit Nebraska's starting quarterback for having tact and a sly sense of humor at the same time.

What the junior from San Francisco needs now is a big game at the right time. None better than a Saturday afternoon soiree with Texas Tech, which sports a better-than-expected defense, but a negative turnover margin that has to have those not-yet-Blackshirts salivating.

Lee, too. After all, he'd be the beneficiary of any short field the defense can produce. And he will take any love he can get.

The kid went through the critic's mill a little this week. So did his offensive coordinator, Shawn Watson. They handled like they do most everything else: With a smile and outward confidence. It takes a little self-worth, after all, to call a tight end hide route in the red zone rain. It takes even more moxie for Lee to sell it like he did, then float a lovely little pass to a wide-open Mike McNeill for a touchdown.

An uneven offensive line needs confidence like that. NU's beaten-up running back corps do, too. The Red Raiders may indeed force Lee to beat them by dropping down a safety and “loading the box.” Lee will, again, check into a play that works for him. From there, it'll be on his brain, and his right arm.

He's played well at home – exceedingly well vs. Arkansas State and Lafayette. Maybe it's the Memorial Stadium crowd. Maybe it was the defenses of the Sun Belt Three. But Tech's pass defense isn't much better, frankly. The Red Raiders have athletes, but they're thin at safety. It's the kind of unit that an upper-echelon Big 12 quarterback should be able to pick apart.

And there's little question that Lee has top-shelf skills in most of the pertinent areas: Arm strength, mobility, sixth sense, leadership. His accuracy, right now, is off on the short, timing routes. Lee throws a terrific deep ball, but that's only a small part of the West Coast Offense. You throw ten little darts to set up one cannon shot. Lee has to put a few more of those darts near the bullseye.

Still, he's an easy player to root for because he wears the pressure lightly, and because you sense his inner playmaker is straining to stay within the structure of Watson's offense.

Don't get me wrong: It's a good structure, especially for ball control, which is necessary vs. Texas Tech. But it was a comfier fit for a guy like Joe Ganz, who can't wing it 70 yards, but can cut a defense for six, seven yard gains at a time. He bled the Red Raiders dry doing just that last year.

Lee has to blaze his own trail. Through five games, he done a lot of things well. He's only thrown two interceptions that matter (his last pass at Virginia Tech could've just as easily been batted down) and, wayward snaps aside, he's not really a fumbler. He avoids bad sacks – Ganz didn't always do that – and he keeps plays alive with his feet. And he creates big plays. That you can't argue. He's not afraid to throw the deep routes, and he knows where to throw them.

It's simply a slightly different model than most WCO quarterbacks. It's a model that needs a good power running game to help set it up.

But if Lee doesn't get that on Saturday – and the Red Raiders will surely try to stuff Roy Helu and whoever else Nebraska trots out there – then he'll find himself in the middle of a dogfight, having to march, instead of bomb, the Huskers down the field.

Is he up to that challenge? Are Lee's receivers?

Hey – Missouri's over. In this space, too.

Now - opportunity knocks. Inside, a one-way ticket to the Oklahoma game, a 7-1 record, and more media buzz than you can shake a space balloon at.

Lee will have a home field, a fairly healthy offensive line and a vanilla defense to work against.

Good quarterbacks rise to this moment. The best ones own it.

Time for No. 5 to put the money where his moxie is.

See also: Guess The Score! NU vs. Tech! and Five Keys to Texas Tech

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Count on Mike Leach to artificially add a little intrigue to Nebraska’s Saturday matchup with Texas Tech.

The Red Raiders’ coach won’t be naming his starting quarterback for the 2:30 p.m. game during the week. Instead, Leach sardonically said, expect the “excitement and drama” of a “gametime decision” between junior Taylor Potts and sophomore Steven “Sticks” Sheffield, who spelled Potts in a 66-14 rout of Kansas State by throwing for 490 yards and seven touchdowns in his first career start. He won Big 12 Player of the Week for his effort.

Potts, who earned the starting job last spring, clearly suffered a concussion in the second quarter of Tech’s win over New Mexico, although Leach denies Potts is injured at all.

“I’m not into the whole injury thing,” Leach said.

Sheffield, a walk-on, earned his nickname “the day he walked in the door,” Leach said, because of his slight frame. Sheffield is 6-foot-4, 175 pounds. Think of former NU quarterback Beau Davis – only skinnier.

“He’s among the most coachable guys I’ve had,” Leach said. “He just continually gets better, but has been focused in on improving what he does. And then he brings kind of a natural spirit to things. He’s a real grinder when it comes to details.”

Potts is the sturdier of the two, possessing one of the stronger arms in the Big 12. He played well prior to the concussion, throwing for 420 yards in a loss to Texas, and 456 in a 55-10 win over Rice. Sheffield, meanwhile, is more mobile.

“They’re both good football players,” head coach Bo Pelini. “But we’re going to defend their offense. They’re just one cog in the offense. They’re very multiple in what they do. They run it well. They throw it well.”

See also: 5 Secrets to Leach's Success

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It was the kind of season that would have made any offensive coordinator proud.

College football’s 12th-best total offense. No. 17 in scoring offense. No. 15 in passing offense. No. 2 in time of possession. Using a quarterback who had started all of three games, integrating three new position coaches – and their philosophies – while making a major strategic shift after the fifth game of the season.

But Nebraska’s Shawn Watson said he likes to adhere to core principles. And one of them is a rigorous self-evaluation.

“We take ourselves apart,” Watson said.

Really, Watson deconstructed his own work first. After NU’s 9-4 season ended after a 26-21 win in the Gator Bowl - over a Clemson team that challenged Watson’s hybrid spread/West Coast offense in new, frustrating ways - he watched every offensive play from the 2008 season again. He had a pad with him, and dissected each – particularly quarterback Joe Ganz’s performance within that play – with a handwritten note.

NU ran 919 plays last year. If Watson spent just five minutes on each play – and if you’re writing a report by hand, you figure he would – that’s 75 hours of research. Double it to ten minutes per play, and you’re looking at a week’s worth of film study and report writing.

And that’s before he copies it, prints it and gives it to his coaches and players to digest.

“A little detailed analysis,” quarterback Zac Lee said. “What was done wrong, what was done right. What could be done to make things better. It really helped. Might have been a little thick – but it helped.

"Coach Wats goes above and beyond. He spends quite a few extra hours. He’s very committed to what he does. You know you have the best possible game plan, the best possible coaching you’re gonna get because he’s such a perfectionist. He won’t let little things go.”

This is why Latravis Washington, who just started playing quarterback at the onset of spring practice, spends 3-4 extra hours each night studying the offense – watching film, grasping concepts.

This is how Watson was able to take an offense that looked troubled, slow and too reliant on Ganz’s improve talents in the Virginia Tech and Missouri games and transform it, one week later at Texas Tech, into a polished, thoughtful attack that beat the Red Raiders at their own time of possession game and nearly pulled off a gigantic upset in Lubbock.

How will it look in 2009? What is Watson doing to continue evolving against defense that now have film on 2008?

Tomorrow, part two of the series, available by Locker Pass.

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