Just in case you haven’t come out of that rain-fueled reverie from last Thursday, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach delivered a public service announcement Saturday. More like a warning, with that 66-14 drubbing his Red Raiders hung on Kansas State. KSU isn’t particularly good. But the Wildcats aren’t 52 points that bad either.

Yes – just like playing at Tech wasn’t as hard as it seemed last year, this year’s game won’t be as easy as it seems. In many ways, the “Air Raid” system is better than Missouri’s spread offense, especially in creating big plays for the running backs, which Mizzou’s system doesn’t do so well.

If NU thinks it can get chuffed and proud, the Huskers had better cleanse their system of that incredible comeback win before Leach and Co. head to town. Once thing about Leach: He simply doesn’t care. He’ll boot players, bluff his own athletic director and happily serve as a hypocrite when he chastises players for the seeking the publicity he hounds. He just doesn’t care. Leach is a football mercenary for hire – Texas Tech has him tied to long-term contract – whose measurement of success is racking up points and yards.

My wife and I were watching a YouTube clip on Leach. Some nonsense about dating advice and pirate obsessions.

“He’s kind of a clown,” my wife said. Molly’s a pretty polite girl; she prefers half-insults unless we’re on the subject of bad officiating.

“Well, maybe,” I said. “But he wins a lot of games.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “He’s still a clown.”

As we await Leach’s circus on Saturday, we relive, one last time, the Mizzou win.

Five Players We Loved

Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh: You rarely get to see “legendary” defensive performances from a single player. On national TV, Suh delivered one. I’m not sure even he understood just what he’d done. In the coming weeks, if he makes a push for the Heisman, he will. The Missouri game was his launching pad.

Defensive back Dejon Gomes: He stuck to Mizzou receivers like glue all of Thursday night. Where’s he been? Doesn’t matter. Gomes needs to stay in the game, and off the bench.

Linebacker Philip Dillard: He’s re-established himself as Nebraska’s best linebacker. It took the coaches too long to realize it, but they’ve finally come around to Dillard’s brand of play and leadership.

Running back Rex Burkhead: Made a lot of little plays in the game, including a couple key third-down conversions. He’s excellent in open space, and getting better between the tackles.

Wide receiver Niles Paul: Oh, if only his confidence matched his raw talent. Maybe his fourth-quarter heroics vs. Missouri will clue Paul into the kind of player he can be – every game. He may want it a little too much. Paul needs to let the game come to him a little more often.

Three Concerns We Still Have

Depth and trust in the running game: It’s really hard to account for Nebraska’s deliberate choice to pass the ball, over and over, vs. the Tigers in the pouring rain. We keep hearing about all these guys in the box, but the Huskers pretty much abandoned the run until the game’s final drive and, then, embracing it with the heaviest of the heavy sets (four tight ends!), looked quite good. Where was that all game?

Punt snaps: Freshman P.J. Mangieri needs to figure this out. If Alex Henery wasn’t back there making incredible plays just to get the ball off, NU would have three or four blocked punts by now. Some were critical of Bo Pelini’s minor chew session of Mangieri, but the kid, young as he may be, is only on the team to do one thing. He needs to do it right.

A little too much offensive diversity: Nebraska flashed a ton of formations at Missouri Thursday night, and almost seemed to cross itself up. In big games, it’s not the chess match that wins, but the execution of your best stuff. What is Nebraska’s best stuff? We’re still waiting a little.

Reviewing The Five Keys

Mystery Ingredients: The weather definitely affected Nebraska (although offensive coordinator Shawn Watson called the game like it didn’t) and the flu bug kept five or six players under the weather. The power outage at Faurot Field threw another curveball the Huskers’ way, as the coaches were forced to conduct their locker room sessions by flashlight, essentially. For all that, for NU to still win the way it did – it’s character, plain and simple.

Zac Lee On the Road – Again: I wasn’t encouraged by Lee’s performance through three quarters, but he made some clutch throws in the fourth quarter to redeem the performance. Another plus: Lee put the ball in places where his offensive players could nab it. Unlike Blaine Gabbert, whose vision – not his ankle – was the real culprit Thursday night.

The First Impression: Nebraska’s defense sent a very different message in 2009; Suh and his front four mates made sure of it. Mizzou tried to run NU off the field on the first couple drives, but the Tigers slowed down out of necessity.

Stick or Quit: Missouri’s running game never really got shut down, but never got going, either. The Tigers threw too many passes, and too many of those passes were simply bad, telegraphed reads by Blaine Gabbert.

Pelini vs. Pinkel: Call it a draw, I suppose; both coaches failed to slow the game down with running attack, and both coaches made some gutsy decisions. Pinkel gambled and won on fourth down, while Pelini subbed out three starters – Anthpny West, Will Compton and Lance Thorell – to go with guys whom he thought would get the job done better. He was right.

Three Questions We Have

Is Nebraska ready for more, more, more? NU’s going to see one version or another of the spread from this point forward until Kansas State. Can it stick with the current gameplan used vs. Missouri, or must it alter the plan to fit the needs of each team and quarterback?

Time for Blackshirts? We think so. How about you?

Who’s the real Zac Lee? The kid who knocks em dead at home, or the head-scratcher on the road? Will we really learn anything this week? Maybe. Tech is easily the best home opponent Nebraska has faced this season.

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Two of the prime architects in Nebraska’s 27-12 comeback victory at Missouri almost never got the chance.

But a little dose of trust, at the right moment, left quarterback Zac Lee laughing in joy as he left Faurot Field Thursday night. It left Niles Paul chatting happily on the phone next to reporters, a vintage vinyl Spider-Man backpack slung over one shoulder.

After an awful first half with a muffed punt and several dropped passes, Paul was benched to start the second half in favor of true freshman Antonio Bell.

“We needed to get his attention,” offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said. “Let him settle down a little bit.”

Watson considered doing the same to Lee, who looked worse than he did at Virginia Tech.

But Paul was sent back in two series later. And Watson never pulled the trigger on the QB change.

“All of our confidence was kind of wavering,” Paul said. “We kinda let ourselves down. We came out in the second half and Coach Watson and Coach(Ted) Gilmore challenged us to a man. We came out and showed how we play ball.”

One minute into the fourth quarter, to be exact, as Lee shuffled back in the pocket and lofted a pass to Paul, running a deep post. The ball cut through the rain, Paul caught it in long stride, and bounded into the end zone for a 56-yard touchdown. Missouri’s coverage, rather surprisingly, focused on the short curl route and Paul darted into the open space the safety had just vacated for the score.

“They played right into what we thought they were going to do,” Paul said.

Said Lee: “That play kinda sparked us. It kinda got us in a rhythm. It was a little weight off the shoulders.”

The two hooked up less than a minute later after an Ndamukong Suh interception on a 13-yard fade route. Lee threw the ball inside Missouri defenders instead of to the pylon, which was smart. Paul sliced through the coverage to grab it.

“The first man in the air wins the war,” Paul said. “I just went up and got it.”

Lee added one more touchdown to Mike McNeill after another interception.

What if Watson had yanked his starter for Green? Would Lee ever have returned? Doubtful. The line of demarcation seemed to be Lee’s lame attempt to cover a fumble after a bad snap, when he slid up to the ball, casually held it between his knees and allowed it to be taken away from him.

“Get on the ball!” head coach Bo Pelini barked at Lee.

But Lee seemed with it on the sidelines, Watson said. And there was no reason to necessarily believe Green would do much better in the rain, on the road, against a blitzing defense.

“Look at it out there,” Watson said, pointing to the empty Faurot Field, still getting pelted by a slow-moving storm. “It’s unbelievable. It’s sheets of rain. That’s hard if you’re a quarterback.”

So, instead, Watson wanted to talk to Lee. He told him persevere. Hang tough. Find a way to win it.

“It didn’t have to be pretty,” Watson said. “We just had to win it. And Zac did it.”

Watson was in a buoyant mood afterward, about ten notches higher on the exuberance scale than Pelini. Did Watson sense he’s just escaped eight days of criticism, and potentially eight days of quarterback controversy?

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Report Card from Nebraska’s 27-12 win over Missouri:

OFFENSIVE MVP: Rex Burkhead. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Burkhead didn’t seem to do much, but he converted a couple crucial third downs, one of which kept alive Nebraska’s first touchdown drive. Burkhead caught a swing pass, planted hard into wet turf, and darted his way to an unlikely first down. Statistically, Burkhead didn’t do much. But he made four or five little big plays, and no bad ones.

DEFENSIVE MVP: Ndamukong Suh. A performance that echoed the dominance of Grant Wistrom and Rich Glover before him. Suh’s one of the great ones.

GRADES

QUARTERBACK: C Zac Lee had one terrific fourth quarter. But his play during the first three quarters nearly earned Lee a spot on the bench. He looked confused, slow, wet and overmatched. Many of his passes were simply inaccurate. But he made the plays when NU really needed them, in tough conditions. He should be glad – really glad - OC Shawn Watson never took him out. If Watson had, we’d have a week of Lee vs. Cody Green chatter.

RUNNING BACK: B+ Considering what NU had to work with – a sick Roy Helu and a so-so offensive line – it was a solid performance. The numbers were low, but hardly reflective on the effort. Helu banged up his shoulder well enough to wear a giant ice pack afterward, but he was still in there on the last drive. Tough kid.

OFFENSIVE LINE: C- They were kind of a disaster until the fourth. Mizzou’s stunting run defense threw off the big boys; their pass protection was fair, but unspectacular until the final quarter.

WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS: C- Niles Paul and Menelik Holt played so poorly that Watson benched them to start the second half. Paul could’ve sulked; instead, he had the two signature plays of his career. Mike McNeill only had the one grab, but he made it count. Too many dropped balls, and not-so-great blocking on the perimeter.

DEFENSIVE LINE: A+ A dominant, signature performance from all four of them. Energy, physicality, playmaking and just plain smarts: This bunch doesn’t necessarily get a ton of sacks, but they frustrate the bejusus out of the quarterback. They combined for 21 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 pass breakups and 2 turnovers. The best defensive line in America? Maybe.

LINEBACKERS: A Mostly Will Compton and Phillip Dillard, who had the complex assignment of diagnosing Mizzou’s spread offense and attacking it downhill. The Tigers slowed down as the game went on. NU’s defense just got stronger.

SECONDARY: A Nebraska finally seems to be playing the right guys in Dejon Gomes and Alfonzo Dennard, who clearly have more pure coverage skills than Anthony West and Lance Thorell. Both of them, along with Prince Amukamara, were excellent Thursday. Larry Asante held up quite well on a injured ankle, too.

SPECIAL TEAMS: D If Alex Henery weren’t so athletic and smart – just check out some of the plays he had to make on bad snaps from PJ Mangieri – Nebraska might have given up more than a safety. Punt returns were just awful, punt coverage wasn’t much better, as several guys simply overran Carl Gettis. Kick coverage was excellent – the lone bright spot, other than Henery.

GAME MANAGEMENT/PLAYCALLING: C+ That would be a A for the defensive work, which was stellar, and a D+ for offensive coordinator Shawn Watson, who frankly stumbled into success in the fourth quarter. Nebraska never tried to establish the run and Lee was about to get the hook after a fumble when Watson changed his mind. The decision turned out to be fortuitous.

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COLUMBIA, Mo. - The best player in college football walked down the ramp from Nebraska’s locker room shirtless, a shower towel draped around his neck. He had to go find a red shirt to put on for TV interviews, and as he headed out to the bus, seemingly in between the raindrops, fans, Mizzou and NU alike, just sort of stopped and stared.

Ndamukong Suh looks less like a typical defensive linemen than a guy who belongs in the movie “Troy.” He certainly played like a Spartan Thursday night.

The stats – a sack, an interception, a forced fumble, six tackles – are good enough. But they don’t tell the whole story of his impact in Nebraska’s 27-12 fourth-quarter bum rush of Missouri.

The whole story is the hurries, the Tiger holding penalties, the ridiculously quick, telegraphed throws made by Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who got as rude an awakening Thursday night as NU’s Zac Lee. The whole story is how Suh allows that front four to dominate, how that front four allowed the secondary to be aggressive, how that secondary allowed NU to even have a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter.

Suh’s presence and play sent shockwaves through this team. He’s the anchor. He’s the rock. He ought to be a Heisman candidate in a season where quarterbacks are getting hurt or having average seasons.

Will he get the notoriety? Only if voters get a clue and realize that 26 NFL scouts weren’t at the game Thursday to shine their shoes.

Another question: Can Nebraska’s offense get a clue before it’s too late? We’ll be wondering until next Saturday.

Frankly, I’ve never seen a game like this. Not the flu stuff that forced Nebraska to fly in a couple players this morning, not the power outage one hour beforehand, and not “The Twilight Zone” finish. Coupled together, it was wild, fun night the Huskers, one of relief as much as swagger. Nebraska’s offensive players wore pleasant grins that suggested they’d gotten away with one awful performance with the help of a big pass and two NU interceptions.

“The way the offense played, I don’t know if we really deserved it,” NU center Jacob Hickman said. He was one of those guys on the morning plane. “But the defense kept us in it and things ended up working out nice for us.”

Pass after pass after pass. Deep timing routes in the pouring rain. With a quarterback making his second career start on the road. Against a defense that has struggled to stop the run all year. Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson called the rainy conditions “your worst nightmare.” But he still called 33 pass plays. Heck, Mizzou called 43. In this mist and muck.

Missouri loaded the box to stop NU’s run, yes. Watson will throw it under those circumstances. And finally – finally – the Tigers made one crucial defensive error that opened the door for the Big Red. But it was not Watson’s best night, as jubilant as he was afterward.

Yes, a strange game. Missouri should have had it wrapped up. But Suh and his crew just wouldn’t let it happen.

Nebraska needs to use this moment as a springboard. How high that board springs is up to the Huskers. Texas Tech presents many of the same challenges in eight days – the Red Raiders have a pretty good defense, better than it should be. Then, two games vs. Iowa State and Baylor. Then – well…you know what then.

The reality is this: It’s all on the table for NU right now. The nation’s best player, a defensive win that should galvanize this bunch, and an offense that, well, made it count in the fourth quarter. Ten wins are now within reach. A few other goals are, too.

Watson called the win a turning point for Nebraska.

“If we don’t let it, shame on us,” Watson said. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. It’s a great win.”

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COLUMBIA, Mo. - Out of the darkness, and into the driver’s seat of the Big 12 North.

Faced with a 12-0 deficit at the beginning of the fourth quarter - having played some of the worst offensive football in recent memory - Nebraska’s football team turned on an unexpected switch, staging the largest final-quarter comeback in school history and taking an early – and crucial – lead in its league division.

NU scored three touchdowns in four minutes – assisted by two interceptions of Mizzou quarterback Blaine Gabbert – to win 27-12 in front of Faurot Field’s 65,286 stunned, soaked fans, who sat through a 15-minute power outage one hour before the game and nearly three hours of the Tigers playing sloppy – but winning – football.

That changed one minute into the fourth, when quarterback Zac Lee – who almost yanked by offensive coordinator Shawn Watson – threw a 56-yard touchdown to wide receiver Niles Paul - who was yanked to start the second half – to cut Mizzou’s lead to 12-7.

“We caught them in a good coverage, and the safety played the middle hook route, and we got a post over the top,” Lee said. “That play really sparked us.”

Then defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh picked off the third pass of his career at the Tigers’ 18-yard line. Lee hit Paul again, seven seconds later, from 13 yards to give NU the lead for good.

“We just kept fighting,” head coach Bo Pelini said. “You can get down in situations like that, when things aren’t going your way and it’s pretty easy to feel sorry for yourself and let the game get away from you. We never let the game get away with us…I thought we showed a lot of character in every aspect.”

Once the Tigers fell behind, NU made sure not to give it back, either. Junior cornerback Dejon Gomes, who’d played sparingly until Thursday night, intercepted another Gabbert pass on Missouri’s next drive, returning it to the Tiger 10-yard line.

“The receiver broke out, I broke out with him, and I was in perfect position to look back at the quarterback,” Gomes said. “The ball was right there.”

Lee then threw his third touchdown pass of the night, an eight-yard floater to tight end Mike McNeill, who was wide open after blocking and pretending to stumble. Lee drew the defense to himself, then tossed into an open space, where McNeill ran under it.

“I just wanted to make sure I caught it,” McNeill said.

So Nebraska led 20-12, and forced a turnover on downs on Mizzou’s next drive, which briefly reached NU’s 22-yard line before a holding penalty – one of eight overall penalties – pushed the Tigers back to the 32. Gabbert threw four incomplete passes after that.

“There were a zillion penalties,” Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel said.

NU ran the ball eight straight times for a final touchdown, highlighted by Roy Helu’s 41-yard sideline gallop. Helu, suffering from the flu, didn’t arrive in Columbia until Thursday morning.

By the end, Missouri fans were filing out, while a small, raucous contingency of Huskers waved them goodbye.

“It wasn’t the exact way we wanted to win,” Suh said. “But we’ll take it.”

Pelini said Suh – and the rest of the NU defense, which may be in line for a Blackshirt promotion after this – kept the Huskers in the game while the offense sputtered. Missouri gained just 225 yards, punted eight times and scored only ten points – and all of those came on a short field. Derrick Washington gained 80 yards on 20 carries, but never busted a long one until the game had been decided.

“They played their you-know-whats off,” Pelini said. “They played hard, they played well. And you can say that about everybody who lined up on defense. We played some pretty good football.”

The secondary repeatedly challenged Mizzou’s receivers – and won the battles. Gabbert, meanwhile, seemed out of sorts most of the night, and could have thrown more interceptions than the two he did – the Huskers had their hands on a number of his passes, which often looked telegraphed.

“He struggled a little bit,” Pinkel said of Gabbert, who completed just 17-of-43 passes for 134 yards and two interceptions.

Before the final quarter, Lee struggled a lot more than that. He’d lost a fumble, and completed just 9-of-27 passes heading into the final quarter.

“There was a time I was actually going to put Cody (Green) in and have him sit down and let him look at it a little bit,” Watson said. “But he’s just got great character. I thought about it for about a half-second and said ‘Nah.’

“He’s such a great competitor that he kept fighting through it.”

Said Lee: “The coaches trusted us. They have our back. We have their back.”

Nevertheless, Missouri forged a 12-0 lead with a big help from the offense and special teams. MU scored a safety when punter Alex Henery was forced to throw the ball out of his own end zone after a bad snap - one of several - from true freshman P.J. Mangieri. The Tigers' touchdown drive started on the NU 44-yard line. Its third-quarter field goal drive started at the NU 34.

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