If you're a Nebraska football fan who watched the Holiday Bowl on ESPN, rest assured that you will not be getting those three-and-a-half hours of your life back. Actually, it was only three hours – because the first half-hour of the broadcast was the fourth quarter and overtime periods of the (insert sponsor name) Music City Bowl featuring North Carolina-Tennessee. Err, make that two hours and 50 minutes, because ESPN also spent about 10 minutes cutting in for Stanford's upset of Connecticut in women's basketball (ending an NCAA-record 90-game win streak).
In between all the (non) action, ESPN played a commercial for Ashland University. Or maybe it was Bridgepoint University. Or some college somewhere. All I know is that 1) I didn't know until tonight that the Holiday Bowl was sponsored by "Bridgepoint Education." (Even the official Holiday Bowl site Google entry doesn't mention the title sponsor's name.); 2) Bridgepoint spent so much money sponsoring the bowl that it couldn't pay to produce more than two commercials.
But the real entertainment from the Huskers' 19-7 loss came after the game. That's when Nebraska football fans highjacked Shawn Watson's Wikipedia entry. Preserved for your reading enjoyment here:
Shawn Watson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shawn Watson is the Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team. He is a terrible offensive coordinator. He has no idea what he is doing.
Shawn Watson was born in Carbondale, IL on September 21, 1959, and graduated from Carterville High School in Carterville, Illinois.
Coaching career
Watson began his football coaching career as a graduate assistant in 1982 at Southern Illinois; the same school where he had completed his playing career. He earned his Masters Degree in Offensive Mismanagement.
His first full time position was at Illinois, where he started as a graduate assistant for two years beginning in 1983 before promotions to Offensive Tackles Coach, Tight Ends Coach and Wide Receivers Coach by 1986. Illinois participated in two bowl games during Watson's time there, including the Rose Bowl following the 1983 season.
Beginning in 1987, Watson coached in various positions at Miami (OH) University across seven years, starting as Wide Receivers Coach, and moving through positions as Tight Ends Coach, Wide Receivers Coach and completing his career at Miami in 1993 as Quarterbacks Coach and Recruiting Coordinator.
In 1994, Watson obtained his first appointment as Head Coach when he was hired to take control of the program where he started his playing and coaching careers; Southern Illinois. SIU had gone 15-29 in the four years prior to Watson's arrival, and his first year was a rough start to his head coaching career as SIU finished 1-10. SIU finished the next two seasons with repeat 5-6 records before Watson moved on, finishing with an overall head coaching record to date of 11-22. During Watson's three year tenure at SIU he produced 20 all-conference players and an NFL-drafted Tight End in Damon Jones.
In 1997, Watson was hired by Head Coach Gary Barnett at Northwestern University as Quarterbacks Coach. When Barnett was later hired as Head Coach by the University of Colorado in 1999, Watson also followed and continued for a year as Quarterbacks Coach. In 2000, Watson was promoted to Offensive Coordinator at Colorado while maintaining his role with the quarterbacks, and remained in that role until Barnett's firing at the conclusion of the 2005 season. Why Nebraska would want a former Colorado coach is still in question. Experts believe that it was part of Bill Callahan's master plan to destroy Nebraska Football.
In 2006, Head Coach Bill Callahan hired Watson to the position of Tight Ends Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at the University of Nebraska, and he was subsequently promoted the following year to the same position he had held at Colorado; Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach. When Callahan was fired at the conclusion of the 2007 season, Watson was one of two members of Callahan's staff that were retained under new Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini. Shawn Watson has consistently lost games because of poor play calling and stupidity. It is suspected that he is taking bribes from Casey Martinez, Taylor Martinez's father, in order to ensure that Taylor plays no matter how terrible his performance is. No one knows why he has yet to be fired by head coach Bo Pelini.
So where to now? John Bishop from KLIN has a terrific piece that he hammered out no more than 20 minutes after Nebraska limped off the field. Particularly interesting is his opinion on ESPN's coverage of bowl games. I completely agree.
Washington used its head to beat the Huskers.
Taylor Martinez spent a lot of time doing this in the second half.
Pelini told reporters afterward that he takes full blame for the loss.
Is this the last we'll see of Martinez as a Husker?
1 comment:
You hit the nail on the head! I don't understand the Husker fans who say that people who complain about 10 win seasons are fair weather fans and grumblers. But someone in a comments section of a popular Husker blog rightly pointed out 10-4 is almost a 30% loss rate. Losing more than 1 in 4 games. And we are clearly lapsing in our offense. The games against SDST, Iowa St, Texas, A&m, and second Wash game exposed how weak we still are offensively. It would be awesome to have the likes of Leach or Mangino for an OC (if even just for a couple seasons).
Post a Comment