Befitting their status as the most knowledgeable fans in the country, Nebraskans are busy today assembling their early scouting reports on Texas Tech to pass out to the schoolchildren ahead of Friday's pregame test, and naturally want to know who's going to line up as the Raiders' starting quarterback in Lincoln: Usual starter Taylor Potts, who missed last week's game against Kansas State with a concussion, or career scout-teamer Steven Sheffield, who lit up the Wildcats with an ungodly stat line (33-of-41, 490 yards, seven touchdowns) even by Texas Tech standards in the first significant action of his career? The Nebraska State Paper put the question today to evil pirate genius Mike Leach, who may or may not get around to thinking about the question himself this week, and certainly won't be telling anyone if his mind does happen to wander in that direction:

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 ...

I'm not sure how 6'4", 190-pound Sheffield managed to become the first in a long line of lanky Raider passers to earn the nickname "Sticks" for himself, but I am certain after his prolific debut against the Wildcats and a solid decade of uninterrupted assaults on record books from Leach-bred quarterbacks that the specific identity of the man in the gun Saturday is purely academic -- Potts and Sheffield have topped 400 yards in five of the Raiders' first six games, including 420 yards and three touchdowns by Potts in the loss at Texas, and are on pace for more touchdowns and a higher pass efficiency rating than any other season in Leach's tenure. They're both ordinary passers with average talent who are guaranteed to shred every secondary they face to some impressive extent, as Husker fans well know -- Nebraska has lost three straight t three different Leach-led quarterbacks, including the 70-10 rout Tech put on Bill Callahan's first team in 2004.

This Nebraska D is a little better than that, currently residing at No. 2 nationally in scoring defense and No. 3 in pass efficiency defense after last Thursday's monsoon game with Missouri. That may be good enough to keep Tech below 400 yards/35 points, but not based on which remote-controlled robo-slinger is standing in the shotgun on any given play.

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Hat tip: CFT.