Dec 31st, 2009
You probably figured there was no way we could work a Bay Area angle into the Holiday Bowl, right? Not with the winning team being Nebraska in a 33-0 blowout of Pac-10 team Arizona.
Zac Lee played with a wrist injury most of the season -- Associated Press photo Dave Weaver
Fear not, we can sneak the local angle into any situation, although, in this case, it was not really that difficult.
First of all the Huskers’ starting tailback was Roy Helu Jr., who went to San Ramon Valley High School in Danville. The guy rushed for 1,147 yards this season, but he was not exactly the story of the Holiday Bowl. He carried the ball three times for eight yards.
OK, there was also Dejon Gomez, a starter in the Nebraska secondary that utterly stifled Arizona’s passing game. Gomes went to Logan High School in Union City and later went to City College of San Francisco. Yeah, he did a nice job against Arizona, but it was his teammate at CCSF, Zac Lee, who provides the Bay Area angle.
Lee went to St. Ignatius Prep in San Francisco and got exactly zero college scholarship offers. So he decided to go to CCSF, the same place his father, Bob Lee, went to prepare himself for a standout career at Pacific and a 12-year NFL career. One of Bob Lee’s teammates at CCSF was O.J. Simpson, whose name has appeared in newspapers a few times in the meantime.
Zac Lee grayshirted his first year at CCSF. (A grayshirt — or is it greyshirt? — is someone who spends his first fall at a school as a part-time student so he does not use a year of eligibility or even a redshirt season.) So Lee spent his first fall at CCSF watching CCSF games from the stands before becoming a standout the next fall as a freshman. He spent just one year on CCSF’s football team and was replaced the next season by Jeremiah Masoli, who also spent only one season as the Rams’ quarterback before heading off to Oregon.
But we digress.
Lee has had some rough times as the Huskers quarterback this season as a junior, and was even replaced as a starter for a time. Nebraska coaches decided to made the offense more conservative and rely on its defense. But on Wednesday against Arizona, the Huskers let Lee loose — well, sort of.
He was 13-for-23 with a touchdown pass and no interceptions, plus he ran for a career-high 65 yards and had the first rushing touchdown of his career for the Husker’s first score.
And now it turns out that Lee will undergo surgery next week to repair a torn tendon in his right arm, just above his wrist. Lee said the tear developed after he injured his wrist on Sept. 12, so he had been playing with a bad throwing arm virtually the entire season.
And that’s how we work a Bay Area angle into a bowl game between Nebraska and Arizona.
