It Will Be Nice that Starters Will No Longer Be Entrenched in Cement

We swapped guys at DL, LB, CB, S, OL, WR all the time. We were RB by committee early in Bo's career, and split reps fairly well after that, minus the last 2 years. We even swapped an entrenched starter at QB in 2010.

Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.

 
HuskerinSunDiego said:
BigRedBuster said:
Hmmmmm.....see a trend here? Maybe the trend is that fans THINK they know who the better player is and they really don't.
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The problem was that T.O. never hesitated to pull a guy when he wasn't performing. Come on, the greatest QB in the history of college football was pulled in the second quarter of the national championship game. T.O. never got into that mentality that you have to stick with your starters. He kept plugging in players until something fit. THAT is what has spoiled us. We have seen that a team works infinitely better when players are being replaced when they don't perform. Sorry that the 3 predecessors never understood this seemingly-easy concept.
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Ummm.....that was a decision that was made before the game ever started. TF was going to start and BB would play in the second quarter. They would then make the decision who was the hot hand and go with it.

That never would have happened if TF didn't have his health problems and BB hadn't played well enough to get us to the championship game.

 
saunders45 said:
Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.
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Cotton & Pelini on the O Line this year. Zaire Anderson #2 on the depth chart. Eric Martin struggling to get reps. These are just off the top of my head, but there are more. Players with greater ability have sat behind players who "get it" or have family ties, to the detriment of the team.

 
knapplc said:
saunders45 said:
Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.
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Cotton & Pelini on the O Line this year. Zaire Anderson #2 on the depth chart. Eric Martin struggling to get reps. These are just off the top of my head, but there are more. Players with greater ability have sat behind players who "get it" or have family ties, to the detriment of the team.
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Per fans who have no experience with these players in practice and know what exactly a player can and can't do.

 
knapplc said:
saunders45 said:
Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.
Click to expand...
Cotton & Pelini on the O Line this year. Zaire Anderson #2 on the depth chart. Eric Martin struggling to get reps. These are just off the top of my head, but there are more. Players with greater ability have sat behind players who "get it" or have family ties, to the detriment of the team.
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Martinez, Helu, Gerry, Alexander, Roach, O'Hanlon, etc... There are plenty of examples to the contrary. Every fanbase of every sport in the country thinks there are guys on the bench who are better. This isn't something unique to Nebraska.

 
knapplc said:
saunders45 said:
Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.
Click to expand...
Cotton & Pelini on the O Line this year. Zaire Anderson #2 on the depth chart. Eric Martin struggling to get reps. These are just off the top of my head, but there are more. Players with greater ability have sat behind players who "get it" or have family ties, to the detriment of the team.
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I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. There almost had to have been the occasional players that got the raw end, but everyone's recollection of it seems so overblown.

Remember when everyone thought Philip Dillard was in the doghouse and would never get snaps again? Then halfway through 2009 he rattled off 12, 12, 5, 8, 6, 8, 8, 6 tackles. Some dog house.

 
saunders45 said:
knapplc said:
saunders45 said:
Honestly. this is a myth that has little merit.
Click to expand...
Cotton & Pelini on the O Line this year. Zaire Anderson #2 on the depth chart. Eric Martin struggling to get reps. These are just off the top of my head, but there are more. Players with greater ability have sat behind players who "get it" or have family ties, to the detriment of the team.
Click to expand...
Martinez, Helu, Gerry, Alexander, Roach, O'Hanlon, etc... There are plenty of examples to the contrary. Every fanbase of every sport in the country thinks there are guys on the bench who are better. This isn't something unique to Nebraska.
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Doesn't matter if everyone around the country or nobody around the country does it. Fact is, Pelini should not have been starting at Center. Eric Martin should have been on the field nearly every down. Zaire Anderson is BY FAR the superior athlete to any other starter we've had.

 
Dillard was in the doghouse. He managed to pull himself out of it. So in the end, I guess you could say that was a well-managed doghouse and it got the most out of the player.

Generally, with the Pelini era I'm not talking about times when there were planned rotations, or times when guys came from behind to win starting jobs. It's the guys who, whether they deservedly were #1 on the depth chart or not, seemed to have a stranglehold on the position despite not playing well. Nothing against those players, but I thought everyone would have benefited from the coaches sending the message, "OK, you're not performing on game day? Someone else will get there shot."

The issue I think is it took a lot for players to earn the staff's full confidence. The ones who got there weren't just going to get hooked for some other guy.

And it's true -- that probably happens at every program, especially in college.

 
There isn't one coach anywhere in the county that there hasn't been a player here and there that thought they should be playing over the guy in front of them. It's an opinion. It's the coach's opinion on who they think should be playing. You might disagree with that opinion. But, that's why he is coaching and you aren't.

 
knapplc said:
Doesn't matter if everyone around the country or nobody around the country does it. Fact is, Pelini should not have been starting at Center. Eric Martin should have been on the field nearly every down. Zaire Anderson is BY FAR the superior athlete to any other starter we've had.
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Why? I didn't see much difference no matter who was playing center.

 
StPaulHusker said:
throwing bones said:
HuskerinSunDiego said:
Bo Pelini's philosphy for first-teamers was kinda like what happens in short track speed skating in the winter Olympics: the first person to take over first place always won because nobody could pass them. Likewise, it was mind-numbing to see a guy become a starter and only lose his position if his leg fell off. Although Bo had promised that each position was up for grabs each week for practice, nothing was further from the truth.

It will be nice to see guys actually competing for jobs. It will be nice to see a backup inserted in the game when the starter allows three sacks, gets blown off the ball, or goes 3-12 in the first half. Gone are the days of grabbing the first team position in your sophomore year and only relinquishing it upon graduation.
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I don't recall Banderas's leg falling off when he was replaced by Roach?
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But we watched Cotton fall on national TV and didn't get replaced
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That was funny and all, but the guy was off balance. It was either try to hold still until the snap, lunge forward, or put a foot back. Of the three, the first is the only one that had the possibility of not drawing a false-start penalty. Granted, the odds weren't great (as we saw) but the other two options that he had were 100% certain to draw a flag; it probably took a lot of self-control to not make any blatant attempt to right himself.

It's still hilarious.

 
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