Hail Varsity: The Most Consistent and Replicable Thing

[Saunders]

Whatever prediction you were comfortable making in public, my guess is it didn’t include a loss to Colorado and definitely not having no Week 1 game at all.

If you were basing your definition of success for Nebraska in this first year on a win total, the last two weeks may have made it tough to hit.

But if 2018 is only about the long play, about Nebraska football getting better and showing the potential to be even better further down the road, then this loss was a resounding win.

It’s hard to view football that way. A win is a win and a loss is a loss, right? In most cases, yes. Football fans rarely talk about how “good” a team was. It’s easier to talk about how many games a team won. The wins are the proof. Even though a win or a loss isn’t always the best proof of how good a team is or will likely be, it’s how we’ve all agreed to keep score.

So Nebraska is behind now on that scoreboard, but Saturday proved to me that the Huskers will be ahead even sooner than I may have thought. The Huskers won the majority of downs on both offense and defense.

The most consistent and replicable thing.

https://hailvarsity.com/s/4683/the-most-consistent-and-replicable-thing

 

[Nebfanatic]

I'm a huge Frost guy but I'm honestly already tired of the moral victory excuse. We lost simple as that. We looked like we are getting better and we probably are but I think we will know more about that next week. But I hate when this article says this was a resounding win under any definition. No, it was a loss with some glimpses of something good. This moral victory bs is especially annoying after the Mike Riley era. If there is no such thing as a moral victry for Riley it is the same for Frost. That doesn't mean there weren't some positives to take away, but there is no way you can characterize that game as a resounding win.

 

[Saunders]

I think that’s a fair statement. But since we’re making the comparison...  the difference to me between Frost and Riley is how the teams look. At no point during the Riley era did it ever look like we were better than the previous regime. After yesterday’s loss, even as i was leaving the stadium, i felt that the team looked better than it had in a loooong time.

Did we lose the game? Yup. And that sucked. But i can see the potential there. Missing the Akron game turned this game into a loss, no doubt in my mind.

The Big West doesn’t scare me. None of the other offenses are anything like CU (let alone QB play), and I’ll think we’ll be just fine.

 

[C-4]

This isn’t about moral victory. The writer is saying that he saw the building blocks for greater success in the future. They say, “we won the majority of downs on offense and defense. That’s the most replicable thing.” That’s a great building block. Changing the defensive scheme from a Diaco D to an aggressive 7 sack D is also a great building block. We saw speed injected into our offense, particularly from a super-talented a QB. He may or may not be down for a while, but this is a great building block for the future. I saw a general philosophy of play slow and play to not lose change into play fast and play to win.

Transisitions take time. Almost all of the noteable coaching hires of the past three years lost their first game. Likewise for Frost, in the off-season we all understood this and that this season wasn’t about the W-L, but rather seeing if these blocks were in place for greater future success. We all saw them against Colorado, and while some of us choose to be impatient and “forget” our words this offseason, many of us can feel great about how this program is shaping up. 

Again, this is not about moral victory. I threw up in my mouth every time someone tried to say Arkansas State was a good team and beating them in a nail-biter was a good thing. We could see how terrible our new Diaco D was in that game. We could see how bad Lee and the offense were. There were no good building blocks there. I and many here could see we were in for a rough season after that win. And now, after Frost’s first game, many can see that we are in for some great football in the future after this loss.

 

[Nebfanatic]

I think that’s a fair statement. But since we’re making the comparison...  the difference to me between Frost and Riley is how the teams look. At no point during the Riley era did it ever look like we were better than the previous regime. After yesterday’s loss, even as i was leaving the stadium, i felt that the team looked better than it had in a loooong time.

Did we lose the game? Yup. And that sucked. But i can see the potential there. Missing the Akron game turned this game into a loss, no doubt in my mind.

The Big West doesn’t scare me. None of the other offenses are anything like CU (let alone QB play), and I’ll think we’ll be just fine.

Look I'm not aguing there. I liked the way we looked out there at times and the main point of the article is spot on. The way we dominated the LOS is something we can repeat. But I just wish the author would refrain from using the term resounding victory. 

 

[ZRod]

I'm a huge Frost guy but I'm honestly already tired of the moral victory excuse. We lost simple as that. We looked like we are getting better and we probably are but I think we will know more about that next week. But I hate when this article says this was a resounding win under any definition. No, it was a loss with some glimpses of something good. This moral victory bs is especially annoying after the Mike Riley era. If there is no such thing as a moral victry for Riley it is the same for Frost. That doesn't mean there weren't some positives to take away, but there is no way you can characterize that game as a resounding win.

I think with what happened last year, having a new staff this year, new philosophies, new true freshman QB who hasn't taken a live snap in over a year, and a cancelled first game this is about as close to a moral victory as you can get. We saw a lot of good things, especially on defense! The future is bright!

 

[Nebfanatic]

I think with what happened last year, having a new staff this year, new philosophies, new true freshman QB who hasn't taken a live snap in over a year, and a cancelled first game this is about as close to a moral victory as you can get. We saw a lot of good things, especially on defense! The future is bright!

No. I don't care how good we looked out there. No moral victories. They don't exist. You win or you lose. I like the fight I saw from this team and I am excited for the future but we should have won and since we didn't we lost. We can talk about the positives and negatives but this was not a resounding win thats all.

 

[Mierin]

No. I don't care how good we looked out there. No moral victories. They don't exist. You win or you lose. I like the fight I saw from this team and I am excited for the future but we should have won and since we didn't we lost. We can talk about the positives and negatives but this was not a resounding win thats all.

“moral victory” is not the same as “resounding win.”  I agree with you that the latter is stupid. But most would say some of the things you are saying are moral victories. It just means we lost but there are things to feel good about.

 

[Nebfanatic]

“moral victory” is not the same as “resounding win.”  I agree with you that the latter is stupid. But most would say some of the things you are saying are moral victories. It just means we lost but there are things to feel good about.

Fair enough. I just prefer not to refer to it as a victory. Call it what it is and learn from the mistakes. Losing happens and can create better winners, but not if we can feel good about losing. 

 

[lo country]

I don't believe in moral victories. Never have and never will.  You win or you lose.  However, I do believe that adversity shows the true character of a person/team.  You learn far more how a team is and can see more true potential when they lose.  The body language last night was guys who believe in the process, see that it is working, realized the mistakes etc...There was no quit.  Even going 14 points down. They fought back and were a play or two (less 1-2 miscues) from winning.  No Riley team would have come back from that. They were "programmed" to lose.  Unsure if a Pelini team after 2010 comes back either. Those teams were mentally soft.  I can think back to many games under previous staffs and remember the "gut punch" that occurred and realized we were done.  Last nights team wasn't quitting.  No matter how things got.

We lost.  We beat ourselves.  IMHO, some coaching decisions hurt as well, but the team won't quit on Frost, each other or the fans......I just need to keep reminding myself that this is a new staff, new players, new scheme and there will be some bumps in the road.  I had thought we'd be 3-0 heading into Michigan.  Now we might be 1-1 with a walk-on QB...I'll continue to see how we respond.

 

[Undone]

I'll preface this by saying these two things:

1. Winning every game we play is extremely important to me. It's just in my DNA. When we lose - to anyone - it's like a punch to the gut.

2. I believe that this loss was absolutely NOT on Reed.

This was a game where even if Reed doesn't make contact with their receiver and then if they don't convert on that 4th down and a mile and we ice the game, the way I'd feel about our potential is exactly the same - we've got a ton of potential. We had 565 yards of total offense against a halfway decent Power 5 team. 

Turnovers and penalties are fixable. If any staff is capable of fixing them in the country I'd put my money on this one to do it.

Everything is fine. Let's beat the **** out of Troy next week and get our heads on straight to beat Michigan.