That Talent Question Again

I think getting the right guys into place will certainly help. Having Domann at OLB was a big difference imo and that is just one spot. 

 
I said all off season we had the most talent in the West, because I believe in the recruiting rankings in general although I know there are lots of individual exceptions. My argument was we had talent but it hasn't been coached well. But when we went 0-6 I really started to question it. I still think we probably do have talent but it needed more than 8 months worth of coaching to show. We'll see next year what our juniors and seniors do and that'll answer the question better.

Some of these guys already look a lot more talented now than they did in September. It's not like they gained in talent overnight. That talent was always there, but they were doing stupid things a lot more often before.

 
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Moiraine said:
I said all off season we had the most talent in the West, because I believe in the recruiting rankings in general although I know there are lots of individual exceptions. My argument was we had talent but it hasn't been coached well. But when we went 0-6 I really started to question it. I still think we probably do have talent but it needed more than 8 months worth of coaching to show. We'll see next year what our juniors and seniors do and that'll answer the question better.

Some of these guys already look a lot more talented now than they did in September. It's not like they gained in talent overnight. That talent was always there, but they were doing stupid things a lot more often before.
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I agree with most of that. With subtractions and transfers from the classes, I think the rankings would look a little bit different now though.

 
brophog said:
Not to be a wet blanket, but this is the worst Husker offense of the Scott Frost era. 
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I have seen Scott Frost's best Offense to date (with a Heisman trophy winner) vs a much better OSU defense in 2014. I am fine with OSU's best vs Scott Frost's best. The good thing for Nebraska is that Scott Frost is a better HC than Helfrich.

ZRod said:
I've considered this, but it's still an Urban Meyer coached team (maybe one of his worst though). Regardless this Husker team would have rolled over the last 3.5 years as soon as tOSU got a lead or turnover, they did earlier this year with Michigan. Mentally they've turned a corner since that game. Showing up to a game and knowing you can win (something they lacked for sometime), along with good schemes, can make a huge difference despite talent gaps.
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This isn't your typical Urban Meyer team and I was just trying to point that out in my post. As a team Nebraska is trending in the right direction, I don't know if I can say that about OSU this year.

olddominionhusker said:
A year of transition you say. Hmm I wonder if another team on that field was/is in transition as well. 

Now continue enjoying your win before Michigan stomps you to the curb in a few weeks and Urban reveals he has been suffering from Ebola, fibromyalgia and erectile dysfunction 
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I don't think most OSU fans are enjoying the wins this year and there is a good chance that OSU gets soundly beat by Michigan. 

I was just trying to provide some context from the OSU side of things and I figured most would take it differently than I intended. I am not looking for anyone on here to like OSU or say good things about them. 

 
I don’t think we’ll ever be able to load our team with talent like OSU, Michigan,  etc but with the right guys, coached the right way we can compete with anyone . I think we saw that last week and it will only get better . 

 
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@jaws I know what you mean. Just giving you a little of our perspective, even though your well versed.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I didn't get the feeling Nebraska was pulling out all the stops, playing over their heads, or just getting lucky. Ohio State didn't look really sharp, but they had two weeks to prepare, a halftime to make adjustments, and a huge motivation to stay in the playoff hunt -- including style points.
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Agreed - I don't think we played over our heads. We looked like a defense that was motivated to win the game. That was the difference.

Perceived "defensive talent" usually has much more to do with speed than any other hard-to-pinpoint quality. On defense, the goal is to fly to the ball. The faster you fly to the ball, the better the product is.

We have one corner, two starting linebackers, and one safety that just aren't fast enough to compete consistently with average to good teams. Until those guys are replaced with faster players, the product won't look all that much better on defense than it has this season. If our guys stay motivated, in my opinion this defensive roster still doesn't even get up to "average." But it can have its moments.

Even next year, our only real hope of winning the West is having an offense that can score 35-40 points minimum in every conference game we play until we land some good defensive classes whose recruits come to fruition. 

 
jaws said:
Not to be a wet blanket and I truly think that Nebraska is heading in the right direction, but this is the worse Buckeye defense since at least 2011 and this is a year of transition for the Buckeyes. 

Now continue with the the positive Husker talk. 
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I'm not sure I've read where anyone is saying that we almost beat the next national champion team.  But, OSU is still very talented and should have come into the game with a huge lead in confidence.

If you look at where our team started the year and how they played on Saturday, you would easily see why Nebraska fans are excited about where we are at.

NOBODY is claiming we are where we ultimately want to be.  We want to be competitive with the OSUs and Michigans of the world when those teams are at their best.  We feel we are headed in that direction.  We proved earlier this year, we were no where close to Michigan.  We proved on Saturday that we can be competitive with OSU (this year).  Now, we need to keep moving forward so we are competitive with both of these programs in the years to come.

As for the original topic.  I've always said we have talent on this team to compete with just about anyone in the conference.....especially in the West.  I think Saturday proved that.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
As for the original topic.  I've always said we have talent on this team to compete with just about anyone in the conference.....especially in the West.  I think Saturday proved that.
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So...please explain why during the first half of the season our total defense ranked 100+ in FBS football.

Edit: And I'm asking that genuinely. What is the explanation? A bad case of "The Riley Quits?" Lack of motivation? Bad coaching?

 
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ColoradoHusk said:
I’m sure NU played more “talented” teams during the 90s run, but not very often. However, the national championship teams were loaded with talent up and down the roster.  I agree that they played as a team, and were led by great coaches, but let’s not pretend like Nebraska was fielding average talent level teams. 
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The bolded really wasn't implied at all.  The 94' NC team wasn't built with top 5 or even top 10 recruiting classes.  A good/great coach will have teams performing above their class rankings which is what TO did.  Clownahan and Riley coached teams that were worse than their recruiting class rankings.  Bo pretty much coached teams to perform on par with their recruiting class rankings.  I know a lot of fans are excited and believe Frost is going to bring in a bunch of top 10 recruiting classes.  I don't see this as being the case.  I see us bringing in a bunch of 11-25 ranked recruiting classes with an occasional top 10.  However, I see him doing much more with the talent he brings in than the three previous coaching staffs.

 
Mavric said:
  • You can always use more talent
  • We don't have as much talent as Ohio State or Michgan and probably never will
  • We have enough talent to be competitive with anyone on our schedule


    We proved this yesterday when we played toe-to-toe with a Top 10 team on the road despite not really playing all that great

[*]There are things that need rebuilt.  But the biggest part of the rebuild was accomplished with the hiring of a new coaching staff.

[*]The next biggest part of the rebuild is between the ears and it is well underway



With another recruiting class, another off-season in the weight room and nutrition table and another spring practice and fall camp to get all the schemes completely installed, we will barely remember 2-7 next year.
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I think you're exactly right here. With regards to talent, I see two things and one is probably more or less wrong. 

First, I think more than the talent ceiling, it's a depth issue. If any of our guys goes down or is gassed, we're more or less SOL. This team has had me the most fearful of any team out there. When Washington got hurt early against tOSU, I felt it hurt our ability to stick to the ground game. It feels pretty clear to me that behind the 1st stringers, there's not a lot to look forward to. This feels consistent with the documented attrition that we've had from past recruiting classes. 

Second, I think we need the talent to generate a pass rush when we need to. While we've been so much better at getting sacks this season, I feel like there are far too many downs where we give QBs a clean pocket to make their throw. This may (strongly) contribute to why our DBs struggle so much at times. The D-line is the only place where I feel something is really off at this point. 

 
Speaking of defense - we have 1.2 takeways per game. Last 3 games we have 2 takeaways per game. We are 83rd in takeaways per game, but tied for ~21st in most takeaways over the past 3 games. We are 107th in turnover margin on the season, but tied for ~36th over the past 3 games.

The main reason I was okay with Chin coming here was that the defense got takeaways. UCF gave a lot of yards but they got the ball for their offense. If we can continue the trend of increasing takeaways it would go a long way. (They also need to give up less yards but I’m withholding judgement until next season).

Also, we are 109th in scoring defense, but 85th over the past 3 games. Ya, it still sucks. But it’s getting better. 

 
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