I have never felt worse about Nebraska football

[Husker in WI]

I disagree that a center is a tough position to evaluate when snapping the ball is a unique factor to that position.  There were a couple of high snaps in the last game alone that we were fortunate Martinez was able to catch so I have not seen consistency in snapping for the 2020 season.  Moreover, besides these example of a lack of development, I think for many players we are seeing stagnation or only very minor improvements from a year ago, but for this program to really get to the next level, we need to be seeing MAJOR improvements across the board in many players.  

What do you attribue for the 2020 team averaging 6 points fewer per game than 2019 while giving up 3 more points a game on the defensive side of the ball?  

Right so one aspect of the position is easy to evaluate - I don't think that's enough to say there's been no progress. 

I just wasn't expecting to see much improvement from Stoll or Mills to begin with. They are who they are as 5th year seniors - at least that's what I think Mills works out to be. I do still expect to see development from younger guys, and I think we have. Allen took a huge leap forward this year, although he stretches the definition of younger guy a bit. I really don't know how to judge OL development - clearly the line this year isn't flat out better than last year, but I think it's improving. The receivers seem to be progressing, we just missed them last week. They've been open the past few weeks, and until Martinez aggravated his shoulder we were mostly hitting them. 

The short and cheap answer for the bold is no non conference schedule. The longer answer (which many people aren't buying, and that's fine) is we really just deferred playing young guys until this year, so there's a lot of first time players. We should absolutely expect Martin/Betts/Brown/etc to produce more, and for Piper/Benhart/etc to be better than Wilson/Hixson/Farniok. But right now they're making up the experience difference. You don't have to buy it, but there are tangible signs of improvement.

My biggest issue is we didn't get the gaps from players bailing with Riley filled, so we're still in this experience deficit 3 years in. A lot of breaks didn't go their way building the roster up - we would feel wildly different about this offense if Washington got his crap together and bought into the program, Hunt wasn't a piece of garbage, and guys like Miles Jones and Darien Chase were able to stick around. Heck, even having one of Thompkins, Scott, or Morrison healthy for all of "fall camp" and the season would have been huge. Frost didn't do himself any favors with the risks on some of those guys, but there is an alternate universe where we have a healthy 1-2 punch of Mills and good Washignton, with guys like Chase and Jones on the perimeter actually knowing what they're doing and being athletic enough to make plays. Unfortunately that's not where we are. 

 

[J-MAGIC]

For starters, Cam Jurgens continues to disappoint and is an example of a lack of progress.  Remember it was Frost's decision to remove him from his high school position where he was highly touted and move him to the OL.  Also, Dedrick Mills (before his injury this season) did not look as good and has averaged 3.5 yards per carry compared to 5.2 and 5.1 last year. Perhaps you can blame this on the entire OL as our entire rushing production from the RB position is way down.  Jack Stoll would be another one who, despite missing the NW game, he has only averaged 7.5 YPG this year compared to around 20 the prior 2 seasons.  

Dawg ... Martinez went from throwing to Stan Morgan and JD Spielman his freshman to a bunch of guys outside of Wandale who wouldn't see the two deep at any other Big Ten school. The snaps have got to get fixed but Jurgens is our best offensive lineman. Stoll hurt his knee in the first game and didn't play for six weeks. Mills also got hurt. Individual players don't succeed or fail in a vacuum. Come on. If this is your argument, you don't have an argument.

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

guys who have improved a bunch since Frost took over:

Collin Miller

Will Honas

Ben Stille

Dicaprio Bootle (some think he still isn't good but he has improved)

Austin Allen

Cam Jurgens. Even though the high snaps are problem his blocking has improved since he 1st started.  Just watch the difference between him and his replacement

Dedrick Mills.  if you look at his running style before he got here and what he did by the end of last year you can see an improvement.  I don't know what his health is like this year but he still runs hard and he holds onto the ball.  He's also a hell of a blocker.

This team is getting better and I truly believe once they can string a few wins together in a row they will understand what it takes.  It's not always the best players but the right players at the right time.

 

[Husker in WI]

guys who have improved a bunch since Frost took over:

Collin Miller

Will Honas

Ben Stille

Dicaprio Bootle (some think he still isn't good but he has improved)

Austin Allen

Cam Jurgens. Even though the high snaps are problem his blocking has improved since he 1st started.  Just watch the difference between him and his replacement

Dedrick Mills.  if you look at his running style before he got here and what he did by the end of last year you can see an improvement.  I don't know what his health is like this year but he still runs hard and he holds onto the ball.  He's also a hell of a blocker.

This team is getting better and I truly believe once they can string a few wins together in a row they will understand what it takes.  It's not always the best players but the right players at the right time.

You can add a few more as well:

Damion Daniels

Casey Rogers

Marquel Dismuke (similar to Bootle, but 1. he's solid, and 2. he's so, so much better than he was under Diaco)

CTB

Outside of Wan'Dale and Mills, the rest of our skill guys are seeing their first meaningful playing time this year so it's hard to judge improvement yet.

 

[FrantzHardySwag]

I want to focus on offense...

Hard to preach progress/improvement when we've gotten progressively worse at: Total Yards, Points per Game, Yards per Play, Turnovers per Game, 3rd Down Conv. - since Frost has arrived. Players are getting older, and spending more time in the system and are running the offense worse than when Frost first arrived. The offense in Year 2 was worse than Year 1. The offense in Year 3 is worse than in Year 2. Not only is there a lack of progress, it's getting worse. We can discuss guys individually better, but as a unit there is a definite downward trend. 

 

[HuskerNation1]

Dawg ... Martinez went from throwing to Stan Morgan and JD Spielman his freshman to a bunch of guys outside of Wandale who wouldn't see the two deep at any other Big Ten school. The snaps have got to get fixed but Jurgens is our best offensive lineman. Stoll hurt his knee in the first game and didn't play for six weeks. Mills also got hurt. Individual players don't succeed or fail in a vacuum. Come on. If this is your argument, you don't have an argument.

Martinez has missed plenty of wide open receivers this season in situations that would have likely made a difference in the outcome of the game.  His accuracy on the 10--plus yard throws has gotten much worse, and I don't think you can blame that on losing Morgan and Spielman. 

 

[HuskerNation1]

guys who have improved a bunch since Frost took over:

Collin Miller

Will Honas

Ben Stille

Dicaprio Bootle (some think he still isn't good but he has improved)

Austin Allen

Cam Jurgens. Even though the high snaps are problem his blocking has improved since he 1st started.  Just watch the difference between him and his replacement

Dedrick Mills.  if you look at his running style before he got here and what he did by the end of last year you can see an improvement.  I don't know what his health is like this year but he still runs hard and he holds onto the ball.  He's also a hell of a blocker.

This team is getting better and I truly believe once they can string a few wins together in a row they will understand what it takes.  It's not always the best players but the right players at the right time.

I actually think we have seen more development on the defensive side of the ball.  Our LBs all have looked better along with Cam Taylor.  The overall defensive unit still has a ways to go but it has not gotten worse over the past 3 years unlike on the offensive side of things.

 

[J-MAGIC]

I want to focus on offense...

Hard to preach progress/improvement when we've gotten progressively worse at: Total Yards, Points per Game, Yards per Play, Turnovers per Game, 3rd Down Conv. - since Frost has arrived. Players are getting older, and spending more time in the system and are running the offense worse than when Frost first arrived. The offense in Year 2 was worse than Year 1. The offense in Year 3 is worse than in Year 2. Not only is there a lack of progress, it's getting worse. We can discuss guys individually better, but as a unit there is a definite downward trend. 

Our offense by SP+ rating:

2017: 85

2018: 42

2019: 41

2020: ... 36

It has not been nearly good enough for the way Frost wants to play or what we expected. It is also not on a "definite downward trend."

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

You can add a few more as well:

Damion Daniels

Casey Rogers

Marquel Dismuke (similar to Bootle, but 1. he's solid, and 2. he's so, so much better than he was under Diaco)

CTB

Outside of Wan'Dale and Mills, the rest of our skill guys are seeing their first meaningful playing time this year so it's hard to judge improvement yet.

Casey and Damion have looked pretty good this year but I didn't mention them because of their limited playing time last year.  Yeah Bootle used to give me migraines because he would be right there to make a play on a ball and not be able to and the Rec makes a grab for a big gain.  Cam is better but I thought he was pretty solid and you could see flashes of what is to come in the future.  He would make some bonehead mistakes but always gave good effort.  Now if he could stop getting kicked out of games he could be all-conf.  Probably the only corner in the entire college football landscape to kicked out of two games.

 

[FrantzHardySwag]

Our offense by SP+ rating:

2017: 85

2018: 42

2019: 41

2020: ... 36

It has not been nearly good enough for the way Frost wants to play or what we expected. It is also not on a "definite downward trend."

It’s a definite downward trend in scoring points, gaining yards and turning the ball over. 

 

[EngineeringHusker]

Our offense by SP+ rating:

2017: 85

2018: 42

2019: 41

2020: ... 36

It has not been nearly good enough for the way Frost wants to play or what we expected. It is also not on a "definite downward trend."

I'm surprised it's that high. Never would have guessed.

I also never would have guessed that our second half scoring offense is 126 out of 127 over UMass.  Guess we haven't gone all of the way down.

 

[Huskers93-97]

It’s a definite downward trend in scoring points, gaining yards and turning the ball over. 

I don’t know what SP+ is but obviously it is a s#!t rating system. This is the most pathetic offense at Nebraska in over 60 years. 

 

[FrantzHardySwag]

I don’t know what SP+ is but obviously it is a s#!t rating system. This is the most pathetic offense at Nebraska in over 60 years. 

Yeah I’ve watched every Nebraska game since frost was hired and this is our worst offense since he’s been here. Not really close for me. Add in he had a ton of returning starters on offense and the best class in the west and it’s even more disappointing. I’ve pretty much ceased ripping on chin because he’s done his job. Frost was hired for offense, we can’t be regressing to the point we’re averaging 22 points a game and less than 6 points in the 2nd half. The 

 

[All Hail Herbie]

I don’t know what SP+ is but obviously it is a s#!t rating system. This is the most pathetic offense at Nebraska in over 60 years. 

I agree that the SP+ assessment is highly questionable.  This offense is in the bottom half of college football statistics this season (96th in Total Offense and 105th in Scoring Offense).  I would like to see the formula for how such abysmal stats can compute to a ranking that high.

It defies logic.

 

[Husker in WI]

Yeah I’ve watched every Nebraska game since frost was hired and this is our worst offense since he’s been here. Not really close for me. Add in he had a ton of returning starters on offense and the best class in the west and it’s even more disappointing. I’ve pretty much ceased ripping on chin because he’s done his job. Frost was hired for offense, we can’t be regressing to the point we’re averaging 22 points a game and less than 6 points in the 2nd half. The 

I agree that the SP+ assessment is highly questionable.  This offense is in the bottom half of college football statistics this season (96th in Total Offense and 105th in Scoring Offense).  I would like to see the formula for how such abysmal stats can compute to a ranking that high.

It defies logic.

30s also seems high for me, but it's more logical than the eye test or ignoring who you're playing. The crux of it is this - Buffalo has the top scoring offense in the country. Would they if they played Iowa, Northwestern, Ohio State, etc? Of course not. Would they average more than we have? Probably, which is why they're higher in SP+. But not controlling for competition is why college yardage/points stats are garbage. Those work reasonably well within a conference, or in the NFL when the teams are a lot closer together, not overall in college where the difference between Alabama and UMass is astronomical.

I'm sure it's way more complicated than this, but look at it as comparing how well our offense did against each defense, relative to their other opponents. Our offense had far and away the best performance anyone has had against Iowa this year from a yards per play perspective, and right there with the top group in points. By yards and yards per play, easily the best performance against NW too. We've had a couple real bad offensive games against the easy teams (Illinois and Minny), but we've been pretty good against very good defenses over the year. Just not good enough at getting our of our own way.