Minnesota: What Did We Learn?

[Red Five]

People always gripe on football-specific fansites, but I don't think the Husker gen pop turned on Scott Frost, Bo Pelini, or Bill Callahan as quickly or as angrily as they have on Matt Rhule in Game 7 of Season Three, which is roughly the place where they gave up on Mike Riley.

Disagree hard on a few things. The normie Husker fans were out on Callahan and Riley way faster than game 7 of year 3. Hell, I think most normie Husker fans wouldn't have batted an eye if Callahan was fired after year 1 (remember year 1 had Dailey running out of bounds vs So Miss, Beau Davis in Lubbock, and f'n hillbillies).

And I don't think that the normie Husker fan is out on Rhule yet. I think it is just the internet bubble where everything is either the best ever or worst ever with no gray area in between.

 

[gossamorharpy]

People always gripe on football-specific fansites, but I don't think the Husker gen pop turned on Scott Frost, Bo Pelini, or Bill Callahan as quickly or as angrily as they have on Matt Rhule in Game 7 of Season Three, which is roughly the place where they gave up on Mike Riley. A lot of the criticism is informed football analytics.

If Rhule lost his Penn State courtship and Nebraskans faith in the same game, that's one epic meltdown. He has every opportunity to win us back and at this point two more wins and no embarrassing losses might be enough to earn him another trip to the portal with a commitment to down linemen and a hot seat for the staff. A week ago I'd have said it's unthinkable Rhule's seat would be this hot this season. And we might never have an easier Big10 schedule.

Husker fans have been slammed for having too high expectations, but what's the option? Some yearn for Bo Pelini's 9 win consistency, but every one of those seven seasons ended with Nebraska barely ranked or unranked, irrelevant to college football and trending downward, and if you weren't around for that trust me -- no one was willing to accept that as the new status quo.

We may never have the 40 year run we once had -- maybe no one will -- but every now and then we should get to be Indiana or Vanderbilt or Arizona State or SMU or Missouri or Iowa State or even frikkin Minnesota.

I dont think husker fans have turned on Rhule. I think last week was just a calamity of BS surrounding the football program from start to finish. You start the week with the highs of the maryland game that are quickly deflated with the penn state franklin firing and subsequent rhule rumor mill. Midweek you get a pretty weak presser response from rhule where he basically professed his love for penn state, didnt shoot down the rumors and then punted responsibility by saying his wife calls the shots. Then you end the week with an absolute f'n dud against a beat up minnesota team that we were favored to beat on the road by 7.5-9.5 points depending on the book. Neutral site game or home this probably would've been a Nebraska -10.5 to 12 spread.

I think where husker fans frustrations stem from is Friday was literally the same script we've seen for a decade now. As it pertains to rhule, its eerily similar to last year- start strong and then crap comes crashing down right when you're at bowl eligibility. As far as opponents go, given UCLA beat maryland, Minny mightve been our 2nd easiest game remaining besides northwestern and to get flat out demolished in the way we did its hard not to be pissed off as hell

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Disagree hard on a few things. The normie Husker fans were out on Callahan and Riley way faster than game 7 of year 3. Hell, I think most normie Husker fans wouldn't have batted an eye if Callahan was fired after year 1 (remember year 1 had Dailey running out of bounds vs So Miss, Beau Davis in Lubbock, and f'n hillbillies).

And I don't think that the normie Husker fan is out on Rhule yet. I think it is just the internet bubble where everything is either the best ever or worst ever with no gray area in between.

Just to clarify my 100% anecdotal observation. There has traditionally be a major difference between informed Husker fans dissecting schemes and personnel on HuskerBoard, and Husker fans who post photos of their watch parties on Facebook. Those older Facebook Husker fans are far more forgiving, worry that firing coaches will make Nebraska look bad, and would have been happy just handing the job to Mickey Joseph. There are lots of these fans.

I noticed several of those same people were genuinely pissed about Friday's game and had no trouble putting the heat on Matt Rhule and his flirtation with Penn State.

 

[Mavric]

So, isn’t that showing we’re above average in numbers of quality drives and about average in turning them into points?

Not entirely sure what the difference is but this graph is showing similar data but illustrates an even more stark contrast between the rate at which we create quality drives (appear to be in the mid-80 percentile range) and points per quality drive (looks like 40-ish percentile).

 

[ranch boy]

I think fans turn on coaches when they don't deliver on their promise.

Callahan and Riley were just bad fits.

Pelini was a defensive guy and the heat turned to an 11 when he gave up 400 rushing yards to Gordon.

Rhule was a builder and developer. Well, Friday was arguably worse than game one. So where's the development? What's been built?

Special teams is better, but that should never be a liability. Culture might be better, but what good is that when you still get embarrassed whenever you play with any stakes?

Can't speak for anyone else, but I was ready to believe in the Rhule promise if we were 7-1 going into USC, no matter what those seven wins looked like (because they really haven't been pretty). But we aren't and I have lost any faith I may have had. All the glaring issues you could squint past if they kept winning can't be ignored anymore. Not sure what rabbits he can pull out here.

 

[lo country]

I'm not crazy! Based on the other deep balls we got to Hunter that were covered or dropped not convinced it would be a TD, but maybe.

If only Dylan could/would run in those ROO’s. No one is taking him in those. They are blowing up the RB. I think all Dylan would see was green. Just try it a few times against NW. Make the remaining 4 teams think about it.

 

[Undone]

I think fans turn on coaches when they don't deliver on their promise.

Callahan and Riley were just bad fits.

Pelini was a defensive guy and the heat turned to an 11 when he gave up 400 rushing yards to Gordon.

Rhule was a builder and developer. Well, Friday was arguably worse than game one. So where's the development? What's been built?

Special teams is better, but that should never be a liability. Culture might be better, but what good is that when you still get embarrassed whenever you play with any stakes?

Can't speak for anyone else, but I was ready to believe in the Rhule promise if we were 7-1 going into USC, no matter what those seven wins looked like (because they really haven't been pretty). But we aren't and I have lost any faith I may have had. All the glaring issues you could squint past if they kept winning can't be ignored anymore. Not sure what rabbits he can pull out here.

Great post. I agree with basically all of this, but I'd just say that there are five more games to play.

If we can steal a win from another opponent that we weren't supposed to win in the first place, it'll work out.

A lot of people on this board expected 9-3. I'm not saying "everybody," but a lot. That was too high, the team just isn't there yet. But, we could still pull off 8-4 with some luck.

 

[DrinkinwitTerrellFarley]

Great post. I agree with basically all of this, but I'd just say that there are five more games to play.

If we can steal a win from another opponent that we weren't supposed to win in the first place, it'll work out.

A lot of people on this board expected 9-3. I'm not saying "everybody," but a lot. That was too high, the team just isn't there yet. But, we could still pull off 8-4 with some luck.

I think 8-4 is the bottom to show improvement and have belief that Nebraska took a big step forward this season. With about as easy as a schedule as anyone will get in the Big Ten, anything less and doubt creeps in and the hot seat talk starts up next season. I would really like Penn State to name their new head coach in the next 2 or 3 weeks and end the will he or won't he stuff but that's probably not expected.

 

[Hilltop]

I think 8-4 is the bottom to show improvement and have belief that Nebraska took a big step forward this season. With about as easy as a schedule as anyone will get in the Big Ten, anything less and doubt creeps in and the hot seat talk starts up next season. I would really like Penn State to name their new head coach in the next 2 or 3 weeks and end the will he or won't he stuff but that's probably not expected.

I don't disagree that 8 wins was/is the expectation. Show some improvement after that horrible game at Minnesota or this year will feel like a failure. However, the strength of schedule talk gets old. Nobody really knows who will or won't be good from year to year. So much is timing of when you play a team as well. For instance, UCLA is a much different team currently than they were early in the year. Our strength of schedule ranking has increases significantly since the pre-season and we are currently ranked around the 34th most difficult. While we are missing Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana, we are also missing the "easy" conference games this year against Wisconsin, Purdue, and Rutgers. Our power 4 opponents currently have a record of 44-26. Our remaining opponents have a combined record of 21-14. Of those, Northwestern is on a 4 game winning streak, UCLA is on a 3 game winning streak, and USC and Iowa are 3-1 in the conference. Penn State, on paper, is the only game that looks easier. I think we all know that is a tough matchup for anyone.

Our remaining schedule is anything but easy... If we can win 2-3 more games the season will feel pretty damn good IMO.

 

[SouthLincoln Husker]

Just to clarify my 100% anecdotal observation. There has traditionally be a major difference between informed Husker fans dissecting schemes and personnel on HuskerBoard, and Husker fans who post photos of their watch parties on Facebook. Those older Facebook Husker fans are far more forgiving, worry that firing coaches will make Nebraska look bad, and would have been happy just handing the job to Mickey Joseph. There are lots of these fans.

I noticed several of those same people were genuinely pissed about Friday's game and had no trouble putting the heat on Matt Rhule and his flirtation with Penn State.

On this forum. This not the majority!

 

[TGHusker]

I think 8-4 is the bottom to show improvement and have belief that Nebraska took a big step forward this season. With about as easy as a schedule as anyone will get in the Big Ten, anything less and doubt creeps in and the hot seat talk starts up next season. I would really like Penn State to name their new head coach in the next 2 or 3 weeks and end the will he or won't he stuff but that's probably not expected.

Agreed. The schedule got even easier with the PSU collapse. I have a hard time seeing 8-4 now and 7-5 isn't much of an improvement over last year's 6-6 with this schedule.

 

[lo country]

I’m just hoping to catch 6 wins at this point. Part of me thinks we are regressing. Then the whole “we need to do better”. “More physical than us”. “We were in a fight”. “Need to get the run game going”. “Defense was vanilla”. “We had a team meeting and every truth came out”. “Coach Rhule and I talk about 100 times a day”.

I’m sick of coach speak.

Been waiting since Bo was fired to see the turn around. Still hoping for that drunk monkey to show up to get us to 9-10 wins.
Just win. Shut up and win. And run the damn ball.

 

[gossamorharpy]

I’m just hoping to catch 6 wins at this point. Part of me thinks we are regressing. Then the whole “we need to do better”. “More physical than us”. “We were in a fight”. “Need to get the run game going”. “Defense was vanilla”. “We had a team meeting and every truth came out”. “Coach Rhule and I talk about 100 times a day”.

I’m sick of coach speak.

Been waiting since Bo was fired to see the turn around. Still hoping for that drunk monkey to show up to get us to 9-10 wins.
Just win. Shut up and win. And run the damn ball.

We’ll get it this week. At home, coming off an embarassing loss against our easiest game remaining this year.

If we don’t, I don’t think Rhule needs to be concerned with Penn state. He’ll need to be more concerned with his job security

 

[Undone]

Just a quick point of (major) clarification: there's a difference between one's "gun-to-your-head" prediction of what'll happen and what your expectations are.

I expected Rhule to have us at a minimum of 8-4 by year 3, given his track record.

But my genuine preseason prediction was 7-5. Looks like we're right on track to finish with a disappointing 7-5 - but obviously I want to be wrong so bad.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Honestly, the team lost me in the third quarter of the Michigan State game. They looked helpless. Been a fan for 60 years and I said to myself "I can't do this anymore."

Of course they won me back completely over the next 15 minutes, then had me feeling pretty darned good using their new closers instinct to beat Maryland. I convinced myself that something felt different this season. Had a really cautious feeling about Minnesota, but didn't expect a full bed-crapping.

They have to win two of the next five - any two - just to tread water, and a bowl win would allow for actual optimism.

But I know I will end up watching every game for the rest of my life.