Nebraska is the best team in the North

[Tiger of the Corn]

Double vision

 

[husker B-rent]

this thread is exactly what slays me about mizzery... a few winning seasons and suddenly they are the team to beat. win something, something worth bragging about. until that happens, its just gum flappin on mizzery's part , literally.

That's something I'm still trying to figure out. We all know Nebraska hasn't done sh#t yet under Pelini. There's optimism, and for good reason, but this idea that Missouri has arrived as a program is cringe worthy. Arrived at what, exactly?

Good news for us is, they're not going to arrive at anything until they make a commitment to playing defense. Once in awhile they bust out a good performance, but week in week out, not that impressive.

Who said, "We've arrived as a program"?

We're proud of the Tigers.

We went through some hard times...think how sour you would be if you went through what we went through.

We're winning a little bit.

Embrace our enthusiasm.

Have some fun with the rivalry.

You guys are the ones that stir sh*t up by saying how great you are and you're going to go undefeated in the Big XII, etc, etc, etc.

Just relax and have fun till the 8th.

i call BS on the fact that we stir it up! head over to tigerboard or powermizzou or any other tigger board and tell me that they dont think they are going to go 11-1 only losing by 1 to Texas on a fluke play! oh goodness. you guys stir more sh#t than any team in the big 12 north and that is all.

 

[Tiger of the Corn]

i call BS on the fact that we stir it up! head over to tigerboard or powermizzou or any other tigger board and tell me that they dont think they are going to go 11-1 only losing by 1 to Texas on a fluke play! oh goodness. you guys stir more sh#t than any team in the big 12 north and that is all.

Let me rephrase that....

You guys stir up our emotions with your crap talk. :lol:

 

[husker B-rent]

i call BS on the fact that we stir it up! head over to tigerboard or powermizzou or any other tigger board and tell me that they dont think they are going to go 11-1 only losing by 1 to Texas on a fluke play! oh goodness. you guys stir more sh#t than any team in the big 12 north and that is all.

Let me rephrase that....

You guys stir up our emotions with your crap talk. :lol:

fair enough bro!

 

[DocNice]

Without examining schedules we have no context for a discussion. The schedules and how each team fared vs. their competition is the best way of making an educated guess on how our head-to-head game will turn out. It's a flawed method, sure, but it's better than guesswork because it's based on something.

I'm working up some stats for a breakdown of the game coming up, probably next week. So far it looks grim for Missouri, I have to tell you. I think most Missouri fans know this as well, judging by the change in tenor of the posts from our Missouri visitors lately. Earlier in the season the conversation was all about how Missouri had trounced us the last couple of years and how not enough had changed on either team to make up the scoring differences. But after the last two weeks, and especially after the Nevada game, the phrases I'm hearing more often are "if we win, here's what we'll have to do." And that's logical based on what we've seen so far from both teams.

I will not guarantee a Nebraska win. Missouri has a capable coach, a capable team, and they've shown recently that they can put their foot down when necessary. Nebraska has also shown a tendency to self-inflict wounds, game-losing wounds, and this is a tendency we'd hoped to see eliminated this year. But quite clearly it still exists, or at least it still existed two games ago.

I hope you stick around and I hope you enjoy the conversation. ATM it's all we've got.

I know it's all we've got, but we've covered that ground. You want to dismiss the game Mizzou has played as no good. I would do the same if I were you, especially if I didn't know the opponents. I've said before I don't think any of them was close to as good as Nebraska. But I also don't think the games were as close as some here seem to think. There's the score and there's the product on the field.

Take Nevada for instance, a team that most thought would challenge for at least #2 in the WAC (and still could). If you watched that game you cannot tell me that this is not a team that lacks talent, heart and competitiveness. Lots of teams lay an egg versus a top 25 team on the road in the first game of the season. Nevada followed that up with a 5 turnover game vs a good Colorado State team on the road. But if you watched the Mizzou game, you clearly saw two things. #1, the better team won, and even if they scored that 4th quarter TD, Mizzou would have won with room to spare. #2, they played like a good team. I know it's hard to compare teams sometimes, but I've seen enough football to know what two bad teams look like playing each other and that wasn't it.

I think there's a good chance any of those 3 opponents will play in postseason this year. The odds of all 3 doing it are a stretch, but I'd be far more surprised if none did.

Now, this would seem to be an opportune time for me to slam Nebraska's opponents, but rather than start that flame war back up, let me ask you this. What did you learn about your team from playing any of the 3 you played?

For example again, against I-AA Furman, we learned nothing. We learned that vastly superior athletes can dominate inferior talent. But against Illinois we learned that we could contain the big play versus a dangerous playmaker with a big arm (the same one that burned us for 450 yards last year with basically the same personnel around him). We learned that we could run with the best receiving corps in the Big Ten by most sportswriters' accounts. And we learned we could win with the pass even when the D committed to stopping the run. Against Bowling Green, our QB learned how to handle pressure, and our team learned they could pound the ball. We learned the opposite of the other two games, that we could win running the ball when they committed to defending the pass. We also learned that we still know how to win games in the 4th quarter, dominating the second half. And against Nevada, we learned that even against a strong rushing attack, we could stiffen when we needed to, and again we proved we could win without the run.

Perhaps even more importantly, those opponents were good enough to give us things to work on, so that we'll be better the next game we play, just like we were better after Illinois, and after Bowling Green, and will be after Nevada.

So I ask you again, what did you learn about your team?

 

[DocNice]

And Nevada is a good team this year. They didn't show up to Notre Dame, gave up almost all of the Colorado State points on turnovers (CSU is a good team this year BTW) and showed why they were a respected team heading into the season against Mizzou. If you watched the game as you say you did, you know that.

Umm, what? You're making excuses for Nevada? NEVADA?!?!? Right now they're 116th nationally in scoring offense and 109th in scoring defense. They were 7-6 last year. Who exactly respects and even remotely fears Nevada? This is the same team that NU's terrible 2007 squad whipped 52-10.

You've made reasonable, if unconvincing, arguments to this point, but that last one is unbelievable.

I'm not making excuses for them. I'm telling you, they're a good team. That's not an excuse, it's evident in what I saw on the field. Could they self destruct the rest of the year like they did the first two games and make me look like a fool? Sure. But as I said before, I know two bad teams playing when I see it, and that wasn't it.

 

[DocNice]

Watching all of Missouri's games except Furman, I do not agree that Missouri didn't struggle with these opponents. Missouri wasn't comfortably ahead in any of these games until late, with the exception of Illinois. Nevada was within one score in the fourth quarter until fumbling at the goal. You can gloss that over all you like, but the fact of the matter is that an 0-3 team at the bottom of the charts in scoring offense and defense took your team into the fourth quarter, and out-rushed you by a 3:1 ratio.

Who cares if they outrushed us? They're a rushing team and we're a passing team. We outgained them by 200 yards late into the 4th quarter, and we were up by 3 scores. Even if they scored that TD, we had at least 2 more scores in the tank and probably more if needed. One thing we have learned about this team is they don't panic when they're against the wall. I didn't think for a second that Nevada was going to win that game, even if it was closer than I wanted.

Nevada is 0-3 instead of 1-2 because they turned it over 5 times vs CSU. I think they have a lot of weapons and a physical team, and I'll be surprised if they don't get at least 6 wins, and probably a bowl game. But that's just my opinion. Even if you think they're crap and would have dominated them, I'm not the least bit ashamed of 4-0 vs our schedule.

 

[DocNice]

this thread is exactly what slays me about mizzery... a few winning seasons and suddenly they are the team to beat. win something, something worth bragging about. until that happens, its just gum flappin on mizzery's part , literally.

Why wouldn't we be the team to beat? Two straight north titles, and really a bularkey holding call in the final seconds of the ISU game in 2006 (which the league apologized for) would have made it 3 straight. We have the best record by nearly every measure of success for the last 2, 3, 4 even 5 years of anyone in the North. And even if you don't like our competition, I think you'd agree that the predictions of Missouri's demise without Daniel and Maclin are grossly overstated.

 

[Tiger of the Corn]

this thread is exactly what slays me about mizzery... a few winning seasons and suddenly they are the team to beat. win something, something worth bragging about. until that happens, its just gum flappin on mizzery's part , literally.

Why wouldn't we be the team to beat? Two straight north titles, and really a bularkey holding call in the final seconds of the ISU game in 2006 (which the league apologized for) would have made it 3 straight. We have the best record by nearly every measure of success for the last 2, 3, 4 even 5 years of anyone in the North. And even if you don't like our competition, I think you'd agree that the predictions of Missouri's demise without Daniel and Maclin are grossly overstated.

Doc, you're wasting your breath.

There are a couple logical Husker fans here, but the majority (95%) can't be reasoned with.

 

[DocNice]

And I disagreed when they ranked Mizzou #8 in week 2. The problem they're having is that there are just not good top 10 teams right now. Florida and Texas are the closest things, and even they don't look that good this year so far.

I understand your point, but even when a big team loses to a lesser team, it doesn't make sense to knock them waaay out of the rankings. Like I said about USC, even if they lost to Washington and struggled at times against Washington State University, there is now way that there are 17 teams in the nation that are better than USC. I may not like em, but they are still one of the top 4 or 5 best teams in the nation.

To digress a little bit, there's aren't 2 teams in the country more TALENTED than USC, but there might be 20 or so that are better. I've seen three of their games and they quite simply are not good on offense. Good O-line and running backs, but it just goes to show you how important the quarterback position is. Barkley might end up a great one, maybe even by the end of the season, but right now they throw too many interceptions and can't open up the playbook.

 

[DocNice]

Missouri will be suprised early on how physical and talented the Huskers are this year, nothing close to what they've seen so far.

Umm, you act like we've never played a team that knows how to hit. And furthermore, you seem to forget that Mizzou defenses, for while now, but especially this year, have a reputation for laying the lumber.

I find it interesting that so many NU fans seem to think NU is going to be 100% better just because they hit harder and want it more than last year. Perhaps I'm missing something, and if so, I'll be eating crow in a couple of weeks, but I still think NU has a talent gap to make up.

Its not an act, dawg. Not sure why you take one sentence and start wigging out. If you do not think the Huskers have become more physical and more talented than they were last year, then you'll be just as suprised as your team. How is that difficult to understand? Its not even a shot at MU either. The huskers are better this year. They've improved. And it starts with their toughness and how physical they are. You may want to re-read what I wrote entierly instead of jumping up and down and wasting a lot of hot air.

It's not a question of whether the Huskers can hit better than last year. Perhaps I'm overreacting a little bit to other Nebraska fans I've talked to, but a lot of them seem to think you can take the same talent, the same scheme, and just tell them to try harder and they'll turn into contenders ala Alabama's turnaround last year. It's going to take more than that. You need to upgrade your speed, you need to upgrade your receivers, potentially your QB and other positions. If you say you've upgraded since last year, fine, but it's a long climb back to the top from what I saw. Maybe I'll be surprised come the 8th, but it won't be by how physical you are. We know that game and can hit right back.

 

[DocNice]

Let's just dispense with the notion that Illinois is in any way a good team. They're ranked below 85 (out of 120) in scoring offense, passing defense and scoring defense. So they can't stop anyone with even a competent passing game, and they can't keep their opponents out of the end zone, and they can't score much themselves.

The good news is, they're mediocre at rushing defense - ranked right in the middle of the pack at 59. They are, however, #35 in the nation at their specialty, running the football.

Illinois' problem is quite simply Juice Williams. When he plays well, they're unstoppable. When he doesn't teams force the short throws and hope the run can't beat them on its own. They have so much talent on offense it's insulting that they've scored so little. But part of that is a decent MU defense and an excellent Ohio State defense, which shutout a pretty good Toledo offense the week before. I think the trip to Penn State will be painful for the Illini, but if they don't collapse into disarray by then, they'll start pulling out some wins.

 

[Shaunk2007]

Let's just dispense with the notion that Illinois is in any way a good team. They're ranked below 85 (out of 120) in scoring offense, passing defense and scoring defense. So they can't stop anyone with even a competent passing game, and they can't keep their opponents out of the end zone, and they can't score much themselves.

The good news is, they're mediocre at rushing defense - ranked right in the middle of the pack at 59. They are, however, #35 in the nation at their specialty, running the football.

Illinois' problem is quite simply Juice Williams. When he plays well, they're unstoppable. When he doesn't teams force the short throws and hope the run can't beat them on its own. They have so much talent on offense it's insulting that they've scored so little. But part of that is a decent MU defense and an excellent Ohio State defense, which shutout a pretty good Toledo offense the week before. I think the trip to Penn State will be painful for the Illini, but if they don't collapse into disarray by then, they'll start pulling out some wins.

I think the Virginia Tech game gives testiment to how physical of a team we have become. From what I have seen from Missouri this year, they will more than likely have trouble with our physical line play on both sides. Also I think some Missouri fans have forgotten that Bo Pelini is our coach it's not Callaclown anymore boys.

 

[husker B-rent]

And I disagreed when they ranked Mizzou #8 in week 2. The problem they're having is that there are just not good top 10 teams right now. Florida and Texas are the closest things, and even they don't look that good this year so far.

I understand your point, but even when a big team loses to a lesser team, it doesn't make sense to knock them waaay out of the rankings. Like I said about USC, even if they lost to Washington and struggled at times against Washington State University, there is now way that there are 17 teams in the nation that are better than USC. I may not like em, but they are still one of the top 4 or 5 best teams in the nation.

To digress a little bit, there's aren't 2 teams in the country more TALENTED than USC, but there might be 20 or so that are better. I've seen three of their games and they quite simply are not good on offense. Good O-line and running backs, but it just goes to show you how important the quarterback position is. Barkley might end up a great one, maybe even by the end of the season, but right now they throw too many interceptions and can't open up the playbook.

this i wholeheartedly agree with. USC has more talent than any team in the nation except maybe Texas and Florida (and they should) but they are lucky if they are a top 20 team. im sorry but they have looked pitiful. i wouldnt doubt it that both NU and MU could take them on a neutral field.

Doc, i want to say that even though i do disagree with your opinion, you are a very good poster and you are dedicated to your team. i respect that and i think you would make a great husker fan! i hope you stick around after the 8th and enjoy some discussion with us much like fro and mutigerfan do.

i think you know that it will be a hard fought game and i just hope that both teams come out of it with no injuries. good luck to you on the 8th (you will need it!) and i expect a good game.....i will predict NU-32 to MU-24 for now. however, once the koolaid starts to flow a little more i will likely predict something like NU-65 to MU-3!!! hahaha

 

[husker B-rent]

Let's just dispense with the notion that Illinois is in any way a good team. They're ranked below 85 (out of 120) in scoring offense, passing defense and scoring defense. So they can't stop anyone with even a competent passing game, and they can't keep their opponents out of the end zone, and they can't score much themselves.

The good news is, they're mediocre at rushing defense - ranked right in the middle of the pack at 59. They are, however, #35 in the nation at their specialty, running the football.

Illinois' problem is quite simply Juice Williams. When he plays well, they're unstoppable. When he doesn't teams force the short throws and hope the run can't beat them on its own. They have so much talent on offense it's insulting that they've scored so little. But part of that is a decent MU defense and an excellent Ohio State defense, which shutout a pretty good Toledo offense the week before. I think the trip to Penn State will be painful for the Illini, but if they don't collapse into disarray by then, they'll start pulling out some wins.

I think the Virginia Tech game gives testiment to how physical of a team we have become. From what I have seen from Missouri this year, they will more than likely have trouble with our physical line play on both sides. Also I think some Missouri fans have forgotten that Bo Pelini is our coach it's not Callaclown anymore boys.

i can see where they are coming from with regard to the coaching situation. when they played us last season bo was still installing his schemes and we looked like a piss poor team. after that game it really started to click and i really think by the end of the season we would have beaten MU, but i do understand why they think that the coaching change does not matter...