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Obviously things haven't worked out well so far. But we are actually doing a lot of things well. It's mostly that the few things we aren't doing well are having a huge impact on the games. Yes, those things need to be fixed. But I think we're actually playing a lot better than the results show - as Frost said. Here are the stats to back it up: We are #43 in the country in Yards per Game. Not great but we were #3 in the country after one game and took a nose dive when he had to play our backup QB. But we are #103 in the country in Points per Game. That's a 60 rank difference between how our offense is moving the ball and how we're scoring. That is the second-worst rank difference in the nation (Purdue is 67 spots worse). If we can keep moving the ball like that, the points will come. And the crazy thing is it's almost the exact same story on defense. We are #39 in the country in Yards Allowed per game. Again, not great. But we are #90 in the country in Points Allowed per Game. That's 51 spots worse and that is the worst difference in the country. Points are obviously what wins and loses games. But I've long said that yards are a better indication of future success. Points can be fluky - special teams and defensive TDs come and go, especially on a small sample size. And turnovers can change field position in a hurry. But if you're good in the the yards categories - or, in our case, much better than the points have shown - chances are things will even out. I think we'll see a regression to the mean going forward. Which in this case is a good thing for us. Maybe not this weekend as we play our toughest opponent so far. But it will show up soon.

Not even remotely comparable. Riley took over a team that hadn't won less than 9 games in over 7 seasons. And proceeded to drive it into the ground. Frost has to fix that mess.

This might explain part of our problems.....I'm pretty sure this wasn't taught by the staff. Maybe a miscue? Complete whiff? Looks like the left side did the same, with better results....

The irony here is hilarious. The same guys who were calling for Riley's head after the BYU game are now preaching "patience" and claiming that the Nebraska Way pixie dust will take time to work. Daily Reminder: When you: 1.) are one of the top-paid coaches in America; 2.) were given a blank check to hire anyone you wanted for assistant coaches; and 3.) needlessly spent your offseason taking cheap shots at the previous staff ...people are going to question your efforts after you open 0 - 2 including a loss to a Sun Belt team. No one expects you to win a conference championship this year. But when your team comes out flat and uninspired after taking a loss to Colorado...

These numbers say turnovers, special teams, and penalties are killing us, which is also what my eyeballs tell me when I watch the games.

Yep it will happen. I have full confidence Nebraska will go into Ann Arbor and pull off the upset over Michigan. Adrian Martinez will be healthy and will play, giving the offense it's dual threat, plus Michigan won't have much film on Martinez and Nebraska's offense. It's an 11 AM kickoff meaning I am sure the Big House won't be that much of a home field advantage. I think Nebraska has a great week in practice, and guys get after it and challenge each other, meaning come game time they will be ready. Nebraska and Frost have nothing to lose going into this game. Michigan and Harbaugh on the other hand have a lot to lose. While Frost is coming into his homecoming, Harbaugh's seat is getting warm at his homecoming. Nebraska's defense has actually been a plus this year (as long as we are not in a 3rd and long situation), and I think the blackshirts will show up vs an uninspiring Michigan offense. Look for Nebraska to play loose and free while Michigan plays like they are walking on egg shells. I don't know, it's a gut feeling that Nebraska gets the first win of the season vs Michigan. It was a feeling that I had shortly after the game yesterday. I am fully confident Nebraska beats Michigan and it creates one great momentum swing for the Cornhuskers going more into conference play. GBR

Just to be clear, this is what I posted on another thread: A year ago most folks were saying that a run-first offense and a QB who could complete 70% of his passes was just what we needed. I've seen plenty of experienced first-string Nebraska quarterbacks have much worse days than Andrew Bunch did yesterday. Throwing Bunch under the bus doesn't explain much. For the last two weeks, Nebraska had some very big penalties go their way, and got away with a lot of uncalled stuff, too. Let's not talk about the officiating. The legitimate penalties are bad enough. We've also gotten away with a few fumbles we managed to recover. We aren't snakebit, just sloppy. As always, the play-calling is great when it works, idiotic when it doesn't, and the play you would have called would have been totally awesome. Some people think 9 carries for 27 yards Devine Ozigbo could have fallen forward for that two-point conversation because he was having his way with the Troy defense. It's possible that we're still living in a 1990s daydream. Add it all up, and it seems to be a matter of discipline and focus. The team can't maintain a rhythm. It's hard to do, because that's exactly what opposing DC try to break, but it's also what a veteran, well-coached team does. We aren't a veteran team, and honestly our coach isn't quite a veteran himself. The team appears to have energy and talent and it would be sad and stupid not to assume they can get better every week. The team has screwed up the Scott Frost love-fest that was waiting to explode, losing two games we were desperate to pencil in on the win column. As bad as the reaction is on this board, it's hard to imagine any coach we would have kept or hired not getting it worse. Don't know how far this particular team can go, but I'm definitely interested in watching them gel and find their rhythm. I actually expect them to give Michigan fits and wouldn't be shocked if they won. There's too much of the season left to be this cranky.

I don’t know if Riley would be 0-2 or not. He was fired, he performed poorly enough to be fired and he was. Blaming him for this start seems a little far flung when it seems to be consensus that our turnover margins have cost Nebraska their first two games and the people who have committed them, Adrian Martinez, Bunch, Bell, et al, aren’t Riley guys. That’s not a previous staff/culture thing. That may exist, but there’s been no shortage of roster turnover and talk of buy in that the “fix what Riley broke” trope seems forced.

hate SF much? did he beat you at marbles when you were a kid?

First of all...as to the bolded, you joined this board in July of 2016. So how tf would you know? To everything else you said, Martinez got injured during what might have been a touchdown drive to seal the win against Colorado and didn't play against Troy. And the next best QB on the team transferred. Pump the brakes on your outrage. It's so outlandish that it almost feels like trolling.

Well ...MountainMan blew the hell out of that plan almost immediately.

Honestly it would just be really nice if threads wouldn't devolve into arguing over past coaches and who did/didn't support them. This thread has good potential to actually discuss our team's play.

Boy, that went over your head.

To be fair, many of us NEVER wanted Riley hired in the first place. We knew he was a failure from the outset.

Played OL in school, have helped coach it since. Cut blocks are very common, and like someone mentioned, are used to bring D-linemen's hands down (instinctively) for a quick pass. That said, this was terrible technique. One, cut blocks should be made parallel to the line of scrimmage. If you're going to just dive straight forward, yes, the defense is going to walk around you... Two, if you're going to use two offensive linemen to cut block, they need to cut in the same direction. Why the tackle seems to cut left and the guard dives right is... interesting.

As it was in 2015, when you also pleaded patience.

I don't think anyone expected game 1 to be cancelled, our 1st string qb hurt, 2nd string transferred and starting our 3rd string walk on either.

Now that I’m sober.... LB play is really good. DL play is pretty decent DB play is still trash ST play is still 450 Washington is the best RB but teams are going to figure out that he cuts to the outside a lot and be prepared for that Bunch is not a good QB. Not to say in a couple more years of training he won’t be. But he isn’t now and people need to realize Frost and Verduzco are not the miracle QB developers many have made them out to be. The OL sucked from the first snap. Bench them all and play someone else. Can’t get much worse than that Receivers need to help their QB. It’s the only way we will possibly see even 1 win this year These coaches will not clean up penalties. It’s not what they do. These coaches took a lot of public shots at the last coaching staff. Everyone loved it. What did they get from it?

I remember when people would post "Only Saban, Peterson and Bo have won 9 games or more each year over the past ____ years"

The frustrating thing about the first two games is not that the players are not playing hard, it is that they are not playing smart at all. I honestly thought that the first thing that Frost would do is eliminate the stupid fouls we commit in every game. So far, the fouls have killed us and they are the reason we lost both games. A lot of our players are just not playing smart football. Being an athlete is good but we need smart athletes who do not beat themselves. Unfortunately, Riley recruited the wrong type of players and we will need to endure a bad season until things get better. I am not expecting much this season. I was hoping for a miracle start but it just seems like we will have to ride this season having low expectations. If we make a bowl, this season will be a great success. Nevertheless, I am confident that Frost will not rest until Nebraska is back competing for championships. It might take 3-4 years but he is the man for the job and I am 100% sure that he is not the type of person who likes to lose games like these. The team is still detoxing from the poison that was Riley.

Remember we heard this along with tons of other preseason hype. I don't buy it at all.

Guys... let’s not freak out. Do you... do you remember how the program was literally crumbling under Riley? Do you remember how toxic the culture was? The apathy of the coaches and the staff? We literally have the best coach possible in place to fix it. We have to be patient. The sky is not falling. It will be okay. And who knows, maybe we will pull an upset against Michigan next week... stranger things have in fact happened.

Frost has said that NU has installed about 80% of the offense so far, and NU used a backup, walk-on QB today. It’s tough to compare year 2 at UCF with a returning starter to year 1 at NU with 2 brand new starting QB’s in 2 games.

We hire the best young coach in the game that happens to be a Nebraska legend that took over a 4 win dumpster fire playing a 4th string QB and people expect a natty championship first season. Its freaking game two of the season. We werent winning the whole thing this year. The sun will come up tomorrow, life will continue. Scott Frost is the right man for the job. Lets wait a few years to bring out the pitchforks.

He threw for a 70% completion percentage. The fact that our special teams let them run a touchdown back and our kicker missed a field goal was not his fault. Our offensive line got horrible push on multiple 3rd & shorts. That was just painful to watch. We should have won the game 23-17.

I learned that good things really do take time, and that we have to attempt to be patient.

And lost to Louisiana Monroe.....Rome wasn't built in a day, keep the faith!

I was thinking about this doing chores today. We've lost two one-score games. Why? Are Colorado and/or Troy just better than Nebraska? Possibly. Colorado has some talent in the skill positions, and made clutch plays when they needed to. Troy went 11-2 last year and won the Sun Belt, and trounced North Texas (who just trounced Arkansas in Fayetteville) in their bowl game. Colorado is in year six of the Mike MacIntyre rebuild, and he's finally getting some traction. Both losses were by less than a touchdown, so Nebraska could have won either game on their last possession. But we trailed in those instances thanks in large part to our own unforced errors. Untimely penalties, turnovers, poor execution, all either stalled drives or allowed points. Nebraska's three turnovers against Colorado led to 14 points, and while Troy didn't turn turnovers into points, each one stalled a potential scoring drive. Nebraska is at -5 in turnover margin through two games. Penalties have been a mixed bag, since some of these calls are questionable, to say the least. But our guys are putting themselves in position for refs to make those calls, and if you have inconsistent refs, you have to play clean and not allow them reasons to throw those flags. We haven't been doing that. There's a discussion to be had about how much talent we actually have on the team. I think there's talent, and some really good skill players, but there's some talent gaps. Frost & Co. are working on that. Frost is the hero incarnate, I know. But he and the coaches - who went 13-0 last year and clearly know better - have made some galling errors. Not burning clock vs. Colorado. Not opening up the playbook. Late play-calling decisions that lead to stupid penalties. Instilling a culture that "We are Nebraska" which means Nebraska of the 1990s instead of Nebraska the underdog trying to claw its way out of the cellar. Frost and his staff are selling a dream, not a reality. The whole staff, from Moos down to the interns, are doing that, to be fair. The graphics are all throwbacks to dominant days, days long gone, that this team has no recollection of and no idea how to emulate. You can't sell that package to an audience who doesn't understand it. So that's my list. It's short because I'm lazy and tired as ass after standing in a hotbox for four hours yesterday thanks to stupid Troy and stupid hurricane Florence and that stupid fool in the red shirt who stands on the field during TV timeouts. I'm going to find that guy and Nancy Kerrigan his kneecap and see how he stands in two weeks when Purdue comes to town. And I did yard work today and it was hot and Florence is the worst thing in the history of things today and whatever. Give me your other. I missed stuff, I know. Go Big Red. Every day 'til I die.

Interesting. I noticed a difference between the two, tho, the UCF guys immediatly all got back up. Our players just played possum. edit: oh, and they also made contact with the defensive players. So there's that, too. Boy, we really didn't do it right at all.

Troy went up 17 - 0. Nebraska fought back, but Troy buckled down and reestablished an 11 point lead in the fourth quarter. Nebraska needed a touchdown in the last two minutes and didn't get close. We had multiple opportunities to put Colorado away, and multiple mistakes that kept them in the game. Better habits? Absolutely. Close games? Sure. I just don't think you want Frost or the team thinking it was a matter of two or three mistakes.

I was responding directly to a guy who said he wanted Riley out after BYU 2015.

This is a pretty good take. I would put a little more on the LB and say they had a good game but some costly mistakes. The only thing I disagree with is the QB discussion. Frost made it clear in his post-game presser that they designed a really conservative offensive game plan. All week, Frost and Austin were saying the game will rest on the OL's shoulders not the QB. In the first quarter, this played out to be true. Bunch was really only asked to hand the ball off with little RPO. The game plan seemed to be one-dimensional where Nebraska was asking their OL to beat Troy's DL. It did not. Now, Bunch may not be an electric QB, but he was not asked to be. I think Frost took a calculated risk to come out with this game plan. The OL could not do its assignment, and that lead to the offense looking inept.

I seem to remember TheSker being beyond insufferable concerning Mike Riley, think he wanted him fired before game 1 IIRC.

Agreed. With the final scores as close as they've been, I think turnover margin is our biggest issue.

Is this one of those strawmen I've heard so much about? I don't remember seeing anyone expecting a natty this year. Heck, I don't remember seeing anybody expecting a conference title this year. Hell, I don't recall anyone expecting a division title this year. There's a lot of space between a National Championship and the worst start in 61 years. Nobody expected that.

Yeah... Because we didn’t pass to them at all today... Remind me who caught that big catch towards the end of the game that got us into the red zone? Oh, a tight end you say?

Here is what I learned: During the off-season and when Nebraska wins many posters never post. But when we lose, they inundate the board with "we suck" "zero talent" "fire the coaches" and other gems of wisdom. Funny how they never share their brilliant insight until after the fact. "Funny" how that works, isn't it?

The Good Maurice Washington - Frost is right, he's special. 17 touches, 106 yards. I could go for a few more Defense was very good for 52 out of 55 plays. 2.5 yards per play on those 52 Safety play (other than AWilliams' PI - which was bogus) - Three of our four leading tacklers The Bad The offensive gameplan - too conservative. Played into Troy's hands. They doubled Morgan and sold out to stop the run. We didn't do much else Bunch - He was in a bad spot but he seemed to lock in and made several bad decisions Defensive alignment - seemed like we were WAY out of position several times, or at least didn't have any help past the first level The Ugly (other than the loss itself) Lamar Jackson - beaten early, often and badly. Even his INT should have been simultaneous possession to the offense Troy's last TD drive - converted three 3rd & 9s

I learned that even at 44, I can still get drunk twice in one day.

I'd rather they pick up an FCS game on Oct. 27. And we are still undefeated in conf. play 0-0 baby.

You mean the guy he recruited to play for him, that was a Heisman candidate? Weird

We're in HCSF's first season; two games played into said first season, and we already have "fans" talking about firing assistant coaches???????????????????????????????? There SERIOUSLY is not an emoji, gif, or meme to adequately display the level WTF going on here.

I can answer 2, 3, and 4. 2. Bunch is probably the best option at backup, he didn’t lose the game today, although he didn’t win it. 3. The players themselves need to stop the mistakes. The coaches can preach it over and over again, but the players need to stop the mistakes. 4. Two games into the season, way too early to think about possible firings I’d assistant coaches. The group did wonders at UCF. The bulk of these players went 4-8 last year. They were 4-8 for a reason.

Keep your heads up. Riley ain't our coach and we have Frost. Things will get better.

I learmed this fanbase will never change. Luckily Frost will keep grinding. Very bad outing today but it will be nice to see a team that actually progresses as the season goes on