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Hello, Husker fans. Gopher fan here. I thought I'd give you some random thoughts on my team and Saturday's game. 1. I'm not able to make the road trip this year, but I've had great fun in previous seasons. I've really enjoyed the fans in Lincoln - really hospitable, really welcoming. You're an outlier in that respect when compared to some of the other local B1G fanbases. 2. We really miss Rodney Smith and Antoine Winfield. Winfield, especially, was the key to the defense. The poor kid just hasn't been able to stay healthy. 3. Our two freshmen running banks, Ibrahim and Williams, are doing fairly well. Neither is the receiver out of the backfield that Smith was. 4. Up until Ohio State, our offensive line was mediocre to putrid. I don't know what happened against the Buckeyes, but they opened holes and generated drive and generally looked competent. It may have been as simple as inserting big Daniel Faalele, the 400-pound true freshman out of Australia by way of IMG Academy. We'll see if this is the start of a trend or just an optimistic blip. 5. For the first time in recent memory, the Gophers have multiple talented receivers. Tyler Johnson, Rashod Bateman, and Chris Autman-Bell are tough and physical and can move. Seeing receivers able to work themselves open is shocking. Johnson gets the dropsies once in awhile, though. 6. Zack Annexstad at QB is a work in progress. He's been hampered by an ankle injury suffered in the first B1G game against Maryland, and that's slowed him somewhat. He has some decent skills, no question about it. But he tends to stare down his primary target (why defenses don't just drop a linebacker into zone coverage to stop his favored slant route to Johnson, I'll never know) and has shown very little ability to be accurate on the deep ball. But he's crisp on the shorter stuff, and Gopher fans are cautiously optimistic about his development. 7. Throwing picks needs to stop. The offense isn't good enough to overcome turnovers. 8. The linebackers are the strength of the defense. And Carter Coughlin is a great pass rusher from the hybrid defensive end. The secondary has been abused, though. Personally, I don't think it's lack of talent so much as questionable schemes from DC Robb Smith, the erstwhile DC from Arkansas. They've given up completion after completion after completion. 9. Emmitt Carpenter had been an excellent kicker until last week when he inexplicably missed two field goals that could have drastically changed the outcome of the Ohio State game. 10. I've seen most of the Nebraska games on tv. It's been a tough stretch, but other than Michigan the games haven't been routs. 11. My opinion? It should be a pretty tight game.

"Give it enough time, and Nebraska will find a way to screw it up." Truer words hath not been spoken.

Thanks for posting. I hope you have your worst game of the season this Saturday.

The RedTube Bowl?

Minnesota - Zack Annexstad: 88/167 (53%) for 1142 yards, 8 TD and 7 INT, 20 rushes for -86 yards 0 TDs, 176 total yds/game Nebraska - Adrian Martinez: 96-154 (62%) for 1167 yards, 6 TD and 5 INT, 66 rushes for 290 yards 3 TDs, 291.4 total yds/game Highlighted some key differences for you, including the fact the Martinez missed a game. Technically missed half a game against Michigan too, but it counts as a full game for the yardage rate. I think Annexstad will be solid, but you're delusional if you think they've been roughly equivalent.

In terms of playing time, you are probably right. But, sometimes local kids like Noah want to play for Nebraska, even if it's a diminished role on the team. If he is looking to get into coaching, he is basically an assistant coach on the team as a back-up player.

None of them hired Mike Riley...so unfortunately they're smarter than us.

Agreed

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls! Children of alllllll ages! LETS GET HYPOTHETICAL IS BACK! So... Most of you by now are wondering A) What is wrong with me. B) What is wrong with you. C) What could you possibly be wondering this week that has no chance of happening or D) Door #3 Well... Behind Door #3 is this week's hypothetical!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So.. here it is. What if, this Saturday, we get on a heater. We defeat the juggernauts of Minneapolis by a large margin of 17-21 points. We then take down our final 5 opponents. We make a bowl game. Which bowl game is the most likely or would you prefer?

If I had to run a pro-set passing offense, I'd still take Adrian Martinez over Tanner Lee.

This game still burns me up from a lack of penalty calls on NW, specifically holding. Just for reference: NW had an 11% increase in the number of offensive plays they ran on average. A 30% increase in pass attempts from what they ran on average. An 86% DECREASE in # of penalty yards from what they averaged. I agree we suck, but that was a heist by the officials. 1 or 2 obvious holding calls late in that game would have made the difference. Instead they were focused on borderline tick tack crap Nebraska was doing.

Yup. Whichever one is part of the playoffs is my preference. Honestly, if we beat Ohio State, I'm not sure how the committee could keep a 6-6 Nebraska team out.

I read the thread title and am unable to banish Olivia Newton John from my head. I will be unable to comment until this monumental task is accomplished. All apologies.

I say yes because people were blaming Pelini for everything and would have insisted that there was a toxic environment that was devoid of talent. Plus, Riley was Eichorst's guy (and Pearlman was still here) so there was no way he was gone after one year.

Possibly the most misleading 9 win season ever. We beat one team with a winning record in 2014, the all powerful...drum roll....Rutgers! I thought everyone realized exactly who we really were after the 35 point loss to Wisconsin. A 9 win imposter. Just think if SF had a similar schedule this season.

He took over a 9-3 squad. Frost inherited a dumpster fire. I think it’s a reach to try and draw comparisons. Eichorst wouldn’t fire the guy he just hired.

They rarely play well at the same time.

The offense needs to be consistent with drives and take care of the football. When they are on, they're really good. But when they lose focus and start making penalties and turnovers, it kills us. It's been killing us. Goes for both sides of the ball.

It's like there is one of these for every one of his faux pas. It's amazing.

the Getting Close Bowl or the Culture Bowl

https://www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/college-football/2016/11/11/13586790/broken-chair-trophy-nebraska-minnesota

The hit on Martinez's slide at 1:28 would have surely been called against Nebraska

Thanks for the insight into your team. Sounds like those injuries really derailed you guys. Good luck in the game, but be ready to hand over the Chair. It's high time it returned to its rightful home in Lincoln.

It would be interesting to see an alternate universe situation if Vedral stayed at UCF. He obviously wouldn't be playing the next 2 years with Milton and it's doubtful he redshirts (although I could be wrong) so he'd have a crack at winning the job as a Senior under a coaching staff that didn't recruit him. I'm not sure what Vedral plans on long term but if it's coaching, getting a front row seat to the Scott Frost experience will probably give him a leg up. Now, for playing time the only real chance he'll have is if Martinez leaves after his junior year and Vedral will have a shot in what will be his RS Sr. year and he'll need to beat out all the QBs getting recruited behind him.

Seems like you are missing a big part of Nebraska's offense?

Northwestern didn't pass 163 times in one game because the "zebras royally screwed us". Have a better pass defense and the "zebras" are a non-factor.

Let's be honest--Minnesota's running game isn't *THAT* bad. But it's nowhere close to being 178 good against Ohio State unless Ohio State decides to sell out in defending the pass...which is exactly what happened last week. But don't worry, our patented ¡Olé!(tm) 3-4 defense specializes in making moribund running games look spectacular. So don't be shocked if you clock north of 200 yards rushing--It's Nebraska Nice.

And it's still going on after they repealed No Lunch Left Behind or whatever they called that program. We send bag lunch to school at least once a week. Some of the meals they serve kids are just awful. Jamie Oliver had that show on ABC several years ago where he made good quality food at pretty cheap prices in the LA school district, but they shut him down before he could even finish the season. School lunch is a racket. Someone's making a big profit off of the garbage we put in front of our kids. Makes me sick.

Collegefootballnews.com, are you sure Minnesota can't run the ball? 'Cause it seemed like we ran for 178 against Ohio State last week and 903 so far this season. And I can't be sure, but I thought our leading rusher was averaging 5.8 ypc so far in 2018. But I'm probably wrong, and those stats are probably made up or something. So we can't run. And our walk-on freshman QB probably doesn't have almost exactly the same stats as Nebraska's "something special" freshman QB. And I'm probably mistaken in thinking that our defense is yielding 14 fewer points per game than the Black Shi*ts.

I did a lot of griping about this on here and it was very valid. When you have a kid who is 6'7" and plays in multiple sports....and he's expected to be satisfied with the same amount of food my 5'9 110 lb daughter gets....it's a problem. Here's the deal though. I completely support her efforts to reduce childhood obesity. It's a major problem in the US. The implementation of the efforts was what was bad. Honestly, Michelle Obama only is the face and spokesperson of the effort. There were lots of people within the department of education that must have thought these portion sizes for everyone was AWESOME. THEN....it's implemented at the local level my lots of people who work in these school kitchens that must not honestly care if they are putting out edible food or not. Making good food is not rocket surgery. It just takes people who care. PS...the edible food issue in school lunch rooms predated anything Michelle did.

I want what Nebraska's got. Not Wisconsin. Madison blows. Not Iowa. Iowa blows.

Haven't seen any national championships won by these schools recently, or anytime for that matter....I get the idea but we do not want to be Wisconsin and we definitely don't want to be Iowa.

blind sow finally finds acorn.......headline. or.......no, not again?

Wisconsin didn’t steal our identity, they copied it. Iowa is nothing like what Nebraska was. If anything their mediocrity reminds of our last 15 years, just more stable and consistent, and extremely more boring. Nobody stole our identity, Peterson and Callahan threw it away. Pelini couldn’t resurrect it and was satisfied with only beating doormats and was basically a raging a-hole. Riley was a frikken joke and let mediocrity, softness and a loser attitude settle in. The fans have not caused the failures of the last 3 coaches. You don’t stick with a direction that is going nowhere or the wrong direction. Wisconsin has made the Nebraska blueprint work and has been a very solid program. Iowa is....well, Iowa. I don’t want to be either one of them but I sure wouldn’t mind if we were more like Wisconsin, at least until Frost gets us back to being Nebraska. The only thing you said that I agree with is that it is Frost or bust. I firmly believe he will get us back to being a regular contender. It won’t be as quick as anyone wants and it won’t be painless but we’ll get there. If he can’t get it done nobody can and I have no interest in seeing what the next guy might do. I will be done with it.

I'm sure that's what Jesus would do.

Petty bastards

Come on, man. A season ago at 6 games we were 3-3, with a close loss to Oregon and a 21 point loss to Wisconsin. You said there was never a reason to lose to Purdue. Never. That was a bad season that only got worse. This is a historically bad season that might get better. But suggesting that Scott Frost is a chess-master who is three moves ahead of everyone (except you) wears a little thin.

Apparently, unlike some, my expectations for a true freshman (learning a new, complex system after missing his entire Senior football season) has been more than exceeded. Making some mistakes is part of the process, but all you have to do is think of last year to know what killer mistakes look like. It is true, however, that this year’s playing time will pay dividends next season (for multiple freshmen).

I disagree with the AM comment. I think we have already seen improvements. Our QB play had been plenty good enough to win with small improvements weekly.

I mean he went 3-3 in the first 6 games with a loss to Illinois and barely beating Southern Miss. It felt like an 0-6 season and he survived, so I say yes. He would have had a shorter leash than Frost the next year though.

So long story short, my younger brother in Texas is getting hitched. I jokingly offered to officiate the wedding. Well he thought that was about the best idea he had ever heard, so it's actually happening. Anyone here ordained? Any tips or suggestions in terms of the process?

Ric has me on ignore but here's a request After this one can you ask him about when he said if anyone there saw someone with tomatoes to "knock the crap out of em, would ya?" And after that one can you ask him about when he said he used to love the old days when people would get taken out in a stretcher? And after that one can you ask him about when he referred to back when they would treat protestors very very rough as the good old days It will be somewhat worthwhile entertainment to see the step by step while I'm taking work breaks