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He'll be a good DC for them. Much better than average Nebraska fan believes.

If Purdue gets good at defense I'm gonna give up on football forever.

Considering he just got hired and 2020 is a few days away, I say yes

Well we can once again marvel at what a great coach he is right Eichorst? I just hope John Cook has a chance to pick his brain this time.

To be fair, they played no one, other than Texas, who they got destroyed by. I am however slightly concerned our defense under him was more of a Nebraska problem than a crazy Bob problem.

I am now on record as that game now moves to the WIN column.

My first thought as well. If we get beat by Diaco then I will officially believe in curses. That will be enough scientific evidence for me.

I’d put Vokolek numero uno on the TE depth chart right now

Oh boy. If he does well there I'm pretty sure about 90% of Husker fan's heads will explode

Seem's that Slusher wanted to go to a SEC team, after he had made a commitment to Oregon, who is a hell of a lot better than Ark. We wanted him bad also. Read all the time the top recruits want to play in the SEC, because they say it's a fast track to the NFL. Recruit's flip I get it, but PAC 12 didn't help themselves with how their viewed. OSU winning the NC and the rest of B1G winning bowl games, would only help the image, of the B1G. There is only so many spots on each team, not everyone can play at OSU. If we learned anything by Slusher and other players, conference status seems to matter. jmo GBR!!!

A couple things. I admit that i have been beating this drum about Martinez for a while now. The reason for it is that i believe very strongly that, although their were many reasons we are 5-7, the single biggest reason was our QB play. The QB has more effect on the outcome of a game than any other single player on a team, not just for Nebraska. To point out how big of a difference the QB can make, with Burrow at QB we dont lose to Colorado, Indiana, Purdue, or Iowa. That puts us at 9-3. As good as Burrow or Fields are, we may even have beaten Wiscy. Like i said its not personal its just sports. Martinez seems like a great guy, someone id be proud of as a friend or son or brother. But on the football field he was really bad, and it was more on the mental side of things, so i dont think the injuries had much to do with it. Maybe things will click mentally and he will be very good next year. If not i hope Luke is playing. Adrian certainly has potential, and can take contact. He has alot of talent thats for sure. For the record his ethnicity has nothing to do with the fact i think he was a bad quarterback this year.

I feel a lot of people will be shocked at how much of a difference having more than one WR will have on the offense.

I could've shut out Miami... by that I mean my non-college-athlete a$$ could've have single handedly shut out Miami

Luke McCaffrey as..................... The obvious answer is he didn't get his chance to try kicking field goals and extra points this last season.

But can Luke McCaffrey even play fullback?

First of all, the claim was the 4 and 5 stars would all be offered things. I can buy that, doesn't mean every school is offering something. I hope we don't do it, but it wouldn't be much on Frost's radar if we did. It's the kind of thing you don't talk about with the coaches, as the article mentions. If we're talking just offering kids money to come here, I'm sure we don't. If we're talking occasional payments/"gifts", I hope we don't but wouldn't be shocked if we do.

I knew that was coming.

First game in 2020? At Nebraska

So I'm watching the Panthers vs Saints this afternoon and I continue to have the same thoughts I had all this season with the Huskers. The Saints hit a home run with Taysom Hill. IF 2AM wins the QB race for 2020, why not use Luke like the Saints to Taysom. Taysom is listed as 6'2/221 and Luke is listed as 6'2/200...They use him as a receiver, slot receiver, QB, wildcat QB, RB etc......He is a playmaker and makes things happen. Watching Luke in limited duty last season, he is a tough runner and took some hits. Another season of lifting and he gets bigger and more durable. IMHO, he is too dynamic to sit on the bench the entire season. Again, maybe 10-12 snaps per game in the positions mentioned above.....Give DC's something else to think about in that he might be a decoy, might get the direct snap, double pass etc......It's off season.....What can I say.

Of course Vokolek looked great on the scout team, where they were simulating offenses that use TEs.

We are never losing to Purdue again!

A few things. I remember reading that article a few years ago plus a few times Sports Illustrated has written about it too. I'm not an expert but this is my understanding of how this stuff works. 1) The head coach rarely has anything to do with this stuff and is shielded from it. It's plausible deniability. Just like in politics people shield presidents and senators from things. 2) A booster doesn't need any connection to the football program to pay a kid. All he needs to know is if a kid is in town on a visit (and he can easily find this out online now) and he can magically " bump" into him. If a coach on staff is needed for help it's a GA or a position coach at the highest. 3) Players aren't given thousands of dollars unless they're already on campus. They're given a few hundred on visits to build relationships. Once a kid is on campus and playing well, then maybe they start getting more. $300 is easy to cover up or explain away. $10,000 is not. $100,000 definitely is not. 4) Some kids don't want impermissible benefits and don't take them. Some do. If you think Nebraska, along with every other Big 10 school, isn't cheating then you're kidding yourself. The only thing is the head coach probably is not in on it. If purity in collegiate athletics is important to you, then watch D-III or NAIA.

...because he learned from ALL of his mistakes as our DC??? Bad doesn't begin to describe our defense under Diaco.

That game went from a toss up to a 45 point win.

I would honestly rank both poor special teams play and poor linebacker play ahead of bad QB play. And in that order, too.

I was curious how you were defining "balanced," just for discussion's sake. This may not have been at all what you meant, but just some scattered thoughts: One of the reasons I believe that we've sucked so bad the past two seasons is because there weren't good offensive line recruits that really panned out in the '15, '16, '17, and '18 classes. That then started to change with Frost's second class ('19) and again in this one. I think we could have gotten away with this better in terms of the W/L column if we were still playing in the Big 12 where the quality of defenses (at least in my opinion) is markedly lower than in the B1G. I think that the class averages of '15-'18 was dragged up by skill players - but in the B1G, if you had the choice you'd probably want it the other way around where you're top heavy on linemen versus skill players. Frost is now finding that balance and the high quality offensive line recruits are piling in. Then and only then does your team start really trending up in the Big 10 IMO.

There's a huge difference between someone making the "okay" sign with their hand and someone dressing as a Klansmen. But you know that. Why do you do this?

We do use a FB. It is called the read key. Instead of blocking the end, we read the end. Instead of leading on and iso, we run a RPO. When you a bring a FB in the box, the defense brings in another player to defend the box. By being a spread team you can account for the FBs guy by reading a defender. It is riskier in the NFL bc teams don’t want to run the QB. In ncaa you can run the qb without as much risk of injury.

A lot to unpack here. I don't have much time, but the thing that sticks out immediately to me is If you're of the opinion that an injury to the non-throwing shoulder doesn't matter you've never thrown a baseball or football property one time. Clearly, there are differences between the front side and the throwing arm. But your front side is extremely important. Stand sideways and throw a baseball or football without raising your off shoulder/arm.

Kind of the whole point of the article is what is there to report? Most of the time it's not paying a kid $20,000 to go to a school, it's buying/finding him a TV because he doesn't have one. Or slipping him some spending money. Who is going to prove that he didn't get the money or whatever himself?

After this season I assume Frost is only wondering how we can figure him into a bubble screen.

Imagine all the ineffective side to side passes they could dream up with two QBs in the game. I hope there is an honest QB competition for next year.

I suppose he'll have to get reprimanded or something for this but it's awesome.

I think the frustration has less to do with how good Burrow is, and more to do with how bad Adrian is (now). At the time of Frosts decision it seemed to be the right one. But mentally Burrow is on a completely different level than Adrian right now. You cant blame his shoulder injury on his NON-THROWING shoulder past the halfway point in the season. If im honest, and not trying to spare someones feelings, AM is as off mentally as i have EVER seen a starting QB. You could heal all his injuries, put LSU's offensive line in front of him, give him LSU's receivers, and he STILL will not time the throws right, not see open guys, hesitate on his decisions, and often miss open receivers even when he DOES see them, including simple screen passes that will not hit the runner in stride. I dont know what the kid is going through, and its nothing about Character, but even with plenty of fans admitting how off Martinez was this entire year, overall i dont think most of our fan base on here at least realizes just how bad he was. It amazes me how many people will blame the OL, the Receivers, and the defense more than the QB, or blame injuries, some phantom sophmore slump theory, anything other than how mentally god aweful he was. Its just the truth. Someone mentioned how much of a difference 1 really good player makes. Especially at QB. With a healthy Vedral (a halfway decent QB) we are 7-5 this year instead of 5-7. With a Joe Burrow level QB (and dont tell me Adrian was much faster than burrow or could buy any more time than Burrow with his legs this year) even if he is not a supposed dual threat QB, we are 9-3 this year. Thats how much difference a very good QB vs a bad QB can make.

If Frost recruits in the Top 15-20 range again in 2021, not only will he have the best four year run in recruiting since the 90's but we'll have the most talented and more importantly most balanced roster of talent that we've had since we were playing for a National Championship. Me likey.

Don’t ever question a man’s diameter

FWIW: American: 3 Big East: 7 43 of top 50 comes from the Major 7. The outliers: Gonzaga (6) Dayton (9) San Diego St (20) St. Mary’s (26) BYU (38) VCU (44) Utah St (50)

I hear what you're saying. I'd say though that there's probably not too much of a difference between using a fullback and running a two tight end set. In both alignments, you basically have two big guys that can either stay on their blocks or chip their block and go out for a pass. Frost ran quite a bit of double tight end sets this season.

Yup exactly this. I am sure the "bag men" are good enough at playing the game that whatever it is that is being offered can't easily be tracked or proved that it is tied to a recruit signing.

Then those same Husker fans will be mad that we aren't winning conference championships or pulling in top 20 recruiting classes, etc. It's the way the game is played and the Huskers play it just like everyone else of that I'm sure.

I could be wrong, but I would venture to guess OU would also choose nearly 21/22 starters from LSU over what they have. We saw how much better LSU was over OU, yet OU was still in the playoffs. Unless I'm completely underestimating what Frost and Chinander can do here both in terms of coaching and recruiting, we're going to be a lot closer to mirroring OU than we ever will LSU. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how Burrow coming to Nebraska would have been great for either party? Maybe, just maybe we win a game or two more this year than we did. However, at what cost? When considering our current QB situation, who is still here or committed to being here had we brought in Burrow? Frost is playing the long game. Considering the success Burrow has had this year at LSU, there's not a snowballs chance he duplicates that kind of success here. There's also not a snowballs chance that he would have been a near lock for being the first one taken in the NFL draft. Burrow was at Ohio State. Apparently, they missed as well.

Not only this, but those plays were there if the other receivers executed their blocks. I'm not sure if you could see it on TV, but most of those failed plays were due to a WR or TE blocking the wrong guy or completely whiffing on his block.

You have a fair concern, but I think that Frost was looking at the team program he inherited as a long-term rebuild, so most of his decisions were focused on the long-term. When Burrow was looking to transfer, he had Martinez and Gebbia on the roster competing for the starting job in 2018, McCaffrey was committed, and Smothers was close to committing (although he would never be on the roster with Burrow). Frost was probably thinking that Gebbia and Martinez would provide each other the competition they needed to push each other, with McCaffrey doing that in 2019 (while also planning to redshirt). It was probably unrealistic for Frost to think that Gebbia would not transfer as soon as he wasn't named the starter, but that's what happened. Going forward, if Frost thinks the team is 1 player short of winning the conference or national championship, and a transfer QB is the type of player who can make that difference, I think Frost would take a chance on that transfer QB. After all, it worked out for Frost and Osborne in the mid 90s.

I can't be the only one who sees the irony in this statement, can I? Someone lumping a group of people together and saying they don't like them because said people supposedly lump a group of people together and don't like them? How small a town in Nebraska does it have to be to qualify for this stigma, by the way?

I know a good QB is a significant difference maker for a team’s success. It’s very possible that Burrow could have gotten NU to 7-5, 8-4, or 9-3. However, I think you are mistaken on how badly Martinez played this year. You seem to focus only on the negatives Martinez brought in each game. Yes, he did struggle in games, but he also made significant positive plays in those same games. I think it’s laughable that you think Vedral would have done better than Martinez at QB. NU was 0-2 with Vedral at starter. Vedral made a back breaking mistake against Indiana, yet you give him the benefit of the doubt, and think he’s better than Martinez. You seem to have a personal agenda against Adrian, and your posts for the past number of weeks have had the same tone. You make wide, negative comments about the guy, and think he is the sole reason for NU’s struggles. Yes, Martinez could have played better in 2019, but the same could be said for the entire team. I don’t know if you are one of those small town Nebraskans who simply don’t like Martinez because of his last name or skin-tone, but you make it easy to make that assumption.

He has so much strength to be able to coach today! My heart and prayers go out to her family and loved ones. I said a prayer for her and her family and loved ones and I hope you all take the time to say a prayer too. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wafb.com/2019/12/28/five-fatalities-confirmed-after-small-plane-crash-lafayette/%3foutputType=amp

The ad is pretty obnoxious, but it did give life to this parody:

Hey boys. This is what optimism and belief brings. Buy in today.