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It’s probably way past the last chance for “somebody” to prove they’re not a joke….

Curious what you found painful to watch with our defense? Held Minny to 55 rushing, 196 passing, 251 yds total and 13 points. I’d take that performance every game. I thought the defense was an extremely bright spot in the game. IMO the only reason we didn’t win that game was the 4 turnovers, specifically 3 of them.

One game into the season and we get this thread title ?? The team is not a joke topic this early in the season, but can't say the same for the thread.

No, not even close to being the last chance. We've got six other games that are winnable on the schedule outside of Colorado. Winning those and making a bowl proves we maybe aren't a joke anymore.

The only previous coach Matt Rhule maintained was the coach of the Huskers' poorest performing unit, who happened to be Dylan Raiola's uncle. Dylan was paraded around UNL sporting events and treated like royalty by the crowds during the courting process. Not sure what more we could have done

I'll take illogical conclusions for $1000, Alex.

One other thing that sticks out to me is that our max potential on offense in that game was probably 21 points. We scored 10 and left 11 on the board (took the one field goal, pissed the touchdown on the 1 yard line down our leg with the false start). So what's really depressing is that if our defense hadn't been on the money all game we really wouldn't have had any chance because of how inept the offense was from start to finish. Fans tend to focus in on those last 6:00 of the game, but the sobering thing for me is how one-dimensional we might wind up being this season on offense. I'd like to see one division conference game where Gabe Ervin gets like 15+ carries and we just see what happens in that scenario.

Our season and our overall trajectory will not be determined vs CU this Saturday. IMO there have been way too many knee jerk reactions over our first game, a game where we were 7 point underdogs and not many gave us a good chance of winning. I’m not a big “what if” person but we lost that game on 1 or 2 or 3 plays. Those plays are not indicative at all of Rhule or the new staff or really even this team. Take away the fumble and 1 or 2 of those interceptions and we more than likely walk out of there with a W. And the TCU-CU game and what Deion has done at CU has absolutely nothing to do with this program. Yet people are claiming it means all sorts of things about Nebraska. I don’t get it. Sure CU now looks to be a much tougher game than any of us thought a week ago. And as much as I hate CU and would despise losing that game, it doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme. There are still 8-9 winnable games on our schedule after CU. Some people on this board need to take a valium and relax a bit. The history of one score losses are not a curse and don’t have s#!t to do with the rest of our season or with the new staff. Only one team can have coach Prime. Only one team could have Urban Meyer, maybe. Only one team can have Saban. We have Rhule and that is all that matters right now. All the whining and flailing about since Thursday has been ridiculous. All because of a few turnovers and how our next opponent performed in their first game. IDK, it seems quite ridiculous to me.

I'd trade every other definition of the "culture" at Nebraska for a commitment to having one of the best offensive lines in the nation. I honestly think a lot of good stuff -- like winning -- falls out of treating the OL as a skill position.

How is touting Husker Power and "dominant contact," being a run-first physical team...and then throwing the ball three straight times for a three-and-out, when winning, an attempt to stay within themselves? How is playing Grant, notably loose with the ball, who then fumbles, staying within themselves? I'm not seeing it.

Before this game, the vast majority had this as a loss. People need to stop overreacting to one game.

All good points. I had the Mini game down as a loss with us winning 7 other games. I had an outside hope for an upset getting us to 8 wins. There is a lot of gnashing of teeth since Thursday night. What if we had lost by the predicted 7 points - would everyone be cool. All of a sudden, because we had the game won and we lost in an all familiar way, the team is a great failure - when in actuality they exceeded expectations. Change of perspective might do the ledge jumpers some good. I was impressed by the D & ST play and if we can get the O on track, then we can get to 7 wins - 6 for sure.

Sky's not falling for me. I just thought Colorado was a pretty winnable game for us until I saw them pass for over 500 yards and put up 45 points against TCU. Preseason I thought "if we're 1-1 after the first two games, we're going bowling." Pretty worried about being 0-2 and then still making a bowl. But, the sky isn't falling.

If every other offense in the nation can utilize slants, underneath drags and out route combos why cant we?

Is it the last game of the season? Is it the last game of Rhule's tenure? No? Then no.

Spot on homie It's like looking at Nebraska fans and wanting to give them a big ol' group condolence hug (a little sympathy). Wipe off their football tears and tell them "This year we are going to have 5 or 6 happy Saturdays to celebrate and enjoy" And then tell them "We are also going to have 5 or 6 Saturdays that will be upsetting. Don't worry, keep your chin up" Back in the day you used to vent, yell/holler, air it out, and get it out of your system with a few posts. Take people to the woodshed if have to. But move on. These days people keep going up and down on an extension latter. They feel so upset and go up and down from week to week. Trying to add more sad paint on a wall. One game. A new coach and staff. Some returning players mixed with new players. Road team and underdogs. Lead by 7 points through 55 minutes of the game..... and lost. I have always said that playmakers make plays. Instead of the threads that say "what is wrong with us", how about crediting the kid on the Minnesota team who slapped the ball out of Grant's arm and created a turnover? How about on 4th and 10, crediting the kid on the Minnesota team who made a spectacular catch with one toe in? How about giving credit to the kid on the Minnesota team who read the eyes of the Husker QB and made an interception? He could have dropped it or had aligator arms, but he made the play. Which then resulted in them going down the field and kicking a game winning field goal. It can't always be about "Nebraska sucks again".

Meanwhile, Minnesota had one of the top defenses in the country last year - #4 scoring and #9 total defense. We may not face another defense that's a whole lot better this year. Like I was saying in the other thread, I'm wary of trying to compare us to Colorado after one just game because our games were against such completely different opponents. We might as well be arguing over who would win in a Minnesota vs TCU game, lol.

What does the eye test say? Do you think our O Line holds against CU? Do you think our D holds against their athletes? Can our D Line get to, and bring down, Sanders? Can Sims decide to throw the ball to his team, even with Hunter locking one side of the field? Poise - CU fought through adversity, on the road, without an issue. When has Nebraska done that recently? Other than Special Teams, I don't see where we look good going into next Saturday. We might be able to win, but it's much more of a stacked deck now that we have the empirical data we have.

Just wanted to throw this out there, take it however you want. 15 years ago, I knew a handicapper that loved this type of game, and it always hit 4 out of 5 times. Over the years it still somehow stayed the same. Here's the rub: When an underdog team wins an extremely emotional game (example: CU over ranked TCU), the following week, every bettor takes them to win again the same way. But most of the time the team that is coming off an emotional win tends to come out playing flat and doesn't cover the spread. That's the one interesting thing that keeps me thinking we have a chance lol. Although I also think we have to win the turnover battle, get some timely sacks on their QB, frustrate them with several long drives and wear their defense out. They don't have depth on defense. I also believe our defense is better than TCU's (tackling, physicality, and speed). Chew the clock, long drives, score TDs when inside the redzone, wear down the CU defense, get Coach Prime and QB Sanders frustrated.... and have Coach White put in a great scheme to slow down the CU offense and playmakers.

It is a huge game. We don’t have to win at all costs but if we get our doors blown off or play on offense like we did last week, then we are irrelevant for the next month because we have non power 5 opponents and then Michigan will maul us. So yes we run the risk of just being out of the conversation early this year. if we win it is a huge story and we are back in the thick of things.

Have you already forgotten the outrage on here about the screens of the last regime? History really is a circle.

Interesting comment because a lot of fans wanted us to adapt into becoming Wisconsin. They thought Wisconsin's power offense was the right blueprint. We basically brought in a guy that's doing it.

After watching CU plug and play video game style to immediately get results I think we are in trouble. Not just for this Saturday but because of a long rebuild that is in store for us. Our ineptitude has lost a generation of football talent. It’s all flash, money, social media, big personalities on the sidelines, instant overnight success or you’re gone. We have none of that. And I don’t think we are going to be able to compete with CU, OU, OSU, FSU, Oregon, USC, Bama, UGA for the skill players that get clicks. We are not breaking into that space. I thought we had a chance with Calibraska or Scotty with the hottest offense one year in football, but I’m done with it. There is no way we are going to get the high powered weapons away from these other schools. We have to go a different direction. Instead we have to go back to old school traditional punch you in the mouth football. We need to reclaim that. A team that has a defensive identity. A team that runs the ball with heavy sets with bruising backs not the slot guys who don’t gain any yards on 90% of sweeps. Run the ball north/south. Use TE’s. Have some WRs that can block and a weapon that can stretch the field when defenses stack the box. Here we can win. Take the players that Wisconsin, Iowa, Minny, KState want and out-recruit them for an identity. We plug skill holes via the portal. Heck take our identity back from Wisconsin as we can do it better than them. While everyone else is going new school we go old school and own the space and win on that identity. That’s it. It will take time but once established can be a very solid program. If the defense also regains its rightful history it will once again be a program to be proud of.

Coach Rhule via YT

I thought Sanders was intriguing but too risky, a feast or famine situation where we can't afford another failed regime.. I do think he made solid coordinator hires to shore things up into a P5 staff. Of particular smarts was getting the Kent State HC to quit to become Prime's OC/qb-coach and bring along his O-line coach. Kent State's O was nasty, now CU's is humming in game-one. On the positive side I do think Rhule will eventually get it done and unlike Sanders would he considers this his final station.

You just can't run the option today like you could back then because of rule changes. Back then, a fullback could run full speed and chop a safety at the knees. That's an illegal cut block today. There's a good interview from just a few months ago between Rhule, Osborne, and Alberts on this. Second, the zone read isn't much different from the option. We ran quite a bit of zone read against the Gophers, we ran a lot of QB Power, and we handed the ball off to a big, powerful running back out of heavy sets. It can't realistically get too much closer to the basic Osborne philosophy than what we saw on Thursday night. Thirdly, and you already basically mentioned this, but if we had more offensive talent, then anything we did would probably automatically look better.

24/36 for 553 yards and 5 TDs in two games this year. Also 139 yards rushing and 2 TDs.

All that I'll say about putting stock into Week 1 results is this... In 2016, preseason #10 Notre Dame went into Austin to face an unranked Texas. You know the game? It's the famous "Texas is BACK!" game which Joe Tessitore boldly proclaimed after Texas scored a TD in 2OT to win, 50-47. Texas surged to #11 the following week. Notre Dame finished the year 4-8. Texas finished that year 5-7. Neither team made a bowl. Ironically, Nebraska did make a bowl that year. The point is...our expectations for how a season will go is way too influenced by the results of the first game. Right now, it is equally likely that both TCU and Colorado aren't great than it is that TCU and Colorado are both great. We just don't know until we have more information. That said, Colorado is definitely more talented than they were last year and the year before. They have great talent at the skill positions: Sanders, Edwards, Hunter, Horn. But I am not convinced by either line. And I'm not convinced they will hold up in a physical game, if we are able to bring that to them. We cannot allow the game to become a track meet.

We had their defense sucking air and refused to keep running. We had plenty of physicality, too bad we didn't use it. Is running your QB a recipe for success in the Big? Hell no. Neither is throwing the ball to the other team and having zero field vision. Situational awareness seems to be a problem. Playing like a high school kid in Division 1 is a problem. Coaching like you're not aware of that problem is a problem.

Blue Devils win they legitimately beat Clemson. gaw dang, how can some teams do these things and how do some teams “surprise the world” (CU v TCU). but if my left foot is cut off and I had a dying wish that my Cornhuskers would win one f’ing game at all, AT ALL, but we can’t pull a rabbit out of the hat since we came back against tOSU some decade ago… I’m so puzzled at our ineptitude. Like, legit puzzled at how bad we are at just f’ing winning a game or two here and there. Close win, upset win, should win but close win, easy win, hard win but got it done, etc etc. why can’t we just win some f’ing games?? I’m resigned to just watch and enjoy. Win or lose. Love my Cornhuskers, all good I’m down for life. But damn, can we win one f’ing game just to feel good and move on to the next possible win?

Dead on. Grant doesn’t fumble and EVERYTHING is wonderful. The other errors are just things that need to be cleaned up. But that’s not what happened and here we are. I’m excited for Saturday. The team I watched played Minnesota has potential. Just going to patient.

Is the program folding after this week? Say we lose and go 3-9 this year and in 2 years win 10 games is the program still a joke?

And this is why they stay away from these games. Wouldn't want to shake the perception.

Shawn eichorst, is that you?!

TBH rooting for the Huskers has gotten harder over the years, mostly because of "the glory days" thinking by fans as the only way to win and be successful. And name-dropping Osborne as an argument. 1 game into the year, after losing on a walk-off field goal and "the sky is falling" ??!!?! Sheesh...

2-1

1. Pelini did not do so hot against the very offenses at Wisconsin you are clamoring for. I have PTSD from Melvin Gordon tosses to this day. 2. No crazy speed guys want to play in a run heavy offense. This is the twilight zone around here.

What's been on my mind is that in our game, both teams' offenses struggled and the defenses dominated, while in Colorado's game it was the defenses that struggled against the offenses. It feels like it's hard to draw conclusions about how the teams will fare against each other when there's only one game each on their records - the games were so different that it feels like an apples-to-oranges comparison...

Stacked boxes is what we were going to face all year long no matter what. IGC being available doesn't even put a dent in that. Whether the coaches can find some quick-hitting outside stuff is a bigger question to me.

I think we learned mostly that giving Frost more than 3 years was a colossal mistake. The curent state of the program and talent levels are difficult to overcome, but that still shouldn't be an excuse. We should be killing it in NIL and bringing in high quality talent left and right. I can't help but feel the "Nebraska way" is at the root of a lot of our issues. Do we want to compete in big boy football or do we want to stick to all our laurels here? We should have thrown the kitchen sink at Raiola. It all comes back to having a QB. Maybe he isn't a savior, but we know what we've got right now. Bottom line is there are ways to be competitive right away and also build for the future. I am not talking about CU, look at Washington and DeBoer. Look at Tennessee and Huepel. Get a QB and let's go, now. Not in 3 or 4 years.

That’s the problem the fan base needs to start demanding more. These people get paid millions of dollars and we’re supposed to believe in a process that puts kade Warner on the field. The fans don’t hold these people accountable and they’ve been selling the same dream.

Waaaaay too early to make any sort assessment. Give it 3 seasons

Rhule was really tight. ever y in-game frame he was licking his dry mouth. Nerves first game? Very understandable. I think the guys also press thinking it's on them to restore Husker glory. Tight play.

While I don’t support calling a player garbage, there’s simply no excuse for having zero quarterbacks on the roster. There’s no excuses for not having someone who can read a defense and look a safety away, the line play notwithstanding.

I really don’t want to get into a back and forth about the verbiage. You’re right in the 30 seconds it took me to write the post I could have used better terms. My point is/was Jeff Sims might just be the guy he was at GT. Sometimes a change of scenery doesn’t help.

Minnesota Results 10-13; 114 passing yards, 181 rushing yards Weekly Winner (closest to both scores): @RedDenver (11 off) Closest to Husker score: @Hagg (exact) Closest to Iowa score: @skers83 (1 off) Closest to combined score: @RedDenver (11 off) Closest to Point Differential: @DevoHusker (1 off) Closest to Passing Yards: @RedDenver & @Redux (4 off) Closest to Rushing Yards: @Caveman @Hagg & @RedDenver (1 off) Closest to Total Offense: @RedDenver (5 off) Results

They do. But TCU wasn't exactly a good defensive team last year. Not sure they were even "bad". Pretty poor really. #95 in the country. And they lost a ton. I figured Colorado would have the two best athletes on the field in Hunter and Sanders. I didn't realize Hunter was going to play offense as well. Will be interesting to see how many plays he gets in next week at altitude. I don't think Colorado's defense is all that great outside of Hunter and Sanders. And their front seven definitely seems to be the weak part of a bad defense - TCU averaged 7.1 yards per carry. So hopefully we can play some keep-away. Because it's going to be hard to contain their offense. They didn't run the ball a lot so our base being a 3-3-5 puts the right kind of guys out there. But they've got two excellent weapons for Sanders to throw to and Horn was no slouch either. We were on the short list for Dylan Edwards before Notre Dame came in and then Deion went to Colorado and stole him from Notre Dame. He's a problem. We absolutely will have to tackle in space.

1. Three points through 54 minutes - Man the Defense played good 2. Best team tackling overall in awhile. 3. Safeties & rover helped the LBs keep Minnesota to under 100yds rushing. They didn't allow any long touchdown runs and they played physical. 4. Loved the black cleats and red socks 5. A lot of guys played in the game, and got some B1G experience 6. Credit Coach White with his gameplan and rotation. Kept a lot of guys playing fast on D by keeping everybody fresh. 7. Turnovers did us in 8. It took all those turnovers (or great plays by Minnesota) to beat us. Meaning, playmakers make big plays when there is opportunity. 9. Something like 16-18 carries combined by the running backs. Not good. 10. Gabe Ervin should have gotten more chances running the ball 11. Rhamir Johnson should have gotten more screen passes 12. QB locked onto his first target, and also had happy feet in the pocket. Pretty good runner tho. 13. Fidone and Kemp didn't get much love in the game 14. Offensive line wasn't too bad as mentioned. They gave up 3 sacks, but also time for the QB to make a quick decision to throw a pass. And provided some running lanes. Nothing wrong with 3 yards and a cloud of dust with the running backs when you do it enough in a game vs Minn or other B1G West teams. 15. Special teams played pretty good 16. Felt really bad for Coach Rhule, his assistants, and all the players. It wasn't an awful game. They all gave their best. And it took a walkoff Field Goal to beat us. Nothing to be ashamed of, except for the turnovers.