The Duke

First of all for the record I have been a Husker fan for over 20 plus years. Also for the record I am more than happy that we won today against Penn State. Anytime you can get a win on the road against an 8-1 team, I would take that every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. However, I am starting to get very baffled at our offense. It still looks like we are a "grab bag offense." It seriously looks like we are pulling plays from a hat instead of having a true identity or philosophy. So can someone please explain what our offensive identity is? Or at least explain where Tim Beck is trying to take our offensive in the future? Thank you for all who respond. Go Big Red!

It was simply a very classy moment, led by a classy coach, at the end of a very tough week. It was true sportsmanship & camaraderie among the game's most traditional programs at it's finest.

Ummm.....I would disagree with this statement. See Ndamukong Suh's on field performance under Bill Callahan and Kevin Cosgrove. See Ndamukong Suh's on field performance after Bo Pelini and Carl Pelini. Bo can develop talent. I too wish we would give players like Jamal Turner, Aaron Green, and Braylon Heard more playing time now that we have already burned their redshirts. Remember they are still freshman. Yes, maybe one or all of them should still be redshirted, but that is the past. Bo has proven over and over again at every stop in his coaching career that he can develop talent and that he can coach.

I completely agree. I think the simple answer to this goes back to how we have been naming Team Captains under Bo. Now don't get me wrong, compared to where we were under Callahan, Bo has done a solid job up to this point. But the two areas where I think Bo completely has it wrong is in how he names new team captains each week, and how he hands out over 11 plus Blackshirts well into the middle of the season. I wrote a post a few weeks ago that pretty much made the argument that we need to name 3-4 permanent Team Captains at the beginning of the season, and they would be the the team leaders for the entire season. I also said that I think they should combine the way Bo is handing out the Blackshirts now to how we used to do it in the past. Still make the players earn their Blackshirts, but make them earn it in fall camp. When fall camp is over Bo & Carl name the starting 11 for the first game, and that is who your 11 Blackshirts are. If one or more of those 11 players play in such a manner that merits their demotion to second team, so be it. Strip them of their Blackshirt for the next game, give it to the next man in line, and make that original player earn that Blackshirt back.

Yeah, Nebraska never ever lost games in the good ol days. i love revisionism. Jason Sitoke, first of all you are entitled to your opinion, but I never said or never meant to imply that Nebraska "never ever lost games in the good ol days." My point was that we used to play with a dominant swagger or edge on both sides of the ball....even when we would lose. The Nebraska teams over the last decade have not played with that same intensity or swagger that we used to. Opposing teams used to be scared to play us because of the style of offense we ran and by how relentless our defense was. My point was that somewhere along the way we lost that swagger. But I never said that we never ever lost a game. Even I know that we are not going to win every single game, every single year...that's just unrealistic. The Duke, teams were scared to play NU back in the day because, due to several factors (scholarship limits, facilities, TV exposure), Nebraska's 3rd stringers were better athletes than the starting lineup of your basic KU, KSU, Iowa St. squads. Secondly, I saw Nebraska lose to an Iowa St team in Ames in 1992 19-10. That loss was as embarrassing and flabbergasting as any loss I can recall. This wasn't Bill Callahan and Sam Keller. This was Tom Osborne and Tommie Frazier. The swagger should have been in full effect after two straight beat downs over top 10 opponents. Yet, they laid an egg, weren't prepared, and paid for it. Lastly, I hate the word 'swagger'. Put it right up there with the word 'moxie'. Just seems like words that people use when they can't articulate why their team performed poorly. I will stand by my statement that our team this year and mostly our teams over the past decade have not played with any kind of "swagger." If you choose to hate the word that is your right, but this Husker fan can't wait for the day when the Cornhuskers start playing with a "swagger" and an edge again. Why? Definition of swagger: To walk with an overbearing air of self-confidence. To walk or behave in a very confident and aggressive way. Give me an overbearing, self-confident, aggressive football team any day. Swag comes with winning. And winning BIG games. How many times did TO lose to unranked crappy teams? I think I can count on 1 hand..... In year 4 we should not be in such a dismal position. Bo is not HC material. Plain and simple. I completely agree with you that swagger comes with winning, and winning conference games, big games, and games your supposed to win. I disagree with you where you say "in year 4 we are in a 'dismal position," and I disagree that "Bo is not HC material." A dismal position is Callahan's 5-7 season in 2007 or Frank Solich's 7-7 season...that is dismal. Nebraska is not in a dismal position...yet...but we are starting to set a disturbing trend where we now have lost to an unranked team for 5 consecutive seasons. That never happened under Devaney, Osbourne, or Solich. With that being said I do think Bo is head coaching material, and the right head coach for Nebraska. He has won at least 9 games every year since he's been here, and we have gone to a bowl game each of those years. Now that is the kind of trend I think all Husker fans can support. He and the coaching staff just need to do a better job of motivating our players in games when things are not going our way. All that is needed is some adjustments in a few areas so that we stop these poor performances and losses against teams that we are otherwise expected to beat.

Yeah, Nebraska never ever lost games in the good ol days. i love revisionism. Jason Sitoke, first of all you are entitled to your opinion, but I never said or never meant to imply that Nebraska "never ever lost games in the good ol days." My point was that we used to play with a dominant swagger or edge on both sides of the ball....even when we would lose. The Nebraska teams over the last decade have not played with that same intensity or swagger that we used to. Opposing teams used to be scared to play us because of the style of offense we ran and by how relentless our defense was. My point was that somewhere along the way we lost that swagger. But I never said that we never ever lost a game. Even I know that we are not going to win every single game, every single year...that's just unrealistic. The Duke, teams were scared to play NU back in the day because, due to several factors (scholarship limits, facilities, TV exposure), Nebraska's 3rd stringers were better athletes than the starting lineup of your basic KU, KSU, Iowa St. squads. Secondly, I saw Nebraska lose to an Iowa St team in Ames in 1992 19-10. That loss was as embarrassing and flabbergasting as any loss I can recall. This wasn't Bill Callahan and Sam Keller. This was Tom Osborne and Tommie Frazier. The swagger should have been in full effect after two straight beat downs over top 10 opponents. Yet, they laid an egg, weren't prepared, and paid for it. Lastly, I hate the word 'swagger'. Put it right up there with the word 'moxie'. Just seems like words that people use when they can't articulate why their team performed poorly. I will stand by my statement that our team this year and mostly our teams over the past decade have not played with any kind of "swagger." If you choose to hate the word that is your right, but this Husker fan can't wait for the day when the Cornhuskers start playing with a "swagger" and an edge again. Why? Definition of swagger: To walk with an overbearing air of self-confidence. To walk or behave in a very confident and aggressive way. Give me an overbearing, self-confident, aggressive football team any day.

You just nailed it. And Rex needs to be given more breaks in the first half so he is not worn out in the 4th quarter. And you cant tell me that we have no one better than THORELL I agree that Rex needs to be given more breaks. The season is nearly over and we have already burned Green's & Heard's red shirts...put them out there, give them some playing time and see what they can do. Practice experience is one thing, but game time experience is what young players really need to improve their game and to help the team as whole by not just providing depth in numbers, but depth in game day experience.

Yeah, Nebraska never ever lost games in the good ol days. i love revisionism. Jason Sitoke, first of all you are entitled to your opinion, but I never said or never meant to imply that Nebraska "never ever lost games in the good ol days." My point was that we used to play with a dominant swagger or edge on both sides of the ball....even when we would lose. The Nebraska teams over the last decade have not played with that same intensity or swagger that we used to. Opposing teams used to be scared to play us because of the style of offense we ran and by how relentless our defense was. My point was that somewhere along the way we lost that swagger. But I never said that we never ever lost a game. Even I know that we are not going to win every single game, every single year...that's just unrealistic.

Some very interesting and thoughtful comments on this subject so far. I am tending to lean towards what CheeseHusker and Treand3 said above. I agree with Treand3 in that we didn't lose our swagger, our edge or our identity on one specific day. Nebraska has been on a very gradual, but steady decline for the better part of the last decade (ex. last Conference Championship 1999). And where I agree with CheeseHusker that our main problem is still in the trenches on the offensive line. Somewhere over the last 10-11 years we stopped putting a premium on having behemoth monster road grade blockers. I will throw this out there also, I have been one of those who has been pushing for Nebraska to use more power running and more option, and while I am happy to see some of the plays coming back more into focus with our offense this year, we cannot have this "sprinkle style" offense. Nebraska cannot continue to try a little something here, and then we are going to run zone read out of the pistol, now we are going to go 4 wide and try to throw it around the yard. NEWS FLASH: Being a multiple offense only works when you have an identity that goes with it. This is where Nebraska starts to get it's edge and dominant swagger back....FIND AN IDENTITY...on both sides of the ball. I don't care if it's a power running game with a complimentary play action package like what Wisconsin does. I don't care if it's the Texas Tech Air Raid offense. I don't care if it's full on triple option like what the service academies use, but find an identity that fits your talent level and the culture of your university and the conference in which you play...and stick to that identity! Recruit to that identity! So in my opinion Nebraska needs to truly establish what their identity is and who they want to be first. Once they figure that out, then and ONLY then can they begin to restore the dominance and swagger of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. ONLY then will Nebraska truly regain it's edge. ONLY then will Nebraska start winning Conference Championships. ONLY then will Nebraska truly be "back" among the nation's elite.

Throughout college football history Nebraska football has been known for players playing with a fire, a toughness, a physical edge that many other teams in the country had a hard time duplicating. Our ball carriers would never run out of bounds, hook slide, or go down on the first hit. They would do everything they could to gain EVERY...SINGLE...YARD that they possibly could for their team. Our defenses used to be known for playing with their hair on fire, and they would would out muscle teams for 4 straight quarters, and would have the opposing offense begging for mercy by the 3rd quarter. I could go on, but to digress..... THE QUESTIONS: 1) Where has Nebraska's Edge (physical toughness/want to) gone? 2) How does Nebraska get it back?

5 straight years and counting that Nebraska has lost to a team with a losing record. Yep, when you start getting that kind of consistency you know that something needs to be changed. The question for Nebraska is, where do you start?

SPECIAL MESSAGE TO TIM BECK: Taylor Martinez cannot run the speed option "effectively," so........STOP CALLING IT IF IT DOESN'T WORK! SPECIAL MESSAGE TO BO & CARL PELINI: You cannot call base defense Cover 2 all game long, especially if the opposing team is attacking the middle of your defense. You have to adjust....you even sometimes have to blitz.

Blackshirt39 I think you hit the nail on the head. Where is the fire on this team on both sides of the ball? It can't be just a few players here and there. Where is the fire, and the passion that our great defenses used to have? What happened to ball carriers on offense who refused to go down for any reason? Dare I ask this....Is Nebraska losing it's edge? Did the West Coast / Spread offense make us lose our physical toughness?

I agree. Beck was completely off on his playcalling today. I thought I was watching a Shawn Watson offense again. How many 3rd down plays did we have where we called a play or had routes run short of the first down sticks? It was just a very frustrating day.

The biggest issues, concerns, observations, or questions facing our defense are: 1) When did the Pelini brothers forget or give up on calling some zone blitz plays? 2) Bo Pelini's defense has proven it can stop drop back/pro-style quarterbacks.......but...... 3) Bo Pelini's defense has NO ANSWER yet for mobile quarterbacks 4) When opposing teams continue to attack us over the middle we have yet to show that we can adjust. What say you Husker fans....fire away.

2 Nebraska players over 100 yards rushing in a game? Hmmm...if Pelini & Beck stick to their guns, this could be a sign that old-school Nebraska football is slowly trying to make a comeback. What a welcome sight that would be.

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

Absolutely awesome! What would be cool is if they could add how the score was changing during the game due to those plays. Great video man!

Everyone in this whole situation just needs to take a breath... Take a deep breath Bo ...you too Dirk & Lee ...and yes, we fans need to take a deep breath also. One thing this week is true....at some point or another everyone involved in this fiasco has been wrong. Let's start with Bo: Is Bo Pelini the best example for how a head coach should handle the media? No. Bo is who he is, which is he is pretty black & white, and yes sometimes his hard edge, no-nonsense, old-school attitude has rubbed people the wrong way. From the media, to the fans, to opposing coaches, heck even some of his own players have been pushed to the limit by Bo's style. But does this make Bo a bad coach? Does this brash personality mean that he is not cut out for being a head coach? I say no on both counts. Yes, Bo has work to do with handling the media, especially the ones that get under his skin (umm...paging Dirk Chatelain & Lee Barfknecht) Bo has to realize, and I believe he is beginning to that the media will write what they want, and they will speak their minds...sometimes sheepishly disguising their articles as "well this is what the fans want to know." More often than not Bo must rise above it. However, when someone deliberately goes on a personal attack of one of his players by concocting an erroneous story or by asking childish and unprofessional questions at a press conference, then I believe Bo has every right to stand up and defend his player, and his program. When it comes to the media Bo has not always been in the right, but on Saturday night Bo had every right to react the way he did to Dirk Chatelain's article and line of questioning. Let's move on to Dirk Chatelain & Lee Barfknecht...or this week they should be known as (Dumb & Dumber): Where did they go wrong? There is a hidden line in journalism that defines what type of journalist somebody is. Most journalists stick to the facts, report what they see and hear, and do not interject themselves into the story itself...they just report on the story. Then there are journalists who are on the other side of the line who tend to blend what is fact & what is fiction, and they become part of the story themselves. In some circles this could be known as tabloid journalism, and Dirk & Lee...you crossed that line this week. Now I understand that columnists are opinion writers, and they are entitled to their opinions. But when columnists blend what is fact & what is fiction, when they write articles thatimply that someone said something when they really didn't, and when they stoop below the expected level of their profession then it is a cause for concern for the general public. Overall, I have had no problems with Dirk or Lee in the past. I have enjoyed reading some of their previous articles. But Dirk's writings and actions over the past weekend, and then Lee's obvious article in defense of Dirk were at the least...childish & petty. It has been a disappointing thing to witness, especially from what most consider to be a highly respected institution in that of the Omaha World Herald. Dirk & Lee know better and they were in the wrong this week. I hope those with higher authority and more professional clout at the Omaha World Herald will at least consider reigning in this type of classless journalism. Finally, we the fans: Where did we the fans go wrong? Over the last decade or so we the fans have had a tendency of being too personal when it comes to our concerns towards how our favorite team is playing. Maybe it is due to the rise in social media, but there has been a portion of us who at times forget that these players which we voice our concerns and angst are young college athletes...and they are college students first! They are young 18-22 year old men who are playing the sport that they love, and they are trying to do their best every time they step on the field. Do they always play up to their talent level every-single-play of every-single-game? No, of course not! But yet, many times we as fans forget this. It is ok for fans to cheer when their team is playing well, and it is ok for fans to boo when their team isn't playing well. That is their right as fans. But let's leave all of these personal and sometimes nasty cheap shots towards the players out of the discussion...it isn't necessary. In Conclusion: Bo knows fair journalism when he sees it, but he will call out cheap attacks on his program every time. Bo knows that he is not always the most gracious with the media, and this is an area where he can improve. Dirk & Lee know that they can get a rise out of Bo and the fans by what they write. But doing it just for the sake of getting attention towards what you write is petty & unprofessional. Go ahead and keep writing your opinions, but stop blurring what is fact & what is fiction. Finally, the fans know that we LOVE our Huskers, and sometimes that passion that we have for this team, both good & bad, can go overboard at certain times. We have to learn to leave the personal attacks of the players and coaches on the sidelines. So...take a breath Bo ...you too Dirk & Lee ...us too Husker fans. Let us all regroup, enjoy this bye week, and get ready for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. I'm going to go take a deep breath.

As long as we are able to put a continual beat down on Northwestern year after year...I am perfectly fine with them being "NU" and us being "NEB"

I guarantee you Bo already knows it's an issue with this defensive scheme that needs to be corrected. What that solution is I couldn't begin to tell you, but I am confident that we will make some type of adjustments in this area, especially before we play Northwestern & Michigan. If we don't, Michigan with Denard Robinson is going make us look very silly.

There is no question that Bo's 2 gap scheme worked wonders in the Big 12 conference against all of those spread teams, but I am not sure if it is going to transition well to the Big Ten? So far the jury is still out. If I had to guess, I would think during this upcoming bye week that we will make some minor adjustments and possibly some personnel changes to the defense, but we will still be running the 2 gap scheme for the rest of the season. I do think when the offseason hits that Bo & Carl will heavily reevaluate the scheme and they will study what works best in the Big Ten. I do believe starting next season we will see a transition over to a more attacking defensive line, instead of them just taking on blockers to open up plays for our linebackers. After this bye week pay close attention to the play of our defensive ends. If Pelini starts turning them loose on more occasions, you will know then that the defensive scheme change will be under way.

Yeah this new formation looked like a hybrid between the Pistol and the Flexbone formations. Whatever it was, it was working, and I hope we continue to use it in the future. It plays to Taylor's strengths really well.

10/22 @ Minnesota-----------Win 10/29 Michigan State-----Win 11/05 Northwestern-------Win (This will be a close game though in my opinion) 11/12 @ Penn State---------- Win (I'm worried about this game. Penn State is a tough environment to play in. This could go either way, but I say close win.) 11/19 @ Michigan-------------Loss (We have yet to show that we can stop mobile QB's.) 11/25 Iowa------------------Win (The Blackshirts play one of their best games of the year) Regular Season record: 10-2

I guess the question now is what does the Nebraska Athletic Department, their media relations, & specifically Bo Pelini himself do with Dirk Chatelain going forward? Will Dirk continue to be granted media access to Nebraska sporting events, or will he be banned from covering football? Anyone with more inside knowledge have any clue on where things go from here?