Nevada Husker

Taking a step out of the weeds it seems logical to think that Pelini will be gone either after 2013 or 2014 whether it’s the University’s decision or his own. Pain and bad blood has built up over the years on both sides of the fence. Pelini will either be let go or he’ll leave for another gig. The scenarios I see:

1) Nebraska finishes with 4-5 losses this year and next. The University will feel the pain in terms of donor contributions and will part ways with Pelini.

2) Nebraska gets to the conference championship game and is competitive and continues the momentum in 2014. At this point Pelini’s stock rises and he leaves for another gig, even if it’s a job that may be perceived in lesser terms than the Nebraska job.

What I really don’t see is a scenario where Pelini stays longer term. His demeanor this year is of a man that seems beaten down, he’s rarely looked happy even in the good moments. Let’s not kid ourselves, he’s acting like a guy that probably would welcome a fresh start somewhere else.

The second time TA has thrown 3 interceptions in the game this season. It's a no brainer.

 

 

Pelini will start TA...

What exactly did Kellogg do to prove he was better? I watched one series with him in there and he threw a terrible pick. The fact is we don't really have any strong options at QB right now, but at least with TA we get the option game, which he is good at running. I'm okay with staying with a rotation. That to me is the best thing for us right now and gives the opposing D more to prepare for.

 

An interception or pick is a move involving a pass, either by foot or hand, being caught by an opposition player, who usually gains possession for his team. < Not throw three (again) of these maybe?

 

Like Chuck Long said having Ron on the field is like having a coach on the field. He's a senior. He knows the offense. People act like TA rushed for a hundred yards yesterday. He had some decent runs definitely but three picks again????

 

I'll put RKIII out there again. If he starts faltering then go with TA but I'd definitely rotate the two of them. Not throw Ron on the bench after one interception and leave TA in there after all 3 of his like Pelini did. Then again it's Bo Pelini we're talking about here. Not exactly finesse when it comes to recognizing anything that is offense.

Kellogg seems like a nice kid and has a nice arm, but you lose the dimension of having a run-threat QB with him in the game. Playbook suddenly becomes limited and Ameer will take a pounding on his own, and we need a healthy Abdullah for the rest of the season.

I say we stick with Tommy. If Kellogg lit the world on fire I may be more sided to have him start, but I still believe Tommy is the guy. We need a mobile QB to avoid the pass rush with how our O-line is playing since Long has been out.

Armstrong is likely the only choice given Martinez is too injured to play effectively and Kellog seems to be putting on weight by the week...He has a nice arm but almost no mobility.

Keeping Bo around will only bring us closer to a 6 or 7 win season than a conference championship. I really think whatever Bo had when he first came here he has just lost it. Ever since his manhood was clipped after the Texas A&M game

He acts like a guy that knows it could be over. Year one or two he'd be pretty mad about a loss like this and fired up, the last two seasons he just looks befuddled and resigned to the fact that it will continue. Maybe he realizes he's better suited and much happier as a Coordinator.

I haven't read the entire thread and I know it's another "who knows" hire, but what's the feeling about Pat Narduzzi? The Michigan State defensive coordinator................is he the genius behind their stellar defenses or is that on D'Antonio?

 

No more coordinators. This is not a learn on the job place.

 

Yes, that includes Frost.

 

We should be hiring an experienced head coach who will bring in experienced coordinators.

I'd love to hire a guy with a proven track record as a HC even if that means he's a little known Div II coach with a solid system, a willingness to put a full-scale effort into recruiting, and talented assistants that are willing to come with him as a package I'm all for it.

I wonder what TO thinks of the hire in hindsight? Thinking back on it....man....majority of fans wanted Bo, TO delivered and it just sucks it's come to this.....

I know it's blasphemy to call out Osborne, but he's culpable in this. If he was a strong AD he would have guided Bo along better and insisted he hired Coordinators with an actual track record. Osborne was much too hands-off during all of this.

Again, if he still stays hard-headed and refuses to change his staff he'll be gone IMO. If he changes his staff and puts the right people in place, he'll keep his job for a little longer to see if he can finally make the jump necessary here at Nebraska. Your call Bo, but you'll be forced to make that decision one way or another, it's as simple as that.

I suspect that the AD (at the urging of big $ boosters) will give Bo an ultimatum like Solich was likely given at the end of the 7-7 2002 season...replace key positions in your staff or resign. Then he'll have a year to show better results.

I think you can see it in Bo's beaten down, lack of passion demeanor that even he knows this year could be it. He & his staff will be auditioning the rest of the year for other jobs.

Bo's hiring decisions for his Defensive & Offensive coordinator positions and Osborne's hands-off approach is how we end up where we are now.

It's nice to see new topics.

 

I think I said last night, when you build up the hype all off season then perform like that to open the year you can expect the same questions that have been asked for the last five years.

 

We got the win, but wow, who expected that. Nobody I talked to here did.

 

I did expect them to move the football. But it was a combination of:

 

1) Brett Smith making some very good throws that I didn't think he was capable of. Make no mistake, we got a good push up front, but even with guys in his face he was able to complete passes into tight windows.

 

2) Our inexperience. Anyone who has ever played a sport in college gets this. Your first game as a freshman is very stressful and you will be nervous. Add to that 92,000 people expecting a ton of freshman to shut an opponent out and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

Look I am not saying we are ready by any means to play for a Natty or even conference play. There is a lot of room for growth. But I do see us being a lot better in the coming weeks. I would have rather had a game where our freshman get humbled and they realize what it takes to win at this level, than beating a team 50-0. Our young guys are going to learn a ton from this film during the week. Had we smashed them 47-0 we would have learned nothing.

Why do we seem to forget that Wyoming also had new starters and had to play on the road in front of 92,000 people? It was an even playing field, both teams had veteran quarterbacks and a lot of new starters. I don't want to use that as excuse as to why we beat a mid level MWC team at home by 3 points while surrendering 600 yards and over 30 first downs. It's becoming quite clear that the issues over the last couple of years are coaching issues, it's hard to debate that one now.

BTW, every NFL team and most college teams run two-gap at some point. Not as much as we do, but it is in their playbook.

They have it in the playbook, but don't run it all game, there's likely a reason for that.

My point is that with a first time HC as green as Pelini was, I wanted Osborne to be more hands-on. Osborne was his boss, and a boss that once held the position and won 3 National Championships. My opinion is that if Osborne guided and led Pelini more, such as when it came to the Defensive Coordinator opening last year, we'd be further along in year 5 than we are now. Tom could have used his myriad of contacts throughout football to get some qualified candidates in front of Pelini.

My definition of further along is at least a Top 10 finish 5 years in. Obviously there are others that are happy with where we are today, but I want and expect more. In any type of business if you settle for above average that's all you'll continue to end up with.

I agree 100%. We could very well be 6-6 right now. But jeez, you have to be able to play lights out and mistake free for at least a stretch in order to accomplish such comebacks. The thing to me is that I think Bo actually did a very good job coaching this year. You have to look at it as, what were the anomolys? The performances of the 10 wins, or the 4 losses? In my mind, especially the defense-regardless of the competition-was coached and played a bit above their ability in the 10 wins, becuase even in those 10 wins, there were moments of bad exposure of our weaknesses. Then encouraging thing to me is knowing that we can be that good if we cleanup the b.s. on a consistent basis. I dont see it as a hopeless situation.

I respect your opinion, but what what's stuck in my mind is losing by 39 points to a team (Wisconsin) we had beaten earlier in the year. That's not talent or injuries, that's coaching in terms of game planning, motivation, and in-game adjustments. It's hard to just write that loss off and point to 10 wins...there are some missing ingredients in that overall staff that allowed such a brutal beat down like that to take place.

Can't disagree more with the whole post.

 

Regarding Osborne, why do you think "everyone" believes he was playing Oz behind the curtain, when he has publicly stated many times that he is availalbe to Bo if or when Bo wants his advice?

My point exactly. "If and when Bo wants his advice." And how many times do you think a guy like Pelini actually went to him for advice? My guess is not often.

We all like to think of the Tom Osborne of the 1980's and 1990's, but he isn't the same guy in 2013. Nothing wrong with that, life changes and priorities change as we get older. He was brought in as more of a figurehead and even he probably didn't expect to be around for five years. He has said on numerous occasions that he is/was hands-off.

I think Osborne's "hands off" approach as Pelini's boss has put us in the position we are with the football program after 5 years. Osborne has mentioned many times in the past that he doesn't like to stick his nose into the football operation because that's the way he liked it when he was Head Coach. IMO, that was entirely the wrong approach to take with a first time HC that he had in Pelini.

Everyone assumed that Tom was hands-on behind the scenes helping Bo to become a solid HC. I tend to think that was not happening and that Osborne let Bo do his thing, and what we're left with is an above average team each year but nothing better, and no signs that we are making the kind of changes and improvement that will take us to another level.

I'm hopeful that the new AD and some of the more vocal (with both voice and $) boosters put a lot of heat on Pelini during this off-season to make some needed changes to attempt to move the ship in a more successful direction. Pelini's press conference after the loss to GA sounded like a guy that new he had to put a positive spin on next year because he didn't have any other choice but to given that it's recruiting time and that in year 6 he needs to step up his game.

Look at our coaching experience across the board...we are training coaches. This is Nebraska not the MAC. This is why we get out coached

It's embarrassing as a fan to watch your coaching staff stand on the sidelines befuddled not having any answers. Our staff is made up of inexperienced guys over their heads or others long in the tooth that were never great to begin with. It all comes down to coaching...the good ones come up with strong game plans based on watching film and then anticipating and making adjustments throughout the game. Why can't ours do that?

This "10-3" season reminds me a lot of the 9-3 record Solich had in 2003. We won 9 games against weaker competition and were blown out in the 3 losses.

Given that we're 5 years into Pelini's head coaching regime, what in the world could make you think things will magically change that we won't see these embarrassing losses anymore?

I want to add something. I'm not a big "get mad and demand coach X gets fired" person just because we lost. I'm not even mad. Or calling for heads. I expected this season would suck, and lo and behold, it does. The people who think we're about to win out I'm not even going to address. They're too far gone.

 

For the rest of us, I think Bo knows he's boxed himself in. I hope he has the clarity to look past friendship and see that his method is failing. When that happens sometimes staying the course is a bad decision, maybe even the worst of all possible decisions.

The problem in my opinion is that Bo doesn't have the ability to look past those things. He's stubborn and worries about bringing in coordinator talent outside of his group of contacts because they may outshine him, his ego can't take it. We will continue to be out-coached when up against competent staffs on other teams. They will have effective game plans for us and make smarter adjustments throughout the game as well as out-fox us on the recruiting trail. There is zero evidence to think the above statements are off-base.

Taking a pragmatic view of the game. Hard to say which team has more talent, but there are two key factors 1) Ohio State is at home 2) Love or hate Pelini, even the kool-aid drinkers know our staff will be out coached. So I'm looking at something along the lines of a 30-17 OSU win.

Doesn't necessarily have to be a big name. It could be someone with proven HC experience at a smaller school with a strong staff that has proven results in both recruiting and X's and O's.

We hired someone with zero HC experience that doesn't recruit well and doesn't seem to have the confidence to pick the best staff he can find but rather picks guys that he personally likes for whatever reason. Nebraska will never lose less than 4 games a year with this guy.

I was disappointed as well, but not really surprised. This game really exposed our lack of talent on defense. I was shocked at how much more physical they were then us. I didn't think Taylor play that bad. He was put into some tough situtations, credit there punter for some of that. However our play calling in those situations were just embarrasing. They were pinning their ears back the whole game and rushing the sh#t out of us, but we were to stupid to do any thing to slow down the blitz. We could have ran screens every series, but I don't recall running any. Then we totally panic and refuse to run the ball. Frustating lose but not totally surprising.

We do not play with aggression, focus or with a physicality --- the reason is that our defense (and offensive) systems are too complicated for our players to know what they are doing. They cannot even line up correctly on D much less know their assignments. This is yet another coaching flaw. If a player is frantically trying to figure out where to line up and what his assignment is --- as the ball is snapped... he cannot execute with aggression.

 

Almost every team we play is more physical, more intense, and exhibits more aggression than NU -- week in and week out. Our coaching is the main issue. Other teams --- almost to the number --- are better prepared and better coached. A player cannot execute his assignment with aggression and fire if he does not know where to line up or what his assignment is..

Solid points. And I dare say, it's easy to be labeled a defensive genius when you have NFL talent on the D-Line like Pelini had with Dorsey at LSU and Suh his first few years at Nebraska. A true "genius" can coach up mediocre talent. I'm not seeing that with Pelini and his inexperienced staff.

This is all on Pelini. Giving up 653 yards to a team starting 3 Freshman O-Lineman and a Freshman QB is inexcusable. Osborne gave him free reign to pick his staff replacements and he put highly inexperienced guys in key roles.

Another common cycle? Husker fans trying to console themselves after a loss by building up the opponent in their minds to take away the sting of an embarrassing loss.

There is no way to sugar-coat giving up 653 yards to a team starting 3 Freshman Offensive Lineman and a Freshman Quarterback.

We gave up 653 yards to a team starting 3 Freshman on the O-Line and a Freshman QB. Did any of you think that could happen in year one of Pelini let alone year five?