TonyStalloni

I saw that too and commented to my son about the "really tall" guy. I kept watching and as the camera panned back I could see he was standing on a bench.

I certainly hope we aren't ready for a bloodbath! Granted not many are excited about our mostly unexciting year, especially when we started the season with such high expectations. Bad things happen to good people and bad things happen to good teams. Players get hurt. Players don't develop like coaches think they will. Coaches don't develop like fans think they should. Fans get their feelings hurt if we aren't Big 10 champions or national contenders. Only one team will be a champion at the end of the year. The rest are also rans with disappointed fans. That being said I wish whoever thinks we need a coaching change would let us know which current college coach is dying to come here? Yes there are coaches who would want the job but would they face the same problems we already have? Players not suited for the new system. Players not focused on the game at all times. Underachievement. I think our coaching staff can identify the problems and I do hope the current crop of redshirts and new recruits can be the solution.

My intention for this post wasn't to bash the Huskers or say that we do or should have a meltdown. After the loss and the way we lost I saw so many people (both here and in real life) lament the direction of the program. It's isn't bad to discuss our ideas here and share our thoughts. My prime intent was to show that other programs have similar or even harder edge discussions about their favorite teams. Some to a degree and style that I hope we never go. From day one I've been a Pelini supporter and knew he would have the defense always ready to play. It was just a matter of time till the offense was brought up to par and we would be a contender most years. I still think he can do the job....but lets say I'm not drinking Kool-aid now....just my morning coffee. Happy Thanksgiving guys...enjoy the family and GO BIG RED tomorrow!

Getting the win over UM would have been a feather in our caps for sure. The loss to NW sure was a downer which I personally will take credit for and I apologize! I attended that game and I'm sorry to say NU has lost the last 4 games in which I was in the stadium. I promise to never be in the stands again!

What I see in college football today is a tier system with multiple levels. This year I'm not sure there is an elite team that absolutely destroys any and all competition. (Nebraska 95). Alabama and LSU are very good teams with not many weaknesses. Effective offenses with killer defenses. Arkansas and Okla St have very good offenses and not so good defenses. I'm not sure we could compete with any of the Top 10 or 12 teams. We don't have the ability to score on a good defense or keep a good offense from scoring. A mobile Qb makes our defense look like a jr high team.I would place Nebr in the 20-25 range. On a good day we could compete with a #15 team. I think what hurts me the most about this team is the lack of intensity I see at times. I watched a video of all our offensive series from the UM game. It didn't look like our receivers took their blocking assignments seriously. One good D lineman can blow up our offensive line nearly every play. While I'm ok with 10-3, (with this team and our schedule), I'm not happy with the blowouts. Our offense has improved (not saying much from where it has been the last 3 seasons). Our defense has been most dissappointing. I had wrongfully assumed that the Pelini's would always have a top 10 defense while they were here. Let's see where recruiting shakes out with this small class coming up. I hope the players that redshirted this year are quality.

I can see some coaches pushing the idea that if a player goes down that he has to miss the rest of that series and can't come back on the field. Sometimes it's just too obvious when a player goes down writhing in pain, then is able to run back onto the field for the next play.

It seems like 3 weeks ago my sons and I were talking about being anxious for some Husker football. The non-con games came and went and now the conference games are about over. I agree that this was the fastest season ever.

What Snyder has done in his 2nd stint as head coach has been remarkable. During his first tenure there he improved recruiting to the point he was getting some top kids to come to Manhatten. He had a pretty bare cupboard 2 years ago when Prince left and he has again molded them into a winner. Especially his Qb who wasn't on anyones radar coming out of high school.

In watching other teams play this year I see numerous freshmen play football, some even at key positions. Wyoming started a freshman Qb who did a decent job considering the help he had. Fresno had a freshman Qb who also did well. They seem to be smart talented kids to begin with and look like they know what they are doing on the field. Then I watch our young kids play and they have a deer in the headlights mindset and constantly look confused on anything more than a basic play. I know coaches tear their hair out with the dilemma of whether to play a talented kid who doesn't practice well. Should everything they have been preaching since fall camp be thrown out the window as to practicing 100%? I don't know the answer but I hope they can figure out how to put a better product on the field next year.

Now that I've had all day to think about this, none of these "upsets" were that surprizing. ESPN is mostly a shill for the 15 or so top name teams with all the name recognition and flash. Oregon, Stanford, USC (when they were hot and before NCAA penalties), the Big 12 (because of the Texas ties), and the SEC all come to mind. They start promoting them in early August to drum up viewers. Nebraska doesn't get a lot of love (maybe because there isn't much to love since Suh graduated), but we have good name recognition nationwide still from the 90's run. ESPN is in a win/win situation. Promote the big names as unstoppable then be there to report when they fall to the underdogs. Either way they get the viewers. NCAA football is becoming a lot like basketball. A few great players can make the difference between an 11-1 team and a 6-6 team. Good coaching can carry a team a long ways if the kids buy in.

I was impressed by the Huskers team. I only saw the end of the first half and most of the 2nd. Our defense was dogging them from what I saw ans Bo Spencer looks like the real deal. They'll want the ball in his hands a lot and Talley looks like a good perimeter shooter.

Tom was known for a lot of things and toward the end of his career he had the system figured out. Early on though he was stubborn almost to a fault. He kept trying to beat Oklahoma's ground control offense with a passing/running mix game that eventually didn't work because we couldn't get the athletes to make it work. Then he changed the offense to the option and got the athletes to run it. Then by winning the Big 12 usually we had to play the Florida teams in their backyard in the Orange Bowl. Their speed was able to slow the option but their lightning fast offenses were blowing by our power defenses which were built to stop Big 8 teams. Again Osborne changed his strategy to put speed on the defense. It took him a long time to change to a 4-3 from a 5-2. That was the key to success on a national level. Better coaching meant more success which in turn helped recruiting and the cycle was begun.

I'm sure the coaches have preached all year about players working hard for every game. Let's hope there is a lesson learned by them if these two teams play in the championship game while we get ready for a minor Florida Bowl game.

I read several boards from other teams and they all have fans who insist that coaches be fired and players dismissed. It's hard not to relish the dumpster fire that is the Texas Longhorns. With their money and recruiting success they still can't put a consistant winner on the field.

Most coaches have standards they feel need to be met for a player to see the field in a game. My son saw this first hand as a high school player. He was as skilled as many of the players ahead of him but I was told by the head coach that he "took plays off" and wasn't consistant. It wasn't until injuries to players ahead of him on the roster that he finally made the starting lineup as a senior. It was a position he didn't relinquish for the rest of the year. Actually appearing in a game was the spark he needed to be more consistant. I'm sure coaches feel the pressure of loosing the team if they go against their pledge to make practice performance mean something. On the other hand sometimes the pressure to win can overcome the need to stay with their standards. I wouldn't be a coach at any level these days!

My point in this thread is the problems we are facing as a team are the same ones experienced by other top 25 teams across the country. We aren't the only high profile team with the problems of: 1. lack of intensity 2. costly errors at critical times 3. critical injuries to key players 4. recruiting failures

I did watch a bit of the Clemson- NCS game and their fans were in shock about like ours. The Okla and Okla St games were like a tv drama with an obvious ending. This has been a crazy season for a lot of teams. I'm thinking some of this is a symptom of this generation of kids. I feel it's rare to find young players with a killer instinct. Our society has imposed a "softer/gentler mindset on us. I also think the video games kids are raised with affect the focus kids have on real life. They try to show the same swagger, and verbally say the right things but I have my doubts kids are buying in 100% to what any coach says. These are just my observations and not info from studies I've read.

We aren't the only team in the country singing the blues this morning. #23 Fla St loses to Virginia #20 Texas is surprised again by #16 Kansas St #7 Clemson gets nailed by 5-5 North Carolina #5 Oklahoma is surprised by #22 Baylor #4 Oregon falls to USC #2 Oklahoma St lost fri nite to lowly Iowa St All these teams had better pedigrees than us this year at least and loose a critical game at the end of the year. Scholarship limits have finally given us what we thought we wanted....parity. A couple of injuries to a teams best players can make a huge difference. Almost every team has a few good players and the coaches of those down and out teams like Baylor and Iowa State are doing a good job of coaching kids up and having them ready. Look at what Kansas State is doing with their recruiting classes! Bill Snyder has them believing they can play with anyone! They've beaten Texas 4 years in a row.

Teams go through this same thing each and every year. Last year we lost Prince, Gomes, and Hagg and it is taking us a while to get back. Yes, we will lose the 2 best players on our D, but we also keep Compton who has come up big in recent weeks. And who knows if Santos comes in next year and is dynamite at LB, or if Zaire Anderson is the next Lavonte, or if that Siesay kid comes here and becomes an instant impact player at CB. Even if he doesn't, I feel pretty good about the CB position with Andrew Green coming on late, SJB showing a flash or two of being really good, and Ciante playing pretty well the last couple weeks. On top of it, the D-Line will have a lot of guys such as Chase Rome, Baker Steinkuhler, Thad Randle, Jay Guy, Todd Peat, Cam Meredith, Eric Martin, Joe Carter, Jason Ankrah, and any other guys that might step up next year. Unlike most, I see a lot of good things coming out of next year. Lots more experience and depth than we have this year. My only question mark would be at O-Line, but we will see what happens there... Believe me I have drank red Kool-aid for 50 years and very little about this team excites me for next year. A Jr College linebacker must be exceptional (David) to come in and excell in D1. I don't think any freshman or Jr college player DB can master the intricacies of the Pelini defense in 4 weeks of fall ball. They simply have never been exposed to that degree of skill. Our D Line might improve...certainly over what it was today...with the redshirted players coming in. I'm not as excited about our D ends. Offensively, if Taylor M gets hurt who will run this offense? No one has been groomed to take his place. You think Bo will let a freshman run the show? I doubt it. We loose 3 O linemen and while we have recruited talent, it has no experience. We have a crop of receivers that have all had dropsies all year. We'll be middle of the road in the Big 10 (2nd or 3rd in our division) and lucky to be in the top 20 nationally.

My biggest fear next year is a lot of teams will be able to score often on us. We loose Dennard and David and there is no one even close to that talent level to replace them. Who shuts down the other teams star receiver? Who makes the majority of the tackles at the linebacker position? Those 2 make about 65% of the stops currently. Taylor M will see continued improvement but he will never be a quality Qb. He can't consistently make the throws that a team needs to move the ball down the field. I'm not sure we even made one first down on a 3rd down play today. He is blazing fast but must enjoy being tackled because he can't avoid anyone in the open field. Burkhead will have another great year and I pray he avoids injury. Next year for me, 9-3 would be optimistic and if the Bowl gods are kind 10-3 to end the season. 8-5 wouldn't surprize me one bit though.

I too am in a quandry about this team and possibly this coaching staff. To begin the year our defense had 3 of the top position players in the country and a good number of returning players or players with experience. Those players would get coached up by the Pelini brothers and all would be good in Husker land. Our offense had only Russ Burkhead as a star player plus a few returning starters on the offensive line I don't remember that any of the returning players were even honorable mention All Big 12. In reality our defense has had only one complete game this season. Jared Crick went out in the MSU game (though I think he was seriously hurt 3 or 4 weeks before that). We have one linebacker play well all season though Compton has been better the last few weeks. Dennard was injured early but has come on well the last 4 games. No other D Back has stood out consistently, however Stafford has done some good things. What bothers me about this team, and I see it in all phases of the game, is their apparent confusion on the field. They appear slow getting to the ball on defense, slow getting separation on offense. I can't for the life of me understand why our D backs are unable to cover other teams receivers consistently. Our D Line rarely bothers the passer and he often has 5 to 8 secs to find an open receiver which answers the previous question. If we blitz David then there isn't another sure tackler in the backfield. The only answer I can find is the first 2 years of recruiting when Bo was hired. His first class was just the leftovers of what other schools didn't want. His second class was somewhat better but not outstanding. I hope we have good kids redshirting now that will fill some of the holes we will have next season. Even so they will be green and make freshmen mistakes. Bo seemed to be able to coach up Callahans players but is now playing with his own recruited players. Next year will be telling as to whether Bo can recruit well enough to make Nebraska a good top 20 team and eventually a top 10 team. Right now we don't have the talent and the team does not appear to want to play hard week after week. I hope it happens but I'm not betting the farm.

This is just one of those years when there are 5 or 6 teams with close skill sets. Alabama and LSU have their best athletes on defense. OSU and Oregon have theirs on offense while Oklahoma has a decent mix. A pretty good offense and a good defense. On any given saturday any of those teams could win. I think OSU was reeling from the tragedy that happened with the plane crash. It had to affect their focus and that feeling of invincibility that a good team needs to have. Iowa State gained confidence the longer they stayed in the game and OSU could feel it slipping away. Given 4 weeks to prepare probably LSU could still shut down any of them so what we have is the makings of a low scoring national championship game.

Thats a sad piece of news. My prayers go to the families of the coaches and pilot.

That was one of the best 10 minutes I have spent in months. Great read!

Ditto LadyHawke.