Undone

I was going to say...judging by your username I'd have guessed you as a True Believer.

Use some more words.

I think the bolded is pretty accurate for the most part. We've played four games. Against Colorado and Purdue the run blocking was probably in the neighborhood of "good" to "great." Troy stacked the box and in my opinion Frosty didn't do a super great job of working the ball outside to punish them for the blitz but instead called a lot of vanilla inside zone. A good chunk of that game looked like a Riley running scheme; asking our I-Back to plow into a mixing bowl of big sweaty bodies (many of which were our own). Against Michigan the pass blocking was like, as bad as it could probably be. Run blocking was basically at that level too but the team had given up prior to halftime so I suppose I'm throwing that one out. At any rate, Ozigbo has improved this season and is pretty good at finding holes. In my opinion he's been better at finding holes than Bell. But I really want to see Washington back in there healthy - his trajectory is going to be pretty great I think.

Some really funny stuff.

MountainMan might be cm husker. He really might. I think you're trolling this board but I'll respond one more time just in case you're serious. Once a kid chooses to leave, what we say about him on a message board doesn't actually matter. It doesn't put any "negative energy" out into the universe, it doesn't change the way the program is perceived - it doesn't mean anything. Assuming just for fun that you're not trolling, here's a point blank question just to get down to it - Do you think Frost kicked him off the team? Because I don't. We have every indication that each player has been given the guidelines as to what it takes to thrive and get playing time for this program. So if a kid leaves...what conclusion should we rationally draw about the situation?

The system of a large roster size where practices are war and every little bit of attention to detail is considered, where a code of ethics and commitment is emphasized, where strength and conditioning and work ethic is tantamount to success...that's never going to not be relevant anymore.

I like that you're standing up for our Husker student athletes. I mean that genuinely. But what you have in Scott Frost is a guy who went through the Tom Osborne blueprint. A guy who knows that getting the W/L columns straightened out is more than just flashes in the pan or someone who looks good on paper. The first thing I thought of - just like you - was that he was one of the two guys hospitalized during the winter workouts. But when I see Frost practically tearing up over this team losing I'm going to go ahead and firmly believe that he knows more than we do about what a kid is putting into this thing in the here and now. Whatever happened 5+ months ago is honestly irrelevant in September when you're right in the thick of the season.

It's crazy too because I want to say Martinez tried to hit him on a screen against Purdue but the throw was off a bit and he didn't make the reception. I was like, "Damn, he almost had one."

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROFL +1000

Their playoff hopes were wiped out two weeks ago.

So we can already see that Frost has ridden the UCF success to a first successful 2018 class that ranked roughly 22nd as it stood on national signing day. That was slightly ahead of the average. Let's say we get relatively lucky and sign a class that ranks 20th for 2019. Things are objectively heading in the right direction. There shouldn't be any doubt that Frost is very capable at developing offensive talent; his resume shows this clearly. But I think it's fair to say that Chinander is kind of an unknown variable in the talent development department - I don't know how anybody says, "Oh yeah, he's for sure incredible at developing talent." I don't think we have any idea and that for me is the big 'wait and see' factor to Frost's success. As long as Urban's coaching Ohio State we're not going to win any conference titles without a stout defense.

What I remember from last year is that they found either a counter or some kind of off tackle running play in the fourth quarter. It worked well once. It worked well for them again. And then they just kept doing it and we couldn't stop it. That's kind of the theme for our front seven both last year and this year (outside of the Colorado game). If we line up in a more traditional 3-4 against Wisconsin on Saturday and our linebackers stay in a run fit scheme where they stay put, we can keep it fairly close. But against Michigan we looked like guys either couldn't or wouldn't play their assignments on running plays and we got embarrassed in the first half. And Michigan's offensive line isn't even as good as Wisconsin's. I'm still trying to understand better what Chinander is attempting to do with his linebackers. Against Colorado it looked great and they couldn't run against us at all. But in all likelihood it's going to be a painful night with our front seven looking weak and confused. Hopefully I'm wrong because I'm really tired of losing to a team that is absolutely not as good as their record makes them out to be these past few seasons.

Here's where it's really painful - Michigan puts up 56 against us and probably would've been more in the range of 63-70 if they had kept their first team in the whole game. The next week, Michigan plays Northwestern and has to come back from a 0-17 score to win 20-17. WTF. It just doesn't seem like our defensive roster is that bad on paper...but it apparently really is this bad. Spread shouldn't be 22.5 points. Hard to get your mind around.

We're not talking about football anymore, are we?

I'll give my standard disclaimer I always give before making these comments about Wisconsin - I'd definitely trade places with their program. In 2013 the B1G changed from the Legends/Leaders divisions to the West/East divisions. The big thing I notice about those past five seasons for Wisconsin is that by and large they haven't really played many seasons where they schedule more than one decent team from the East. Given that the West has been completely non-competitive, they've kind of coasted. They'll lose a lot of games next year when that trend finally changes and their schedule gets tough.

Main difference I notice between the two is that Ozigbo just has a lot more experience and ability to find holes. That's really what has separated them. Then the added bonus with Ozigbo is his ability to get yards after contact. I'm glad that I was totally wrong about Oz not having a place in this offense during fall camp. The exact opposite is true.

That's a really good one.

I don't really find much significance in obsessing over how Frost describes "how well we practiced" on any given day. I'm glad for anybody else that does find it interesting but I just see it more as content to fill the multiple pressers we do each week. Regardless of the grade of any given practice we are undisciplined and sloppy in the turnover, penalties, and special teams categories for pretty much 60 minutes of each game. Hopefully Saturday is different; that's all that matters.

I lol'd hard.

I hate saying this but I'd probably say Cam Meredith...

Gotcha. I am told over and over to not put too much stock into what the major recruiting services say about a kid's profile but I disagree, and I think those numbers are as good a measure as any to go by. When I look at the "talent" Riley had to work with I see recruiting classes full of a bunch of three stars with a few four stars sprinkled in there. Did Riley develop those guys? NO, NO, and NO. So I'm less interested in trying to figure out whether or not Frost has a better eye for a recruit than anybody else but rather I'm interested this season in: 1. Where our 2019 recruiting class ultimately falls on the national level come February. 2. Whether or not this rag tag bunch of misfits is playing better football at the end of the season than they were at the beginning of the season. Anything other than that and you need a crystal ball to even have the discussion.

While I see the point that you're making, the first answer off the top of my head is that he knows the Osborne system of player development. He went through that system himself. He knows that Nebraska will get some high four stars but is also going to get a bunch of three stars and that those three stars need a lot of development. He has stated his comprehensive road map for this and it involves attention to detail in every facet of the athlete's life. Will it actually work and/or get carried out? We're about to find out. But there's strong evidence that he does in fact have a plan in his mind that objectively defines how to develop a player.

I suppose you're right, we don't technically know it for sure.

Ha, funny stuff. I forgot what I said that about originally? Was it beating Michigan?

I'm not sure I'd be reading between the lines and saying that the depth chart looks all that different or that it looks different because the problem guys got benched (with the exception of Jackson). The Farmer-for-Conrad swap is due to injury. So then if you move Farmer to center, obviously a new guy comes in for Farmer at right guard. So it's not like earth shattering news. Obviously I love that Lee is listed above Jackson. But our front seven is honestly just a sad state of affairs with the one exception being Barry.