Undone

I had another thought, but it's gone now.

Michigan plays at Northwestern this week. I'm mildly interested in seeing how many points the Wolverines put up. Going to assume that it's considerably less than 56, but we'll see.

Also, all of this talk about Thursday's practice needing to be better than Monday's...it's kind of a nonsensical thing to latch onto. Maybe one day is better than the other or maybe not. Just seems like a pretty pointless talking point by everyone involved.

That is super refreshing to hear him (or any player on the defense) identify that as the problem. Because...that was the problem.

And to get down to the "nut cuttin'." We just need to cut more nuts, I suspect.

I'm going to probably just create a text file on my desktop that I can copy/paste from for this. Verduzco said in the spring that he doesn't play two guys. That's really the end of the discussion. Every single person involved - including Gebbia - knew that one guy was going to be the guy. So let's all just get past this "Frost should have handled it like Saban is handling his QB situation" s***. And also, f*** Saban.

Man...I can't imagine Martinez being any more well-spoken of an 18 year old kid. Dude has maturity beyond his years. Screw that last question he got asked of "Do you think the offense is better when you're running it?" I felt sorry for him to have to field a question that leading and that stupid but he did a great job giving a generic answer.

The main concern I have for the remaining 8 out of 9 games is stopping the run in conference play. If it looks like it did against Colorado, I'm expecting to definitely see overall improvement as the weeks go on. Not looking forward to playing Wisconsin...but I'm pretty sure we can get six wins as long as Martinez doesn't get hurt again.

Ha. Interesting. I just want to watch Martinez play football this Saturday with a (hopefully) healthy knee. Want to watch him torch the Boilermakers.

I think there's a bit of overthinking in this stuff from Benning, and that's basically what sports talk radio is; filling a 30-60 minute time slot every day with something. It's probably not all that complicated. We've got an offensive line that isn't very competitive, along with a couple players on defense that just don't put in much effort. We need to graduate some of this slack and rebuild with an incredible quarterback and some really talented young skill players on offense. Being that we're only three games into the season I'm not sure we've even seen enough football to know what the overall plan is for this season. And because of the Akron cancellation and Martinez's injury, all of the initial panic over being 0-3 wasn't really warranted in the first place.

Exactly. Frost gives him an offer and he de-commits from playing in his home state of Hawaii to move to Florida. As just a true Sophomore you saw what Frost & Verduzco can do with a quarterback. The flashes of brilliance from Martinez have already been seen. With an offensive line that has some more focus and intensity this offense is going to very likely be excellent next season. It could even be excellent by the end of this season.

I think we both know the answer to that question, my friend.

Here's the thing about your potential theory, OP - Even if that were the case with Milton, Adrian Martinez looks to be all that Milton was and more. Martinez was a more highly recruited kid whose Junior year highlight reel is pretty insane. Verduzco is in a position to do the very same thing with Martinez. You put Maurice Washington in the mix. You return Spielman, Williams, and Lindsey, and Greg Bell. Those are even better offensive weapons in my opinion at the skill positions than UCF had. Next year is the year. It's as if this fan base has gone so long without a good quarterback that we've forgotten how much it means to success.

I'd tend to agree with that. The problem, as stated several times now, seems to be too much thinking or second-guessing about where to go, instead of just staying in position and then crashing to the ball as the play develops. And I don't blame these Bob Diaco-coached guys if there's still some of that crap in their heads about how to play to the ball. But...if some nobody like me can see these trends, I'm just hoping that the coaches will put someone else in there for Purdue to see if we can at least see some improvement. Because it just almost can't be worse than the last 7ish minutes against Troy and all of the game against Michigan.

It's just going to make it all the sweeter when we're back to playing Top 10 football.

My main observation is that this isn't what he did at UCF, and I think we'd probably agree the route he went with them paid off. He did say that he dialed the playbook down to 80% that first year, but that seemed to have been about it in terms of simplification. In one year he got a good quarterback recruit in there as a true freshman to a place where he and the entire offense was just deadly in 2017. I believe he's doing the same here with Martinez. In other words, as painful as this is for fans, Frost, and the players themselves, this seems to be his blueprint he used at UCF. I'm not too worried.

The bolded.

I agree with that and stated that in the posts above. What you coach your linebackers to do in the 3-4 in a run-heavy conference is important, though. Very important. Talent isn't necessarily the issue, and I think the dissection of just those two plays above shows that. It's what's going on between the ears of a couple of players that's especially bad right now. *Edit - Add "effort" to the list, too.

I gotcha. That's a pretty bold theory and would be a new low for Husker football. Charlie McBride would probably whip a guy's *** into the next area code for such a thing.

So if you're Chinander, you pull Young out and put Honas in, IMO. Because it just almost can't be any worse than what you see in those two plays. This kind of stuff is potentially fixable right now. There are a couple of guys on defense that are obviously "really good in practice" but just make mental mistakes in live game time.

Here's their second touchdown. Same play: Looks like Alex Davis is in to create a four man front on the right. Which I like a lot. And the I believe I see Caleb Tannor as a fifth guy on the left edge of our line. They have a six man front. More mindless play from Young. He casually steps to his left and bumps into Barry. Barry - actually reading the play well - tries to get over to make a play Young should have made in the first place. Seriously...so depressing.

Statistically, the favorite wins greater than 51% of the time. It's the odds of that team winning. So logically, it's relevant when discussing the odds of your team winning the game.

A big part of UCF's 13-0 season in my opinion was McKenzie Milton. And Frost & Verduzco get all of the credit for not only bringing him in but developing his talent. He finished 8th in the Heisman voting last year. I think Adrian Martinez is that guy and that's one of the big reasons I'm preemptively excited about where our program is heading. Add Maurice Washington to that list, too.

If I see Martinez march out onto the field from the tunnel walk wearing a soft brace instead of a hard brace, I'm going to say Purdue. I think if he's healthy he'll come into that game with a mission to light it up. If it's a bit of a crippled playbook because he's still somewhat injured, I think Purdue has the upper hand, in which I'd go with Northwestern.

Agreed here. And this is why I won't be surprised if we loom considerably better by season's end.