Undone

I can't help but notice that both the Jeep in your avatar picture and profile background picture are right-hand drive steering wheels. I need to get to the bottom of this...

I would have liked to have seen outside pitches or quick throws to Washington. The big problem was multiple 3rd & shorts that we couldn't convert on. I suppose that I'd have to at least partially disagree with some comments above that "what Troy did [on offense] worked better." One of their touchdowns was on a punt return. So technically, they scored fewer offensive points than we did. And we both rushed for and passed for more yards. *Edit: Not that it makes it any better, really. In my opinion we should always crack at least 450 yards of total offense and put up at least 30 points against a Sun Belt team.

As I look down the active threads on the first page of the Football forum, one thing sticks out to me pretty clearly - I don't think there's a single thread topic about poor defensive play after week 2. Seems pretty safe to say that Chinander is a big upgrade over the past three defensive coordinators we've had. So that's incredibly encouraging to me. That was my primary concern heading into the season.

I get it, MountainMan. You're mad about being 0-2. And you're not here to discuss the topic of any given thread.

Ha, +1.

Enter stage right: Huskerboard.

Consider it done.

I'd probably actually go so far as to say that more than anything it sort of underscores how pointless sports interviews are in general. "Tell us about that loss on Saturday, Tanner." "Tell us how you're feeling right now, Tanner." "Tell us about the work ethic of the team right now, Tanner." Almost painful to digest it all when I really stop and think about it. I like hearing from Frost for the most part; it's usually somewhat indicative of what's going on. But the players? I don't know.

Your reading comprehension needs some work.

Pretty bold stuff.

Heh, totally agree. It's like we've ignored the fact that our unbelievable phenom true freshman quarterback got hurt and didn't play against Troy. We still should have won without him, but with him in the game we probably win by two scores.

Prior to the season started, even factoring in the huge glass of red Kool-Aid I was slurping down, I didn't even think we'd beat Michigan. I didn't think we could beat them while having played Akron and having a perfectly healthy Adrian Martinez. Martinez is most likely still a bit gimpy and has less than four full quarters of college football experience under his belt. I love the confidence but we are huge underdogs in this game. If we win I will speak in tongues and dance to Enya in the middle of 'O' street, though.

Actually it wouldn't have necessarily sealed the win. I think it was 28-27 at that point. So we would have gone up by 8, and then driving back and scoring (along with a hypothetical two point conversion) would have tied it up. But yeah...Morgan's drop hurt pretty bad.

These are good discussion points. The thing is that strength & conditioning is actually pretty objectively measurable. Football strength programs usually now encompass more than just how much a guy can squat, overhead press, bench, clean, etc. But pick any of these things, including things like vertical jump - they're measurable. So if our team has on average greatly improved their numbers from where they were in January, that's a good thing. Is Duvall the best S&C guy in the nation? Probably not. Hopefully nobody was out there just assuming that just because he's associated to Scott Frost and Scott Frost is associated with the Boyd Epley Hercules program. But with all of that said, our team can continue to get stronger and better conditioned as the season goes on. We may not be where we need to be yet and that seems fairly reasonable to me.

Super abbreviated version: -I think we lost to Colorado mainly because of turnovers. -I think we lost to Troy mainly because of terrible special teams.

I hadn't seen that, good catch. Yes, frustrating.

Good thoughts. And though it's only been two games, our tight ends have been pretty absent from the game plans so far in my opinion. It's possible that this is because Frost sees the need to establish the run in a new playbook/blocking schemes, which I'd totally understand.

Your posts are all over the board. Try to convey some kind of point you're wanting to make.

And Farniok just completely whiffs on his guy. That was probably the biggest problem for the play.

What a great find, @BlitzFirst. +1.

Yes. And surely not having Martinez in the game contributes to this. With Martinez in the game, the edge blitz doesn't come as often because defenses know that he can just side-step that s*** like it's nothing (see his first touchdown last week) and gash them. Despite what Frost might say to the contrary, I suspect that we have a bit of a crippled playbook with Bunch in the game combined with getting the box stacked more often. Hard to consistently have success with inside zone running in this scenario. This is why I was screaming yesterday in the second quarter to throw the WR screen. When we did that on that first successful drive, the field opened up. But we just couldn't capitalize on 3rd and shorts too often yesterday to get into the red zone enough. It's going to be really interesting to see who starts against Michigan...

I'm going to guess that the mood of the board will slowly shift greatly between today and Friday. It usually does. Biggest question really is, what is Martinez's injury status? Because honestly, Michigan State and Wisconsin both look like they're down a lot this year. We could win both of those games. If Martinez is back and is somewhere around 90% healthy against Michigan, I'd say don't schedule the 12/01 game.

Good points, @3rd and long.

And you'd hope in the Red Zone that you can lean on your experienced offensive line to plow some running lanes. We just couldn't do it on the drive where we wound up kicking for the missed field goal. Honestly, that was really the difference in the game.

Yes. And I couldn't believe we didn't get into the end zone where we wound up kicking for a missed field goal.