Undone

Exactly. A poster above said to "offer Frost Riley's salary and go from there." This forum would lead everyone to believe that Frost is Tom Osborne 2.0. How much is Tom Osborne 2.0 worth to Husker Nation? $2.7M per year? It just doesn't work that way.

Black ski masks at the gate for all. b******* problem = solved Unidentifiable stabbings ensue.

Can Mike Riley win the West division at some point? Maybe. If he posts a 6/6 record or worse this season, the body of evidence in three seasons would most likely point to the answer being "no." There it is, in a non-inflammatory, gut check analysis. No emotion, just evidence. I want this team to go 5-0 in these last five games. But the performance in the first seven suggest this would be miraculous. Everybody in the college football world knows this; it really is not affected by what a fan says on a message board.

There is no correlation to what is said on this message board and our team getting embarrassed by Ohio State a week and a half ago. None.

I don't understand the "just the paycheck" mentality. Since when does money not talk, in any industry?

In my humble opinion, it's better to spend practice time with your mobile quarterback throwing the ball in place of that same practice time being spent on practicing option plays in addition to the base zone read option plays. I just don't see it as necessary at all. I see it simply playing into the nostalgia factor for our fan base which feels good and all, but isn't actually practical or necessary. Again, just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Agreed. If he wins his conference, that is officially "recent success" and impressive success at that. Moos' reputation would make you assume he'll consider all options. I will assume that if Frost is named it's because he truly was the best option available. And if that happens, I will be very happy. I just don't see Riley making the staff changes necessary to make things work.

I know. I still haven't gotten over how Pelini was billed as a "defensive genius" but could never craft a B1G defense designed to stop Wisconsin's smashmouth offense.

I will be absolutely thrilled if we hire Frost if these last five games go like I assume they will go. Absolutely thrilled. Largely for the offense that Scott runs.

My main question is just this: Despite the fact that it's unlikely, are we at least trying?

It's hilarious because when I've said on this forum that we need a "first tier" coach on this forum and that Frost is not that guy, I was practically flamed. Nice to see Chalk Talk saying the same things just from the standpoint of a sanity check about all of the Frost hysteria. The Frost hysteria is of course born out of Riley's terrible results, I get it.

I agree, Mav. Just an observation. It's not an excuse for the failures on defense in year three. Our defense has been more pathetic than I could have ever dreamed this season.

Diaco absolutely has to swallow his pride and blitz like hell in this game. If we lose this game in the neighborhood of something like 35-30 I will lose my mind. There is absolutely no reason that Purdue should put up more than 24 points in this game and our offense should be able to get one touchdown per quarter. Come on coaches, you can do this. You're better than this. You can game plan for Purdue...right?

I do think that Bo left the cupboards bare with talent on defense from his last two recruiting classes. That has hampered Riley in big ways that our fan base either isn't really aware of or doesn't want to admit. You see it on the field and it seems glaringly obvious. The problem seems to be Diaco. The move to fire Banker was exactly the right move. But Diaco's scheme isn't working in this conference, just as Bo's defense never transitioned to being really good against the run after we entered into a new conference that largely plays a different style of offense by most teams. Scheme-wise and philosophy-wise, I am extremely concerned about Diaco. I do see the potential on offense if our line could improve and if Bryant were to make a recovery with his knee issues. Both of those things don't seem super likely to happen next year, but it could happen.

What I'm pretty consistently seeing is that Riley doesn't actually do much in-game coaching. His coordinators are coaching. If Diaco continues on with his passive 3-4 defensive scheme I honestly don't believe Riley will even achieve winning the West. Langsdorf probably actually has a decent shot at getting the offense to a place where we're "winning the game we're supposed to win," but Diaco's defense (if left unchanged from this season) puts us in a place where we're again going to be manhandled by Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. Mike has failed to bring in a good staff. He could fire Cavanaugh, he could attempt to force Diaco to change things up, but I just don't see him team being competitive at winning the conference at any point.

I believe what I can infer from your post is that Nebraska was sprinkled with Fairy Walkon Dust that attracted walk-ons like magic. Not that Davaney & Osborne, as a great coaches, encouraged it and built it into what it was. If Frank were a great coach and he understood that the walkon program was necessary to Ohio's success, would he not be able to foster that to some degree that brought him some amount of more measurable success?

I sort of agree. I've always said that Bo was in reality incredibly close to winning back-to-back conference titles in 2009 & 2010. In 2009, if McCoy scrambles for one extra second, that's a conference title. In 2010, we were beating Oklahoma at halftime but then if memory serves couldn't score a single point on offense in the second half. Those two defenses were roughly on par with what we had from '93 - '99. Even still, our offensive lines limited some of what were were able to do in the zone read (even though were were admittedly very high nationally in rushing rank under Bo most seasons).

There is not a single shred of evidence to support that view. It's the epitome of grasping at straws.

I'd attribute this, in this order, to: 1. Lack of drive by the players to step onto the field from the first minute and curb stomp the other team. 2. Completely predictable and not-creative-enough play calling from Langsdorf.

I think the biggest problem we're seeing is Diaco's huge deficiencies in his defensive scheme. Unless he really drastically overhauled his defensive philosophy, which he almost surely wouldn't, I don't ever expect that Riley will be able to beat even Wisconsin. How in the **** do we get so unlucky to have two defensive minds back-to-back with the "bend but don't break" nonsense?!

Agreed. My point though was that Shaw recruits more than just "character" and "drive."

Ted Talks are cool and all, but... Stanford's national recruiting rankings the past six years: -2017 = 14th -2016 = 16th -2015 = 24th -2014 = 13th -2013 = 52nd -2012 = 7th Three of those years are Top 15 and one of those is Top 10. I wish we did that.

I realize that this is "literally what coaching is," Rike. We don't usually get Top 20 classes. We usually get classes in the #20 - #30 rank range. What if we had a coach that could consistently get Top 20 classes? Do we think that getting such a coach and staff that can recruit this well is feasible, or are we resigning ourselves to believing that it's not possible?

+1, good post. I would also take Frost over Venables but could see Venables being a great fit for us. I'd be curious to know what style of offense he'd run and I don't think there's be any real way to know.

I just feel like he wouldn't have the name recognition to pull in recruiting classes that are at least better than Bo & Riley's were. If we want to play Top 10 football, our coaching has to be exceptional if we're going to be in that #20-#30 range of recruiting classes. And I think our fan base still by and large doesn't quite understand this. There's either some kind of resignation that we won't have top 10 recruiting classes because "it's not the Nebraska way" or because Bo & Riley weren't able to do we just assume the next guy can't. What I'm perceiving is that there are a lot of people that believe that Frost has that coaching fairy dust to take the recruiting classes we normally expect to get and turn the final product into a Top 10 team. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. In a scenario where it's Frost or Riley, I want Frost. Absolutely, with no question. But we need much, much better recruiting classes to win titles. I don't feel like our fan base concedes this, but it seems so obvious. And of course...maybe Frost gets those top 15 classes. Maybe. Just doesn't seem likely to me.