Undone

32 minutes ago, PasstheDamnBallGuy said:

South Carolina must have made a huge jump on offense and won more games this year once they dumped Satt. Oh wait they scored 6 less points per game and also missed a bowl this year. Welp those fans were certainly validated. 

This is an "end thread" if I've ever seen one. Amazing work.

2 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

On3 rated Sims the 16th best QB in the transfer portal last year. QBs they had rated higher include two guys we faced this year:  Tanner Mordecai (SMU -> Wisconsin) and Hudson Card (Texas -> Purdue).

 

They also say (although I don't know how true this might be) that Sims had an NIL value of $135,000.  Casey Thompson, rated the 23rd best QB in the portal by On3, had an NIL value of $141,000. Kinda interesting.

 

I think it's safe to say Sims wasn't the best QB available, but I have no idea what interest any of the QBs rated above him had in coming to Nebraska.

 

In hindsight it's clear Sims was a massive bust. But Scott Frost was widely believed to be the home-run hire of his cycle when we got him, and we all know how that turned out.

 

Predictions are a tough business.

Yeah. I thought Card was going to do pretty well for Purdue, and even though we beat him/them and he didn't look amazing in that game I definitely would have rather had him over Sims. He can kind of run but is a pass-first guy and at least hits receivers when they're open.

The staff obviously was married to the idea of running option & zone read a fair bit and that's why we got Sims. Really funny to think about what was paid for him in NIL just to have him tank games.

When I watched what was supposedly his "highlight reels" on YouTube back in March I was like "this guy can't really throw the ball." He wound up even screwing up snaps and turning the wrong way (multiple times) on running back hand-offs.

1 hour ago, corncraze said:

Our OC handpicked the QB that lead the NCAA in turnovers. Our staff did very little in the portal or JUCOs to address the holes on offense. And our OL is still atrocious (the PFF rankings support that - look at Turner scoring 0s in pass protection for multiple games). In my mind, our turnovers correlate with our OL performance. Bad protection means more picks. Not the only factor clearly - decision making by all 3 QBs was also awful, and that would likely be an indicator of coaching. Three completely different players all produce unprecedented TOs. If this wasn’t our team, I’m pretty sure all of us would view Satt as an awful OC. We could recognize how back Brian Ferentz was.

I think everybody agrees that grabbing Sims out of the portal was a huge mistake. It's hard to say whether we would have really gotten anybody better than Purdy, but it's possible.

Seeing Purdy's skills at throwing (at least when he's throwing to a wide open guy and actually hitting his target) and watching his instincts to tuck it & scramble when it's there makes me think if he hadn't had the groin injury at all, we go bowling.

Haarberg was no doubt the 3rd string guy at the end of camp if Purdy isn't injured, and probably doesn't see the field at all without Chubba's injury.

16 minutes ago, Packerhuskerfan said:

He needed to throw that last pass deep or just throw it away.  At worse in that situation maybe it gets picked deep on the sidelines.  The pass he did wasn't going to help our kicker against the wind even if it were a good pass and completed.  It seems with most QBs, once a turnover machine, always a turnover machine.

I thought if he just lofted it a bit more he makes that throw. Could have made the FG if that play had gone to our guy he was throwing to.

27 minutes ago, Mavric said:

I'd also add that it seems likely that when you're often playing games that come down to the last possession, not only are any mistakes magnified, it would be easy for the QBs to put added pressure on themselves to "make a play" and try to do more than they otherwise would/should.

Yeah.

One thing that's really crazy to me is that if we had the scoring average of the majority of the Frost years this season, we go at least 7-5. It's super pathetic that three very winnable games were tied at 10 points middle to late 4th quarter in the first place.

And the biggest reason for us not having more than 10 points up on the board by that point in those games was typically unforced errors in the previous 3.5 quarters.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

53 minutes ago, corncraze said:

So we’re just supposed to believe that three separate QBs are all TO machines with horrid decision-making? Getting the same performance from three completely different players sure seems like a coaching issue to me.

I've said for a long time that I believe a major factor to these "B grade" mobile QB's not getting better with their passing is that a good chunk of your practice time is spent running zone read & option run plays.

One would assume we go after a QB in the portal. I would hope we'd try to dial back the QB run game and get a guy who has FBS-level film of being a good passer.

If we can't do that and Purdy is the guy next year, yes I agree - coaching either comes in big or we're in trouble.

The biggest problems in the Iowa game on offense throughout the whole of the game in order for me were:

1. The two turnovers that Purdy had.

2. Our inability to run the ball.

3. The missed field goal.

We had 30 carries for 75 yards. Nothing all that bad about 30 carries for your total - but that's 2.5 YPC. Terrible.

If you go back and look at the winnable conference games that we lost in Minnesota, Michigan State, & Maryland, QB mistakes are also at the top of the list of problems. This is why I think it's weird to fixate on scheme and play calling problems. We just need our QB's to not turn the ball over as the starting point.

Actual laughing out loud at people who think a scheme change to a guy whose system is almost exactly the same as what we did this season somehow saves the program. I legitimately want to smoke what you're smoking, not even kidding.

The core issue that stood between us and a bowl game this season was turnovers. Over and over again our QB's & ball carriers f***ed up in new and hilarious ways.

We ran the option this year. We ran fullback traps. Scheme can't/didn't un-f*** our situation. Not making constant unforced errors will be the biggest thing that does that.

3 hours ago, ranch boy said:

had my doubts about rhule, specifically his hires and whether or not he'd be able to adjust in the transfer portal world.

1 hour ago, killer cacti said:

I can tell you this: South Carolina was ecstatic that y’all hired him away. They were beyond worried that Beamer wouldn’t fire him after last season.

We knew this rhetoric 9 months ago, but thanks for dropping by.

1 hour ago, TGHusker said:

I’m hoping Trev is hearing from boosters who want a change. 

40 minutes ago, huskerfan74 said:

I would pick Brian Ferentz over him 100 times and that is saying much as Brian’s offense averages less than 250 yards a game but won 10 games, arguably against losers like us in the big west losers division.

1 minute ago, Nebhawk said:

This is why I will not throw Purdy under the bus.  I will question our coaching staff on this decision.

It came out about two weeks ago that he's had a groin injury all year.

I definitely don't blame Purdy for this loss. We didn't run the ball well, and the coaches seemed like they just didn't want to try to lean on the run in this one.

I expected 6-6 because of the weak schedule we had. To not make a bowl game with this schedule is just sad.

The Maryland game goes down as probably a top 10 program loss for me. Just the clown show of turnovers by our QB's after the defense plays a good game...we should have sealed bowl eligibility in that game and then been able to really let loose in the last couple.

Purdy is better than the other two wildcat QB's we trotted out this year. But, if his playing time this year is any indication, he's a turnover machine.

We shouldn't have even been in a situation where we're not up by at least 3 points late in the fourth in this game with how well we kept them from putting points on the board. Purdy shouldn't have even been in a situation where he has to throw a medium distance pass to be in field goal range to take the lead. But the INT he threw on the last drive...just really bad.

If we don't get a good QB out of the portal there's really nothing to be excited about for next year for me.

We just couldn't run the ball. 51% run/pass ratio. Not saying we should have ran more, but when we ran we just didn't get good gains by and large.

You just can't out-Iowa Iowa.

On 11/22/2023 at 6:32 PM, admo said:

Deacon Hill looks a biscuit away from 260. 

Funny you should mention biscuits. He had special training table sessions in the offseason with Mark Mangino himself. Mark uses a very controversial method where he has his athletes superset biscuits & gravy with milkshakes.

4 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Even back in 2021 when I was blaming Scott Frost for everything, Nebraska and its supposedly abysmal OL and playcalling were generating the second best offense in the Big 10.  (let's ignore the turnover and red zone issues) 

Yes! And remember what Frost (read: Alberts) did with like 2 or 3 games left in that season? Fired four offensive coaches and scapegoated the offense in what wound up being a 3-9 year.

We wound up losing 3 games to crushing special teams play that year (which is just my own subjective take):

-Michigan State --> We punted the ball to the opposite side of the field our wedge is running to and they get a walk-in TD when we were up by 7 middle of the 4th quarter.

-Wisconsin --> Opening play of the game we let them run the kickoff back for a TD.

-Iowa --> Horrible blocking on a punt that they block and run in for a TD

He's good at saying things in pressers. He also seems to be fairly good at motivating the players. And his defensive coordinator has to be one of the 10 best in the country.

But it's in the zip code at least of "s***ing the bed" as a program if we lose this game to make it four straight losses to end the season. I think that can be true and also "we're at least slightly better than we ever were in the last six years" at the same time if we lose to Iowa.

Need to win this game.

2 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Two things that give me hope.  Wisconsin beat us in large part two ways.

 

1). Their QB was able to hit some key passes when he needed them.

 

2). When those pass plays weren't there, he was able to squirm out of the pocket and get positive yards and  1st downs.

 

Iowa is really bad at both of those.  I can not imagine their QB scrambling for many yards.

Good assessment there.

I really think we lose this one. I don't feel good about the three loss skid we're on, whereas Iowa has won three in a row. They're just the better team on paper.

The one place they're usually susceptible is when your QB scrambles on them. They're just not built for that on defense. They're built to stop the run and they usually have surprisingly good corners.

I can't believe we actually ran toss plays against Wisconsin like we did. I've been wanting to see more of that all year. I hope we run a healthy dose of those and I hope that Purdy tucks it & scrambles after making two quick reads on pass plays/RPO's. Those are the keys to success - aside from not turning the ball over five times like we usually do.

31 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

Not sure who is complaining about the play calling.

I created a hypothetical situation. I said people would be complaining about the play calling if that last drive had been full of passes that went for incompletions and we don't even tie it up.

32 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

It’s the lack of time awareness and maximizing that time to get as many plays on as possible to give your team the best chance to win the game that people are rightfully complaining about

I talked about this a ton a few posts up.     

14 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

I can go with that. It was also a safe strategy by a coaching staff that got burned the week before. 

Totally agree with this. And I said this yesterday - can you imagine the way this board melts down had we been pretty aggressive and we throw a bunch on that drive and don't even get the field goal?

Regarding the rushing yards per carry stat: I'm going to preface this by saying that when I look at our top RB's YPC stats in a lot of our box scores this season versus last season, it's better this year. In my opinion that speaks to Raiola's work and some improvement in run blocking by the guys.

But, the numbers get inflated by long QB scrambles. Now one counterpoint in bringing this up is that Haarberg really didn't have a ton of those. But still, they inflate the numbers.

Nevertheless, we're #1 on the damn list. That's awesome. I'm not firing Raiola if I'm Rhule and I think he has improved the play of the same players (minus Scott being new). So like, that's super good. I think we can continue on the same trajectory under Raiola.

If you would have asked me heading into game 1 "will the offensive line or the QB play be the bigger problem this season" I wouldn't have even thought to say it would be QB play. But it definitely wound up being QB play.