Mavric

I don't agree with Dirk's premise. That is, I don't think Wisconsin says "We're going to run the ball a lot so we're only going to recruit three-star receivers." You always recruit the best WRs you can get. You just have a lot better chance of landing them with a passing offense.

However, I do think he's correct that we want to throw the ball a lot. And we're selling WR and QB recruits on that.

The big question is how effective will that offense be. As you know, I don't think it will be very effective - in fact, detrimental - with TA under center. I'm more hopeful with POB going forward. We'll see.

Nebraska is going to throw the ball. A lot. They’re gonna throw it when Tommy Armstrong is the quarterback. They’re gonna throw it when Patrick O’Brien is the quarterback. In 2016, their best position group on the roster is wide receiver. In ’17, after losing Westerkamp, wideout might still be their best position group.

Yes, Husker coaches must be wiser about putting their quarterback in bad situations. The defense must be better, enabling the offense to play from ahead, rather than behind.

But it’s no accident that Riley is recruiting big-time receivers. The UCLA beatdown was glorious — for 80 percent of the fan base, that game will always be the ideal run-pass ratio — but the Riley offense will flourish or fail in the air with recruits like Keyshawn Johnson Jr.

In other words, it will continue to resemble the Bill Callahan offense.

From 2004-07, Callahan's offense ran 3,461 plays. What percentage were rushes? 52.1 percent.

In 2015, Riley's offense ran 954 plays. What percentage were rushes? 52.0 percent.

Yikes!

OWH

Anyone hear anything about Borchart and how he is developing?

 

The roster says 6'8" and 275lbs. I'm almost positive he is taller than that. I was taking around 6'9" - 6'10".

I've stood right next to him - not that it matters a lot when he's most of a foot taller - but I wouldn't say for sure he's taller than 6-8. He's a big boy but that seems right to me.

My take:

Gates for Lewis - Improvement, though probably a regression in replacing Gates on the other side. Probably a wash unless Knevel really comes on.

DTs - Probably a bit of a regression in the short term, though VV was slowed by injuries. Long-term I think the Davis twins will be very near the equals of Collins so improvement down the road.

Anyone for Cockrell - Should be a noticeable improvement. I haven't been a fan of Cockrell for two years. I don't think he really *made* many plays and definitely had his share of screw ups. I would think any of those three will be an improvement.

I think it's beyond argument that whatever we have been doing isn't working.

In Miles first year here, he mostly inherited five players 6-9 or taller (Ubel, Vucetic, Pitchford, Almeida and Kurkowski). Not all exactly quality contributors but still some to choose from.

We now have one (Hammond) who isn't even good enough to start despite his size advantage over everyone else on the team.

And this isn't exactly something to write home about:

He’s sporting a few more wrinkles coming off a third losing season in his four years at NU. That’s happened only twice since the early 1960s, under Barry Collier and Jerry Bush.

Miles said he is re-evaluating his big-man recruiting philosophy.

“I ask myself what we have to do to attract big men,” he said. “Have we shot too high?”

These seven players’ statistics indicate Nebraska, instead of shooting too high, perhaps aimed at the wrong targets. Somewhere, there have to be big men who produce more than tiny point and rebound averages.

“You’ve got two options,” Miles said. “One, get a high-level player. Two, take a mid-level player and develop him. That’s where I look at whether we missed on mid-level centers to develop.

“Maybe I should just look at it as, ‘Let’s take this kid, develop him, and see what happens.’ Quite frankly, off the top of my head, I can’t name anybody I think we missed on to develop as a center.”

OWH

Looked at too many Tweets in the last hour to remember for sure.

But it was something referencing KJJ's commitment. I think it was referencing that we also had McQuitty.

https://twitter.com/totaltroutmove/status/712664275022512128

I don't remember this one.

But I don't get too caught up in "I'm planning to visit school x." A lot of guys will say that as they're looking around, especially if they know their talking to a guy who covers a certain school.

Once they have a date set, then I find it interesting.

Your failure at reading comprehension does not mean that I'm cherry-picking.

I know what I said. I haven't changed that. I'll even quote it for you.

To be fair, most of the teams in the Top 250 would be pretty likely to beat Nebraska.

You have nothing that proves this is false. We have a season's worth of results that point to it being true. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it not true - at least as "true" as an option based on observations can be.

"Clemson loses seven non-seniors in the secondary because of the NFL draft or dismissals"

Not gonna lie, this is going to suck.

But it's a really good kind of suck.

WR Keyshawn Johnson Jr.

Who voted for: Nebraska

And YOU get a point. And YOU get a point. And ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yale would more than likely beat Nebraska. A lot of senior leadership on that team.

 

To be fair, most of the teams in the Top 250 would be pretty likely to beat Nebraska.

 

 

This is silly -

 

Either you are saying that we fall somewhere around 126-150 in the country which would mean that MOST (about half ) should beat NU or you are saying that teams around 200/250 would be likely to beat us (which is not happening)

 

 

We were 6-17 against the Top 250 this year. So we had about a 26% chance of beating the Top 250 teams that we played. Meaning we were pretty likely to get beat.

 

Nice job spinning your words around to say something different....

 

 

Not really. You can speculate about what we might have done against the teams that we didn't play. Or you can look at what actually happened against the teams that we did play.

 

According to KenPom.com, we were #100. So we were slightly above the range that you gave that you would consider accurate for my statement.

 

But we also lost to Samford who is #224 (so we're actually 6-18 - I was assuming they were lower) so I don't know how you can say with much certainty that would would have beaten anyone in the Top 250. Last year we lost to Incarnate Word who was #228.

 

 

Anybody can speculate all they want, however that would just be a guess and that's all you can do if we don't schedule 249 games to play everybody else in the top 250.

 

You can pick an outlier to prove your point, however I could reply back with us beating a 2 seed that many picked to win the tournament. I would be making the same mistake that you did by finding 1 outlier that doesn't tell the whole season.

 

But you are right I can not 100% guarantee that we would have beaten xyz team in the top 250 unless we play them. You could also say the same on the opposite side about the 30 NBA teams - I think we are both smart enough to know that we wouldn't do well.

 

 

I didn't pick any outliers to prove my point. I noted our record against EVERY TOP 250 TEAM WE PLAYED THIS YEAR.

 

Now, you're assuming if we played some of the other teams we would win. That's possible. But that's pure speculation on your part since we proved we could lost to the #224 team in the country................

 

............. and beat a top 10 team in the country.

 

 

Yes. So did Middle Tennessee State.

 

But we're talking about what is "likely" to happen.

 

So we beat a top 10 team and lost to a low level team at the 225 range. Again these are outliers - every team has them every season. You choose to think it is "likely" to loss because you are more on the negative side and I choose to think it is "likely" to win because i'm more on the positive side.

 

But either way you keep basing your statement on one game out of a 30+ game season.

 

 

What part of 6-18 is basing it on one game?

 

Because you are using the the lowest team (#224) and then trying to make a 6-18 correlation off that one team like all the other teams that we played in that 6-18 group would be similar to #224 - While quickly forgetting that we beat a team that is in single digit rankings.

 

This conversation is silly - so keep posting but i'm done trying to get this thru to you. As stated earlier you tend to be a little too negative and I tend to be a little too positive - so i'm sure we will have many more chances to disagree.

No, I'm not making anything off of one team. I'm saying out of ALL THE TEAMS WE PLAYED IN THE TOP 250, WE WERE 6-18 AGAINST THEM. It's taking every game we played against teams that fit this description this year. I'm not cherry-picking anything.

You seem to want to infer that we would have beaten other Top 250 teams that we didn't play. That's entirely possible. But that's quite an assumption being as we proved we could lose to one of the worst of those teams.

Well, I guess he should have opportunities....