NUinID

44 minutes ago, everybody knows my name said:

 

This is a reach.  If they're unproven, then the only thing you have to hang your hat on is that you think your backups are good.  I could play that game too, but what's the point?  Both teams have backup QBs who the coaches thought enough of to recruit them and offer them scholarships, but who haven't proved a thing on the field.

I don't think it is a reach at all.  Noah Vedral backed up Makenzie Milton at UCF as a true freshman and got quite a bit of PT time.  We know what he can do their is tape from 2 years ago showing what he can do.  Luke McCaffery is getting rave reviews so far, there is a lot being said about how much his throwing has improved.  I agree with Buster this is about as comfortable I have felt about QB in about 10 years.  

2 hours ago, everybody knows my name said:

 

Offense

QB: edge Nebraska - no question your guy is a weapon, while our guy (Morgan) is functional.  Neither team has great depth.

OL: edge Minnesota - we were okay for half of 2018, then tremendous when Faalele started playing.  Between the two teams I think the three best OL (Connor Olson, Blaise Andries, Daniel Faalale) are all Gophers.

RB: edge Minnesota - Ibrahim exceeded 1000 yards as a freshman, then there's Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks - those three are all killers.

TE: even

WR: edge Minnesota - I like Spielman a lot, but he's only one guy.  You're going to miss Stanley Morgan a lot.  Tyler Johnson is better than Spielman, Rashod Bateman is better than Johnson was at the same point in his career, and Demetrius Douglas and Chris Autman-Bell both have great potential.

 

Defense

DL: edge Nebraska - but only slightly.  You have better talent overall, while we have the best individual player in Coughlin.

LB: edge Minnesota - our boys are going to excel this year.  Thomas Barber and Kamal Martin are experienced and both will probably see the field in the NFL, and Thomas Rush looks like the next big thing.  Your LB corps is pretty good, could be very good, but not equal to ours in 2019.

CB: edge Minnesota - this wasn't a strength for either team last year, but we cleaned up our schemes and got much better in the last few games.  Your CB performance needs to improve; ours already did.

S: What you said is fair.  Winfield is probably the best Safety in the B1G, but nobody knows it yet.  The balance of this group favors Nebraska, but Winfield is a huge wildcard.  edge Minnesota.

 

Special Teams

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your kicking game is nothing special and neither is ours.  But we excelled last year in the return game.

I am not sure I agree with some of this.  

One thing that is huge and I mean huge in Nebraska's favor is QB.  It is not just an edge it is a game changing edge.  You know as well as everyone on this board that a great QB can be the difference between a great team and an average team.  Very few teams overcome a QB being "functional" as you put it to post a great season.  I don't think you know enough about McCaffery , that's Ed's son and Christian's little brother, or Noah Vedral as back ups.  No they are not AM, but I would take them over Morgan.  

I would actually give NU the edge at TE also.  They have a really good bunch.  I would say the unit when all said and done this year will be at least top 3 in the conference. 

I truly don't know much about Minnesota's secondary but I do know that Nebraska's will be a strength this year.  

I guess  the only place I really give Minnesota the edge is at RB and WR.  I give the Gophers the edge at RB because they are a known commodity and they are solid if not flashy.  Nebraska's RB room is pretty young, it is talented but pretty much untested.    Minny has a couple of really good WR, but they don't have a great QB to get them the ball.  NU will have a lot of depth.  

They don't play till what game 7.  A lot can happen in the first 6 games of the season.  Lets just see what happens . 

16 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

 

Don't think I've seen an msn article in a decade! I'm sure they are very good though, definitely not just picking Minnesota to be different and attract clicks.

 

In all seriousness though I'm surprised Minnesota isn't a trendier pick, they've got a path to win the West. I think the main problem is the other teams have either done that relatively recently (Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern) or have exciting young players and young coaches (Nebraska, Purdue). Minnesota absolutely has talent, but regardless of how good he is Tyler Johnson is less exciting than Rondale Moore or Adrian Martinez.

Yesterday on the last day of Sharp and Benning they had their "analytics guy" on to talk B1G football.  He was high on Nebraska and Iowa with NW and Wisconsin and Purdue at the next level.  He wasn't actually that high on Minnesota, he had them picked 6th.   This guy is really high on QB play. 

Personally I think Minnesota because of their easy crossover schedule has to be thought of as a west contender. 

I think Wisconsin struggles for the same reason they finally have to play more than one of the big boys from the other side.  Wisconsin's defense is going to struggle some I think this year.  They don't have the studs at Lb like they have had.  For 3-4 years running they trotted 4 guys that looked exactly the same out on the field.  All of them were 6'3" 240 could run and had a nasty streak.  TJ Edwards was really the only one that looked like that last year and now he is gone.  They don't have the WR to take the pressure off of Taylor either.  He'll get his yards but is going to take a pounding this year.  I love the fact that Nebraska gets them in game 10 right after playing Iowa.  I don't see Wisconsin at any better than 8-4. I think that is top end for them.  

I see 8-4 for Nebraska as I said earlier, but I think that is the low end.  I don't think they lose more than 4 games.  

10 minutes ago, brophog said:

One of the best DEs in the country cannot be a “breakout player”. Dude has done broken out.

I guess they think he can be because he technically has never been a starter. 

On 8/2/2019 at 4:53 PM, WyoHusker56 said:

Geez Gerry, tell us how you really feel: https://www.omaha.com/huskers/blogs/gerry-dinardo-thinks-nebraska-is-overrated-but-it-s-only/article_ac59a85c-8a7f-575b-a867-16ff54454662.html

 

I actually think this is a pretty good interpretation of where things are at until we see this team on the field. However, he mentions we need to wait until Scott has top 20 talent on the team, but I think our 4 year recruiting average is right at 20. So, by his logic there we should be ready to compete now.

After reading the article I don't think DiNardo is incorrect in his assessment of the west division.  He says the B1G West is going to be the most competitive division in football and I agree.  He doesn't say it is going to the best, just the most competitive.  I haven't listened to his reasoning on why Nebraska is overrated though.  DiNardo is a show me guy and I think that goes double for Nebraska.  He wants to see it from Nebraska first.  I say this because I don't think he is a huge Nebraska fan.  He was McCartney's OC at Colorado  before he became a HC.  He can be objective, but deep down I don't think it bothers him if Nebraska isn't beating the crap out of people.  I feel the same way about Glen Mason.  He took a few beating at the hands of Nebraska when he was at Kansas.  

Personally I think 8-4 is a good safe bet.  I don't know where they lose the games at though.  I see a lot of toss up games on  this schedule.  I can see them winning more games, but I don't think they lose anymore than 4. 

1 hour ago, Landlord said:

 

 

I don't really remember any of that as I was young, but going into '97 all Bob had on his resume was four years as a DC, and one year as a DC/AHC. Not sure we'd take a gamble on someone like that after we were so on top. 

We wouldn't have taken the chance.  If Bill B. would have had his choice of HC #1 on his list was, wait for it, Mack Brown.  Mack Brown was hot and in his 5th year at North Carolina.  That is who Byrne wanted to go after.  

2 things to add to TO retiring. 

1. He really thought his health was failing. He didn’t think he could keep things up and meet the demands of coaching the way he did things.

2. He thought he owned it to his wife to get out and slow down. He said that several times.

The problem is type A personality’s have a hard time slowing down and relaxing. So if you are an ex football coach used to 80-90 hour weeks. You run for Congress, win and take another long hour job. Or become the AD and have another long hour job.

Of the scenario’s presented, I like to not fire Solich.  Solich was a good coach, not TO legend type, but good.  I just wanted to see what his staff was going to be able to do. I thought he put together an excellent staff.

1 hour ago, tmfr15 said:

Like most people on this board, my expectations for Nebraska football are pretty high this year.... sometimes maybe too high, i.e. conference championship and playoff bid.

 

Still, it would seem that the direction of this this team is way up from a year ago. A solid bowl game bid, 10-win season, Big Ten West Division title.... those all seem reasonable.

 

That was until I watched the Purdue game.

 

Nebraska was just really bad in that Purdue game. We had flashes of good but so many dumb mistakes and breakdowns. Can we fix it all in one calendar year?

 

And then you look at how Purdue finished. They went 6-6 and then got beat 63-14 by Auburn in the Music City Bowl. Auburn was ahead 42-7 with 8+ minutes left until half. It felt like Auburn could have scored 100.

 

What I saw against Purdue was a theme of last year. There's good, but then there's,  "What the heck are you doing?" Like A-Mart's backwards pass to JD against the Bucks. Why? Just Why?

 

I love the Huskers and I am ready for a breakout season. So I want to believe great things are about to happen.

 

But I also have a bit of pause in my enthusiasm after Purdue.

 

Anybody empathize?

Purdue had a stretch last season from games 4-9 that they were playing very well.  They went 5-1 in  that stretch, beating a good Boston College team, Nebraska, Illinois, Ohio St and a good Iowa team.  Their only loss was a fairly close one to MSU on the road.   They then lost 3 of their last four.  They should have beat Wisconsin they really pissed it down their leg and ended up losing in OT.  

I would say you have pretty high expectations for this coming year.  A good bowl, 10 wins and a division title are possible and I wouldn't be surprised if they happened, but I wouldn't use the team reasonable.  The margin for error this year is pretty small.  If they can stay pretty much injury free this year and Mills is all the expect him to be.  They have a decent chance at 10 wins. I think the defense takes a good step forward.  

21 minutes ago, Toe said:

I still don't think it's a given that we would have beaten Akron. They did beat Northwestern (eventual B1G West champ) just a couple weeks later. Yeah, we should have beaten them, but there was still a lot of mess being cleaned up with the team at that time. I mean, we should have beaten Colorado - we were the better team on the field for about 58 minutes of the game, and it wasn't particularly close. But boy did we ever stink things up in those other two minutes...

Akron winning that game was very weird. NW did everything they could to lose.  Akron scored 3 defensive TD in the second half. 

On 6/22/2019 at 8:39 AM, BigRedBuster said:

No.... never got into any of them. 

I like to occasionally watch an adult cartoon, but watch nothing regularly.  Come to think of it, I don't really watch any shows regularly.  I don't like to binge watch stuff usually.  

On 6/16/2019 at 3:25 PM, NM11046 said:

Dead to Me on Netflix is one I've gotten into ... love me some Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini.  Lots of little twists make it more than a dark comedy.

Pretty good show, my wife and I just finished watching it over about a 3 day period.  I like dark comedy.  It sure seem like Applegate plays a lot of characters that are rather unlikable.  

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

One looks at how the Huskers did in the B1G, then draws the conclusion that the Huskers were good/decent/whatever and the conference was tough. The other looks at the same evidence, then draws the conclusion that the Huskers sucked and the B1G was not tough.

Or one could say that Nebraska has not been very good, but the conference is fairly tough in the middle.   There are not 5 teams only winning 2-4 games like KU,KSU, ISU, MU, CU  did in the mid 80's in the big 8 right now. 

3 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Well...then I hope that you are jizzing in your pants  at the end of the season and not just "very happy" because none of the rest of us are going to be very happy with 8 wins.

 

 

Nice, where did that come from? 

So I am the only Nebraska fan that thinks we have to learn to crawl first.  Doubling our win total this year will be a complete disappointment to everyone but me.  OK  

3 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Yes...I do think that and that is why he lost like 4 conference games in 7 years.  

 

I know a lot of fans love to buy into coach speak...but with 100% certainty I can tell you that Meyer thought almost every conference game was going to be a cakewalk.  And he pretty much proved it with his coaching and talent.

 

I would also imagine that pretty much every NU fan would consider 8 wins average, at best.   

Right now I would be very happy with winning 8 games next year. 

I don't Urban Meyer took teams lightly, that is why he only lost 4 games in that span.  TO didn't take teams lightly.  Bo Pelini took teams lightly that is why he lost games he shouldn't have.  

19 minutes ago, Huskers93-97 said:

I think part of point he is making is the same that I was making and believe to be true. People who think Nebraska has struggled in the Big 10 because the Big 10 is just so tough is crap. We started struggling in 2002 after the Osborne recruits were gone and have been struggling to find our way back. Its not because the Big 10 is a better conference thus we have been put in our place and would have never won as many games the last 50 years if we were in the Big 10 instead of the Big 12. We have been struggling the last 15 years and it is all on US, not what anyone has done to us. It doesnt matter if we are in the pac12, big10 or big 12 we have not played good football since 2001. 

 

Just a quick comparison. 

 

Since 1990 the big 12 teams have won 6 national titles and the big 10 has won 3. 

 

That same ratio exists if you go even further back to 1970. 

 

Since 1970 the big 12 teams have won 11 national titles and the big 10 has won 5. 

 

Point being, we won at an amazing rate because we were just that good. Not because we were in a weak conference. Based on the lack of elite competition, the elite teams like ohio state should have competed for more national championships over that same span.

What you say makes a lot more sense than the teacher.  Nobody said the conference is tough as crap.  I didn't say that.  I said their is a lot of good teams.  The BIG is a better conference than it was in 1997 so is the Big12.  Teams are better, their is too much money out their for teams to not try and be better.  

2 minutes ago, Huskers93-97 said:

I think that is a fairly common sentiment among big 10 homers. I remember that exact narrative all those years of Nebraska being good. "Oh you guys just dont play anybody, here in the big 10 our conference is so tough we just beat eachother up and thats why we dont win the big one" 

 

Have you really never heard that sentiment? 

 

I think the SEC has faired just fine "beating eachother up"

I am not a B1G homer.  Yes, I do get that some B1G fans think that.  I am not worried about what some fan in Wisconsin is saying.  I know a decent football team when I see it. 

21 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Well...you made the comment about those crappy teams so I was just showing that they are crappy.

 

We knew coming into the Big Ten that OSU and Michigan were good.  PSU is good.  MSU is average but had a nice little 3-4 year run (When Michigan sucked and when PSU was falling apart)...NW?  Come on.  Iowa?  Average.  

 

When we joined the Big Ten NO ONE was like "OMG...we have to play NW and Iowa this year!  UGggg, what are we going to do!"

 

Shoot we even joked about Wisconsin.  

 

It isn't that those teams are good...it is more those teams are all averagely the same...so they beat up each other and end up with those amazingly average records. 8 win teams?  Okay, who cares about that.  We make fun of 8 wins.

I guess if you think winning 8 games a year is average than we have a different definition of average.  I am talking about games being gimmies.  There are very few gimmies in the B1G right now and really hasn't been a lot of gimmies since we joined the B1G.  Even if Nebraska is an elite team games against Wisconsin, NW, MSU, PSU, Iowa aren't gimmies.  Do you think Urban Meyer thought those were cake walk games?  

1 minute ago, teachercd said:

No...just like before we joined when we all made fun of the league, it still holds true.

 

OSU is great...then what?  

In the last 10 years the hoosiers have 44 wins

Minny has 61 wins

Purdue has 44

Maryland has 48

 

These teams suck...NU has like 70 wins over that time.

 

The opinion of the big ten changed all of a sudden because we (NU) has been lame so we have eaten some crow.

I like how you went straight to my Indiana, Purdue, Maryland and Minnesota comments and forgot about Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, MSU, NW, and PSU.

You confuse being good with being elite.  Right now their are about 4 elite teams in the country.  Teams that are only losing 1 game a year in the regular season consistently is what I call elite. Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Oklahoma are really the only teams right now that I think fit that bill. Oklahoma is iffy on that end IMO. Georgia may get their, but it is too soon to tell.  That still leaves a lot of good teams.  Lots of 8-10 win teams out there.  Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, PSU, NW and PSU fall into that category.  Nebraska has to play 3 of them every year.  

8 minutes ago, RedSavage said:

I agree with this and will add that I think the B1G is much tougher top to bottom than any other league

Yes, I think top to bottom it is a pretty tough league.  The B1G has IMO the best coaching overall of any conference.  What it lacks is the overall top end talent that the SEC has.  Right now only OSU has that reload talent like an Alabama, Georgia, and LSU.  

48 minutes ago, teachercd said:

I still think we all need to look back to what we used to think of the Big Ten...not much has changed.

 

The teams we thought sucked suck...We have just been waiting for the Huskers to get good again.

I think you are off some on your thinking.  Nebraska has not been very good over the coarse of time it has been in the B1G.  My opinion of the B1G has changed.  To me it is a league full of teams that are very solid/good they just aren't great.  Iowa, Wisconsin, NW, PSU, Michigan are all good teams that have shown very well all over the country over the last few years.  They just haven't been playoff teams. You can't sleep on Purdue, Minnesota, Indiana or  Maryland either.  They show up to play.  

The B1G is a league that you better show up and play every week.  It is still a big boy tough league that will beat each other up it is not a track meet like the B12.  It is much closer to the way the SEC plays football.  

11 minutes ago, brophog said:

 

No one is giving Iowa much credit because they actually play a schedule this year. First two are against Michigan and Penn St, followed by home against Purdue then at Wisconsin and at Northwestern.

 

I totally agree that the west is wide open. I even feel Illinois may be improved. Purdue and Minnesota aren’t talked about nearly as much as they should be. That’s why Nebraska is a popular pick, though; that year 2 bump combined with the schedule.

Oh yeah, I think Illinois will be better, I just don't know how much better.  I actually think Purdue takes a little step back.  The QB they have coming back is not as good as the other one was.  

So basically Stewie thinks it is low hanging fruit.  I guess I disagree.  I think the B1G West is wide open.  I would probably give the nod to Iowa as the favorite right now.  

On 6/15/2019 at 3:05 PM, BigRedBuster said:

I’m impressed that they all look like they have stayed in shape and have lost weight since playing days. 

Lots of linemen actually have a hard time keeping the weight on.  They have to eat a tremendous amount to maintain their wt.  Many will lose 30-40 lbs within a few months after they quit eating so much.  Dr Rob played at 320 and now is around 260.   I have a friend who's son was a walk on guard a few years back he played at about 290 and was about 230 six months after he quit playing football.  He said he had to eat all the time to keep his weight up.  

Then there are guys who have no trouble with it.  Chris Dishman is very heavy if you have seen him lately.  

That sucks, I would refund what was left over from the host money after paying my expenses of finding a new place to stay.  

That really doesn't make me feel real good as I have an Airbnb booked for over Christmas in Hawaii.  I have went the house rental route before 2-3x, not all with Airbnb but they all work pretty much the same.  Never have had a problem with them. 

4 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

Does this person specify the nature/severity of this break?

No, he just confirmed what was posted.  Someone was reading Jurgen;'s mom FB page or something.  He said the cat was out of the bag.   

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I presume "HM" is HuskerMax. No idea who or what "SSO" is.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SSO is Short Side Option, he is a guy that I believe was probably a walk on player in the 90's that knows a lot about what is going on with the FB program and Baseball program.  He is usually right.