Ulty

Start him at QB and do nothing but safe handoffs all day. Gets him on the field and saves both Rex and Taylor from further injury!

I was honestly not much of a fan of Martinez his first couple of years, more sizzle than steak, ya know. And I never considered him a good runner, except for his straight-line speed. He never used to be able to escape the pocket, make more than one cut, or break tackles. If it wasn't a designed run with a lane in front of him, he was going down easily.

 

But this season is different. I think his running this season is like night and day compared to his first couple years. I've been more impressed with his improvements in running ability than his passing improvements (which I also really, really like). He is actually picking up chunks of yardage on a scramble, getting away from pressure, putting on the moves. He is taking big hits, and delivering a few of his own, and breaking some pretty good tackles.

 

I'm not ready to put him up there with the all-time Husker greats yet, but I've turned into a big fan of Martinez. It's been really cool to see his development into a tough, poised leader on the field along with his improved skills.

And Nebraska has never won a National Championship except for the five they have.

 

Always nice to just dismiss someone you don't like rather than give them credit for what they can do. I'm sure telling you that he's the sixth-leading rushing QB in the nation this year and that only three QBs with more rushing attempts than he has have a better yards per carry average won't change your mind but maybe someone else will appreciate it.

Perhaps you should have read my entire post, brah.

I was honestly not much of a fan of Martinez his first couple of years, more sizzle than steak, ya know. And I never considered him a good runner, except for his straight-line speed. He never used to be able to escape the pocket, make more than one cut, or break tackles. If it wasn't a designed run with a lane in front of him, he was going down easily.

But this season is different. I think his running this season is like night and day compared to his first couple years. I've been more impressed with his improvements in running ability than his passing improvements (which I also really, really like). He is actually picking up chunks of yardage on a scramble, getting away from pressure, putting on the moves. He is taking big hits, and delivering a few of his own, and breaking some pretty good tackles.

I'm not ready to put him up there with the all-time Husker greats yet, but I've turned into a big fan of Martinez. It's been really cool to see his development into a tough, poised leader on the field along with his improved skills.

As I said in another thread, Notre Dame does not have pull on the left coast. Their fan base is in the midwest and on the east coast.

 

The Rose Bowl resisted a deal where they had to take a non-B1G/Pac 12 team every four years. They were force to take it while squeezing their noses. They took TCU two years ago because they had to due to the four year rule. They won't take another unless they have to.

You make a lot of good points, and I am certainly no expert on all things Notre Dame, but I would think that they have plenty of pull on the west coast, as strong as a nationwide brand as they are. Notre Dame has traditional rivalries with USC and Stanford and plays in California every year. When they got their deal with the ACC, they had to consider some of their long-standing rivalries, and they chose to keep USC and Stanford while dropping Michigan.

And I think it would be short-sighted for the Rose Bowl committee to be looking at having Notre Dame available for the taking and choosing a low-ranked PAC-12 team just because they were stuck with TCU a couple years ago, and the ratings were lackluster. If it is about prestige and money, and everything is these days, Notre Dame would be a no-brainer. In terms of ratings, perception, and fans, Notre Dame is not TCU.

The Rose Bowl took hits in relevance over the years due to their stubborn loyalty to the PAC and Big 10 when the Bowl Coalition and BCS came about. Traditions and loyalty are important, but if the Rose Bowl wants to be the Grand-Daddy of Them All, how many opportunities will they ever get to have Notre Dame in their game? If ND is available, they would be stunningly stupid not to take them.

The Rose Bowl has made foolish decisions before, though.

I can't remember another season as entertaining as this one. I mean, the reason why we watch and love sports is because of drama and competition. Of course I miss the dominant days of yore, and blowing out all of our opponents was fun, and those times are what built the tradition and pride in the program that most Nebraska fans and alums have now.

But these games, as sloppy and imperfect as they often are, cannot be matched for excitement and the thrills that are provided on a weekly basis. The 90s were great times, and there was a lot of value and satisfaction in stomping another team and letting the local walk-ons get some playing time. It would be nice to get back to that level. But in those days, we were rarely glued to the TV )or the bleachers) for all 4 quarters waiting for the final moments for either the thrill of victory or agony of defeat (and when it did get that far, it usually didn't end well, except for that glorious night in Miami). This season, we have that anticipation and drama, and it has actually been ending in our favor most weeks.

I think this season is awesome.

Michael Bay is not the face of Transformers.

I mean, I wouldn't want my kid to watch those movies.

There are many coaches who are volatile hotheads and/or insufferable douchebags who manage to pull in the best recruiting classes in the country.

I liked Bo's response, too.

Bo's reputation as a hothead was well-earned in his first couple of years, and the cameras love to pan over to him even if something went slightly against Nebraska, in hopes that he has another meltdown like at TAMU 2010. That's just good TV. And the perpetual look on his face makes it appear to many as if he might blow up again at any time.

However, he has improved considerably in the last couple of years and probably isn't any worse than lots of other coaches, except for his facial expressions - but that's just who he is, he ain't no babyfaced model.

The only times Bo's demeanor have really caused problems is when it has led to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and when he is surly at a press conference (that doesn't really hurt the team, it just feeds into how he is perceived). His reputation, due in large part to one single game where the refs clearly raped us in the ass, will probably follow him around forever. The caller was right to be worried about the penalties, but otherwise was just trolling, and Bo appropriately put the douche in his place without turning into a ball of rage that the caller was probably hoping for.

an illegal "rolling stop" according to Carter Lake laws.

Um...I don't think this is unique to Carter Lake.

I like Carlfense's post, to see if the prosecuter will cut you a deal. Otherwise, any attempts to weasel out of this might seem kind of, um, weasel-ish.

You admittedly broke the law and got caught. Sometimes in life you just gotta take a bite out of a sh!t sandwich and move on.

^ yeah (and those were in his best years) - even in those years he was still losing to almost every ranked team he played. Since Grobe has been at WF, he has beaten a total of 6 ranked teams (03' NC State #14, 06' Boston C. #16, 06' G. Tech #22, 07' FSU #21, 08' FSU #25, 11' #22 FSU).

 

6 ranked teams, and not highly ranked ones at that - over the course of 10 years. It's a different level of football entirely at Nebraska. Grobe has had some downright awful seasons at WF in the last 4-5 years. The fact that he was even a candidate is scary. We'd be on our next coach already if he had been hired. So rather than Pelini going into his 5th year, we'd have someone like Randy Edsall, or All Golden going into their second year. Wonder where Pelini would be?

Might be fun to speculate...

How about this:

2008: NU hires Grobe. Pelini stays at LSU. LSU goes 8-5 (as in reality), but this time the administration does not resist the fans' unrest, knowing Pelini is ready for a HC job. They show Les Miles the door and promote Pelini. Miles ends up replacing Fulmer at Tennesse, making some LSU fans nervous that he stayed in the SEC. Miles was also in consideration for Auburn, Boston College, and Purdue. He wishes he would have taken the Michigan job the year before. Lane Kiffin, fired from the Raiders, never gets a HC job, and the douche is never heard from again, other than being a whiny assistant somewhere. Grobe goes 5-7 with NU, but after being jaded by the Callahan years, there is not a great uproar yet.

2009: Pelini goes 9-4 at LSU. Grobe goes 5-7 again at NU. Osborne, having just hired and invested in a guy he respects, does not want to fire Grobe, but it is clearly not working out. Meanwhile, Turner Gill had been courted by Auburn the year before and was now fielding potential offers from other schools, including Kansas. Osborne decided to pull the trigger, firing Grobe and hiring his good friend Gill.

2010: Gill goes 9-4 in his first year, without having to flip an entire culture as he would have at Kansas, with Zac Lee having a good senior season. He loses to Texas, Okie St, Mizzou, and TAMU but gets a victory over Iowa in the Insight Bowl. Pelini goes 9-4 again with LSU. By virtue of OSU and MU winning over NU in this reality, those two meet in the Big XII Championship game. Ratings suck. Oklahoma's self esteem is even lower, and the Big XII's angst is at an all-time high with NU and CU already on the way out.

With OU hurt, and OSU emboldened, they begin an uprising in the conference and finally stand up to Texas. Texas decides to go independent, TAMU goes to the SEC, Mizzou stays, and the Big XII adds TCU, BYU, and Boise, to begin in 2012.

2011: NU and LSU are both 9-4 again. With LSU not in the National Championship picture, Oklahoma State faces Bama in the NC game (losing, of course). Without the added controversy of the rematch we saw in reality, there is no impetus from the BCS Presidents to entertain any idea of a playoff. The regular BCS format is extended through the year 3000.

Having been emboldened by the football coaching change, Osborne decides to pull the trigger on Doc Sadler as well and hires a top-notch replacement. NU basketball begins to rebuild a year ahead of schedule.

2012: Urban Meyer's return to coaching falls flat, PSU goes into a decline from which it will never recover, and Turner Gill's NU team goes 13-1, losing only in an upset to Michigan State the week after a hard fought comeback win versus Michigan (in a game in which Denard Robinson is hurt, eerily similar to the 2011 Ohio State game). NU is Big Ten champs and beats Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Pelini goes 8-5 with LSU, and their fans start to grumble. The National Championship game features West Virginia, having gone undefeated in a crappy Big East that they never left, losing to Oklahoma.

After the season, Oregon, Alabama, Auburn, and Ohio State are rocked by major recruiting scandals. Ohio State, already on probation, gets the death penalty. Oregon's entire staff is fired in the fallout. Scott Frost returns home to take an assistant job under Turner Gill. With Bama and Auburn now crippled, LSU fans don't feel so bad about Pelini, and he gets an extension.

2013: Nebraska dominates the Big Ten and beats independent Texas for the National Championship. Taylor Martinez wins the Heisman. LSU wins the SEC, but the damaged conference does not produce another NC contender. Nebraska Basketball also wins the Big Ten. Osborne retires for good.

2014: Due to the pervasive corruption in all of college football, except Nebraska of course, and the worsening information about concussions in the sport, the NCAA and majority of schools abruptly cancel all football-related activities at the college level, pending further research and regulations. Nebraska is forever regarded is the last, and best, champion in the annals of college football history.

My opinion is that an NCAA-imposed death penalty for PSU's football program would accomplish nothing except to feed the public's lust for vengeance. It certainly would not help the university or the football program unless decades of recovery and millions in lost revenue (in addition to all that they will eventually be paying in legal and civil costs anyway) is a positive change. We all want to see PSU hit hard and pay a steep price, and they surely will. But I agree that this is a legal issue, not an NCAA issue.

From the legal/civil side, Shultz, Curley, and Spanier are already out of a job, and hopefully they will do some hard time for all of this (hoping of course that Spanier gets brought up on charges as well). Whatever PSU ends up paying from civil suits will never be enough. If more people are eventually found to have been involved in the cover up, I hope they go down in flames as well. I wish they could resurrect Paterno from the dead just so he could rot in prison a few years before he dies again. I hope the legal and civil aspect to all of this is thorough, severe, and swift. If so, I would hope and expect that the rolling heads, staggering costs, and lost reputation will be enough of a penalty for PSU and enough of a lesson to others that such horrors can never be tolerated.

If the NCAA had standing to do anything, I wish they would as well, but realistically speaking, after seeing how the NCAA has bungled other issues and dragged their feet on more, I would not trust them or expect them to do anything meaningful. So based on that, I say leave the NCAA out of the PSU mess and let the school take their lumps and pay their dues otherwise.

1999 was the first year for the Field Turf. I think they have replaced it once since then, which is when they went to the multi-colored greens we currently have. I like the current look, myself.

Hmmmm, this is going to be more difficult than I thought.

1999, Texas A&M: I was in the Marching Band at the time, and during the band's little parade from the Music Building to the stadium prior to each game, it was a normal thing for the person on the outside of each row to touch a particular street sign that we passed along the way. Somewhere along the line, it became a tradition for me to actually punch the sign. Being a thin piece of aluminum, if you punched the edge of the sign just right, it made a really loud bang, and the onlookers would often cheer in approval every week when I did it. So anyhoo, on the way to the stadium for the A&M game in '99, I wound up for the punch like normal, but instead of blasting the edge of the sign, I landed right in the middle of it, where the heavy wooden post supported it. I still got the usual cheer from the band fans as we marched by but FUUUUUUUUUK....

Had to keep marching and playing so I couldn't look at the damage until we got to the stadium. Standing in the tunnel before pregame, I looked down at my right hand, and it was starting to swell, and throbbing with extreme pain. I could barely move my fingers, let alone play the keys on my trumpet. The hand is broken. Should I go to the First Aid station? Well, I was the first person out of tunnel in my corner of the stadium and led a whole line onto the field, so I sucked it up and marched my spot in the pregame show, in too much pain to actually play the instrument, though.

When I finally got to the stands, I peeled my glove off to reveal a purplish hand that kind of looked like one of those rubber medical gloves when you blow it up like a balloon. My friends are like, yeah dude, that doesn't look good, you need to go to the First Aid station. Well, it turns out that our halftime show that week had me front and center near the 50 at the front of several formations (I wasn't a bigshot or anything, it just turns out in the marching drill for that week that I was a critical spot), and I didn't want a medic or anyone to pull me from the show just because my fcking hand was broke and I couldn't play. So I marched the halftime show anyway, and got the hand looked at afterward.

I had broken the little bone in the hand that runs from the wrist to the pinky and smashed in the pinky knuckle. To this day, when I make a fist with my right hand, the knuckles slope down at the pinky.

***wanders around aimlessly, confused, but ready to win***

I'm new here. What do I win?

1) How long have you been a member of Husker Nation? Forever

2) What/who led you to The Nation? Learned behavior, severely influenced by my family environment.

3) Where are you from originally? Kearney, NE

4) Where do you live now? Lincoln, but moving back to Kearney next week after being gone for over 17 years

5) Favorite Husker memory? many to choose from, but here's a couple faves: Scott Frost's postgame speech at the 98 Orange Bowl, the ballshaking loudness of the stadium when Crouch caught that pass against OU in 2001

6) Worst Husker memory? the physical illness that resulted from watching the Texas Tech game in 2004

7) Number of home games attended? 43

8) Number of away games attended? 15

9) Favorite Husker memorabilia/apparel? A book signed by Tommie Frazier and a few others (Turman, Vedral, Holbein, I think) during a Husker banquet in Estes Park in 97.

10) Favorite place to watch a Husker game? (section in Memorial, bar, friends house etc.) Can't beat standing in Section 10 with a Marching Band uniform on, but with those days being long gone, there is nothing better than sitting on the couch at home with my family.

11) Favorite all time player? too hard to decide

12) WCO or Option? Option

13) Stevie Pederson or Billy Byrne? Byrne is the lesser of two evils, I guess

14) Lil Red or Herbie Husker? Nobody likes Lil Red. Go away Lil Red. You are an abomination.

15) Favorite Husker play? "The Catch" (Mizzou 1997)

16) Favorite game-day beverage? Xingu Black Beer

17) How did you find HuskerBoard? (referral source) Woke up next to it after a night of drinking. Had trouble walking and had a stale taste of corn in my mouth. Quickly found my pants and left.

Not only did it take Wildlife Services a long time to finally track down the bear, it took them a very long time to count all of the sheep.

They kept falling asleep in the process.