Husker71

Nothing new to contribute here. I'm certain Scott Frost is N, no proof. This time reminds me of the feeling I had when I heard Davison's "miracle catch" on the radio. Years from now we'll remember this time as a turning point for the program. Posting here just to capture the moment and be part of it all.

Mentally I think the team turned a corner as well. In the past many times Bo would have a meltdown and the team would lose faith and implode. Lost several games like that. The Purdue loss was due to a host of things, including coaching. The loss seemed to feed every doubt and negate any confidence the team was building. The fans worst fears seemed confirmed as well. Made it seem that all the close games were meaningless. But then when the team and the fans saw they could hang with Michigan St. it was undeniable proof they had a reason to believe in themselves. Riley has been talking all season about the mental aspect of this season and I think he helped them a lot in that regard. My hope is the staff will be able to build on this confidence and keep improving.

We can beat a team we are supposed to beat and keep a lead. The coaches have not lost this team. We can pressure a quarterback. We can handle the success of a big win. We keep improving week after week.

Good to see this thread. I'll be there too, cheering them on no matter what.

Eh ... possibly their toughest test yet but that's not saying much. This is nowhere near the Wisconsin running game of old. They are the #74 rushing offense in the country. They average 4.4 ypc and 167 yards per game. They averaged 4.3 ypc and got 147 yards today. So we barely kept them under their averages. They've played Miami of Ohio, Troy and Hawai'i this year. Don't disagree on that. After last week's game, though, people were predicting we were going to get stomped. Considering how banged up we are and how bad Wisconsin needed this win our rushing defense held for the most part. Not saying this is a huge win, looking for positives.

Our run defense passed their toughest test yet.

I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you. I think that is a little oversimplified, though. I love and miss the smashmouth style of the Osborne offense but there was a lot of finesse and misdirection in that offense, not just power. I don't see why this staff would object to having an effective run game with a tough physical line. They seemed very willing to use the fullback recently. Milt Tenopir and Charlie McBride both comment that this staff went above and beyond to include them and seek their advice. They have the program and support to recruit good running backs, I don't know why they would avoid that. Time will tell, I suppose. But I'm ready to give this staff time to make their case. They've embraced the Nebraska culture and history. As long as they do that, I'm going to be patient and see how this plays out.

Glad to see some positivity. Great things can happen, why not? Let's not give up so easy when the going gets tough.

Lots of opportunities to show we can improve and start winning. Not ready to quit on this staff or team yet.

Thanks for sharing this article. I heard Banker in the Monday press conference recap the Southern Miss game. I really want to give him a chance. He was very open and direct in his responses and handled pointed questions well I thought. Banker acknowledged the last 5 drives of the game by Southern Miss did the majority of the damage and they need to fix that. If he dumbed down the scheme too much, it shows at least he takes the player's level of readiness into account. He seemed to grasp the situation and had several options to try.

Agree with this. A dimension I also saw with this game was a psychological one. Even if you don't remember the long history between the programs, this was a revenge game for Miami at home, with the coach on the hot seat. We lost Ameer and quite a few others who played Miami last year. Westerkamp and Tommy played like they remembered last year. We had a lot of freshman playing. Excusable or not I think psychologically the first quarter Miami definitely had an edge. After we adjusted in the secondary and the bleeding stopped the teams played more evenly. I don't want to see us start out flat again, but there were some unique factors to this game that I just don't see on the rest of the schedule.

Good point. I'm also impressed that Martinez put up better numbers with a tougher SOS than Michigan. And I was totally surprised he threw fewer INTs than Miller or Robinson. I have been definitely taking his contributions for granted.

We were 5th in the nation before the NW game. We tied for 2nd in the nation at Rush yards per attempt and only .1 yard behind #1 Thats the number I care about more than total rushing yards lol http://espn.go.com/c...sPerRushAttempt Our strength of schedule is ranked a bit higher (t-14 vs t-46) as well. Hopefully that helps us.

We turn Denard Robinson into a passer and we pick one of his passes and bat down several more. It's a shootout. We gift them a couple short fields off turnovers, but the defense keeps us in the game. We move the ball well but get stopped from our own miscues again. But at the end of the day we don't get blown out. We are more patient and poised with the home crowd and make slightly fewer mental mistakes. Cam is a key reason the inside run game and QB draw is taken away. We win 38-35.

Yes. I took the OP as "if there is a silver bullet answer let's see it." And after hearing all the names and well-considered arguments for other coaches I wasn't persuaded. What would just buying the success mean anyway? Not that it matters because we can't even outspend Texas. Devaney and Osborne gave everything they had for the team and the axe was over their head the whole time. Bo has earned it in my eyes for totally buying into Nebraska culture. He has always done his best even when people are trashing his players and calling for his head. As long as we are making progress I will support Bo. If Bo really is on the hot seat or gets replaced I think that would be a huge short-sighted mistake that really hurts the program.

I see a lot of merit to this argument. Huge difference between a coaching staff choosing the wrong path during a game versus having absolutely no idea what to do from the start. We were having great success until that point. Genuinely curious to hear the reason why what was working early wouldn't have continued working.

I would agree with this. I am seeing progress, personally. We are just not where we want to be. We probably won't be there for several years. I think we can beat Mich. State. I don't understand how they held Ohio State to 17 points. I also am surprised to see Cal beating up on UCLA. What are these teams doing that we didn't?

Amen.

I think the whole "Greatest Team Ever" thing they did left permanent marks on the minds of some Husker fans. Herbstreit did get legitimately emotional over that deal, and in the process kind of denigrated Nebraska football. (A fan could perceive it that way at least. A Sun Devil fan probably got a chuckle out of it maybe, but if you love Nebraska, there is a good chance you could've taken it as an agitated, animated belittlement of the accomplishments achieved by some of the best Nebraska teams in history.) That's how I saw it at the time. As years pass, I realize they can't all sit around and quietly agree on everything, because people will turn the channel. (Or that's the fear, I guess.) May and Alberts also perpetually acted like competing silverbacks during mating season every single halftime show or SC or whatever program they were on together. So whether the animosity was real or contrived, the end result was that May would unreasonably say negative things about Nebraska just as he'll needle Holtz about ND now out of the blue. This is another formulaic strategy by that network though, as we all know. The "Adversaries." Like John Clayton and the "unfortunate cell picture" guy who's name eludes me at the moment. The vitriol between those two was laughably forced. It was almost unintentionally funny. It's fake controversy mostly, and I agree: that network doesn't hate Nebraska. We have a huge fanbase. They're not stupid; they don't want to alienate those fans. The Herbstreit thing was a little different though. He turned real ire straight at the center of Nebraska football, and as he was becoming the face of that network's CFB programming at the time, it resonated. I was pissed about it. Now I don't care at all. I just watch the games, and if Nebraska isn't on I typically don't have broadcast audio going at all. Jesse Palmer or The Rolling Stones? That's not a tough decision. Hmmm. Urban Meyer on the sidelines and Sympathy of the Devil in the background? I might need to try that.

Yes. I was very happy to see us line up and be physical and stop a decent rushing attack. I think there was a mental aspect of this as well. The only memory of Wisconsin we had before was the thrashing we took last year and we looked tight and almost intimidated in the first quarter especially. I think as our confidence builds the mental blunders will go away. Next week is a very big game.

If Bo is Superman, the mobile QB is his krtyptonite. I know folks say that all team struggle with mobile QB's, but it seems that Bo has no answer to even remotely stop or slow one. I know we do not have the D of Bama, but I would think we are better than MSU and Iowa and they all blitzed like no ones business. The key would appear to simply beat that mobile QB a$$. Bama vz Robinson 27 for 27 yrds, Iowas 12 for 55 and MSU 18 for 42. Now NU 23 for 83. Nu had less per carry yrds, but DR was harassed all game and running for his life. We need to look at previous film and figure something out for sure. We have 3 very mobile QB's coming up. I agree we are vulnerable to mobile QBs right now, moreso than other teams and I'm not sure why. I think we are getting caught transitioning from our old defensive style geared to stopping spread offenses to one more suited to the B1G and that accounts for a lot of it. I predict we make steady improvement covering the run and we have success with the formula that seems to be useful against most mobile quarterbacks: make them beat you with the pass.

I bet they use this depth to rest Rex. Rex is a one in a million type of player. He makes tough, hard cutting runs and I would hate to see him limit his career at UNL or beyond with a short-sighted decision to bring him back early.

I would say yes. I think we belong in the top 20 in any case.

He has so much talent and he definitely has improved. After his career my guess is that we will have a very hard time replacing him. I believe the team also has complete faith in him as well.

Love this thread. Wouldn't mind to see stuff like this pinned.