Fru

On 7/12/2023 at 7:46 AM, teachercd said:

They always seem to have the lamest schedule. 

When the B1G released the ‘24 and ‘25 conference slated, I remember seeing Iowa fans on the CFB Subreddit unironically lamenting “No more easy schedules.” 

 Northwestern has irritated me for years. A modest amount of modern day success, and suddenly they act like they invented football. But my irritation with them and their ilk really elevated in the 2020 season, when Neb publicly stated they wanted to play a season and some Northwestern Alums decided to weigh in. I'm sure you remember these comments

“I'm going to applaud the presidents for not listening to the likes of people at Nebraska, who are doing the biggest whining,” Wilbon said on Pardon the Interruption on Tuesday. “The Big Ten has operated for 116 seasons, mostly damn successful without Nebraska, which has been around for the last nine...You know what, I hope somebody on that call said to Nebraska’s representatives, even its president, get the hell out." -Michael Wilbon https://247sports.com/Article/Nebraska-Big-Ten-cancels-season-Mike-Wilbon-rips-attempts-to-play-no-matter-what-Scott-Frost-Big-12-150158177/

And who could forget Christine Brennan. When the B1G decided to play a season, she called it "the darkest day in Big Ten sports history." I have to imagine some victims in Happy Valley, Ann Arbor, East Lansing, and Columbus might feel differently. She also added "This is the Nebraska-ization of the Big Ten. Who would have thought that when Nebraska and Ohio State and a few of the league’s other squeakiest wheels started whining about missing out on football, the Big Ten presidents would buckle rather than stand up to them?" https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/brennan/2020/09/16/big-ten-football-decision-marks-darkest-day/5793238002/

Northwestern went on to have a sex scandal of their own Northwestern Cheerleaders Forced Into 'Commercial Sex Acts': Suit Couldn't find any comments from Brennan or Wilbon about this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but man they sure do clutch their pearls and shout from the top of their lungs when Neb wants to play a season. Imagine that.

And now this latest one. A culture of hazing players with coerced sexual acts, with a white board in the locker room to keep track.

I recall Fitz thumping his chest about how great his "Culture" was last year in Dublin. Funny how things work out.

10 hours ago, ColoradoHusk said:

To clarify, my concerns weren’t with Garrett  due to his age or lack of experience. I am just not a fan of hiring a guy because Rhule coached with his dad at Baylor. Now Garrett may end up being a rising star in the coaching ranks and prove me totally wrong. It’s not the first time I’ve been proven wrong. 

That was one of my biggest concerns too, especially on the heels of everyone denouncing Scott for “Hiring his buddies.” Somehow hiring a buddy’s kid, with zero meaningful experience, was deemed just fine. 

11 hours ago, ColoradoHusk said:

 

I have poo-pooed nepotism assistant hires in the past, and I did when Garrett was hired.  It wasn't a knock on Garrett, I just get annoyed when people are hired just because of who their dad is (yes I know it happens all over the sports and business world).  But, Garrett seems like a great young man, relates to the players and recruits very well, and has a bright future ahead of him.

I was vocal about my concern with the Garrett hire as well. I think the criticisms at the time were absolutely fair.
 

Yes he’s done well in recruiting thus far. Bravo. But, there’s a lot more to prove. We’ve had plenty of WR coaches this past decade that have landed stars and names and done absolutely nothing with them. Can Garrett change that trend? I certainly hope so. 

I’m probably setting myself up for disappointment, but making a bowl game. 

Ted didn’t become President or even the Dem nominee. Chappaquiddick is assuredly the reason for this. The notion that it is some kind of example of blind party loyalty at a national level is a breathtakingly stupid attempt at whataboutism. 
 

It has absolutely nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with people who can’t own up to the fact they’ve been snowed by a pretend billionaire game show host who’s proven himself to be dangerously incompetent at best, or shockingly traitorous at worst. 

I for one am floored that a guy who raw dogged a porn star would behave so recklessly. 

43 minutes ago, suh_fan93 said:

 

Bye bye Chris Wambsgans- I mean Licht. 

12 hours ago, teachercd said:

It is crazy to think how CFB used to be covered 

 

s#!t...20 years ago (maybe less) you still had PPV games...when I was in college, you could get th ESPN CFB package, where you could PPV your team for 9.99 or like 5 game for 15.99.

 

What is the last PPV game you remember?  Mine is that boring as gam vs SoDak State, was it 17-3?

I remember in the late 90’s and early 2000’s going thru the schedule and trying to guess what game wasn’t going to be broadcast on TV or picked up by PPV. McNeese St in 2002 and Baylor 2004 come to mind. I absolutely hated having to listen to games on the radio. 
 

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m really interested to see how things go for Northwestern this year. I’m very eager to see how bullet proof Fitz really is if they have another 3-9 or worse season. I think they’re really missing Hankwitz. 

20 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

For sure. It's just way, way too early to tell whether Matt Rhule is actually that guy or not.

 

Agreed. There’s things about Rhule that give me hope, but I’m also maintaining a healthy skepticism. I’ve bought in to every regime, coach, coordinator etc since Callahan. Not taking this one hook like and sinker this time around.

20 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

This is an interesting talking point, but not for the reasons you're mentioning. This is around the time that parity really crept up in the B1G. Teams like Minnesota, Indiana, and eventually even Illinois slowly became games on a schedule that weren't automatic wins for the mid-tier teams like us. I'm a big Pelini fan, but I don't think he would have attained that 9 win minimum in the last 5ish seasons. But that's a different topic.

 

I agree that Bo likely wouldn’t have maintained the 9 win consistency beyond 2014. Bo had the benefit of a 8 game conference schedule and the B1G of today is not the B1G back then. I attribute that parity to the increased revenue B1G members, except Neb, were receiving in that time frame. Everyone else was getting a bigger piece of the pie, except Neb. That allowed them to do facility renovations, put more $$ into recruiting resources and have bigger budgets for better hires. Everyone else was making more money than they ever had before, while Neb made two of the worst hires possible. It couldn’t have coincided at a worse time. I believe Neb didn’t receive a full member share until 2017. 

36 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

But back to your point, the right coach could get us back to being roughly in that zone of wins now that we can basically pay players a salary. And I mentioned that as being one of the reasons we could still be a decent team again. I just think it's much harder than people think it is, and I also think there's some entitlement that's baked into most fans' concept of what Husker football is in 2023.

NIL is definitely a major lifeline to getting Neb back to any kind of relevancy. By all accounts, our NIL is comparable to the big boys, and that’s without us even having a winning season in the NIL era. Imagine what it can do for the program if Rhule can string together a few winning seasons. 

11 hours ago, Lorewarn said:

 

 

We still get top 25 recruiting classes after 6 losing seasons in a row. 

 

We also saw less than a decade ago that a mid-coach with decent development can have a benchmark of 9 wins here.

 

So if we have the right coach who can recruit well (unlike Pelini), and who can develop well (unlike Riley and Frost), why would we not be able to maintain being a top-15 team?

1000% This. At our absolute worst we’ve still been able to out recruit our division and most of the conference at large. Get the right staff in place and the future is very bright. 

I swear, some people think college football started in 2015. 

1 hour ago, Loebarth said:

This is why Rhule will not succeed. Don't care that I'm bringing it up and everyone will bash me for it. There's just entirely too many instances to ignore.

 

 

This and Westerkamp in 2016 have always stuck in my craw. 

2 hours ago, Undone said:

 

What makes you say that? Is it because Rhule is that much better of a coach than the others in the B1G West? Or just because we used to be good and we still sell out the stadium?

 

Because I'd tend to say it's the opposite. Given the last six years for us, there aren't many reasons I can come up with that Nebraska can ever routinely threaten for a B1G Title and a playoff spot.

What makes you think that Neb can’t achieve the competitiveness that Iowa, Wis, NW and Purdue have been able to achieve recently? They’ve all cracked an otherworldly code that Neb can’t possibly figure out because we made a couple bad hires and have had a bad 6 year run? That can’t possibly be reversed? 

 

1 minute ago, Born N Bled Red said:

 

God, I know we Husker fans can be dense, but I think everyone recognizes now that firing Frank period, minimum and Pelini when we did were both mistakes. Assuming Rhule doesn't have Pelini's anger management skills or other controversy, I think most would be content with seasons that range from 8-11 wins annually. 

 

 

My point was more about “What if 8-4 is Rhule’s ceiling?” We’re then Minnesota. Respectable seasons without ever threatening for anything meaningful. 

If Rhule gets the occasional 11 win season, that likely means we’re threatening for a B1G title and potential Rose Bowl/Playoff berth. If that happens I think the fan base will be fine if there’s then an occasional 8-4 or 7-5 season. 

14 hours ago, brophog said:

 

That said, I've been very impressed with how quickly he's acquiesced to the Nebraska culture, and not just football. The spring game tribute to Frank, and using the FB first play, I think that's his nod to the fans that he's going to respect that past. I would say, as general criticism of several past Nebraska coaches, one of the failings has been too tightly clinging to the past. Sometimes we are all guilty of living 30 years ago, and the game has changed greatly in that time frame. When you look at some of the top programs today, they're traditional powers that had semi lengthy down times and much of what has gotten them back on top is bringing in and accepting new ideas.

 

Could you elaborate on this a bit? What coaches have clung to the past? Because honestly I just don’t see it. 
 

Callahan and Riley absolutely didn’t. Bo kind of embraced the past, but I don’t think he was ever terribly preoccupied by it. He did things his own way. Frost would make the occasional reference or bring in a teammate from the 90’s to give a pep talk, but at the time, Frost was as modern of a coaching candidate as we could get. 
 

I hear this “Stuck in the 90’s” or “Stuck in the Past” trope constantly but I really just don’t see it. If Neb was stuck in the 90’s, wouldn’t we be still trying to run the option with walk ons from Ord?

Was hiring two Pro Style/West Coast guys a result of us being “stuck in the 90’s?”

Bo was seen as an excellent hire at the time. Frost was considered an absolute home run hire. If both of those were considered to be good hires at the time, isn’t that a good thing, and not a result of being fixated on an antiquated approach?
 

Since 2003, I’d say Neb has been far more preoccupied with modernizing and reinventing itself than clinging to a bygone era. Sure, some folks on Twitter use the 90’s titles as a crutch when they’re getting roasted. Aside from that though, I think the Neb fan base could not be more focused on the future, and not the rear view mirror. 

2 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

And...I think that would be appropriate.

 

Right now, we suck and am a 4 win team.  Getting to 7-8 wins would be a decent first step.  But, that's not the ultimate goal.  The ultimate goal is competing for championships.  So, if Rhule gets to 7-8 wins and can't do any better, then the fan base would be justified in grumbling.

Agreed. There’s no reason Neb can’t routinely threaten for a B1G Title and a playoff spot with the expanded field.

18 hours ago, Red Five said:

 

Because 97% of all fans hate their teams OC.  They either pass too much, run too much, or don't call plays that work.

In 2010 Helu and TMart both had 1000+ rushing yards, and Rex had 990. Essentially three 1000 yard rushers, and I remember reading on a different Neb message board about how terrible Shawn Watson was and how much better Tim Beck was going to be. 

13 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Frost was so bad that he could actually be better and still not good enough. 

This thought has crossed my mind. It’s way down the line, but I can very well see a scenario where Rhule gets to 7 or 8 wins pretty quickly and the fan base is starting to feel confident, and then things just kind of plateau and the grumbling begins. 

1 hour ago, Undone said:

Good stuff!

 

So many teams are running what we'd call this 3-3-5. Whether you're a 4-3, a 3-4, a 3-3-5, you either have at least one physical & athletic edge rusher that can get to the passer or you don't. I think there's a good chance that if MJ Sherman & Jamari Butler are highly motivated, we're covered there. That's kind of what we've lacked on defense for the last several seasons (in addition to some bad tackling sprinkled in there).

 

As far as running the ball goes, biggest thing to talk about there is how hard that's actually going to be, in my opinion. Just saying he's going to make it a priority doesn't mean much. We've had a problem getting our running back's to produce good YPC numbers. We had Martinez padding our rushing stats for three years (2019 - 2021), but we kind of struggled to get our base running game going.

I know it was just the spring game, but Sherman had a couple “Whoa” moments. Hopefully he can be that pass rush presence we’ve desperately needed. 
 

OL is going to have to take a step forward this year if the running game is going to be a threat. I wasn’t thrilled about DR being retained, but I also realize OL cannot be fixed overnight. If there was one improvement from last year, I feel like they at least played more disciplined. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I feel like there were fewer drive killing false starts and holdings. 2021 felt like we were good for one or two of those at the worst possible moment. 2022 seemed like those were cut back. 

Saw this topic on the Huskers Reddit and thought it was a good topic for peak off season. 

Succeed

- Stating the obvious. Rhule has a track record of builds and improvement. 
 

- Rhule’s energy. Kind of an intangible, but Rhule has a vibe about him that I think is important for the situation he’s in. This program needs some positive energy and he has that in spades. 

- Rhule’s vision sounds like the right fit. Run the ball. Play solid defense. I think we’ve had a string of coaches that have to show everyone they’re the smartest guy in the stadium and ultimately end up overthinking themselves. Winning in the B1G (and college football in general) isn’t exactly rocket science. Being a physical team that plays good defense and can run the ball should net a respectable amount of W’s. 

- The AD seems to be in a good place with Trev. Can’t exactly say that was the case with Eichorst and Moos. 

- Rhule wants to be here. Rhule has publicly noted that he’s making as much money right now as he would be if he was sitting at home unemployed. He doesn’t have to be here. Rhule seems to have a reverence for college football and Neb. Does anyone really believe Callahan or Riley were dying to be here? Bo was looking to bail as early as 2011. Despite all the “Golden Boy” headlines about Frost, he always had a bit of a tenuous relationship with Neb. I can’t say for certain, but I think Frost liked the idea of coming home to coach more than the reality of it. Of all those guys, Rhule seems to be the most N. 

Fail

- His staff’s inexperience. This is my biggest and only real concern at this point. Rhule and his staff have a combined 1 year of experience coaching in the B1G. That 1 year belongs to Donovan Raiola from last year. 6 of his assistants have zero Power 5 experience. One assistant has never coached at the college level and one has never coached at any level. Maybe this truly is the group of guys to get things on track. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

- The 3-3-5. Perhaps it’ll work. But I cant say I’m completely sold on it. I believe White has also said they won’t run it exclusively.