Ric Flair

As far as Tressel, I have an issue with taking Ohio State's castoffs. We're already dealing with Ohio State dominating us on the field. Taking their sloppy seconds as our head coach after they upgraded at the position would just help to cement our position as their little brother in the conference. What about Greg Roman for Head Coach? "Character with cruelty" sounds like a great fit for Nebraska football. http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2013-09-29/lane-kiffin-fired-usc-coach-candidates-to-replace-james-franklin-steve-sarkisian

Are we winning? Yeah, Dobs is one of the best around. Are we losing? That Dobson sucks. He's gotta go. I think there's room for some criticism. Our skill guys seem to be pretty well conditioned. Our linemen, on both sides of the ball, do not. In the SDSU game, they looked gassed by the end of the first quarter. And it's become a recurring theme for our opponents to mock how weak and poorly conditioned our players are. They're actually talking about it right now on 1620. The disparity in toughness between our guys and the players from the top teams in the country is shocking.

I'm cool with Lane Kiffin as Head Coach...but only if we can bring Steve Pedersen back here to be AD.

Couldn't agree more. We have a more talented D than Wisconsin and we could only dream of stopping the run, qb draw, and everything else that Wiscy is doing a decent job of shutting down. OSU is getting long plays, not really do the best job of conistently moving the ball on them. We are way more talented than Wiscy and have the athletes to shut OSU down on offense (I have to imagine SBJ or EVans could play better than true freshman), but we don't for whatever reason. I agree with you both. Ohio State would beat us by 50...Wisconsin would beat us by 20-30. We're probably the 4th or 5th best team in a weak/mediocre conference. We are the Iowa team that we used to mock. And the main factor is coaching. Those programs are well run. Ours is not.

Love the idea knappic. Unfortunately I think Pelini is far far too stubborn and bought in on Martinez being his QB to back away from that position now. I don't think he's capable of admitting that Martinez just isn't a good or natural quarterback. He'll just keep pounding the round peg into the square hole harder and harder.

Here's a good article about some possibilities for USC and Texas. http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/09/10/replacement-candidates-for-brown-kiffin/

This is pretty cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HWTNklK6heU#t=12

I'm sorry, after you get me the list of teams these days that take ranked 15-25 teams to the woodshed consistently, can you find me where i said anything in regards to nebraska's success? How successful we are, how I define our success, etc. Anything will do. Any statement I have made relating to that. (you might be looking a while as I didn't make any mention of success) The whole point of this discussion is to determine how successful Nebraska has been. Our strength of schedule is a key component of that. You have made clear that you think it's been tougher than I do. And that's fine. We just disagree. I don't think we should be looking to see how we have fared against teams ranked in the 15-40 range to judge where we're at as a program. If we're going to be a conference and national power, we should be comparing where we're at to teams in the Top 10-15 range.

It makes more sense to take stock of how good the teams are after all the games are played...far more so than trying to figure out what a team's rating is when we play them, including any team that was ever ranked, etc. The end of year rankings are the best and final gauge of how good teams actually were. I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes. It shows how far our expectations for this program have fallen. Rather than worrying about winning conference and national titles, we're now trying to rationalize mediocrity by counting up how many teams in the Top 40 or so we played and claiming that our annual tally of 4 losses and 2 beat downs really weren't as bad as they seemed. We might as well be Iowa fans at that point.

Show me any other team that played 8 ranked teams last season and also show me any other team that takes teams ranked 15-25 "behind the woodshed on a consistent basis". Thanks in advance. Penn State wasn't actually ranked at the end of the season, nor was Wisconsin or UCLA. So that's 4 ranked teams we played. Ohio State (3), Northwestern (17), Michigan (24) and Georgia (5). Alabama played Michigan (24), LSU (14), Texas A&M (5), Georgia (5) and Notre Dame (4). South Carolina played Vanderbilt (23), Georgia (5), LSU (14), Florida (9), Clemson (11), Michigan (24). Michigan played Alabama (1), Notre Dame (4), Nebraska (25), Northwestern (17), Ohio State (3) and South Carolina (8). So those are just three examples of teams with tougher schedules than we had last season. Of note is that all three ended the season ranked higher than we did. http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/8/3850284/final-2013-college-football-rankings-bcs-ap-coaches

UCLA had 9 wins and was ranked 17th at the end of the season. Wisconsin was ranked 23rd. Ohio State went undefeated and was ranked #2. Northwestern had 10 wins and was ranked 16th. Michigan was ranked 25th. Penn State had 8 wins, not ranked but still good. Georgia had 12 wins and was ranked 4th. We played Wisconsin twice, so that's 8 games (not 4-5, almost double in fact) against teams ranked either during or after the very last week of the season. For that year, sure. I still don't think that's a very tough schedule. We should be good enough to take teams ranked 15-25 behind the woodshed on a consistent basis. The fact that those are now considered by some to be our benchmark games says a lot about the state of the program...and how we continue to lower our expectations. And that's unfortunate.

Nice work. I disagree about the degree of difficulty of those schedules however. If we're playing 12-14 games and 4-5 are against teams in the Top 25, I don't see that as brutal or even exceptionally tough. That's especially the case when one of those is likely from the conference championship game and one is from the bowl game. So in the regular season, we're playing 3-4 ranked teams. Your analysis is based on what our ranking happens to be at a given point in time and then how we perform against higher ranked and lower ranked teams. But that does not account for the fact that we're pretty mediocre and not ranked as high as we should be in the first place. So for purposes of your comparisons, you're basically accepting our mediocrity. And I think that's a real issue.

I don't know how many times you can see the same thing unfold on the field and still be "stunned" by it.

Until we prove we can play consistent offense and even mediocre defense, we don't belong in the Top 25.

I've noticed the lack of emotion as well. It's weird, because I also thought that would be one of Pelini's strengths as a coach...getting the players fired up and ready to crack some skulls. Early on in his tenure that was the case. I remember him chest bumping players and screaming at the sideline. The last few years though the sideline has been dead. When players strap on their helmets they may as well be coal miners putting on their equipment for another day in the coal mine. It's disturbing to see. When I'm watching other games, it doesn't look nearly as bad on their sidelines as ours always seems to. And I think it's hard to be great at a game like football unless you love the game.

This is likely just a hypothetical discussion, as Bo has shown no wilingness to pull Martinez, even when he's not 100%. I prefer Armstrong. He's everything that Martinez is not and has never been. Armstrong is a better leader and commands the respect of his teammates. He's poised, confident, has a high football I.Q., makes good decisions under pressure, is an accurate passer and also poses a threat to run the ball. Martinez is a one-dimensional runner even when healthy, is an inconsistent passer, turns the ball over far too much, makes poor decisions especially under pressure, is not a natural leader and seems to have a below-average football I.Q. Given that Martinez is hurt, the coaches have a good excuse for playing Armstrong. But even if Martinez is 100%, I would prefer to see Armstrong under center. I'm willing to live with the mistakes he'll make due to inexperience as he learns the position...far more than I am to live with the mistakes Martinez makes due to low football intelligence, lack of poise, questionable decisionmaking and being careless with the ball.

Agreed. I think there's a chance we have a bit of a QB controversy after the game today. Armstrong seems to have that "it" factor that Martinez has always lacked.

It seems like it would be difficult to know this for sure. Are they instead indicating they've narrowed the possibilities to a handful of candidates and focused on someone they think has a motive?

If Saban moves on, I think it's to the NFL. He has too big of an ego to allow his failure there to tarnish his resume. And I agree knappic, loyalty is a two way street.

There are at least a couple Husker boards that are pretty terrible. The problem is generally that the mods/admins are all of the same mindset regarding the program and develop a sort of God complex. Then they go after anyone who disagrees. I haven't been on RSS much, but it sounds like it qualifies. But it's just as bad when management are comprised of true Bolievers and intolerant of opposing viewpoints or even mild criticism of Bo. There's at least one board I know of like that. So either extreme is bad and the common denominator of both is that mods forget that it's a discussion board. What brings value to a place like this are the different viewpoints and perspectives and the ability to have a civil discussion.

The "weasel tipster" is a cowardly douchebag, no doubt. But come on, Bo is no victim. He made the statements on his own, in a setting where he certainly should have known better. Bo took ownership of it, faced the music, and has survived another day, so now we can all move on. But to think he was a victim is just silly. This. Bo is a grown-a** man who needs to demonstrate better judgment and self-control. Hopefully he's learned a lesson from all of this. But he's no victim here.

Nebraska up 21-3 has only to keep doing what it was doing to win that game. You sound as if this UCLA victory was inevitable at all times in the game - and it very clearly wasn't. Down 18, UCLA needed Nebraska to collapse to win that game. Nebraska obliged. This mantra you keep selling that UCLA's athletes were clearly superior to Nebraska's is false. The teams are pretty evenly matched athletically. Exactly. UCLA didnt and doesnt have superior athletes to NU. They are right about even across the board. UCLA is a good team but they aren't as superior as Bruins fans beleive them to be. I wish your team luck the rest of the year but the arrogance is getting a bit old. To go along with the OP, one area UCLA is obviously superior is coaching. I would trade Nebraska's entire staff for theirs. If I took the time to look through the newspaper archives, I could find at minimum 3 times that Beck has apologized for not doing what he should have done during a game. Maybe he is Captain Hindsight, but it is getting old. Watson 2.0 Agree completely. I'm at a loss trying to understand why it isn't until after the games he realizes this...or how he can't seem to learn from his mistakes and thus keeps making the same ones in game after game.

So how long will it be before Pelini calls the culprit and tells them they can go and f*** themselves? :-)

Did anyone honestly expect Osborne to say anything different that this? He's a good guy, no doubt. But he's also human, a politician and has a healthy ego. Many Husker fans are completely bought in on Pelini and he can do no wrong in their eyes. TO is the guy that hired Pelini and has more reason than anyone to defend him and by extension his own decision to hire him. So in my view this was entirely expected. TO's endorsement will buy Bo some time, but if he continues to lose games, especially in blowout fashion and/or more incidents like this come to light, I still think he gets the boot. So Bo is on a very short leash in my opinion. Osborne can only provide him with so much cover.

My guess is that this is the culprit.