Ric Flair

Has anyone considered walking around pre-game in the opponents colors just to get free beer and food and then switch to red before you walk in the stadium. Seems like a good plan to me.

 

Go figure someone with an Obama username would seek something free

Nice...

Great thread. I think it's incredibly cool how well opposing fans are treated in Lincoln. And it's neat to see what a reputation Nebraska fans have for being classy, well-behaved and engaging in good sportmanship.

But now that he has his own staff, the dysfunction just continues.

A team doesn't win 9 or more games each year of a coaching tenure if things are seriously dysfunctional.

I respectfully disagree. It's possible that the dysfunction only shows up at certain times, such as when they're matched up against a superior staff and challenged to make adjustments on the fly. That's when the dysfunctional nature of this staff becomes apparent. And it's a recurring theme during the blowouts. It was also on full display on Saturday.

We've been sold a bill of goods about how the problem was Watson's offense... that Pelini was forced to keep on some assistants,

 

What the what?!?!? Neither of those excuses came from this board or from Stadium Drive. Not sure where that came from, but it's not reality.

I've read that argument all over the internet. I'm new here, so I don't know what's been posted here. But one of the excuses we heard for issues early in Pelini's tenure, predominately on the offensive side of the ball was that Pelini was hamstrung by Osborne's insistence that he kept Watson and other Nebraska retreads on staff. The argument was that it was unfair to judge him because he wasn't even able to hire his own staff. But now that he has his own staff, the dysfunction just continues.

I agree with a lot of what you said, Fowler. What pisses me off the most is it seemed like these coaches felt they could beat Wyoming with the absolute basics, and they clearly can't - or can, just barely.

 

We simply cannot take teams for granted, AT ALL. Not South Dakota State, not Wyoming, not anybody. We have to run our offense, every play in it, from day one. If future opponents get film on what we're doing, whatever. Throw the whole playbook at the non-con schedule and make future opponents practice for EVERYTHING.

 

We almost lost this game trying to be too secretive. It's going to cost Bo his job if he does this much more. It's just plain stupid.

Great post.

Good thread about a disturbing trend.

The scheme has shown to be successful. Alabama runs a version of the two-gap, talent discrepancies aside. So is this a scheme problem or a coaching/play calling problem? I don't know. It's easy to blame the scheme, which I've been doing, only because whatever adjustments we're making inside the scheme appear to be ineffective.

 

UCLA is beatable with a decent defense. Whatever we had on the field Saturday is going to repeat what happened to us last year.

Agreed. I just don't see how the super sunshine guys (my prediction for the season was 1 loss btw) will never place ANY blame on the coaches six years in. No blame at all. It's always the players fault. When I think that blame has to fall somewhere in the middle.

Agreed. We've been sold a bill of goods about how the problem was Watson's offense, the lack of talent, players not executing, too many injuries with not enough depth, that Pelini was forced to keep on some assistants, that the new assistants weren't seasoned enough, that Pelini is a first time head coach, and so on. At some point you simply run out of excuses...and that's what I see happening.

Pelini's defense is nothing short of a complete dumpster fire. The offense has some great weapons and a seeming inability to fully utilize them. I think the visible dysfunction on the sideline during games gives a good clue as to the dysfunction running through this program. And it's hard not to feel the growing sense that Pelini is over his head as a head coach and simply can't get the job done.

whether it was earned in the past or not is a thing for debate. I could buy an argument that says it was somewhat earned in the past. I could also buy the argument that it was not. That is a tough call.

 

As to whether Bo is a defensive guru now... that is not up for debate. the answer is emphatically... NO. We have to follow where the data leads... and the data is in on this one... Bo's recent teams have been far, far, far removed from what could be objectively described as "well coached." A guru he may at one time have been... but the game evolves and that was then and this is now... he is no defensive guru now.

 

This seems entirely reasonable. Bo learned most of his defensive philosophy while in the NFL for eight years. I don't know that he innovated much on any of the basic concepts. When I think of terms like guru or genius in the context of football, I think of great innovation. So I probably wouldn't go that far with Bo. He understood the concepts very well and had the right type of personality to coach defensive players. Combine those with the the amount of talent he had to work with in 2003, and you had the perfect storm for great defensive results. Same goes for 2009 and 2010. But when the talent isn't great, his defenses run into big problems. And he's very stubborn about the way he does things. I envision his output like this:

 

 

From what I've heard, the big boosters wanted him back in 2008 and TO didn't have much of a choice. This may or may not be true, but it would make sense to me. The boosters emotions are no different than any of the fans', and Bo was very popular because he was the last string holding together our decades of proud tradition that had started to crumble between 2000 and 2007. I remember being at the 2000 Alamo Bowl and listening to everyone chant "We want Bo!". It may not have been the most logical desire, but it made sense from an emotional perspective. Bo's personality fit here and Frank hired him, so (in a minor way) he was the last viable link to Frank, Tom and Bob. Since Frank had already been fired, the fans wanted to hold onto whatever remaining link they could. They didn't want to see an outside hire with a whole new staff to break the 40-year continuity that was so rare in college football.

 

After Callahan was fired, those emotions from the Alamo post-game came rushing back, and the powers that be were set on Bo. As a head coach, he was entirely unproven-- literally had never been in the position at any level. So it was a risky hire. But maybe he was the best available. I don't know. The results have been better than Callahan but still mixed. With great talent his defenses can be scary. With average talent, they can be scary bad. We all laugh at Cosgrove as the epitome of a clueless defensive coordinator, but several of Bo's games have matched or exceeded Cosgrove's worst. We can't ignore that. And Bo's assistant hires have not been home runs by any amount of Kool-Aid.

 

I'm not drawing any grand conclusions from any of this, but it's safe to say that 2012 is not where we want to be. And what we saw against Wyoming is not where we want to be. Maybe Bo has lots of potential for change and improvement. Maybe not. All we can do is wait and see, and hope. And get in lots and lots of ridiculous arguments about it on the internet.

Great post. I think it would be crazy to fire Bo right now. But I think it would be even more crazy to accept this as the status quo for another season or two. So if the 2014 season ends and we haven't seen measurable improvement, I think it'll be time to pull the trigger. 9 or 10 wins with a blowout loss or two, an upset loss to a team we shouldn't lose to, multiple games where we give up 600+ yards and the sense that the coaching staff is consistently overmatched and outcoached are not sustainable at Nebraska.

I'm beginning to think the defense's problems have less to do with the players and more to do with the scheme/coaching. In the last three games, Nebraska's defense has given up more than a mile of offense. Think about that.

 

We have youth, but our inexperience isn't 600 yards of offense bad. Getting pushed around, quarterbacks having too much time to throw the football, secondaries being asked to cover too long and non-existent linebackers have been a theme the last couple of years. Just look at Brett Smith. He'a good quarterback, but we've faced far better with significantly better results. He's not 600 yards of offense against Nebraska good.

 

I hate to harp on the scheme/coaching, but at this point, I don't trust that our two-gap works unless we have an absolutely dominant interior linemen. I don't think we have the time to wait for that. And I don't think it's too much of an over-reaction at this point just because the same problems from last year have carried over to this year. Last night's defense makes Nebraska a five loss or more team this season if it continues.

Agreed. I don't think there are any excuses left. The scheme hasn't worked in the last couple of years and Bo doesn't seem willing or able to change it. And as much attention as is being paid to lack of talent, experience, etc. the elephant in the room is that Pelini and his staff are being badly outcoached several times a season.

I think it's a mistake to blame anyone but Bo at this point. These are his schemes, his hand-picked and developed players and coaches and his team. There are no more excuses left.

And in my opinion, he's simply not getting the job done.

If the defense was playing well, I don't think fans would care when the Blackshirts were handed out.

I don't think Papuchis is the problem. It's Bo's defense. These are all guys Bo recruited and developed. Bo hired and developed Papuchis. So there are no excuses left.

That doesn't surprise me. He looks some combination of confused/embarrassed/frustrated during these meltdowns. I honestly think he's just in over his head. Wyoming has a fraction of the talent that we do, but they seem to have a better coach. And that's a recurring theme during the blowout losses and meltdowns...we're getting outcoached.

We've needed to "tighten up" for about three full seasons now. The problem doesn't seem to be figuring out that the defense can't stop anyone. The problem is that the coaching staff simply can't figure out why or what to do to fix it.

The problem seems to be coaching. Our staff just seems overmatched.

I'm thinking the solution is to have Bo hire a few more inexperienced yes-men from Youngstown to stop the bleeding.

How many holding calls are not going to get called?

I'm seeing a lot of holding too, but you can't let Wyoming come into your place and run roughshod all over you and blame it on the officiating.

We should be so much better than these guys that the officiating is irrelevant.

I hate to be Debbie Downer, but I'm quickly losing faith in Pelini and this staff. This is beyond ridiculous.

There's yet another score. Wow. This is disappointing.

They're just their missed FG away from being tied.

Why wouldn't you give that to cross?

Why do what makes sense when it apparently feels so good to do what doesn't and fail?

Crappy giving up the TD, but loved the sack by Mitchell on the 2 pt. conversion.

Shawn Watsonism is still alive and kicking

Yep. They can't resist trying to get cute.

I'm incredibly impressed with our running backs. Can Ron Brown be moved to coach the defensive line? Maybe he can fix that unit too.

At least the refs seem to be trying to fix their mistakes.

Q is a beast...love that guy.