DomiNUs

I think the headline was more referring to the hard part as being all the close loses and getting the team buy-in. Maybe now that that's out of the way, the team can continue to move forward and improve.

Considering both teams and the full season for both, '14 would beat the britches off of '15. I liked the last four games of this season. I hope we can play like that for the full season next year.

Christian McCaffrey went all beast mode against Iowa. I think if Iowa could of contained him the game would of been a lot closer. I think we would do a better job of handling him, but we would still lose to Stanford in a close one. As for Bama, we would have to play perfect ball to even come close to competing with. I could see us beating Tennessee if we played like we did against UCLA.

Could also have easily finished 3-9. But, if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle, as they say.Do tell, how were we close to finishing 3-9? I say we could have won 10 because there were 4 games we essentially lost at the last second. Enlighten me wordsmith. Not to be the negative guy, but he is not wrong. NU was up 29-7 to start the 4th & gave up 21 points & seemed unable to stop the Southern Miss offense in the 4th Qtr. A 3rd & 19 converted by Armstrong to Riley for 41yds stopped the bleeding in the forth quarter from Southern Miss & let NU score their only 4th quarter points. SM got a onside kick. Freedom sacked the QB to end the game. It ended up being a nail bitter at the end. MSU vs NU - Had the CB held on to a pass that Armstrong threw right to him. The game would have ended with another loss. The bowl game would have never happened with another loss so that would have made them 3-9. You can't just look at the bad breaks & not the good ones. The truth is this team is lucky to be a 6-7 team, as sad as that sounds. The bowl game was a gift. A gift that only 3 teams have ever recieved. How dare you slap these "best fans in the world" posters with reality. They were most likely raised in a fantasy world by their MILF stay at home moms. When faced with reality they lash out at you like you're their run-away daddies. How are you not banned yet?

Actually surprised Miami picked up Richt. I thought for sure they were going to get Butch Davis. Anyhow Canesfan, who is better in your opinion . . . Richt or Davis?

I think it depends on how we win, if we win at all. If we go out and play fundamentally sound football, and run away with the game, then I think that does a lot for the psyche of the team for next season. If we hang around, still making the same ole mistakes and luck our way into a win, I don't think it does anything for the team as far as being a springboard for next season. That would also do nothing to change Mike Riley's perception. I guess we'll take it any way we can get it though. GBR!

Great post. I think a lot of people lose sight of the bolded.

He did say the MR had been on his radar for a while.

Because the players on the Dline don't really seem to like their coach or have any confidence in him. How do you know this information?

Yep But even worse, they threw the players under the bus in order to "cover their backsides". And even worse than that... and the part I cant even hardly think about... is they appear to have used Boyds reputation and standing... the one guy who really does have a great reputation in the program... in their attempt to "cover their backsides". I really feel bad for Boyd. If this had only been about performance testing and making those numbers public again then it wouldn't have been a problem. Virtually everyone agrees that's a good thing. But when they injected the other needless and inflammatory stuff about needing to recruit "more talented" players and the stuff about the current players needing too much developing and coaching... in order to "cover their backsides for a bad year"... that's when the public relations scheme crashed in a ball of flames. Yeah, poor Boyd is obviously the goat here. He really is an old timer just sitting around waiting for some evil AD to take advantage of him. Good grief.

Hired by Oregon in 2009. Spent 4 years as a receivers coach, then two years as a coordinator. Then hired as a HC at UCF. What's the definition of taking so long? Six years at a major FBS program to then HC at UCF seems about right to me.

You are missing the point Grandpa.If and probably when he is successful in florida. I seriously doubt he will becoming here, he will be getting better offers than us. Be realistic and not a homer, why would he? Really why would he Simply because he won a natty here silly. I ran with Scott in track in high school and he loves the state, the people, and is a HUGE husker fan. You want to know why he'd come here, look no further than that. How about this" Show me the money" that might be the fly in the ointment. I am stunned how people think we are still some destination job. Guess what we ain't and every yr. we get just a little bit smaller on the national scene. Stunned that some people think this is not a destination job. 1. One of the all-time winningest programs " Do you think that carries much weight when we haven't won anything that matters in far too long? No top 10 rankings, ass beatings on TV " 2. State-of-the-art facilities " We are far from alone in this" 3. Pay check that will be in the millions and comparable to other big time programs " I am not sure but I don't think we are even in the top 15-20 of salaries paid" 4. Rabid fan-base that has sold out every single game for a half-century " Do you really think this is that much of a draw? really! " Ya haven't ya noticed how people have been lining up for this "Destination" job Let's see, TO hired Bo a while back, who was a top DC for the national championship team. Then SE hired the first guy on his list. Not much of a chance for people to line up for this destination job. Does it help that MR thinks it's a destination job?

Why would an AD get major state newspapers to publish an in-depth article about the talent level on the football team? Totally different question without the spin. Maybe the answer is to give the public an honest assessment of where the team is at and what they are doing to get back on track.

I just don't get why it has to be some sort of nefarious act on the part of some boogeyman named "Pedeyhorst", whoever that is.... I think it's awesome this stuff was made public again. I agree that testing results should be public. But the timing and the commentary that went along with it ("These players suck and that's why we had a losing season") is counter productive and demotivating for the team. Pederson did the same thing publicy in '04. How did that work out? I missed the part in the articles where this was said. Guess I should've put on the reading glasses. Don't you know that by NOT saying those things, they actually said them without saying them? " but in football we need to do a better job of bringing in talented recruits so we don't have to do quite so much development or quite so much coaching." Yep, you're right..he totally spoke about existing players in that sentence and not future recruits. Thanks for proving the point btw. The comment is about the present and the future. The current players know that. The current players are the result of a recruiting scheme that's not working which is why "we need to do a better job of bringing in talented recruits" The current players are the ones needing too much development and coaching because of the current recruiting scheme not working which is why he said "so we don't have to do quite so much development or quite so much coaching." Think TA's comments about wanting to be coached as if he was a freshman. After 4 years he still has not progressed past freshman level development. That's the very definition of needing too much development and coaching. The current players all fully understand what the comment means. Basing all that off a snippet of a comment taken out of context in relation to the whole of the work? Bad conjecture. Regardless, still couldn't find anywhere in the articles where anybody says, "These players suck and that's why we had a losing season." What I read in that comment was that the staff needs to do a better job in recruiting the right athletes to make the job of coaching and developing them easier. It makes no inference to current players and is solely based off what they want to do in the future.

You are missing the point Grandpa.If and probably when he is successful in florida. I seriously doubt he will becoming here, he will be getting better offers than us. Be realistic and not a homer, why would he? Really why would he Simply because he won a natty here silly. I ran with Scott in track in high school and he loves the state, the people, and is a HUGE husker fan. You want to know why he'd come here, look no further than that. How about this" Show me the money" that might be the fly in the ointment. I am stunned how people think we are still some destination job. Guess what we ain't and every yr. we get just a little bit smaller on the national scene. Stunned that some people think this is not a destination job. 1. One of the all-time winningest programs 2. State-of-the-art facilities 3. Pay check that will be in the millions and comparable to other big time programs 4. Rabid fan-base that has sold out every single game for a half-century

I just don't get why it has to be some sort of nefarious act on the part of some boogeyman named "Pedeyhorst", whoever that is.... I think it's awesome this stuff was made public again. I agree that testing results should be public. But the timing and the commentary that went along with it ("These players suck and that's why we had a losing season") is counter productive and demotivating for the team. Pederson did the same thing publicy in '04. How did that work out? I missed the part in the articles where this was said. Guess I should've put on the reading glasses.

If you get OSU recruits with an OSU staff you get ODU results. They must recruit better here to be a better program than they had. The ODU Monarchs take offense to this.

Totally agree. What's even better, is there are those that believe our athletic department has some sort of agenda and is able to influence the public regarding that agenda through the media. Especially after this little PR nightmare . . . link.

Lack of depth probably had a lot to do with it. After losing so many games though, I would think that eventually the coaches would say to hell with it and do what Tommy is good at regardless of the depth behind him. There has to be a threshold somewhere where winning trumps everything else. I hate to think about what that threshold is for this staff.

I honestly don't care how TA throws the ball or how is mechanics are. It's his decision making that gets him in trouble. The coaches are also somewhat responsible for that as well. They totally misused TA. He is a gifted dual threat QB, more so in the running department. To not take advantage of that every chance they could get was ludicrous,.

I seem to remember Banker come out pre-season some time and tell the media that the defense they will be running is not as simple as what was being said.

5 and 7 and the fact that some our alleged fans are ok with that failure is pathetic. I haven't heard one fan say they are ok with it.

Neither of the local news media made any mention of the Athletic Department or their public relations hand in the comments. Reading the articles make it sound as if the media had done some sort of sports reporting to arrive at these comments, even though there was no sports reporting involved at all. The whole thing was intentionally misrepresented. And think about it from the players perspective. Why would any player go out and give their all and risk injury for a team of players that the athletic department has given up on? These guys just don't measure up and have no chance of measuring up for another year and a half... if ever ? What a blunder. Because some of the players scored low on the assessment the athletic department gave up on them? Maybe, and this is a long shot here, maybe the results were made public so that there would be some emphasis on improvement and also provide the fans with some sort of measuring stick at where the talent and development of the team is really at.

I wonder why it wouldn't have gone over well. Not saying that these evaluations are the end-all-be-all indicator of talent and athleticism, but wouldn't athletes at that caliber want something tangible to look at and see how they compare? It doesn't make sense. Unless there are some on the team still fighting tooth and nail against the coaching staff. They aren't upset about the testing. They're upset with the AD propaganda behind the article, which basically calls them a bunch of untalented schmucks as an excuse for poor coaching. So if the players had scored very high on these evaluations they still would've been miffed at the AD for putting it in the news? Highly doubtful. HAHAHA! You think Eichorst would've hounded the papers to print the news that his coach went 5-7 with superior talent??? LOL! You have no idea what I think. What's even more absurd is that the local media would dare print a general interest story on bringing back a piece of the S&C program that generated positive results in the past.

I wonder why it wouldn't have gone over well. Not saying that these evaluations are the end-all-be-all indicator of talent and athleticism, but wouldn't athletes at that caliber want something tangible to look at and see how they compare? It doesn't make sense. Unless there are some on the team still fighting tooth and nail against the coaching staff. They aren't upset about the testing. They're upset with the AD propaganda behind the article, which basically calls them a bunch of untalented schmucks as an excuse for poor coaching. So if the players had scored very high on these evaluations they still would've been miffed at the AD for putting it in the news? Highly doubtful.