cm husker

Thank you for the breakdown. I hope some of his critics on the board, twitter bubba and Benning actually re-evaluate their arguments and stop scapegoating these guys. guess some of the coaches' critics will have to re-evaluate their arguments too. In what sense? Personally, I haven't argued that the wrong guy is playing or that he lacks fundamentals. I have argued that, as a whole, our offensive scheme lacks dynamic creativity and it doesn't put our guys at an advantage. Basically that we've got the talent to be much more productive than we have been. But that's hardly relevant to the criticisms of Utter as a player and person.

Thank you for the breakdown. I hope some of his critics on the board, twitter bubba and Benning actually re-evaluate their arguments and stop scapegoating these guys.

Dylan Utter is an undersized, FCS-at-best talent. The simple fact that he hasn't been beaten out by anyone else on the offensive line can be directly correlated to the lack of ready-to-play talent that is available at the position. I'm not going to comment on talent since the guy has started for 2 years in a row, but 295 is undersized for a FBS offensive lineman? That's news to me. I'm not sure if you know this, but more often than not linemen don't come in from high school ready to play. Those guys normally have to be developed. Given that the average D1 O-lineman in 2014 was around 6'3, 305, then yea, that's undersized. And I'm not sure you know this, but your second comment just proves mine; if we have a guy in the program that was ready to play at center, then Utter wouldn't be starting. So thanks for that. 10 lbs. lighter.....OK then...... <rolls eyes> If Cav would give some snaps to some other guys, maybe the high 3*/4* Thurston would still be here. Or, as much as some of you hate this, maybe the white walkon from Nebraska was just better. WTF does race have to do with this? It's kinda the same distaste that many of our fans had for guys like O'Hanlan,Dzuris or Gangwish, or even back to a guy like Josh Davis(not a walk on). The criticisms around Josh Davis receiving a scholarship and playing IB were some of the more disgusting stuff I've seen from Husker fans. Whether that was based on his race, I won't venture a guess, but I do know that he was a well regarded recruit out of CO (e.g., he was ranked 12th by Rivals, which would be higher than many highly touted recruits since). Nebraska’s first oral commitment of the 1999 class, Josh Davis was an all-class all-state (Denver Post) running back for Coach John Poovey. As a senior, Davis rushed for 1,422 yards and 21 touchdowns on 135 carries (9.7 ypc) and scored 31 TDs total. His yards ranked seventh in Class 5A (largest) in Colorado. He led Class 5A in scoring with 160 points and ranked fourth among all classes. He also returned six kickoffs with four going for TDs (long of 89 yards). He also brought back four punts for scores with a long of 93 yards (12 punt returns at 45 yards per return) and caught 25 passes for 595 yards and two TDs. Davis committed in June of 1998 to the school where his father was a standout fullback. Davis was named a SuperPrep All-American and was listed 16th among running backs. He was also No. 4 in SuperPrep’s Midland’s Top 71 team. He ranked No. 12 nationally among running backs by Bobby Burton and 93rd overall. The Tacoma News-Tribune also named him to their Western One Hundred team as the sixth-best running back. Davis earned PrepStar all-region honors and ranked sixth among running backs in the Big 12 Region. As a junior, Davis rushed for 1,100 yards (9.9 ypc) and scored 26 total TDs. He qualified for the state track meet as a sophomore and junior and placed sixth in the 100 meters in 1998 with a personal best of 10.71. His best in the 200 meters is 21.6 (he went on to win this his senior year)

Dylan Utter is an undersized, FCS-at-best talent. The simple fact that he hasn't been beaten out by anyone else on the offensive line can be directly correlated to the lack of ready-to-play talent that is available at the position. I'm not going to comment on talent since the guy has started for 2 years in a row, but 295 is undersized for a FBS offensive lineman? That's news to me. I'm not sure if you know this, but more often than not linemen don't come in from high school ready to play. Those guys normally have to be developed. Given that the average D1 O-lineman in 2014 was around 6'3, 305, then yea, that's undersized. And I'm not sure you know this, but your second comment just proves mine; if we have a guy in the program that was ready to play at center, then Utter wouldn't be starting. So thanks for that. 10 lbs. lighter.....OK then...... <rolls eyes> If Cav would give some snaps to some other guys, maybe the high 3*/4* Thurston would still be here. Or, as much as some of you hate this, maybe the white walkon from Nebraska was just better. If you don't think that 3 inches short and 10 pounds lighter doesn't make a difference, you don't know much about interior line play. How big was Aaron Graham? How about Raiola? Or Russ Hochstein? Or Aaron Taylor? Oh, those guys from the 90s and early 00s aren't reflective of today's game? Then, how about the AP 1st team all american center last year? He was 6'1, 294 at the Combine. Reality is, Utter is only about 2 inches shorter and about 5 pound slighter than the average OL. Considering the number of tall and heavy OTs out there, it means he's probably heavier than a bunch of OL in general and definitely in line with other interior linemen.

It didn't support your post one bit. Farmer might have been a top 100 player by the end of the year but he wasn't heavily recruited. Having offers from Florida, Georgia and UCLA doesn't exactly scream highly recruited either. Gates is the only one that we can say was highly recruited and from some top teams. Knevel had an offer from Bama and that about sums it up. He did have one from Wisconsin which holds a little weight IMO when it comes to Oline. It's shocking, sad and humorous how some "fans" will bend over backwards to down our players. You really are something else. Where in my statements have I "downed" our players? You're bending over backwards to discredit the players. Specifically, you're calling into doubt their quality as recruits and taking a slanted view against their history of offers. I thought you may be feigning ignorance but I guess not...

I agree that Riley and his staff deserve recognition for winning 8 of 10 games to this point. It's never easy to go through a season and not lose a game you shouldn't.*Hopefully they will close out with wins in games 11 and 12. *personally, I think wisky was a game we should have won, but I'll defer to the spread.

It didn't support your post one bit. Farmer might have been a top 100 player by the end of the year but he wasn't heavily recruited. Having offers from Florida, Georgia and UCLA doesn't exactly scream highly recruited either. Gates is the only one that we can say was highly recruited and from some top teams. Knevel had an offer from Bama and that about sums it up. He did have one from Wisconsin which holds a little weight IMO when it comes to Oline. It's shocking, sad and humorous how some "fans" will bend over backwards to down our players.

Farmer was a top 100 player (#4 guard) and a 4* per your link. Thanks for posting that support. Foster had offers from Florida, Georgia, UCLA and others despite being from Nebraska and showing desire to attend Nebraska from an early date. Again, thanks for supporting my post.

Dylan Utter is an undersized, FCS-at-best talent. The simple fact that he hasn't been beaten out by anyone else on the offensive line can be directly correlated to the lack of ready-to-play talent that is available at the position. The simple fact is that he's answered the bell because Cavanaugh's policies and approach ran off a guy like Thurston, who was as highly recruited out of HS as just about anyone. This is Dylan's first year as a true center and he's played pretty well overall. And yes, he was lightly recruited coming out of Nebraska, but he's been on scholarship since 2015 - and a lot of great Nebraska HS recruits were lightly recruited out of HS.

What teams in the B10 had better OL depth coming into the season than NU? What about now? Maybe two or three at most? People act like we are "trotting a JV team" out there. And my information about recruiting is based on our current recruiting under Riley and the past 19 years of recruiting under four different coaches.

I believe that Utter is too harshly criticized. I believe Cavanaugh is wrong minded in his approach to not playing backups. I also believe that Riley and he may (MAY) be wrong to not play at least one of the freshman or the redshirt freshman. I get wanting to preserve redshirt, but you don't do that to the detriment of this year's team. I think that schematically, we don't help our linemen (or other offensive players) out very much. Do we have an amazing OL in terms of 4 or 5 guys going to the NFL? No (but who does?). Do we have a good enough OL to be more productive offensively than we have been? I believe yes. And if we were so bad on the OL, why didn't this staff land a JUCO during the past two classes?

Agreed. Although, we will still be starting 4 of Pelini's recruits on the OL... Yes, they are being coached by this staff, I get it. (Gates, Foster, Farmer, Knevel) Four guys who were highly rated and had offers from top 10 programs coming out of HS. But I get that you believe they are sh**ty because of who recruited them.

The coaches have to start 5 players on the o-line. Utter is not good, but he's the only guy who can do the job this year. That's why he's been starting for 2 years.How can he possibly be the only guy who can do the job? The only other center on the team is Decker, and he's having issues. The coaches have decided to redshirt all the true freshman. I think it's worth arguing that the freshmen could be playing, but to say that Utter is not bad just because he's started for 2 years is a flawed argument. If we can win 9-10-11 games, WHICH WILL HAPPEN, and redshirt TRUE FRESHMEN OL, then we won, and we won big. Almost all OL need to redshirt, heck, almost all freshmen need to redshirt. I understand it doesn't happen a ton, but we are sitting really pretty in terms of development due to the fact that we have been able to redshirt 80% of the past 2 recruiting classes. IT'S HOW YOU HAVE TO BUILD A PROGRAM. Then once in a while, you get a STUD (Sarrell) and they can step in right away because they are that good. Has Sarrell committed to NU?

CM, you love to beat this drum all the time, and I do see where you are coming from. The cupboard was far from bare, especially at the skill positions. There is a good enough talent on the roster for the team to realistically go 10-2 this year. However, I don't know how you can realistically say there was quality depth on the o-line. There just wasn't. There were big recruiting and early development misses by Bo and his staff with o-linemen who should be juniors and seniors. That is a big reason that Utter is starting. Now, I think that the coaching staff could have played some of the true freshmen o-linemen this year to provide more depth. I understand where you're coming from. My central point is that if NU doesn't have quality depth, then very few teams have quality depth, because NU has recruited better than most. And the old staff shouldn't be blamed for this staff losing guys like Thurston (not to mention 3 d lineman). My secondary point is that things are unlikely to improve much, if at all, so it's concerning that this staff can't take this roster and make them more dominant than they have been.

Guys a beast. Considering his had to deal with not only learning a new system, but also with being the face of an entire offense learning a new system, I think he's done an outstanding job. Has any QB had more POW's than him?

Any time you want to compare football credentials rather than levy personal attacks, let me know in a PM. So does this mean that if someone has less football credentials then someone else the person with the lower credentials is not allowed to question the person with the better credentials? Of course not. Not even sure how you drew that from my statement. Or are you drawing it from the personal attack levied by billy?

I'm entirely sick of the bs "cupboard" is bare arguments. It's not supported by any real facts that are usually relied on in these discussions (e.g., recruiting ratings, particularly relative to our opponents). It's based on lazy inductive reasoning that concludes that bad results mean bad talent because that's more comfortable than admitting that we have an average at best coaching staff. I've seen this movie before. I really wish Husker fans would quit rebooting it.

the dude looks lost and unprepared..........totally. sad.It looks like he was taught to "catch and guide" on that kind of draw play. You can see the same with the other OL on that play. They are taught to show pass pro and then guide the player in the direction they take - works fine with DL who are trying to get up field. Not so fine with LBs who are reading the QB draw immediately. He was in a bad physical position though - no doubt about that. Was caught flat footed against a guy who was looking to engage and shed on a run play rather than rush a lane against a pass play. That play is on coaching as much as it is ability. Left guard messed up on that play too.

absolutely. And our previous staff could take it and manage more losses. No way! Utter is bigger than the pillsbury dough boy. He got pushed all over the field last night. We have 2 guys on our line that are worth a crap. Amazing how hateful some Husker fans can be.

No clue what you're getting at with that post.

The coaches have to start 5 players on the o-line. Utter is not good, but he's the only guy who can do the job this year. That's why he's been starting for 2 years.How can he possibly be the only guy who can do the job?The previous staff didn't build any depth along the offensive line. Pretty obvious.Look at NUs recruiting on the OL during the past few years. Compared to most other P5 schools, it's been very good from a recruitnik perspective. This staff isn't really changing the approach/numbers, so if they don't have enough depth to be successful today, I'm left wondering why anyone thinks they'll have enough 4 years from now. Pelini and his staff whiffed on their o-line recruiting in 2012 and 2013. Those guys didn't develop anywhere near to be good enough. The 2015 class for Riley (and Pelini) is concerning because of Decker and Barnett not being able to contribute this year. The 2016 class for Riley could be playing as true freshmen, and there is a valid argument for this (I have made it!!!), but the lack of a scholarship center that is a senior or junior this year is on Pelini and his staff. Decker has concussion issues and is too scared to play anymore. Barnett is eating himself out of a scholarship as is weighting around 360-370lbs. With that said Utter is terrible and it shows how bad recruiting was under Pelini/Cotton for the OL.Just simply asking, but where'd you hear Barnett is up that high in weight? I had a class with him last year and I've seen him around this year. He doesn't really look that much different size wise. I'm guessing most reports are fabricated or exaggerated. We know why we arent seeing him on the field. Cavanaugh has a very specific philosophy about substitution, or lack thereof.

Any time you want to compare football credentials rather than levy personal attacks, let me know in a PM.

Now even garrison is being thrown under the bus. It's amazing to me that two springs and two falls in, people still want to blame the prior staff for development.

Georgia Tech has 3 true freshman, a back up junior and a sophomore starting on the OL against a well-regarded Va Tech front. They went for 300+ rushing with a backup QB who was 2 for 7 throwing it. Georgia Tech hasn't been great this year, but anyone who doesn't believe you can be successful running against "better" teams because you're young or inexperienced or a backup doesn't understand what scheme can do to cover up deficiencies. Ask yourself this - could the Ohio St staff take this same group of players and get more production out of them?

Good point. But a lot of people would rather hammer the kid based on some cherry picked plays. Frankly, he (and other walkons, particularly on the OL) and Armstrong are operating as the prime scapegoats for what is a very anemic offense. I think some of the haters, particularly of Armstrong, are in for a rude awakening.