84HuskerLaw

Maybe I missed the answer in this discussion as to who 'girlknows' knows all of this 'insider' information. To listen to his daily prayers in such detail, you must live with and also work with him quite closely. ? I am not able to listen to a majority of Mike's public statements, press cons, etc. but does he bring up the content of his prayers all the time? I just have not heard him involving his religion and practices thereof in his coaching approach? If he is so religious. he ought to be in contact with Ron Brown.

Well, let's count them: 1. Tommy Armstrong (although there he'd be a RB, WR, TE/H-Back, or possibly even a FS/SS). 2. Jordan Westerkamp. 3. Terrell Newby (as a slot receiver). 4. Tanner Farmer. 5. Chris Jones. 6. Josh Kalu. 7. Nate Gerry. Those are 7 players that, in my opinion, would start literally for any other program. you must have missed the game they played Nebraska. TA doesn't start on any of those spots, Westy maybe,Newby isn't better than Curtis Samuel and to say so is a joke, the way their o line dominated I doubt Farmer is any better than whoever they have at right guard, and their defensive backfield is just as good if not better than ours Not to dump on the guys you listed but, seriously? NONE of those guys start for Ohio State. Newby would not beat out Ohio State's receiver because obviously if he was THAT good, he'd be a receiver in Lincoln. Nate Gerry would get playing time certainly although I am not sure he'd start. Our CBs were not among the nation's best, although they played very well. Westercamp is an excellent receiver and would get a starting level spot on as many as 15 of the top 20 teams - but not sure at Ohio State (lacks pure speed and a little size as well). Tommy is a fine athlete but he is not fast enough to be a starting RB at many teams. Too small to be a TE. He might make a LB size wise. Tommy's best shot, ironically, is as a QB. He would have been an excellent QB in a wishbone or other option oriented attack. He is a solid 'option attack' passer and would have posed a real threat to defenses trying to overload to stop the option with his passing skills. I hope Westy and Gerry get a decent shot in the NFL and we will find out the level of players they really are with that.

Although I haven't been to a game since Moe Iba's day (maybe one or two since that time), I just wonder why any serious basketball fan would expect Nebraska to do anything other than be Nebraska when it comes to men's college BB. Nebraska has NEVER won a championship in BB and won't. Frankly, I thought it was kind of silly to build that high dollar arena, ostensibly for "Nebrasketball", I believe, although I am sure the city of Lincoln has other uses for the facility besides a nice place to watch the renowned BB teams that opponents bring to town. NU has tried many times to change coaches and several times to keep them under the theory that somehow lightning will magically strike or that 'give him some time to build something' will finally work out. Even a new arena has not made much difference, if any. After only a few seasons, the howling has begun to yet again fire and hire. Many on this board are sounding quite similar on the football field too. Nebraska was not always good in football but certainly fans reasonably expect to put a top notch product out there every fall. Men's basketball is a completely different endeavor. I would suggest, that like in football, if NU is to truly get to the Big Ten championship and or even a sweet sixteen caliber BB team, they will have to make the biggest 'splash' coaching hire in the past decade. Your going to need someone almost Michael Jordon (ish) in stature to lift the program up that much. Nebraska and the 500 mile radius produces maybe 3 or 4 serious D1 recruits and your not stealing them away from the KUs and the rest of the elites absent a super magnetic coach the likes of which has never considered Nebraska for a career 'home'. Moe Iba was a close to a big name coach as we've ever hired, I would say, and his slow down style (which kept us in the games against almost all comers btw). We should have tried to hire Bobby Knight when Indiana fired him. That was maybe the only real opportunity to hire someone with the gravitas to raise the dead. LOL But he was too much like Bo Pelini in persona.

Based on the historical writings I have read and listened to, I think that had we not used the nukes, the war could have lasted another year or longer. The war in the Pacific was extremely difficult (maybe even worse that Europe in some ways). I have read more realistic estimates of perhaps another half a million dead if we continued to conventional war fighting, assuming we could. The United States was very much weakened by the four long years of WWII in general. Many military experts have suggested that we could not likely have sustained more than another 2 years and there was in fact no guarantee that we could even defeat Japan in a conventional way. The people of Japan had been psychologically indoctrinated and conditioned to ABSOLUTELY HATE Americans and it is quite unlikely that the military and even most of the people would have actually stopped fighting, even upon a terribly difficult and bloody invasion of the main island of Japan. We would have had to use mass quantities of conventional bombing (millions more would have died in that manner so maybe we saved Japanese lives actually) and our supplies and capacity to continue was waning. There was good reason to believe that Japan would literally NEVER surrender and would fight indefinately. Some Japanese soldiers continued the fight for decades after Japan did surrender. Japan even attacked our navy ships AFTER the signing of the surrender documents, after the bombs, and we gave them a chance to surrender after the first bomb BEFORE hitting them the second time. The race to build the nuclear bomb was extremely desperate for two reasons particularly. First, we were deathly afraid the Germans would get one first and we would have lost everything. Germany would have used 50 or more and destroyed North America. Secondly, the war effort was literally everything America could muster - we were fighting with every last man, woman and child in the effort and raw materials (fuel, steel, etc etc) were extremely short. And with the absolute evil despicable 'war crimes' methods of Japan and of course intense fear that Japan would launch large scale attacks on the U.S. mainland at any point, there was just no way we could NOT use the bombs. The use of the bombs had the positive effect, in my view, of 'convincing' the Japanese people to STOP and give up the fight. It took this massive 'shock and awe' to effectively wake them from their zombie or robotic mindset.

It appears that the number of highly sought after running backs must be rather low this year which may have limited our interest. We don't want to spend valuable scholarships on less than stellar RBs. I would hope that Nebraska and vacinity would have at least one RB worthy of a hard look. Atleast get one as a walk on. I would see no reason why any of our backs would want to transfer out. There seem to be only 3 and enough opportunity to play and any of them, presumably, can win one of the two 'starter' roles as much as we interchange them.

I know its not exactly the same but in years past Nebraska used to 'oversign' in a way by having preferred 'walk ons' who were, I think, promised a chance for a future scholarship after a year or two if the guy does well. In a way this is 'over signing'. Of course, I assume the SEC teams are oversigning and then renegging on the scholarship as they absolutely KNOW that a set number of players promised current scholarships will NOT get them. This is basically fraud in the inducement (in legal terms). It would be interesting to see a group of those players actually file a lawsuit for breach of contract for not honoring their promise. It is a binding contract I believe as I think I read that NCAA now requires schools to honor the scholarships for full four years. ???

I think several have hinted at this point but I have said a number of times elsewhere that the overall talent is important but the critical aspect of the 'talent' question is where that talent lies. You need great lines, a great QB, excellent LBs, great seconday play and good WRs and RBs at a minimum to get into and remain 'top ten' or better. Measuring overall class strength is good but you have to assign 'weights' in coming up with the talent assessment by player position and depth as well. You can have lots of 5 star WRs and even a 5 star QB who can throw (Payton Manning looked very average vs. Nebraska, for example) with an NFL arm but if he doesn't have time and or can't find a place to safely pass the ball, it is all for naught. Win with power more than finesse in my view. Control the line of scrimmage, avoid penalties and turnovers and basic fundamental mistakes, and you will compete with almost any team, game after game, year after year. Build the 'pipeline' and recreate the real "Blackshirts" and kick the dam ball well and you will win 11 games and not be blown out by anybody (with a once a decade exception for the true 'fluke' game). "Where's the beef?" is the quick way to ask the question really. Iowa and Wisconsin have better lines than we do and this is why they won the games of late. They also compete with the big boys more often than not Also a fundamental truism: football is a game of blocking and tackling. Do it better and you will win alot. Who blocks and who tackles - your talent focus. It would be a ton of work but I suspect that if you were to take out the WRs, RBs, QBs from the grading and then recompute and rechart the teams, Wisconsin and Iowa go way up and Nebraska drops about 20 spots. Just my opinion.

Tuberville's salary was around $2.2 million. So yeah, that would save us a couple million over the next three years. That may be true but Pelini can always take a low ball number from any school and let NU subsidize his pay wherever he goes. I am sure that is happening now. Why not continue?

There is a good chance Ohio State will beat them and that would kind of kill this whole notion. They will need to beat Buckees by bout 31 points to be even be 'in the conversation' in my view. The '95 Huskers remain in a category of their own. It would be a great game to watch the '95 team take on Bama or Ohio State. I would pick NU by 23 over both.

There is also the factor of family - never underestimate the sway a coach's wife and kids, staff and others around him have on the choice of where he works. If a given family is well established in a given community (church, school, other jobs and careers, etc etc), to pull up stakes and simply move to an entirely new place can be quite life changing and may be difficult. Yes, the families of big time athleticis (or other high profile professions of most any kind) can have a life similar to a TV or radio personality or a military family. They may move many times (everyday people do as well) and the decisions on who, what, where, why and so on all come into consideration. It is not just money, although when one gets to the many millions of dollars you are talking about 'life changing' money like winning the lottery in a way. But, never underestimate the 'other factors' besides the features of the job itself. Nebraska has to sell not only the football program, facilities, fans, stadium, Big Ten, tradition, pressure to win, recruiting challenges, current status of the team, etc, etc etc but also must sell the entire package (living in Lincoln, Nebraska, the local schools, social aspects, weather, amenities, and so on). Many people prefer sunny warm climates but many others don't. You have to find a great 'fit' all around.

The big Ten overtook the SEC as the best overall conference, in my view, with Ohio State's national title. Clearly, the polls indicate with the high number of highly ranked teams in the top twenty, that national reputation of the conference is now elite. When we joined the Big Ten, it was, at best, third and perhaps even fourth behind Big 12, SEC and Pac 12. I believe the SEC has slipped from the top spot, because of the 'beat each other up' syndrome (Big Ten has had it too) and the lack of non-conference wins the Big Ten has posted in Sept. The SEC has tremendous talent but the Big Ten does as well. I think the middle third of the big Ten is stronger. The bottom feeders are comparable. It is very close but Big Ten edges SEC. I credit Nebraska joinder as the watershed moment as the tides began to flow toward the Big Ten and away from the Big 12. Our joinder helped Ohio State and Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Wiscy too. Ironically, I am not sure that Nebraska joining was actually helpful to Nebraska's national image / cause. If we manage to climb up into the Big Ten elite status with Ohio State and Michigan, we will be back in the top ten consistently. It's like climbing the Eiger but if done it will be a great accomplishment.

Again, I think it is great to get a highly rated class based on their stars, etc. and it is all very interesting but the MOST CRITICAL concern is not so much the rating of the class as a whole but the degree to which you land the key 'dirty dozen' or so that fit into your areas of most need. We could land 22 fabulous 5 and 4 star WRs and Gebbia and it could be a top three class by star/points rating but be a disaster in terms of building a winning team. If our area of most critical need is linemen (my opinion, for example) then we absolutely need to recruit the best darned linemen in the country. We could live with a bunch of 2 and low 3 star WRs, RBs, CBs etc. IF we got about five 5 star offensive linement and four 5 star D linemen. It is very complicated. Osborne and Company used to be very happy as long as they 'filled' their areas of most critical need. In the late 90s, we got all we needed and almost all we wanted. We won't know on this class until we see who the final signees are but we need to find some very key guys to finish out well.

Can JP turn him into the next "Suuuuuuh?" Looks like his is big enough and a great smile.

I believe we are paying elite money for John Cook (certainly one of the top 5 in the country). Of course he is delivering and took over one of the very best programs in the country. I believe we are the winningest or close! He has kept us near the tip top throughout his tenure. Still doing very well. He recruits very hard I might add. Admittedly its Volleyball not football but NU has hired the best it could get in that case. We don't in men's BB. I think hiring an elite coach in BB would make a huge difference almost immediatley if we spent 'whatever it takes' to get the best coach in the country. In football, we need to hire one of the 5 best in the country. Identify the top 5 and hire one - even if it takes 7 or 8 million. That would do it. Give him a 7 year no cut contract and let him spend whatever it takes to get the best staff in the country and then buy him a leer jet to fly everywhere to recruit. It would make a HUGE difference in just two years. IMO I suspect if we gave Riley 'whatever it takes' money to load up the nation's best staff he could do extremely well.

100% false. Our run game disappeared when we lost 3-4 linemen to ankle sprains. Stop trying to spin. No disagreement regards injuries but to say it had nothing to do with having no inside runners is not true. I believe I have said many times our O line is simply not good and lacked meaningful depth. But there is also no debate that we lacked inside power running. No signifiant FB play nor any Ozigbo or Cross type backs. Bryant is decent but he is certainly not got the extra push of Ozigbo or Cross. Cross, Ozigbo and Jano were all 235 lbs and without a doubt much more powerful as compared to Wilbon or Newby. Certainly NOT 100% 'false' in my view.

If we got a better coach for 50K less money and Bo is now the Bearcat HC, then the budget just got a 3 million annual boost! Let's spend that money on the 'walk on' program and get another 15 of Nebraska's best H.S. players a whole bevy of beautiful young tutors (three for each player) and give them 'full ride' schollies - and all must be honor students with top 10% of class standing and high ACTs. We will have the smartest, toughest, happiest football team in the country.

We are going to - presumably - try to throw much more to our RBs on the outside (swings, screens, etc) and this should help our backs get more opportunities to attack the outside of the defense where they have a chance to make CBs, Safeties and LBs 'miss' or break tackles and get broken field running opportunities. Running up the gut requires running backs with lots of power and 'push' and low running angles, and the ability to pick the right hole and not dance / hesitate. Hesitation leads nowhere running inside the tackles.

This has been my concern expressly repeatedly since last summer: - we lost 3 D tackles that would have been really helpful to J.P. and the defense. We did "ok" without them. What do we lose and who replaces them for next fall? - we are graduating a bunch of regulars/starters on the offense that WILL be missed and who will replace them? We will not have the luxury of redshirting many frosh this fall in my view as there simply are not enough 'ready for prime time' players developed and or in the cupboard from years past. Recruits need to know that they will have a tremendous opportunity to play right away in Lincoln, Nebraska. If they are as good as they think they are, then they should play right away! Either that or these coaches need to redshirt as many upper classmen as they can and 'waste' if you will this coming season and build for the future. Sickening the thought and I wish we could have done that 2015 and or 2016. The howling would have been Earth shattering but we are at least a full recruiting year behind the rest of the top 25.

Hopefully he gets paid more than a used car salesman there and saves Nebraska a couple mil!

Our run game dropped off with the disappearance of Ozigbo. When your O line is not able to blow holes for your 'scat' or smaller types backs, then you have to go with a big power back and use a powerful blocking FB as well. We did much better last season down the stretch with Devine and Cross and Jano. I don't think the O line was all that much better last year - rather it was the backfield set up and utilization that helped. If we are going to run the ball better next year, we are going to have to throw the ball MUCH better so that teams will have to stop the passing game with a dime package or other measures that will weaken their run defensive posture. Presumably we will have some extra bodies by next fall on the line as well. Between linemen hurt and limping, etc and the absence of Ozigbo and Cross and Jano, there was a great deal missing. Add in a gimpy Tommy and Iowa had an easy chore to stop our offense.

Now that a few days have past since our last regular season game, it is easier to see more clearly and look at the season and team as a whole. In my view, we are indeed behind the top tier of the Big Ten and the top 20 nationally. We have some excellent football players on our team but we don't have nearly enough to be a real contender. Last year we finished 6-7 and played close with nearly all our opponents and this year we finished 9-3 and played 'close' in all but two. Ohio State is the premiere and most talented team in the Big Ten and I think the country (including Bama which is a very close second). Michigan is certainly within the top 7. Wisconsin and Michigan State and apparently Penn State based on this year's team are now firmly in the top 20 in talent. I put Nebraska and Iowa in the same approximately talent level (about number 30). The rest of the Big Ten would fit within the top 60 with exception of perhaps Rutgers and Purdue and they are slowly improving as well. The Big Ten is now the most talented college football conference just as it is in Volleyball and perhaps basketball as well. Nebraska needs about 25 more 4 and 5 star level players to fill in the two deep chart and another 35 3 star guys to mix in with the rest of the team to sufficiently upgrade our overall talent level. This didn't happen by accident. It is the result of inadequate recruiting and some poor player and roster development over the past 20 years. It cannot be fixed easily but it certainly can be done over perhaps 5 to 7 years of determined effort. We won't need 50 guys to win 11 games but it will take that many to win 11 games consistently.

I think we have a sufficient 'checkbook' to hire most anybody we want ONCE we are finished paying off the previous coaches certainly. We can't afford a couple more mistakes.

When we have no all conference players returning, then we should reasonably expect highly rated recruits to come in and vye for positions in the 1s and 2s on what should be a 4 deep chart. If we are blown out twice and had no blow out wins ourselves, we have plenty of room for an infusion of talent next fall. Clearly experience is important but speed and quickness, effort and 'upside potential' need to be injected ASAP. We can't afford another 7 or 8 loss season and this fall is a very dangerous one for Nebraska football. We must be building or we are failing.

Talking points are FACTS in my case. Once you accept them and think about them, you should begin to understand. Please. Then maybe we wont see the same BS from so many posts whose opinions are founded in fiction.

Reagan took the worst economy of the post WWII era (pre Obama atleast) and turned it into the strongest steady robust growth period in the country's history. He did nothing that would come close to the negatives of Obamanomics. He inherited the Jimmy Carter (misery index - something the Dems invented to describe how bad things really were in the Carter years amazingly) era of 'stagflation' (a stagnant but semi-hyper inflationary economic status) and got literally many millions of middle class jobs back into the workforce with new growing incomes and a rising standard of living. Poverty rates dropped substantially and household incomes rose. The Reagan recovery lasted from 1983 (it took nearly two years to get things turned around after Carter) well into the mid 1990s. The late 1990s were largely the 'Reagan legacy' and would have continued into the new century EXCEPT for the crazy liberal housing/banking/mortgage laws that took the entire world economy to the brink ot total collapse with unbridled home mortgage lending without credit underwriting. Literally anybody could qualify for a home mortgage loan in the second Clinton term without a job for pete's sakes! All you had to show was a willingness to make the payments (which were often less than all of the annual interest) as they loans were often 'negative am' structured, especially in California and NY and other high real estate price locations. The Clinton years are often thought of fondly by liberals as the 'good times' but the reality is the period was basically our Nation living on borrowed money (as households funded much current household 'living' expenses with long term mortgages and the rollover of trillions in current credit card debt into additional mortgage debts). These debts mushroomed and skyrocketed throughout the Clinton years. Basically the Clinton years were one big party funded with unlimited private sector and state and local governmental borrowing. People lived high using credit cards and mortgage redos because 'anything goes' was the basic underwriting slogan for many 'sub prime' and even the large 'prime' lending outfits. One big spending binge! The federal budget was 'balanced' for one year due to one-time only bulge in fed tax revenues from accelerated income because of tax law changes AND because of rapid tax hikes on many individuals and most businesses. These tax hikes in the long haul have contributed to Obama's failings as taxes have never been adjusted down to correct for the overly high rates we have today The national debt has DOUBLED under Obama yet we have nothing to show for it. Household living and incomes have fallen. The labor force has shrunk. Poverty has exploded. A majority of the American people have experienced the first decade long period of declining living standards, lower incomes, rising taxes and no longer believe their children will do better or even as well as they have. Trillions of dollars of the life savings of those in the age 45 to 75 bracket today have seen their life savings decline a bunch. Only the stock market has gone up remarkably. Sadly, Dems decry -and still are - the Bush idea of 'privatizing half of the social security funding' by investing it in the stock market. Imagine what the incredible gains and strengthening of social security would have been had we just used the Bush 'fix' for social security. Instead, the only betterment to social security which is still in fiscal danger of collapse, has been the outright gutting of senior citizens' monthly stipends by denying any inflation adjustments for the 8 Obama years! Talk about gutting seniors!