84HuskerLaw

Really, people, this is a very interesting thread, for a general topic that has been discussed, argued, debated and literally been fought about by almost anyone with a football interest I would say. There are basic elements of truth and accuracy in virtually every post, even though there is apparent violent disagreement in most. In the big picture, TO tried the more wide open, 'pro style' passing game in the 70s with QBs like Ferragamo and Humm. It worked but after the rumbling and grumbling got a little too close for job security comfort reasons, Osborne saw the dominance by Switzer's incredible wishbone teams as too much to take. He adapted and changed in a big way, going with players like Turner Gill and installing the option and focusing on the best dam running attack he could muster, short of the wishbone. I would speculate he might have gone to the 'bone' but he had come from a passing mindset (he was a WR in the pros for a short time you may recall) and a decade of passing. He saw the biggest glaring weakness of the wishbone was the near complete absence of a real passing game. OU got the best dam big linemen and lightning fast, elusive RBs and a 'wishbone magician' to run their offense. It was, and in my view remains, the most potent offensive attack ever devised in football. To this day, there really haven't been offenses any better, over a long term, consistant basis, that OU's wishbone. Before Switzer, they developed it to the highest level and then Barry 'perfected' it really by adding, in Switzer's own words, 'the very best athletes money could buy"! Other than rewrite the record books for the number of fumbles an offense could commit in a single game and still rush for over 600 yards and roll uip 60 plus points. A great wishbone would likely still be a winning offensive approach today. Of course, the 'experts' would criticize it as out moded, antiquated, ineffective, etc. This would only be the case because the players installed would not be 'the best money could buy' and as a result it would be 'average'. TO might well have thrown the ball more than he did if not for the adverse weather. He preferred to avoid those awful games like we had last year with Purdue with gail force winds and sleet, rain, snow, etc. If we played down in 'Bama, where Bear Bryant also loved that wishbone offense, it would have been different. I think Osborne tried to pick as much of the good of the wishbone approach and blend in some passing to keep the defense a little more honest and be more prepared to match up with some of the fast defenses he would have to face in the bowl games (Miami, Florida, etc). He wanted the ability to pass, if he had to, but was gonna run the ball as much as possible and force the opponent to stop us. Few could really and when the defense loaded the box, he would hit them with a few passes, often most successfully out of option or play action type plays, Osborne liked to throw to bail us out of a 3 and very long (3rd and 7 plus) but rarely converted those 3rd and 18 s because we just didn't throw the ball well enough and those were high risk plays where interceptions and sacks often resulted. I recall the offense Osborne ran often being called the 'Osbone'. Other programs that ran the wishbone and variations of the 'option' attack exceptionally well were Texas and Notre Dame. Many national championships were accomplished with this approach. Without fact checking with a bunch of tedious research, I would venture a guess that wishbone and fundamentally option based offenses, have won as many 'national titles' in the past 50 years (the 'modern era' shall we call it?) than any other type. The most important thing, with any offense really, is to pick one and just run it extremely well. Execution at the highest level. Repetitions and more repetitions. Reload instead of retool. You build a top program over time by installing, recruiting to fit that system like crazy, and then sticking with it until you perfect it. Texas Tech, for example under Leach, installed an all out passing attack that became very lethal. Houston had a wild passing offense that racked up incredible numbers at one time as well by throwing it about 90% of the time. The trouble with the passing oriented attack, unless you play in the deep south or inside a dome, is the weather. Wind, rain, etc just take a beautiful pass and turn it into an interception or dead play. Hand offs and short ptiches can functional pretty well in almost any conditions, although when you get to the level of OU in the Switzer bone, fumbles are almost routine. You overcome this, of course, by scoring early and often. OU rarely punted in the glory days because, unless they fumbled, they scored. The Big Ten plays in bad weather for about half the season some years. Three yards and a cloud of astroturf was the best descrption of the Big Ten's offenses for decades, running primarily out of the power I, 'pro style' offense as they did. Nebraska and Urban Meyer have changed the Big Ten the last 6 years. Why? Because of national perception and recruiting that has resulted from said perception. The Big Ten has all but caught up to the mighty SEC in this regard. I believe the Nebraska 'brand' changed the prevailing winds in favor of the Big Ten and away from the Big 12 which was the SEC rival for the time we were in that conference. Coincedence? Maybe but I think not. I think Nebraska slipped from the elites under Solich's reign because he was NOT recruiting for any number of reasons and because of too much emphasis on the QB carrying the ball (see Eric Crouch and Jamal Loard for evidence). Solich was not the 'closer' that Tom was for many reasons beyond Solich's control. We didn't find the elite athletes. Nebraska's best H.S. players were not as many nor as good and that hurt. Scholarship changes, the cost of education for walk ons, serious competition in recruiting for Nebraska players, etc. all contributed as well. Our walk ons were once 3 star type players and became 'no star' practice guys. But weak competition in practice led to poor game results as well. Bill Callahan was NOT a college level coach, although he is a tremendous football coach and 'mind', especially in offensive lines. I believe he is still coaching there at Dallas Cowboys who have a great line this year. He was a great 'two minute' passing in WCO style coach (as good as ever) but didn't understand the college game at all in terms of program building, etc. He also recruited offense players too heavily as compared to defense. Tom Osborne had a penchant for taking the best athletes and playing them on the offensive side until the 90s when he had plenty to go around and let McBride have some too. Great players playing hard with good schemes = great teams. Bo Pelinis was a pass defender and he recruited accordingly. Touchdowns sell tickets and make fans happy but defense wins championships. Fans want both. Riley,it seems to me, understands it all and is an excellent football mind and can in fact win championships at the college level, if he has enough talent across his team to do so. He needs about 25 more top notch players and several better assistant coaches. Whether he can or will get them is another question. I remaind hopeful but am concerned this year's class is coming down to the wire a half dozen short of the goal. We need to win two more games this year and land a couple surprises and finish out strong. Not sure it can happen as injuries have taken a big toll. Time to shine is today. We shall see. Sorry to all you guys who hate my long, verbose comments but I feel it is best to explain in detail my reasoning as some like to misread or misconstrue things here.

Well, if we've been holding back all these new plays, formations, tricks, etc., it's high time we use a few because this is a very important win for the program. We need a 10th regular season win for starters and should Minne upset those stinkin Badges, then we get the honor and distinction of playing in Indiana! LOL Another TV game and recruiting bonus. God willing, we might just pull off the upset and be the champions of the best conference in the country! Now that is something we can actually brag about! A great bowl is at stake too! And, if we simply pretend the Ohio State game didn't happen, then we were only a single play away in overtime of one game of winning them all!

NEWS ALERT: A.P. A big fire on the University of Iowa campus today. The entire student body was devastated to see the campus library burned to the ground. All three of the books were totally destroyed and even worse is the fact that two of the books hadn't even been colored in yet!

Riley seems like he would be a very good 'in home' visitor/recruiter. He comes off as friendly, very easy going, sincere, plain spoken and honest as the day is long. Of course, that is they way the often describe the next door neighbor that turns out to be a serial killer or something! LOL All of our coaches seem to be friendly looking but it would be important to direct each one toward the right types of players, families, etc. Some will 'fit' better than others in any given locale / environment / cultural setting.

Time to shine for the Volley Ball Team! This is crunch time - time to DOMINATE! This will be a tough match but need to begin a clean sweep run all the way to the national title game! Go Huskers!

More often than not I generally agree with Mavric but I am more impressed with our defense this year than he apparently. I would suggest we ought to let these last few games play out and see how well the defense performs. We might well play a challenging offense in the bowl game, for example. Despite losing three very good D linemen, the defense made good improvement. We cut down on big plays given up, we made big strides in DB pass coverage and more INTs, better tackling overall and fewer gross errors. All these are just my observations without diggning into the stats of course. I know many of you like to make that numerical comparisons and they are valuable but to me the 'eye test' and 'feel' tests are also important. I feel much better about our defense this year and although I remain concerned that we may give up some yards (we give too many yards and first downs early in opponent's drives particularly), we tighten up nicely once they get past our 50. With our full complement of 'starters' healthy and playing, I would give us a 50/50 chance in overtime against any team in the country. To me that is a giant step in the right direction. Are we there yet? No, we lost those three DTs and that hurt. Had we not, I think we'd have a top ten (or better) defense nationally. As it is, we have a top twenty I believe strongly. For me, the biggest disappointment this year is the offense. I felt good we'd be 10 points and 100 yards a game better than last year. I think Tommy played that way but we missed our FB and Cross/Ozigbo production last year. Newby played better but we ran better last year. Offensive line play is the real downer. I blame injuries and lack of depth for that. Playcalling is better this year and game management and so on much improved. Penalty issues are better but still not 'great'. Special teams are POOR/BAD/AWFUL save for Drew Brown (a 5 star player I'd say). Punting would have been great with Foltz and that really hurt us this year at critical times. Nobody's fault there but we better find a great punter for next year unless Caleb L is charting much better in practice than games. He can improve certainly but??? The critical areas next year will be replacing a bunch of seniors who are the heart of this team really. Not sure replacing Banker is as important as recruiting great players and getting them out there. Forget the redshirts next year. Play our best young athletes and let the learn. Wins will be hard to come by no matter who we play next year as graduation will really hurt. IMO.

Hillary was the single worst Presidential candidate the Dems have run (she lost twice after her husband won twice btw) since Humphrey. Carter's second run was a disaster but no Dem could have won that one after the disasterous first term Carter delivered. The Democrat party needs a rebuild but it is NOT the names or faces at the top that is the fundamental problem of course. It is the radical leftist ideology that the party espouses which is just not supported by anything close to a majority of the American people. Even though Hillary may have received a few more popular votes than Trump, she only did so because Trump made the correct strategic decision NOT to campaign in California, Oregon and Washington. Had he made some efforts out there, he would easily have picked up 5 to 8% more of the popular vote. While not winning the electoral votes of those states, he would have swung several million votes and had a popular vote win of a couple million votes. The Democrats have been losing steadily in popularity across the country for decades - this is a long term trend. Evidence is the domination of the Republicans in House, Senate, Presidency, Governorships, state legislative bodies, Mayors, etc. I would submit the Dems have fully lost touch with the great mass of American society that simply does not agree with the radical, socialist agendas being pushed so incredibly hard. To 'rebuild' is not the correct term really. I would suggest perhaps more appropriate would be to 'redirect' and replace the radical agenda with something much more moderate and mainstream. The gap between the two major parties is as wide as it has ever been, despite the Republican party moving to left while the Democrats have moved far left. Today's Republican party is generally about as liberal/left leaning as the Democrat party of Kennedy/Johnson. Today's Tea Party/Conservatives are pretty much in line with the traditional Republican party of the 1960s through 1980s. The mistake the Republicans have made (if one were to consider such) is to veer left. America is more moderate/libertarian and middle of the road that it once was. But it is NOT 'progressive' or socialist and not communist despite the wishes of many of the party's leadership. Dems have been hijacked by the radicals of the 60s.

Maybe somebody on here is an 'expert' as NU is apparently the concussion study school these days. If my memory serves me correct, I recall reading a couple years back or so that concussions were pretty much like the three strike rule in that the third one and you are done playing forever. This jibe with what anyone else has heard or read or been told by someone with apparent expertise? I believe Darlington has had two fairly severe ones or maybe the better way to say it is that some people's brains are more susceptible to concussion type injury than others? I don't know but this is my biggest concern with Zack. Frankly, I always had a very good feeling that he would become a darn good QB for us but for the concussion issue. I do recall reading the stories of how Bo had offered him and he had verbally committed and stood by that commit despite overtures from other programs. We stuck with him and honored the scholarship with the understanding and belief (Bo and staff and the docs) that he would not likely ever truly be 100% cleared to play 'full' contact football. In other words, perhaps at some point after a couple years, with no signs of problems, etc, he could perhaps be involved in very limited type role with minimal chances of a lots of head to ground and or other impact plays. This is my recollection of Zach's situation. I thought that is why they moved him to WR and then to holder. He could participate in football but with the idea of very controlled and limited action which involved hard hits, etc. ?

Yup, this makes me feel a whole lot better! LOL Exactly my point and 'pooh pooh' to all of you who seem to think we don't need back up QBs prepared to play at a winning level. We have about 140 guys on the team and apparently we have only 2 who are really capable (including Fyfe) of managing the offense as a QB. Last week we had our walk on back up QB playing in the second half with a broken hand! It surely negatively effected his game as the QB play declined dramatically. Either the injury or simply his play deteriorated (back to 'normal'?). If Darlington was ready to play, he surely would have with QB playing with a broken/injured hand? Now, about three days before the game, a coach is saying that perhaps one of the three quarterbacks (bad hamstring to our unquestioned, head and shoulders above all others starter) or (broken hand following surgery a few days ago with about 10 quarters of game time in 4 years on the team number 2 guy) or (untried QB with concussion history suggesting high risk he should NOT play as our third stringer. POB is obviously not to be considered as a QB on the team since playing him would be enormously costly according to many. Assuming Tommy's hamstring is injured and should be allowed to heal so he may be, hopefully, ready for the possible conference championship game and a certain bowl game, and Fyfe may not be able to execute a big part of the offense (catching shot gun snaps for example), and Darlington is at risk to long term brain injury from a third or fourth concussion injury, who do we play if POB is off limits? DPE? LOL - he's been having some issues fielding punts and we have no evidence that he is ready and able to play makeshift QB? Why don't we have another couple walk-ons on the team? Answer, in part, perhaps, is that our coaches have a history (T Martinez, Tommy A.) of playing basically ONE QB and all others sit, not even getting much mop up duty. No wonder these back up QBs quit and transfer or never come in the first place. I say, let them play a few series during the season and keep atleast three back up QBs reasonably ready to play with snaps each week running our offense. We have plenty of coaches and plenty of players for put together 4 complete offense and defense units to run plays, etc. without any difficulty. We have graduate assistants and 9 coaches who are paid big bucks. Let's have more than 50 guys ready to play. Just my opinion.

Well it is tough to hear we are so short on QBs. I am very disappointed that all of my dire warnings clear back in August about having POB ready to play and making sure we had serviceable QBs aplenty were apparently not heeded by Riley and Company. I know many on this board poo-pooed my feeling that playing POB was important THIS YEAR as a redshirt of one freshman QB is not worth losing several games or even one or two later on. Hopefully we make it through with the skin of our teeth! But ??? All we need is a simple blow to Darlington's head in the second quarter and we are in big trouble. Punting on first down is NOT a viable option, especially with our lackluster punting. We lose this one to Iowa for want of a QB and Minne knocks off Wiscy and there will be lots of serious grumbling going on. This could end up costing us a good bowl spot and hurt the recruiting class as we attempt to finish out in the top ten vs outside the top twenty five.

Poor punt return strategy is not new to just the past couple years. A few years back we had the top 'fair catcher' in the country (I forget his name right now but recall he was the Illinois high school player of the year when we recruited him. Giving up first downs when the opponent converts a fake punt is very frustrating but over playing to prevent that to the point of never having a shot at punt returns is not good either. We have a bunch of good receivers this year who can catch the ball. Put a second guy back to field the punts that are hard to field and or to protect and block somebody when we do catch the ball. We need to be aggressive in punt return game instead of always fair catching it. If we don't intend to return the punt, then you should call all out block attempts sometimes to keep the punt play honest by the opponent as well. You need to go for two on those 'swinging gate' (name ???) extra point alignments now and then or they look nonsensical. I am more afraid we'll get a penalty for illegal formation or motion or time delay or something.

Let's all hope that Iowa fans show up in big numbers for their big game Saturday afternoon in keeping up the tradition of attendance at their home games!

Even Fran Tarkenton, Joe Montana, Bret Farve, John Elway, Tom Brady, Johnny Unitas, and Bart Starr needed a great team around them to be highly successful as QBs. It all starts with the offensive line and fundamentals of football (blocking, tackling, running hard and holding on to the ball, avoiding penalties and playing intelligently. Great QB play requires the help of the rest of the team, coupled with a good game plan and artful play calling. This is true no matter what type of offense is run (from wishbone to west coast to basic power I and anywhere in between. There are some basic differences between the college game and the pros due largely to the limited time (practice and eligibility in years, etc). Whether there are more or less available players that are particularly adept at different types of schemes and plays is a matter of debate. For example, can we find great run oriented 'option style' QBs who are elite talents in running the ball and operating the option attacks (Osbone, wishbone/triple option, Notre Dame option etc)? Can we find great passing game QBs with the accuracy, arm strength, height and footwork, intelligenc to read defenses and find the open receivers, etc.? Neither QB type is easily found, recruited and installed given the constraints of time to learn, grow and develop, etc. Bottom line is you need great athletes all over the field and plenty of them in order to construct a great college or pro football team. Recruiting is critical as we all know. This year's team has played hard and given a great effort in every game, although we know there have been lapses during periods of almost all of them. This is the nature of 'college' athletics today. Young people have grown up in a different era and there are many distractions and complicated cultural and social issues that impact the focus and effort given by the individuals and the entire team. This is the most challenging part of coaching. I am proud of this team and the coaches seem to have done a good job getting the most of their efforts.

Ten is a big leap forward from 6. Iowa will be a tough one certainly. The bowl will be tough as well as you can expect we'll play a team ranked above us and more than likely it will be a 'home' field advantage for our opponent as that is of course the way the bowl matchups are made. Nebraska brings some fans but we play in TX, CA or FL vs a team that is generally from relatively nearby. The CCG would be exceedingly tough. If we get Penn State, I would give us a decent chance assuming we get all the walking wounded back to some form of 'healthy' status. I am afraid our lines just don't match up well with Michigan or Ohio State (God forbid we have to go through that again!).

Having the wrong number of guys on the field for a play of any kind is a serious problem when it is recurring. But, the lack of positive production in the special teams in general is the biggest issue in my view. We are not doing well (defined to be signficantly above average I suppose) in any areas of special teams except of course for Drew Brown in making field goals. Drew is doing OK in kick offs but one would really like to see about 65% of the kick offs going deep into the endzone and not returnable. I believe Drew is somewhere around 50%. Not bad by any means but could be better. I understand that some coaches see the high, shorter kicks which land around 2 yards into the endzone as 'ideal' as it forces the returner to decide whether to come out or not. Presumably the idea is that he will choose to come out and be tackled well inside the 20 helping in field position defensively. I am not sure this is a good strategy as it seems most returns end up beyond the twenty and a few yards of field position is not worth the risk of a big return in my opinion. I don't recall any particularly remarkable special teams plays ( we have not blockedany punts or field goals or PATs for example). After this many games, one would have expected atleast one or two blocked kicks or a TD return and several more 50 yard KO returns and several 40 plus punt returns. Coverage has been decent for the most part although there have been a number of kick off returns against us where the last man made the tackle up near the 40. I believe Drew Brown sat this game because he had to make the tackle on a kick off If you graded the special teams play thus far, I think you might be able to give a C- but far short of an A.

We are playing top ten level defense and had we not lost three excellent DTs (early), we could be top five level. I think if we had had those guys (even a couple of them frankly), we'd have won the Wiscy game and been headed to CCG and would have played atleast couple TDs closer to Ohio State. To have a top ten level offense, we need about 7 4 star plus offensive linemen and a top notch FB which we would use about 20 plays a game or so. I am assuming with all the recruiting efforts that we will actually have two good (can run and pass block very well and also run and catch passes) TEs. (Cethan Carter types basically). Having is one is good but not top ten level. Future QBs need to be able to throw a little better than Fyfe and Armstrong and run better than Fyfe (ideally run as well as Armstrong with a touch more speed or power). Fyfe played like a solid third string Husker QB yesterday (very well in first half and not so much in second half). If Tommy Armstrong had stayed perfectly healthy all year, he would have been atleast honorable mention All conference QB this year. Not sure he makes it now but if he has a great game vs Iowa (that means Nebraska wins the game btw), and Wiscy loses, the Huskers are blessed (uh or or cursed?) to go to Indy and play for 'all the Big Ten marbles'. I like our chances vs Penn State and maybe Michigan without their QB. I would simply suggest we forfeit vs Ohio State. They can be had but we just don't have the beef up front on both sides to play with them Buckies.

Good half overall except for special teams were, yet again, putrid. Now, we have some issue with Drew Brown. Kicker did OK but seems to lack power on kick offs so not sure what his range might be on a field goal. Presumably Brown is out just as a precaution but who knows with the radio broadcasters. LOL Maryland gave us a bunch of help on those three drives with five (60+ yards) of big penalties and a bunch of extra downs to keep struggling drives alive. Our offensive line remains somewhat offensive and thank goodness Fyfe was only sacked a couple times and had a couple very good runs to offest the losses.

Running still not what it should be. Most runs success as a result of a bunch of passing. Too many passes even though they have actually been successful I suppose.

Throwing from the end zone is risky with a non scrambler. Maybe get away with it if we can run for a couple on 3rd

Still not handling punts worth a dam. Crap. Got to do better. Catch it at the ten or out. Dangerous place here.

Barely got that throw away but it worked!

Drew Brown with possible concussion. Doubtful he returns. Dam. Too early for that.

Seems like our defense always plays soft on the opponent's side of the 50. Just a feeling i guess but frequently give up a couple first downs each drive. Coaches may be playing some youngers and backups to get some game experience.

This game falls on Fyfe! He has to play like a #2 QB at Nebraska (not like the number 3 QB at Doane). If he does that, Nebraska should win but it may not be easy. They know the Huskers are 'suspect' and certainly watched that Ohio State video like a favorite movie! Probably about 5 times - made this game look exciting for them I am sure. The rest of the team has to play well but if we don't have decent 'manageable' level play from Fyfe, it will be a long afternoon. I don't think we can count on having Caleb Lightbourn 'punting' us to a Big Ten win, even vs the bottom of the league team. In fact, we need Fyfe to keep us out of a lot of ugly punt situations. We need 20 first downs and 5 TDs and maybe a couple field goals. Even IF the defense gets one TD and special teams can deliver one, that means we need 5 scoring drives. That would be about half of our possessions. The defense can hold them to less than 14 (if the offense can move the ball and keep time of possession about even or so). Offensive line has to block their best of the season so we can get 4 plus yards per carry in the first quarter (not the usual 2) and over 5 by second half.

My hunch is that Purdue from last year is a pretty comparable team to Maryland this. Maybe Maryland slightly better. Our offensive line was playing better last year at this point in time than it is now. I am not sure we can say with any degree of confidence that Fyfe is actually playing better this year either. Combine a slightly stronger opponent (arguably) with a weaker offensive line and a Fyfe who is not playing better, coupled with another November weather day (???). You have a recipe for terror if not disaster. Maryland may have more athleticism as wellm - Riley compared them more with Ohio State than Minnesota in that way I believe. Just seems to me we (Husker fans) just can't escape this 'Oh God, another gut wrenching heart pounding thriller that goes down to the last snap!" game again. Sure wish we could actually enjoy a 31 point half time lead and a cruise to a 52 point win even once a year!