84HuskerLaw

Unlike in prior games, there is good reason to criticize the coaches and offense. We are playing awful We have had great field position through most of game and very few yards, poor third down conversion, nothing good to say.

Very disappointing so far in this game. I would expect our offense to adjust and find some ways to cut through their defense. So far, we are being stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey. about 200 yards total offense. Weather not that bad. Just no excuse. Passes late. Drops, and poor routes or something. O Line not blocking and should be dominating by the third quarter with this many snaps.

when you have to turn to gimmick type running plays like reverses and end arounds, you are still not running the ball. Run into the line. shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Run for ten yards, not thirty.

This is what I have been saying since the first game. Play great special teams - we have the people to win that major phase of each game. So far, but for a fumbled punt, we have done well enough. Got to finish though. Drive this one with running plays. We are in four down territory. Cram it in the end zone and put this game in good shape.

What the heck is going on? The offense has just died. We are not blocking. This is Illinois. likely as bad as any defense we have played.

What happens to these kids - they seem to lose track of the game. Our team should be fired up to win this game. They are flat footed. Standing around scratching buts.

Defense has not been playing that well. they are running right at us. Stupid. Should have put the game away right there.

These are critical plays and Huskers are messing up the win right here. Run the dam ball.

The officials have reviewed the previous downs from the prior 1st and ten no doubt. That means they.

What the hell were the refs doing on this ? Bad spot? Can't review the spot can you?

Got to hope the Offense has some serious adjustments to make at the half and we get out there and make a 3 & out and then take a drive in for a TD and get up 17-0. That would open up things some and be a tough spot to be in if your are Illinois. On the other hand, if they score, they will be in the driver's seat and odds are the home team wins if the game is close in the second half. Based on the scores around the Big Ten today, I would say we have a chance in any game (to win or to lose).

Ironically, the guy should have run out of bounds or scored TD - let him run the clock out and then tackled him. Gave up a big time/yard play to end the half. Makes the statistics look bad and should look bad. Not a good sign when the Defense should expect either a long pass or draw play and still not ready to stop it before a 50 yard 'hail mary' run.

Another great punt. Time for defense to do its part. Get the ball back or a turn over to set up a score. Play all three phases of defense.

Special teams - one good play and one bad. Now, offense needs to move the ball down and score TD. Get the game going our way. By then, end of quarter.

This would be one of Cook's best coaching wins since he came to Lincoln in my view. Come back from down two sets to Penn State! Maybe this team will exceed everybody's expectations and do some big things this year. GBR

Exactly what kind of 'actual gun control' are your proposing. Spell it out. The who, what, how and where and when of it all? We who believe in the Constitutional rights that are under constant attack in this once free nation what to know!

Yes, the President is disgusting in almost every way possible. He has been, without question, the worst President ever. He still has another 15 months to 'finish the job' and stake his claim in the history books to being the worst President and one of the poorest world leaders in the past 100 years.

Be patient and give the team and coaches a chance to at least play the games and see how they do before you condemn them all to hell. It is not fair to anyone to not give them a chance. This team has disappointed many because we are not undefeated after 4 games. Sadly, we haven't been undefeated since 1997. that is a long, long, long time. Many new seasons with all the same new hopes, dreams, expectation, etc. Be realistic.

There is a major difference between college and NFL approaches to playing time for back ups. In the NFL, you truly expect to have linemen play for as long as 8 or 10 years. Obviously, in college, it typically takes 2 years of weight gain, strength and skill development to be D-1 calibler skill and size wise. That only leaves a couple seasons to major contribution and then graduation. Thus, the saying "reload vs. rebuild") in college. In the pros, many linemen go for careers. They are physically ready to play when they are drafted. It is not like they will need several years of development and coaching up to learn how. So comparing what the NFL does vs. college needs to be carefully differentiated.

My recollection is that Tenopir and company regularly liked to substitute and in the peak glory days, we freely substituted the first string line for the seconds, often for couple series in the first half of games. Even in times when things may or may not be under 'control'. There really should be some substitutions in order to develop a good chemistry among a groups of 7 or 8 or even 9 linemen. At any moment injuries happen. It is important to have back ups ready to be starters. Gambling that guys are going to make it through the season without a miss are simply foolish in my view. Additionally, we need to develop back ups for future years. One will never get valuable in game experience if they don't play. It would be great to give the seconds and thirds two or three series in the late 3rd and 4th quarters but we are virtually NEVER in control of the game sufficiently anymore to trust that they can get the job done. Once upon a time, we could do this. This is one of the primary contributors (besides poor recruiting) to the decline of Husker football from truly elite to above average status (failure to develop depth in the back ups and youngers guys). We don't want to be come like many teams that see graduation losses as so substantial that the program suffers roller coaster results of 10 wins followed by 5 or 6 wins followed by 8 or 9 wins and then 6 again.

This staff has forgotten more about football coaching and particularly defensive schemes, alignments, coverages, etc. than nearly everyone on this board will ever know. They have been in coaching for several decades and have perhaps hundreds of years of combined experience and learning with many different teams, conferences, as well as two professional football leagues. I would think it would be obvious to most observers that the coaches have available certain players with given skills and know how (talent is the term used on this board for this combination). With their jobs and family fortunes on the line, we can surely presume they will use that talent the best way possible. These coaches WANT to win as badly as any of the fans and presumably the player similarly want badly to win. Perhaps we can all give the professionals at least the benefit of the doubt about knowing what they should do, want to do, and perhaps unfortunately can do about opponents and their play.

There is way too much pessimism across the husker nation in my opinion. I realize that after about 18 years of disappointment, it has not been easy to be optimistic. Certainly a 2-2 start is disappointing but we are a handful of plays away from 4-0. While they have been 'close' games, we all need to realize that close games are much more the norm than they once were. It would be interesting to see the date on average scores, winning margins, etc. across D1 football in 1995 to 2014. I believe scoring has increased by at least 7 points a game and the top twenty teams won by bigger margins in 1995 on average across all their games and the top 10 in 2014. In other words, games are higher scoring and winning margins are smaller. I think this is a fact of life. I also believe total offense has been increasing as well predominantly in passing. Rush yards per game may have declined somewhat. The number of snaps in an average game has likely increased as well as teams throw more and snap the ball quicker and manage the clock tighter. All resulting in the games becoming closer for all teams. Talent is more balanced across all of football at all levels. The quality of play at the lower divisions has improved as scholarships are more necessary to kids today with high costs of school and less employment/income opportunties as youngsters.

It seems the question we are wondering about at this point, concerning the defense, is whether or not we do have a good run defense or that it has not been truly tested either because our opponents are not very good or because they never seriously tried because they found passing to be so effective. In fairness, it seems some of the stats suggest that opponents did not have much success in running early on in the games and turned to the pass in an effort to move the ball. I think a chart which showed the stats in rush and pass yards on a quarter by quarter basis across all four opponents would indicate this, particularly if it showed also the numbers of plays run v pass on a quarter by quarter basis. This would indicate the numbers of attempts in each category and yards gained. I am not adept at the stats researching of course but I believe you may have more of an answer as to the issue being debated. My hunch is that teams found passing was the preferred approach for BOTH reasons: the needed to pass as running was not getting the desired results (they were behind or trying to keep up with NU scoring wise). But there are more factors to consider including injured Husker players at key positions in some games at key times. Opponents were also trying to take advantage of perceived weaknesses in NU's defense due to injuries to LBs, CBs and Safeties, and also there were a few key series later in games where we were short a DT or DE or two and opponents found that our D Line was too tired to rush the passer with any real zest. Result was they felt very comfortable dropping back to throw as time was not a problem. Our defense has given up quite a few long pass plays at critical times. These big plays distort the stats somewhat as well. Run plays take time that teams may feel they don't have in close games as several of our games have been. Time constraints favor the pass over the run as well.

I think we could debate whether this year's team could beat last year's. I would argue YES, easily in my humble opinion.

At this point, one could reasonably argue that this team will do just as well with the current coaching staff as it could possibly have done with the prior staff. Yes, we have seen a significant change in the defensive approach to a stop the run first and do what little we can against the pass while stopping the run in contrast to last year's stop the pass no matter what and disregard the run even if we give up record yardage and lose in blow outs, we won't be known as a bad pass defense in memory of our pass defender HC. But, obviously we have seen some decent contributions by several freshman. It seems almost unanimous that Tommy Armstrong is playing MUCH better than last year. We he be doing this well with last year's coaching staff this year? Arguably NOT. Therefore, with much improved quarterbacking, the team should be doing at least as well as it would have with last year's staff. Exactly where would we be doing better, thereby winning more games, with last year's staff? Perhaps with defense, maybe! But we do know that rushing yards are worth more to offensive success than passing yards which suggests the defensive focus on stopping the run might be wise. But, our pass coverage has been very poor. We will see if improvement is yet to come. With meaningful improvement in pass defense without surrendering run stoppage, we will be certainly a better team than last year, IMO; won/loss record notwithstanding.