huskerfan74

At this rate, our defense will be gassed by second quarter.

What does it take for us to get a decent special teams coach? We have not had one for a decade now.

Do you see why we should never ever return the punt. We have no special teams.

Slow methodical drive which is exhausting for our defense.

Iowa does not turn the ball over and their drives are always on track.

As much as I hate Iowa, I really like how cohesive they are. Look at how they entered the stadium. They really play for each other. They might not be elite but they have a healthy culture.

Correction…first one to 10 wins. Iowa defense is no joke. 

I hope we keep feeding EJ. He has the ability to break one

Iowa has not allowed more than 17 points in the past 6 games. First one to 14 wins today. Hope it is us. They have nothing to lose as the West is won. We have all the pressure on us. Can we finally rise to the challenge? 

6 hours ago, Mavric said:

Sounds like Iowa's OL is pretty beat up.  Their practices must be a bloodbath.

 

Likely missing their starting Center,  RG is 50/50 to play and tackles are hobbled.

Heard that before. Yet, when teams play us, they get rejuvenated and inspired to kick our A$$. Until the clock shows zeroes and we have more points than Iowa on the board, I refuse to get my hopes up. We just find a way to fall a hair short. No killer instinct.

Can we beat Iowa? Absolutely, we can.

Will we beat Iowa? No.

Why No? Watch last three games for your answer.

2 hours ago, Sker fer life said:

Sims has a history of turning the ball over,  coaches knew this.  Not sure if this is something that can be coached out of him,  the kid plays nervous IMO.

A good OC should have seen that before pursuing SIMS. Even though I believe that Satterfield will be our OC next season, I still think he does not have what it takes to get us where we want to be. He just does not know how to play to his team’s strengths.

Thinking back on the way yesterday’s game unfolded, this analogy keeps popping up in my mind. Bear with me here:

You go out to a local bar to have a drink and catch up with some friends not expecting to score but when you get to the bar, you get lucky and end up picking up a hot girl who invites you over to her place. Upon arrival, she asks you to make yourself comfortable while she slips into something comfortable herself. You are now counting your blessings and can’t wait where this will lead and all the good times that lie ahead. She comes out wearing the hottest lingerie you ever seen and now your brain is bombarded with excitement and hope of what’s to come but as you are about to score, she realizes she is making a big mistake and kicks you of her place. You find yourself alone in your apartment taking a cold shower and thinking what an idiot you were for hoping. 
 

Does that capture yesterday’s game or not?

I am hoping what the TEAM LEARNED is that they will have a chance on Friday to do the following:

(1) Beat a ranked team, which they have not done in forever

(2) Become Bowl eligible for the first time since 2016

(3) Beat douchbags Iowa

(4) Win the heroes trophy

(5) Avoid ending the season with yet another losing record

if that is not motivation enough for them to play their tails off, then they will never have the right motivation. That goes for the coaches as well since their decisions have been suspect at many instances this season.

9 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

The last drive of regulation was an absolute disaster.

 

Took over on our 20 with 3:27 left and all three timeouts

Got a defensive holding flag on the first play; moves us to the 30

Four yard completion to Fidone

Johnson 18 yard run.  So far so good.

But then we wasted 30 seconds before we snapped it again.  Ran the ball again and lost two yards.  Yuck.

Wasted another 34 seconds before we snapped it again.  Clock goes under 2:00.

Purdy bails us out with a scramble and gets out of bounds.  1:35 to play on Wisconsin's 26.  Wisconsin calls timeout.

Johnson runs for 7 yards.

Then we waste another 37 seconds before we snap it again.  THREE TIMES IT TOOK US OVER 30 SECONDS TO SNAP THE BALL IN OUR HURRY-UP OFFENSE.  THIS LAST ONE AFTER A TIMEOUT!  HOW DO WE NOT HAVE TWO PLAYS FIGURED OUT DURING THE TIMEOUT!?!?!?!?!?

Then we just give up and play for the field goal.

 

We should have had at least another minute to work with - over two minutes total - from Wisconsin's 20 yard line.  But we pissed it away because we didn't get plays in fast enough.  AND WE DIDN'T USE ANY OF OUR TIMEOUTS UNTIL AFTER WE HAD GIVEN UP AND DECIDED TO PLAY FOR THE FIELD GOAL.

Amen, that is what I have been saying since yesterday. We had all the momentum in that last drive and Wisconsin was scrambling and could not stop us. Rhule did a better job of stifling our momentum than Wisconsin. We should have been in hurry mode and intending to score a TD all along. Unfortunately, it appears like Rhule was playing for the tie since we took the ball over. Either he did not trust his offense to score a TD or his defense to defend if we scored early. Regardless, with 1:35 to go on the 26 yard line and 3 timeouts, that is an eternity to score. Instead we ended up kicking a FG on second down. If we are going to go down, let is go down swinging and not being afraid of success. When you have momentum and your opponent is reeling, you run it down their throats and not go for overtime in their own backyard. The end of the game was mismanaged and this is not the first time Rhule does that. It is a well known weakness of his. He needs to work on that.

10 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

The people mad about not getting a field goal are not requiring the team to call higher risk plays in this situation. You can save the clock, then run 3 moderate to low risk plays. You can run the ball on 3rd with the plan to run out the clock on 4th down before kicking the FG. The only arguments against doing it that way are maybe we fumble it or maybe Wisconsin calls a time out at 28 secs to try to score after our FG. But that’s the most conservative way you can call it. 

 

The best option if your offense is shaky is save the time out, run on 3rd down. If you get the 1st down you can try to run again. You could even run it twice and then pass it. 3 plays instead of 1. If you don’t get the 1st down, you run the clock down to 3 secs then kick the FG.

Exactly the point I have been trying to make. I am not calling for passing plays or high risk plays. I was just thinking of running EJ or purdy and see what we can get and then if we get to 4th down, kick the field goal. Instead, we wasted two downs when we were getting about 5 yards per run on average on the last drive. I honestly thought we could have run for a TD with a couple more runs. Anyway, too late now. We lost yet another important close game. We really need the extra practice that comes with a bowl bid. The fact that we have not got those extra practices since 2016 is hurting us way more than we want to acknowledge. Now, it is all or nothing against Iowa. I hate seeing the smug face of my Iowa coworker when they win. Iowa fans are irritating to say the least.

12 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

Obviously we're all mad about this, but just to play devil's advocate: everybody was so mad about not getting the field game last week in basically the same situation...right?

Kicking a field goal on 4th down is one thing. Wasting two downs where we obviously were able to run the ball down Wisconsin’s throat as they were gassed is another thing. I was not advocating for a pass play but if we used the timeouts wisely and used the two downs we had and ran the ball with EJ or purdy, we might have been able to score and put the game away. Going to overtime is risky and our track record with overtime games sucks to say the least. I am just upset that we wasted two downs when we could have used out timeouts better. This is not the first time Rhule mismanaged the end of the half or the game. He was not aggressive in wanting to score a touchdown in my opinion. Again, running the ball was working for us on the last drive.

5 minutes ago, Undone said:

Unbelievable that Purdy comes out and plays so well and we learn that he wasn't in the mix earlier in the year because of injury. Like, the most Nebraska thing to happen. Guy throws for 65% and rushes for over 100 yards.

 

We just didn't establish the run in the right ways in the second half. For me that's really the bottom line. The defense played fine overall and Purdy had great stats. Just couldn't dominate the line of scrimmage in the second half.

We played good enough to win but our coaches let us down. We had so much momentum on the last drive and Wisconsin had no answers. Rhule mismanaged the clock and did not use the timeouts correctly. We kicked the field goal on second down. Had we had more time, we could have won it in regulation. You never want to go to overtime in an opponent’s home field when they need the win as much as you do. The loss is on Rhule. I stopped blaming Satt at this point since Rhule is the one who can overrule everyone and decide but he seems to think that Satt is doing great.

We will be lucky if we get 3 wins next season with our schedule. Time to go back to the big 12 so Kansas can kick our A$$.

John Cook wanted to coach football. Is he still interested? He has a young team that is kicking a$$ and we have a bunch of clueless coaches that can’t manage a clock to give their team a chance to win. I doubt John cook would do worst than Satt.

I guess the only bowling we are doing this Christmas is that in an alley. 

We are NOT BEATING IOWA. Honestly, nothing will make me happier than becoming Iowa. They are consistent. They win at least 8 wins almost every year. They grind out wins. We piss them away like we don’t care. Now, we will have to listen to another week of Rhule BS.

You have 3 timeouts and the ball at the 25 yard line with a little over a minute and you piss that away because you decided that you are going to kick the field goal from the get go. At least if we lost trying to win, I would have more respect for Rhule. Instead he just let Luke s#!tall beat him with a broken team….

This one is entirely on Rhule. Entirely. We will win in Wisconsin the the year of our lord 2240

I HATE WISCONSIN. I WILL NOT EAT THEIR CHEESE