HuskerWisdom

Link #1: http://gradeinflation.com/nation2.html Source: Source: Levine,Arthur and Cureton,Jeanette S.1998.When Hope and Fear Collide:A Portrait of Today’s College Student. San Francisco:Jossey-B Link #2: http://gradeinflation.com/nation1.html Source: Kuh,George and Hu,Shouping.1999.“Unraveling the Complexity of the Increase in College Grades from the Mid-1980s to the Mid-1990s.” Either of those sources could yield numerous references and links on google to the original docs and commentary. the top-level site for those statistics combines some general trend information http://gradeinflation.com/ I read and comprehended the third article. Interesting to me that you hooked onto the dissenting viewpoint that was put in for balance. I didn't mind linking to an article that had a dissenting viewpoing because I assumed that people are intelligent enough to read it and decide themselves. Maybe I assumed too much. It certainly is interesting that all of the other Big 12 schools had seen a similar rise in average GPA's despite not doing anything to their standards... Maybe UNL is just recruiting Rhodes scholars these days. Overall though, anyone who thinks that there hasn't been any grade inflation in colleges and universities just isn't paying attention. Call your local sociology department, or better yet, check out the references for the data sets that are posted above. The data is both complete and almost overwhelming that there has been tremendous grade inflation from the 60's until today.

Touchy? I just think someone who puts the word "wisdom" in their user name, implying that they bring "wisdom" to the table, would come with a better post than that after attempting to cut another poster down for lack of accuracy and perspective. Those first 2 links basically say nothing. No evidence of the info they gathered, no explanation, no description of circumstances. AKA, a very poor study to refer to and very very weak. Did you even read that last article you posted? I found this interesting: Again, pretty much everything about grade inflation is 'opinion' and 'theory', not fact. There is as much or more evidence to students being better prepared for college now than 20 years ago as there is for Universities lowering their grading standards. I am pretty sure that this is the central point to the entire post and from what I have read, that is the case. If GPA has gone up in the past 2 years, since Solich has been gone, that really doesn't do much for your theory of the inflation over the past 10-20 years. As far as selecting more difficult degrees? That is debatable at best and there is no way of proving that. In the first two links, the source of the data was clearly stated. Haven't you heard of Google? or are the academic standards there worse than I thought that you haven't learned to do to do even the most minimal amounts of research?

As I said, I don't really care about these lists because they really mean so little. Think about this. The AVERAGE GPA at NU is 3.1 as of Fall 2004. What does it mean that we are giving "awards" to students that are better than 3.0? That isn't even meeting the average score at NU. Is that supposed to impress people and convince them that we have a team of Scholar-Athletes? To me it demeans the efforts of the true scholar athletes. We had several kids get 4.0's during that quarter, and in the past we've also had people who did wonderful work in difficult degrees (Kyle Vandon Bosch, Scott Strassburger, etc, etc.) So don't try to impress me that some kids did AVERAGE work for a quarter. For me it has nothing to do with Callahan or Solich, it has to do with lowering standards SO FAR that AVERAGE (Actually, LESS than average) becomes honor roll. yech! And as far as above, someone listed players in a way that implied that they were all Callahan's recruits, I replied to clarify the circumstances of their recruitment and didn't comment one way or the other until some other jerk attacked me for my reply.

Is there anyway you can prove or disprove that? Or is that just an off-the-cuff remark based upon opinion? I don't understand how you could possibly quantify what you just said. Like you just said, if you are going to post, get your FACTS straight. Touchy aren't we...There's plenty of evidence for grade inflation throughout the college system http://gradeinflation.com/nation2.html http://gradeinflation.com/nation1.html http://www.newsnetnebraska.org/vnews/displ...8/4355440dd4ee4 The poster I replied to said that GPA had improved under Callahan. That wouldn't be surprising if the overall GPA for the university had risen by a tenth of a point in the past decade as indicated in the last article. The only way to accurately say they were doing BETTER is to show that they were at a higher rank versus their peers than under Solich and/or that they were selecting more difficult degrees.

Brandenburg was originally recruited by Solich, but signed with the new staff and Callahan in the 2004 class. Phillips signed with Solich in 2003 What difference does it make who's recruits are who's? They are all Huskers and since Callahan has become head coach, the team's Grade Point Average has improved. FACT. End of story. I don't particularly care. Given what grade inflation is at NU and other state schools, I'm not that impressed by most of the GPA's that these athletes put together. It's just that if someone is going to make a thread about how wonderful Callahan is, they should at least get their facts straight.

Brandenburg was originally recruited by Solich, but signed with the new staff and Callahan in the 2004 class. Phillips signed with Solich in 2003

Yeah, right.. those Oklahoma teams under Barry Switzer really hit the books! ..lol Actually, quite a few of them did, they just had a lot who didn't also.

My question would be, how do you quantify getting the most out of your players? Putting the players into position to win when their talent level is above the opposition. Example, I don't think that happened in 2004. The defensive coaching staff insisted on running coverage schemes that weren't in line with the talent and athletes they had in the secondary. Two of those players go on to play in the NFL and I believe they both started last year. Was it talent or scheme in that case? This year, they employ more mixed coverage schemes and don't rely on man-to-man pressure from the CB's and they are much more successful. More than just about any sport, a football team is truly a team, not a collection of talented individuals. The key is to maximize the contribution from that collection of individuals so that their abilities are eventually reflected in the final score. So the question becomes one of how much talent did our opposition have and did we beat them... Do you think we got the most out of our players in the Pitt game? The KState game? Missouri, Kansas?? We seemed to have done that in Colorado and against Michigan - both games where the staff had over 2 weeks to prepare - so I'm starting to think that there might be a correlation there - although Colorado was truly in disarray by the time the season ended. So, in my view, the jury is still out as to whether or not this staff can consistently get the most out of their players. If this team loses more games than some people on this board predict for next year, but shows consistent effort and comes into every game prepared and puts themselves into a position to win, that will be a big step forward to showing that they can get the most out of these players (something that is judged separately from the W/L record at the end of the season) P.S. A good example of a staff that definitively did NOT get the most out of their talent was Michigan this past season. They weren't really national title contenders, but a 7-5 record is very disappointing for them considering the talent they have on that team

I think the 2004 team would have been able to win the 2005 CU game on the road, but wouldn't have won the Mich bowl game. The Colorado team was reeling and lost their last 4 games, Texas put up 70 pts on them after we played them. There has been improvement, though. Taylor is more suited to this offense, the WR's are more consistent. The defense was better - partially due to adjustments by the coaching staff (less man-to-man to a more mixed coverage scheme), etc. I guess the question I would ask, is - do you think this coaching staff has gotten the most out of the talent on this team the past 2 years? My own answer is that at times they have - they seem to do very well when given 2 or more weeks to prepare. However, the preparation has been inconsistent and the team has reflected that. I believe we were pretty lucky to end up with a lot of home games this past season, many of those games being ones we managed to pull out as very close wins. As people have said, we lost a couple of close ones as well (Texas Tech especially), but we could just as easily have also lost a couple of the ones we won (Pitt, Iowa State, Kansas State were all at 0-2 pts at the end of regulation)

It will be interesting to see how much influence Watson has here. I liked how their version of the WCO (off topic: does it mean anything to say that something is a WCO anymore.. there are SO many variations), was able to run the ball between the tackles and make teams pay if they couldn't control the box on D - then slam them with the TE deep when they compensated against the run. They put the hurt on us more than a couple of times.

He's definitely a weapon and if he's healthy he can only help this team.

I disagree. While they probably aren't a concern of the saftey's they are a concern of the LB's. If you have a solid weapon at TE, they stretch the field in that they make LB's have to be aware of the crossing TE at any given time (given the right formation). Either way, it will be good when we can get a TE in that can make something happen. Sure they are a concern for the defense at some level, but my point was that the TE under Callahan doesn't appear to be used for stretching the field. At Oakland the TE's averaged 10.5 and 8.9 yards per receptions and 2 TD's a year - those aren't the numbers for a TE who is working downfield too often. It looks more like short yardage plays designed to give the QB an out when other options are taken away. It would be nice to get a TE who could make something happen, but based on past performance by TE's under Callahan, we shouldn't be looking for someone to have a year like Herian did in 2003 when he had 22 receptions, 484 yards, 3TD's and a 22 yards per reception average.

Well, I changed my mind, here are the past records or TE usage for the Raiders: year, coach, receptions, average, TD's 1997 -Bugel - 48 - 787yds - 16.4 - 7TD 1998 -Gruden - 43 - 638yds - 14.8 - 5TD's 1999 -Gruden - 46 - 626yds - 13.6 - 10TD's 2000 -Gruden - 42 - 457yds - 10.9 - 6TD's 2001 -Gruden - 45 - 383yds - 8.5 - 4TD's 2002 -Callahan - 59 - 622yds - 10.5 - 2TD's 2003 -Callahan - 50 - 447yds - 8.9 - 2 TD's While a bit of that really seems to reflect the decline and fall of Ricky Dudley's career, I think we can make the assumption that the TE seems to be used almost as much if not more under Callahan, but for whatever reason (system or playcalling) they are less of a threat and more of an outlet to the offense - in general, they seem to have fewer yards per reception and fewer touchdowns by the TE's. The number of receptions in 2002 might also reflect a much higher tilt toward the pass in that season. So, I think that we can make the case that the TE is important for Callahan because it serves as an outlet for the QB when the other options don't work, and that they are needed to keep the chains moving. They don't appear to be critical for stretching the field or forcing the safety to play to make decisions downfield.

I haven't been able to really understand the idea that the TE is so incredibly important to Callahan. If you look at his performance with the Raiders and here, the TE hasn't been that important. When Gruden was the head coach they tended to use Dudley more, after he left the TE usage dropped off. I did a post on this a while back on the rivals board with the stats, but have no idea where it is anymore and don't want to look everything up again today.. !

They could lose all of those games, but I don't see either the Texas tech game of the NU games as sure losses for them as both games are at home, Texas Tech loses their QB, etc. etc. Texas and OU are on the road, so doubtful they pull those out unless they become a much better team than I think.

ISU has some good athletes coming back on D and should be a bit faster and more athletic at the LB and DB positions. Moser was a LB playing safety, while Banks should be a big improvement over Paris at the other safety position. On offense just about everyone is back along with more depth at RB (Harris, Johnson and Scott) so that if Hicks gets hurt this year it shouldn't mean as much and I think a couple of potential upgrades on the OL (Rubin especially there). They also will be bringing in some quality WR's to add more speed to the outside- even though their starting WR's had good seasons last year - Blythe especially presents matchup problems for just about anyone who plays them. Finally, Mayer was the second or third best QB in the Big 12 last year as a SO. All in All, I hardly think their "day in the sun" has passed. Position by Position, NU probably has more talent, but Meyer and Blythe can play with anyone, and their coaching staff makes sure that they leverage those two to the hilt in their game plans. NU fans shouldn't kid themselves about this being an easy game or a sure win.

I don't doubt that we will be a better team next year, but I do think that the schedule and the road games next year are a challange to this team. This year's schedule had most of our close games at home - that changes next year. While our talent is upgraded, this team has yet to prove that it can win on the road consistently and that it can move the chains consistently enough to grind out the tough wins. That is why I think talk of 10-2 or 11-1 records next year are pretty unreasonable. If that is the expectation, I think there are going to be a lot of unhappy fans. My view of the record is that 8-4 is pretty realistic with a chance at 9-3 or even for 7-5 if things go wrong. If this team went 8-4, managed to not get humiliated by USC and Texas, and showed consistent improvement and an ability to run the ball and move the chains, I think that NU fans should take that as a step forwards and a good improvement for next season.

I hope for Callahan's sake that people aren't really expecting a 10-2 or 9-3 season next year. It's good for the record that we dropped Nicholls and Troy into the schedule, but the rest aren't that easy: Louisiana Tech - was 7-4 last year, but lose their starting and backup QB's, but they've had good talent, have good coaching and have won some big games in recent years.. We should win, but closer than people think 1-0 Nicholls State - Played Indiana tough last year, but that is about it. easy win 2-0 at USC - yech - Loss 2-1 Troy - More schedule filler, had a losing record in the Sun Belt Conference last year - 3-1 Kansas - at home, decent team that has lost their QB and much of the defense. Will be a big probem if we lose this game 4-1 at Iowa State - away game; almost all of the skill position players are back on offense, NU has had trouble winning against these guys on the road - guessing we lose a close game 4-2 at Kansas State - new coach, young team. We had a tough time with these guys at home last year , they have most of their skill position players back under new coaching. I'm guessing Evridge keeps the job at least for this year (tossup with loss because on the road 4-3) Texas - yech 4-4 at OK State - a young team with lots of skill position players back, but it is hard to see us losing this one, though (win 5-4) Missouri - at home, they lose their QB, but Chase Daniel looks like he could be a good one as well. This team has played us tough, but I think we win at home (6-4) At Texas A&M - Erratic 6-5 season last year. will be breaking in a new starting QB (McGee) who had poor passing numbers last year, but showed a lot or running ability which still isn't the strong suit of our D. Hard to get a handle on this team. Will be tough to play them on the road, but I think we win a tossup here (7-4) Colorado - new coach, lose some players, we should win unless their coach performs an incredible job next year (8-4) The looks realistic to me, but a couple of the tossups could go different directions -KState, Missouri, A&M. I have us winning 2 of those three, but we'll have to be ready to play just about every week this year and we'll have to show we can play and win on the road against teams that aren't falling apart like Colorado was last year.

This looks like a decent class, we will have to depend on a LOT of Juco kids to really come through for this team to thrive and for he coaches to outperform the competition in developing our team's talent once they get to Lincoln. Otherwise, 20 is OK, but it won't deliver us to the promised land. Unlike before under Osborn and Solich we aren't running a different system with specific needs that differ from what most teams were recruiting. What worries me is that we are now recruiting head to head with the top schools in Texas and California and Florida for essentially the players that they want. In other words, 20th when recruiting for the same players means that we are running the same sort of system with the 20th best players - not a situation that is likely to win a national title anytime soon. The only other option is to develop our players better than the competition, and that remains to be seen with this coaching staff. or maybe the staff can build some momentum over time, but that puts the pressure on to start winning this season.

Frank had a pretty good class - for OHIO. It would be unacceptable at NU. Why? because NU has a name brand that they can sell nationally. That means he has to look for a mix of solid mid-level players and good athletes that the bigger names might have overlooked. In reality, there is quite a bit of talent in the Ohio area that gets left behind after the Big 10 finishes their recruiting. Overall the MAC seems to be an improving conference, but they have nowhere near the resources or the reach of the Big 12. Remember for Frank, winning the MAC is a step forward, for us the bar is set to competing for national titles. 20 is OK, but it won't deliver us to the promised land. Unlike before under Osborn and Solich we aren't running a different system with specific needs that differ from what most teams were recruiting. What worries me is that we are now recruiting head to head with the top schools in Texas and California and Florida for essentially the players that they want. In other words, 20th when recruiting for the same players means that we are running the same sort of system with the 20th best players - not a situation that is likely to win a national title anytime soon. The only other option is to develop our players better than the competition, and that remains to be seen with this coaching staff. or maybe the staff can build some momentum over time, but that puts the pressure on to start winning this season.

Strangely enough, I could see him going to Oakland and joining up wth Fabian in the Raiders' defensive backfield. They have a need for someone versatile who could step in and play pretty quickly. Schweigert seems to be developing into an excellent player and I think will have a solid season next year, but Cooper just has too many holes in his game to be a starter and someone like Bullocks could step in and play early, IMHO. Would be a good fit for the team and for Bullocks.

He'll get a chance in camp somewhere. I don't know if he has the leg and loft that Larson had, but he does have a shot if he gets into the right situation. As mentioned above - it's very unlikely he'd be drafted. That works better for him, as it means he can pick a team with a poor incumbent...

Bullocks has a lot of things going for him. I think 2nd round might be too high, but Safety is a tough place to fill with solid players. Bullocks has the brains and the pedigree - his brother has already shown that he's an NFL player and has the good citizen characteristics/work ethic to make it there. That isn't something the scouts discount. Physically, he has decent size and speed combination. They might like to see him a bit taller and a bit faster, but he has NFL level numbers. If he runs well at the camp it will move him up quickly. He can play in the box and can play a good defensive zone coverage. He's not a man-to-man coverage guy, nor is he an enforcer in the box. However, he brings a nice overall combination of skills to be successful. My prediction is that he does well in the camp in goes in the 3rd round - I'm assuming he runs in the 4.5's sub 4.6 range. --Alan...

what will your analysis of Pederson/Callahan be if we don't win the north next year?

It doesn't matter if people like him personally - or how the basketball team does or any of that other stuff. He'll be judged on how well Callahan turns out. If Callahan wins a national title within a few years he'll be a success. If Callahan struggles to make .500 next year, Pederson and Callahan would both be failures. Don't kid yourself, it's not personality, it's the football team. I agree, most of the changes are things that competent AD's should have been doing - things that Byrne screwed up.