HuskerWisdom

To be completely honest, we just DON'T know enough about how truly fast the current bunch is. We have some numbers from camps that are about as unreliable as anything can be. A 4.4 was routinely a 4.6 or 4.65 in our electronic system. Most of the current player 40 times are cited from camp numbers or elsewhere as NU no longer publishes their testing numbers. The other point is that we do have fast players, but the overall mix is important. If you have a slow OLB that becomes very important, where a slow DT is no big deal and really not relevant. The final point is that the 90's defenses were among the best ever. Almost that entire D went to the NFL or had the potential to be in the NFL. It's hardly blasting the current bunch to suggest that it is unlikely that 10 of next year's starting D will end up in NFL camps - although I do think that we have a large nubmer with that potential. --Alan...

Sure Lombardi ran smash mouth football, but then he would run a sweep to stretch the field side to side, or would run play action to the tight end over the middle, or would go long to the fast receivers he invariably had. NO offense can win consistently against good teams without making the safeties and LB's make difficult decisions about where they should be on the play. The fundamental concepts and strategies in football have changed far less than many would like to admit. If you want to understand the WCO and where it came from (rather, I should say where the MANY variations of the WCO came from) look to Sid Gillman and the original pass-crazy offense for the LA/San Diego Chargers. Then look at the coaches who came from his system and went on to influence the league in so many ways. And, anyway, we won with a power-running, option, play action pass offense in the 90's. Players of that time were really not that different from now, so the size of the players isn't a valid reason for saying that the option won't work. In an off-topic note, I look at recruiting as the ability to bring valuable talent to your team. Unfortunately, location and other factors enter into the decision that recruits make. In my opinion, we will never be able to compete head-to-head with USC and Texas and the Florida schools for the same talent. We may win some battles, but overall, i believe they will win more often than we do. Quite simply, they are closer to where that talent resides, the weather favors them, as do the quality of their cheerleaders That problem only exists when you attempt to recruit the SAME talent that the other teams want. When we ran a power running game with a mobile QB and the option, we didn't recruit the same players as Florida St or Florida and were able to beat them at their own game. If Callahan keeps us in the top ten or the top 15 in recruiting every year, I don't think that will be enough to get us to beat the USC's if we play the same system and go after the same players as them. That can get us in the ballpark, but we still need to develop our own, reliable and significant competitive advantages if we are going to win national titles - and that goes a lot further than just having a balanced running/passing game.

Your analysis is that it isn't as effective because a few pro-style offenses have attempted to run an option once in a while as a "trick" play? Of course it fails, they don't run it as part of a system, and they don't run it enough to understand HOW to run it. Whether or not a couple of pro-offenses with requisite slow QB's and little or no practice at running the option are successful with it has little or no bearing on whether or not the option is a viable, effective system. Someone will run the option again and will be quite successful when they realize that it is great at spreading the field and when people realize that not every team can have a future NFL qb every season.

I admitted I was wrong when they beat CU, but it IS only one game and by far the best game that this team has put together in 2 years. Maybe I'll jump on the bandwagon if this means that the stupid mistakes that we've seen most of the past 2 years are done, but consistency is hard to maintain and under this coaching staff, the team hasn't shown an inkling of being able to play consistent, quality football. Finally, the way that this team won on offense isn't something that leads to consistency either. We averaged about 2.5 yards a carry on the ground - thankfully they stuck with the run enough to keep CU's defense honest, but running like that means the QB HAS to come up with a great game every time. Taylor played great, but expecting (counting on) him to throw for 392 yards a game isn't a recipe for consistent success.

explain to me how 6 pts a game is moot when they lost 2 games by less than 6 pts (note that the OT game was even at end of regulation)? If you can do that, I'll bow to your 'rhetorical mastery"

I wasn't ignoring your point. I see the point you are trying to make and it is a moot one. They score 6 more points with Hicks in there. He has made a small difference. Your point would be valid if they lost every game he was not playing in and won every game he played. Of course they played better, which is why they won. Not necessarily, but trying to prove a moot point is, well, pointless. AGAIN, your point is moot. I would say the defense giving up 11 less points in their wins and 17 more turnovers vs. their losses is a more telling stat then the offense scoring 6 more points when a guy plays. You said ISU scored 28.4 points without Hicks. Ok, ISU gave up just over 26 points per game in their 3 losses. If your point was a valid one, then ISU should have won at least 1 of those games, based off of those scoring averages. ISU plays better with Hicks, yes, but they win ball games when their defense causes turnovers and keeps teams out of the end zone. And isn't that what really matters after all? Funny, it's always easier to debate when you ignore the primary point the other person was making. Must make life easy for you. Build up a straw man that has nothing to do with your opponent's argument and then dispute it.... At least you've finally admitted that their offense plays better when he's in the lineup and healthy (funny how facts tend to help people along the learning curve) As far as it being a "moot" point, 6 points seems to be pretty relevant to me. It certainly would have made a difference in the NU game (add 6 pts and OT doesn't happen) and also would have won them the Missouri game. It would be the difference between a 7-3 season or a 9-1 season - even if their defense stats stay the same. Again, doesn't seem so "moot" when put into those terms.

Convenient of you to ignore my POINT which was that when Hicks plays they score more points (34.4 to 28.4). A player doesn't have to be a world-beater to be important to a team. The key question is - What do they have to replace him? In ISU's case it is Greg Coleman, a truly marginal player and Hicks is a marked improvement over him. Sure their defense played better in those games - I never said that the defense didn't play well in winning those games, but their offense played better as well. When you're analyzing the impact of a RB not being on the field defensive statistics probably aren't the first place you got to assess the impact. Now, to look again at offensive stats, I'll go a step further and break out their rushing and passing stats: games with Hicks: 138.6 yards rushing 238.4 yards passing Pts: 34.4 games without Hicks: 108.4 yards rushing 216.2 yards passing Pts: 28.4 AGAIN my point holds, the offense plays significantly better when he is on the field. Nobody has ever claimed that he is an all-america, but it doesn't take a genius to see that they are a better team with him on the field.

Wow, excellent game today, Callahan won it his way - through the air. We stuck with the run enough to keep it as a threat, despite having little or not success on the groung. I was definitely wrong about today's game - didn't think we'd be able to move the ball like that.

I wouldn't read too much into the numbers here. The games that you just listed their defense came to play and held the teams to a lower scoring output. Games they won, they held the opposition to 14.5 points. Games they lost, they held the opposition to just over 26 points. Games they won, +15 in turnover margin. Games they lost, -2 in turnover margin. Those are more telling statistics than you're "Hicks factor", but whatever, keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. Interesting, so now, according to you, their defense was the key factor that allowed them to score 6 more points a game when Hicks was playing - against better competition also. Maybe they got a few more chances, but a much, much more logical thought is that maybe they were able to control the ball better when he played and that they kept the opposing offenses off the field for longer periods of time. If I'm wrong next year I'll admit it, but sticking your head in the sand about ISU doesn't make a lot of sense - especially when we haven't had a good track record of going to their stadium and winning games as of late.

a quick note, this year when Hicks has more than 10 carries, the offense has averaged 34.4 pts a game, when he has not played or has had less than 10 carries (he was injured in those games) they averaged 28.4 pts a game. In addition, the competition they played when he was in the lineup was tougher than the competition they played when he was out. Finally, they lost their 3 games when he was out - Nebraska, Baylor and Missouri. When he was in they beat, Illinois State, Iowa, Texas A&M, Kansas State (45-17!) and Colorado. Looks to me like him being out changes their team significantly.

They lose six starters off their defense. I do believe they only lose one on offense. I still think it is funny that people always bring up "If they were healthy" about this years game. They had their whole defense and were only missing Hicks on offense. What about the players that were hurt for us? That doesn't amtter though. Hicks is one of the most overrated players in the conference. He averages 4.2 a carry and 79 yards a game. Not exactly game changing stats. keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better...but don't be surprised if we don't do well at Iowa State next year. The key thing that Hicks does for Iowa State is that he changes the way the LB's and Safeties play their offense. Without him they can sit back and wait for the play-action pass, with him, they have to play the run and become susceptible to the play action. Sometimes the stats are the entire sum of the impact.

Colorado 42 Nebraska 17 Rushing Yards: 36 Passing Yards: 225

Taylor starts, Beck plays 1-2 series' in the first half. Gets the entire 4th quarter if the game is out of reach. I wish we'd played him against Kansas and a couple of the other games that weren't close. It would have been nice to have more snaps for him this year.

It depends - it is true in some cases. However, I did a longer analysis of this OL on one of the other boards. The gist of what I was saying was that the players on this line have little footspeed and don't work well in space. The biggest problem they have isn't that they can't block when they get into the defender, it's that they don't have the quickness to get into the defender in the first place with the current splits. Narrow the splits and give them less space to work with - by doing this you minimze the quickness deficit. Back up the back (Ross) and let him pick the hole. If he's too close to the line he can't see the holes. If you tighten the splits you'll also have to move him back some. We don't have the athletes that teams like Denver have on the OL. However, we have a line that has plenty of bulk and interior blocking ability - we just need to adjust to what they can do. Plenty of other teams have done this. Look at some of the older Raider teams to see a primer on how a big, slow OL can be utilized in this way.

Sure Frank went 7-7 one year. Then he adjusted, he brought in a new coaching staff with a new offensive and defensive coordinator. He learned from his mistakes, and I believe the new staff should have been given time to show what they could do. I DO think they would have done better with these past two teams. Last year's defensive staff screwed up horribly, and despite some strides this year (for instance, they gave up trying to force the CB's to always play man-to-man.. Gee, would have been helpful last year), the defensive has regressed as well. The offense insists on putting in every possible formation (and on showing it on each play with multiple players going in motion) leading to lots of stupid mistakes. Norvell, (a rookie OC) has made few adjustments from the base system and hasn't a clue how to get a running game going. Almost any coach with some idea of flexibility would have tightened the OL splits, dropped the back a 1/2 step and changed the blocking schemes to get the running game going, but not this OC. For your last question, I hope that we could get a "name" coach to come back to help right the program, but the key would be the staff underneath them. If we could get Monte Kiffin to come back and run the program, I'd be happy. I'd be much, much more happy if we could convince Barney Cotton to come back as the OC and "head-coach-in waiting". Marvin Sanders would be great on the defensive side as DC in waiting. The problem we have is that I disagree strenuously with your statement that Frank and his staff wouldn't have done better with this team. We, quite possibly, faced the easiest schedule that NU will ever face this year and did so in an incredibly uninspiring way.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the 5-6 record his first year. It is understood that there will be transition costs and growing pains. However, my problem comes with the lack of adjustments from year to year - this team is exhibiting many of the same problems they did last year, and with the lack of progress from game to game during the year. There is also the problem of asking why one would want to implement as many sets and aspects of his offense when the players aren't capable of doing them? It's important to implement your system but it is also important to win games. When Barney Cotton had Jammall Lord as his QB he didn't ask him to run a lot of complex passing plays, he let him do what he did best while waiting to have Dailey to run his offense. Well, he never got that chance, but he did win 10 games with Lord at QB, and now he's winning games with a Soph. at QB - just for ISU who may be in the Big 12 north championship game this year. My concern is that I believe that if this team had played last year's schedule, we might possibly be looking at a record that is worse than 5-6.

You say that ISU loses key people. However, their QB is a sophomore, RB is a Junior, and the two top receivers are a junior and sophomore respectively. I suspect this team will be better next year.

My thoughts on next season from another thread: 1. TBA - a patsie to boost the record (WIN) 2. USC - draw your own conclusions (LOSS) 3. TBA - likely another patsie. Pederson and Callahan have to do well next year, so I don't expect them to make this one difficult. (WIN) 4. Kansas - at NU, they lose a good bit of their defense, but I expect this will remain a tough game for us. Playing at home gives us a chance to win though (50/50) 5. Iowa State - at Iowa State. If they are healthy this year we would have lost in Lincoln. I don't think we win on the road against them (LOSS) 6. Kansas State - at K.State. we barely beat them at home. they have a young QB who will have more experience, but are also going through a coaching change. Makes it tough that it is on the road (50/50) 7. Texas - ouch 8. OK State - on the road - poor team this year, no clear vision on how good they will be next year, though. (WIN) 9. Missouri - at home, beat us badly this year, they lose their QB Smith, but FR Chase Daniel has gotten a lot of snaps and looks like he can play. 4 of the top receivers are back. We probably win, but this isn't an easy game. (WIN) 10. Texas A&M - on the road, another senior QB who is leaving, but a FR has gotten snaps and looked good also. two of top 3 receivers are gone, top RB returns. (LOSS - although I assume we split the two games with Missouri and A&M) 11. Colorado at home. They lose their QB, we should have a good shot at this game, but it isn't a guaranteed win (WIN) I see 5 games that look very winnable on paper, 4 games that look like losses, and 2 that are tossups. If we play like we did this year, we could easily go 5-6 - and that is IF (and that is a BIG IF) we don't schedule anybody tough on our open dates. We were lucky with our schedule this year, but if we don't improve things will get tougher next year. Even the games I put as wins on this schedule could turn into tossups. I don't see anyway we beat USC or Texas

Maybe on special teams (kickoffs and kick returns), but not with the volume of walk-on's we had in the past 10 years. This isn't entirely accurate. If you look at the national championship teams from the 90's they always had a lot of quality walk-ons either starting or playing significant snaps in the 2-deep. the Makovicka's, Scott Shanle (now in the NFL) and many others started their careers as walk-ons and earned their scholarships as they played. He is saying almost always. I am saying no way, not with the volume of walk-ons we have had in the past. Sure, we have had some great walk-on's but I don't think that most walk ons that came in ended up starting. We need to find a list of walk ons and a collection of two deep rosters. Then we can know for sure I DIDN'T say that almost all walk-ons ended up starting or in the 2-deep. What I said is that all of our great teams had a good number of walk-ons playing significant roles. In comparison the number of walk-ons on this team is relatively small. I'm looking for a 2-deep from '95, but just about any of those years will show the same thing.

Maybe on special teams (kickoffs and kick returns), but not with the volume of walk-on's we had in the past 10 years. This isn't entirely accurate. If you look at the national championship teams from the 90's they always had a lot of quality walk-ons either starting or playing significant snaps in the 2-deep. the Makovicka's, Scott Shanle (now in the NFL) and many others started their careers as walk-ons and earned their scholarships as they played.

If we get 8-4, talk to me then.. lol

Do we or do we not have as much talent as Kansas? as Missouri? If the scheme is too compex for the young guys to learn, simplify it until they can grasp what they need to let their talent work for them. How many formations and motions into formation does a team need to run in order to perform??? And, if it is just a matter of getting experience in the scheme, why is it that we see the same simple mistakes every week, offsides, misalignments, etc. etc.

I tend to look at scoring as very similar to an RBI in baseball. It's important, but whether they go up or down is largely dependent upon everything else going on around the RBI itself. Sometimes players have up years and down years for RBI's and that is largely statistical noise. In this case, I can acknowledge that there has been some improvement. That isn't enough to believe that Colorado won't score 30-40 pts on this bunch next week or that a better schedule would put this defense to the test. Is Pitt nearly as good of an offense as they were last year? Was ISU w/o key players as good of an offense? Was K-State as good as they were last year? Finally, you ask about experience.. Well, Oklahoma is 5-1 in Big 12 play, and they start 4 freshman on offense and another on defense (with a bunch of Freshman seeing time in their secondary). Funny, I haven't heard a peep about how "complex" their offense is to those freshman.

the running game will always work. The keys to this game aren't complex. If you can control the line of scrimmage, keep the safeties honest by backing them off the line and can stretch the field from side to side, you can do just about anything you want. Importantly, if you can't run the ball, you open yourself up to a world of hurt from good defenses.

I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask you a couple of questions: First, factor out the 11 sacks at Maine and chart the sacks since then. As the season has gone on and the competition has gotten tougher the pressure we've put on the offense has lessened considerably. How many more sacks have we gotten against the true, quality teams on the schedule? 2. We still have huge problems with mobile QB's. Why can't Cosgrove use a safety like Shanle to "shadow" those QB's? 3. Compare our schedule for this year to the one we played last year. Do we feel that their is a similar amount of offensive talent we've played? I tend to think that last year's schedule makes our defense look a lot like last year's defense. Is the scoring average because of this? or does it represent "true" improvement? I do think we've made some progress. We have good DL coaching and our DL is better. Our DB's aren't being put into as many situations that they simply cannot handle - so it's obvious the coaching staff made some good adjustments there. I'm not convinced by our LB's. I don't think they cover well, and I don't think we have the "type" of LB that we should have. If you look at Cosgrove's D's from WI, they tended to run sets that resembled (to me) 1980's NFL sets. I don't think that works to our advantage when facing the types of offenses that we see in the Big 12. --Alan