Making Chimichangas

Their job on the line? Now that is ridiculous. As another poster stated, how many times have referees been held accountable or had to answer for poor officiating? Zero as far as I can recall. Coaches and players are forbidden from even criticizing officials. And that isn't right. If you are an official and you make a call that is questionable you should have to sit in front of reporters and answer questions--even hostile ones.

That is not the craziest thing I've heard today...

And I used to think everyone played by the rules and cheaters never win, then I turned 13. To keep us down. The refs in the game today probably went to the schools we were beating 56-0 back in the day. People can, and do, hold grudges for a lifetime.

1. If a team is averaging 4 penalties a game... 2. They play Nebraska and get flagged once--or not at all... 3. Then the following weeks they're back up to their average... That doesn't strike you as a bit...odd?

If they're missing calls "both ways" then how come Northwestern was flagged once while Nebraska was flagged 8? 9 times? Seems fairly disporportionate to me. Again, if it happens once, not really a big deal. But this stuff happens literally every time Nebraska plays. We get called for 8-10 penalties a game and our opponent who is averaging 3-4 penalties a game will have none or at most 1 when they play us. Then, next week our opponent playing another team will be back up to their 3-4 penalties a game. Strange how that plays out every single week.

Not all. All a zebra who is in on any potential conspiracy would have to do is throw a flag against Nebraska on anything that remotely seems like a penalty. Point is, it isn't as complicated as you're making it out to be. Disclaimer: I would say probably 75% of the penalties we get called for are legit. But there have also been quite a few ticky tack penalties that go against Nebraska. Questionable penalties that Nebraska gets called for, but other teams don't.

Close games, that go down to the wire, boost ratings regardless of who is playing. And, Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delaney has said many times he wants competitive balance. Which could in fact include that any game that is close going into the 4th Q could be open to some officiating to help maintain the close game. Just to be clear, not saying that is happening, bit it wouldn't surprise at all if it was.

Was this thread really necessary? I think we've extensively covered, and collectively come to the conclusion, that the 2018 edition of Husker football sucks. There is even a mega-thread dedicated to all sucky things Nebraska football related. Next caller you're on the air...

I dunno...I don't think we have anyone good in pass coverage.

Here is what I know and have seen play out in every game this year: 1. Nebraska gets flagged disproportionately compared to who ever our opponent is. 2. Nebraska DBs get called for pass interference at a much higher percentage than probably any other team in the BIG. For example, last night during the Michigan v Wisconsin game, I saw DBs for both schools doing exactly what Nebraska DBs do...one hand on WRs back and the other trying to swat the ball away and no call. 3. I see DBs and WRs from every other school jostling each other and there is usually no pass interference called. 4. I see "late" hits on QBs from every defense in every game and most are no calls. Is Nebraska sloppy and undisciplined? Yes. Is there a conspiracy against Nebraska? I can't say yes, but I can't say no either. It just seems odd that Nebraska gets a lot of penalties from things that other teams get away with.

OP is talking about Chinander's defenses compared to other defenses that year...true. And that was my misunderstanding because I didn't get what OP was saying. Apologies. However, OP still doesn't account for the fact that not every team plays the same schedule. Not every team plays every opponent under the exact same circumstances in a given year. Injuries, suspensions, player motivation/focus all fluctuate week to week within a any given season. Also, OP's post doesn't really take into account how Chinander's defenses arrived at their rankings. For example, a team is up 45-10 on an opponent with 7 minutes remaining in the 4th Q. That team can either leave the starters in and probably preserve the score of 45-10 or they can sub in #2 and #3 players to get experience. In which case, the opponent with 10 might score 14-17 additional points making the final 45-24 which skews the defensive numbers and makes it seem not as good. I dunno, perhaps I am grasping at straws because I want so desperately for Nebraska to finally have the right coaches in place and get that continuity with our coaching staff we so desperately need.

I guess my overall point was/is: I think it is slightly unfair to just look at defensive rankings without any context. Also, I think that average yards and points per game has been increasing over the years. I (or someone) would have to do a stat analysis to see if that is true, but that's my hypothesis. For example, the #1 ranked defense in PPG in 2008 would be lower than what it is in 2018. And the #1 defense in PPG would be lower in 1998 than it was in 2008. Again, without doing any research, that is my hypothesis...

Now if we're still seeing this type of play in year 3, then Houston we have have a problem. Coach Frost and his coaches should be given a mulligan for this year.

Caveat: You could be correct about Chinander. So if you just look at the numbers, without any context, it makes sense how one could come to the conclusion, after looking at multiple years of data, he is an average or worse DC. However, college football has changed quite a bit even in the last 10 years. 1. Rules keep getting changed to favor the offense. 2. Pass interference calls go against the defense probably 99.7% of the time. 3. Pretty much every team now runs some variation of uptempo spread. 4. Every defense, no matter how sound fundamentally, has holes which can be exploited. 5. The evolution of camps and coaching that players coming out of high school now receive could arguably be better than ever before. 6. With 85 scholarship limit, that means there are great players that end up at "lesser" schools. So yeah while you might ultimately be right about Chinander, I think it is probably the case that we'll never see the kind of defensive dominance we did in the '90's. Hell there are teams that put up 35+ points on Alabama's defense and they're the gold standard of talent, S&C, and depth.

Amen. Admittedly, I was (before the season started) one of the posters who thought, talent wise, Nebraska was much better than they are. While I won't apologize for that, I do painfully acknowledge that the Huskers are no where near where they need to be. Simply stated, this 0-6 start is the culmination of Nebraska's previous 10+ years downward slide into mediocrity and worse. And that cannot be fixed in one off-season. Nebraska has the right guy as HC. Frost just needs time, and several recruiting classes before we start seeing the results. And honestly, I am seeing improvement each week even though the wins aren't there. This team is getting incrementally better.

Exactly. Some of the posters on this board have literally no concept that Nebraska was in far worse shape than they will admit. @The Dude points to the fact that neither Callahan or Riley went 0-6 and yet doesn't acknowledge that: a) Callahan came into Nebraska after Solich when, despite not much depth, S&C was still great and there were some really good players here, and b) Riley came in after Bo and there were some good players here but S&C in Bo's final three years started to wane and was getting less each year. Then Riley comes in, no S&C at all, recruited a lot of bad player and/or players who left when they learned they'd lose their starting spots. So yeah, Nebraska is currently in a very, VERY deep hole in terms of talent, S&C, and depth that they are slowly climbing out of. It is this type of denial of facts while bitterly complaining and whining about being 0-6 for the first time in program history--as if they could do better. All the people whining about the 0-6 start should probably be put on suicide watch. I just get so tired of people not understanding that this isn't f'ing PlayStation. In real life you don't come into a program that has been in steady decline for 10+ years and change sh** overnight.

Let me ask you this: based on what we have seen from Nebraska thus far this season...do you seriously believe any other coaching staff would be better? What rationale do you have to make the claim any other staff would be better? Because any other coaching staff would still have to face all the issues Coach Frost and his coaches are facing: 1. Most players didn't do S&C under Riley. 2. They had a very lazy or no work ethic. 3. Little to no depth at many positions. When you take every factor and add it up, I seriously think that even Nick Saban's staff at Alabama could be coaching Nebraska this year and we'd probably still be 0-6. So yeah, disagree all you want, but what I said isn't ridiculous.

Honestly, I'm not sure what game you watched. Of course the OL could be better, but they did open up.some nice holes for Oz to run through and they did provide Adrian Martinez time to throw most times. Sure there were mistakes, but things are getting better.

Coach Frost said it in his presser after the game: If Nebraska throws the ball and gets an incomplete pass, then the clock stops and NW doesn't have to use a timeout. Then he's criticized for not running it. Damned if does, damned if he doesn't.

@KingBlank 1. I initially asked you, "How do you know?" Then 2. I said it was moot point because neither one of us can prove we're right and honestly I wasn't going to argue the point further.

Entirely different circumstances and Riley was trending down towards 0-12. Be negative if you want, I don't care. But you should at least be honest enough to admit that Riley left us in an incredibly deep hole. Coach Frost said it in his post game presser: "Winning is a habit, unfortunately so is losing." Mike Riley put a feel good about losing feeling on the team for 3 years. Yeah this 0-6 season sucks, but changing our players mentalities takes time. I am all in with Coach Frost. He'll fix this mess, we just have to accept that we might be 0-12 at the end of the year. Or we could be 6-6 or anything in between. I am seeing this team fight. I am seeing an 0-6 team that hasn't given up. And I won't give up on this team either.

But as Coach Frost said in his post game presser, if Nebraska had thrown the ball and not completed it, he'd be criticized for stopping the clock. He made the right call. Run the ball and force NW to use those timeouts. Unfortunately, things didn't go NU's way. Maybe we'll win next week.

How do you know? Honestly, it is moot point.

We could have Ohio State, Alabama, or Clemson's coaching staff right now and we'd still be 0-6 more than likely. We just don't have the Jimmies or Joes, especially on defense.