MyBloodIsRed16

Being a chicago Bears fan I don't remember too much that warranted the stadium being called Soldier field.. when they renovated the stadium they put in a nice memorial right inside the south gates with statues and some plaques throughout. Memorial stadium could do a mural or something along with plaques

If you don't have a top 25 offense you better have a top 10 defense

I'm also not confident that the run game will be a big part of the offense going forward. Langsdorf wants to pass the ball, so the run game will always be secondary in his offense. Not to get too technical about it, but Nebraska ran the ball 495 times this year and passed it 358. So rushing isn't exactly secondary under Langsdorf, even if it's not as dominant as we'd like. Our opponents actually passed more, though we never seem to call them pass-happy. That was this year, and what would the split be if the Armstrong runs were pass plays instead. I don't expect too many called QB runs with Lee at QB next year. I would also expect NU opponents to have a higher % of pass plays as NU was ahead in the 4th quarter, so the opponents would need to pass to quickly come back. Just like NU would usually run more in the 4th quarter to run the clock out when having the lead. You have to account for the fact that some of TAs runs were option as well. They will probably be just straight run calls next season

I thought Adam Taylor was a better back coming out, not sure what happend to him. Newby's entire highlight tape was him getting a toss and just getting to the sideline and out running everyone. Maybe he made a cut to beat one defender. That doesn't translate to college. Then he got here and would get carries and run to the sideline and have nowhere to go. He also fumbled every other carry and never understood why they wasted carries on him. I'm just speculating but if you go back to last year I'm willing to bet Imani Cross had more 10+ yard carries than Newby behind the same O-line

Newby made the line look bad at times because he continually misread his blocks. He wouldn't cut off his blocker's ass and try to go around essentially gift wrapping a tackle for the defense. He was also not very good at breaking tackles

Although he was improved from last year he still never reached whatever potential coaches thought he had (he turned out pretty much how I thought he would turn out). Two years in a row he started and two years in a row I felt he was the 2nd or 3rd best back. I think the run game next year improves and we see more explosive plays from the RB position... thoughts?

I didn't even think it was a possibility he would leave. Think he needs more than one good year to prove himself

I think coaches should be having dialogue with these guys. Maybe these guys have friends at some of these schools. I would have liked to take a free trip to see some of my friends or just see a new place. Just ask if he is having second thoughts or what he is thinking. Yes the later it is the tougher it is to replace a guy. I think saying no visits period is stupid. Don't stop recruiting.

Any coach needs at least 4 yrs to prove his worth unless the team is a complete diaster after years two or 3. I've seen people try to compare coaches on here. Devaney took over a struggling program and turned it around. TO took over a team that was already a top program in the country coming off a NC. It tooK TO how long to win a NC? And honestly when he finally won the big one it's because they upgraded athletes on the defensive side of the ball. Option fooball can hide weaknesses by keeping people guessing as to where the football is. Causes defenses to play a little slower. Do we need to go back to option football. No. We just need to give MR time to get his guys and clean up the mess the last couple of coaches left him.

I don't know if it's coaching or if we are just terrible across the entire line, but we are the slowest ream off the ball in the big. Our linemen including ends look like they are on a delay. Did we ever have our ends go offside beside Dzuris on downs we all knew a hard count was coming except him.. so slow. Get some guys who explode off the ball and you cause a lot more problems for the offense. I'm glad Ross is graduating so I don't have watch him miss assignments all the time..

This is why if you have time you need to watch an actual game if you can find one. To me if someone says dual threat you are recruiting a RB with a good arm. This offense doesn't need a dual threat. It needs a guy who read a defense and is going to know where pressure is coming from and move away from the pressure. He can't be a statue but he also doesn't need to rush for 100yds either

I think they can get 9 wins with Lee or POB as long as either one of them is a good decision maker

I think he was highly-rated early but never really developed as people thought he might. Not sure if that's picking up the mental part of the game or what. But considering he couldn't see the field with all the injuries we had this year, I'm not holding my breath on this one panning out. Did I miss something with Barnett or Decker? People are counting them out... Decker redshirted 2015-2016 season right..? Barnett severely rolled his ankle at the very end of campus/first game week and was out ~ a month. At that point, they made the decision they liked the OLine and getting him back in shape conditioning wise to play conference OL would be a few weeks anyways, so they redshirted. Unless I'm misremembering? Wasn't it Barnett that was eating his way out of a scholarship/playing time? I thought I've heard that a few times that he is way too heavy and out of shape. Or was that someone else?

I think there is an important detail people are missing on this TA was a good runner and Lee is a better passer so he is a statue. Lee is not a statue. He moves well in the pocket and has active feet. Now if we are sending RB on routes like we have been and he can hit those constantly then teams have to account for that. If we are hitting open guys across the middle and so forth then those things are occupying LBs. If Lee scrambles he will pick up chunks of yards just like TA. I don't remember TA running for any 60+ yard tds. I think a lot of times what got TA in the trouble he was scrambling away from (aside from poor blocking) was the fact he didn't see the underneath routes that were open right away and he was waiting for the longer route to open up. I'm not saying Lee can read a defense because I'm not sure, but if he can that will help out a struggling O-line.

Just from the little I watched on him he completes the passes that TA continually missed. He's got good footwork and a good motion. He's not a statue in the pocket and is able to scramble at times to pick up yards. Is he the second coming of Joe Montana? Probably not. He makes some of the mistakes that TA makes but I think that more or less comes from him being a freshman starter on a not so good team. He stares down his rec on some plays and throws into double coverage. Hopefully those are things he has been working on. And that's against D-1 teams not HS like POB. Competition creates better play. Let the best man win. I don't care who it is as long as it's the best man

Unlike most I have a positive outlook on the O-line next year. Star rating aside I think Cav is recruiting a different breed of linemen then the previous staff. Obviously in a spread, zone read heavy offense there isn't much "road grading" going on. O-lineman don't have to be as "tough". That's the problem with some of the current guys. They aren't as use to downhill blocking. I've heard from a previous player on offense that the o-line under Bo was very soft across the board. That's pretty bad when it's someone on the team who played offense and not just someone speculating like a reporter or average fan. I would say Knevel fits in the soft category. He looks soft and plays soft. The nasty you want from O-linemen is very hard to coach. It's either in them or not so you better hope you recruited the right guy

Qbs who tend to throw off their back foot tend not to have the best completion %. On certain types of throws yes it is acceptable. Not generally a throw that requires high accuracy. TA gets lazy on his footwork on "easy" throws and that's why he misses or is off target on a lot of his throws. He's got good arm strength but oviously his arm slot changes quite a bit when his feet aren't set properly

I find it odd that DPE has had basically no success running the jet sweep. Reilly and Moore have done well but not DPE. No explanation for that. As for the passing game, I think DPE is the victim of having better overall receivers in front of him and that the routes that he would excel at are the ones that TA is terrible at throwing. Didn't Cethan Carter run a jet sweep for a touchdown in 2015? That's a guy who few of us would've ever thought could take a jet sweep to the house. I would guess most opposing teams know of DPE's athletic abilities and make it a point to spot 15 and be prepared for what he can do, which may be one reason why the success hasn't been there. Some of it could also be on DPE. I'm clearly no expert, but perhaps he just doesn't execute the play very well for any number of reasons. For sure they scout DPE on jet sweeps. Go back and watch he barely has the blocker other guys get on the jet sweep. The defense is usually flying toward the LOS when DPE gets it and he is usually being contacted behind the line.

Remains to be seen if this will be effective or if this is rearranging chairs on the titanic. Even if it's just rearranging chairs, at least we know that Riley is trying to make changes to get the team in the best position to be successful. Which is more than Bo ever did in 7 years. Riley has fired 2 guys in 2 years. Which one actually tried patching the leak and which one said screw it and set the ship on fire? Listen, I'm not big on Pelini but if you don't think Shawn Watson and Carl Pelini moving on weren't "highly encouraged" by Bo you are crazy. "highly encouraged" meaning you're fired but I will give you a chance to save face. Watson went because he wasn't Bo's yes man. I'm pretty sure Carl taking a HC job had very little to do with Bo insisting he take it. lol Ummm, a certain booster and an illicit relationship Carl was having with his married daughter tell a different story.Didn't Carl also have a drug problem the school found out about?

Conversely, how do you know that's not the right play, or the right read on that play? If Tommy is consistently doing things that Langsdorf isn't calling or teaching, then it's on the coaches to put him on the bench.

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book. But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year. Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working. By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy. A lot of times you have to have that deep route. You run a corner out of the picture and put pressure on the safety. Without it you get in situations where one defender can in essence guard two receivers because they are in the same area. I had the same problem while coaching a HS qb. I literally had to tell him that it's a decoy route to open up the shorter easier throw. The problem is a lot of this offense are plays that set up other plays. TAs inability to connect on the routes that will open up the long ball is the real issue. I would almost guarantee Langsdorf isn't telling him to try to hit the 40 yard fade everytime on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 8. That's on TA because that's what he does. Even the announcers pointed out that he is choosing who to throw to before the play. You can see it in times when he throws a ball and there was nobody in the area and they say it was a communication error. I'ld buy that if he doesn't throw a bomb and the guy did a 5 yard curl.. what was he looking at? He just thinks there was supposed to be a go or fade route and he launches it without reading. I think we will see a dramatic change in how the offense looks next year. A lot of the short throws that TA missed this year would be the 40+ gainers everyone wants to see. If you watch the games where we had high completion percentages - Northwestern, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland - a lot of the time everyone was running short routes. Even the outside guys. If you go back to the first few games of last year when offense was putting up points I think you will notice more short completions as well. It wasn't until later that TA started going deep all the time. Most of this year seems to be that way. Run the ball a few times and throw the long ball. Obviously there were some exceptions

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book. But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year. Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working. By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy. A lot of times you have to have that deep route. You run a corner out of the picture and put pressure on the safety. Without it you get in situations where one defender can in essence guard two receivers because they are in the same area. I had the same problem while coaching a HS qb. I literally had to tell him that it's a decoy route to open up the shorter easier throw. The problem is a lot of this offense are plays that set up other plays. TAs inability to connect on the routes that will open up the long ball is the real issue. I would almost guarantee Langsdorf isn't telling him to try to hit the 40 yard fade everytime on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 8. That's on TA because that's what he does. Even the announcers pointed out that he is choosing who to throw to before the play. You can see it in times when he throws a ball and there was nobody in the area and they say it was a communication error. I'ld buy that if he doesn't throw a bomb and the guy did a 5 yard curl.. what was he looking at? He just thinks there was supposed to be a go or fade route and he launches it without reading. I think we will see a dramatic change in how the offense looks next year. A lot of the short throws that TA missed this year would be the 40+ gainers everyone wants to see.

Not a bust. It seems there was already tension within the team last year so how do you think that would have helped this year if the MR benches the starting Senior QB?? If you play POB this year while he is still learning he would have picked up a bunch of bad habits because the line is garbage. As far as Tanner Lee goes, he played in a similar offense on a bad Tulane team. Purdue had two QB'S who left their bad team and started for two power 5 programs and did ok. This offense is predicated on being able to hit the underneath routes and being able to make reads.. those are two things TA doesn't do well. Who ever the next QB is doesn't have to be great he just needs to be able to know who the open guy will be and be able to make the throw. The bigger question will be if the new O-linemen playing next year will be busts.

Was Chip Kelly's offense really that special? They played in a conference that didn't play defense. Yeah they put up a ton of points/yards but I believe eveyone else was as well. Did Oregon win a national title with that offense?? Defense wins championships. Maybe they should find a DC to replace their current HC

If you go out for drinks in Chicago there is a 90% chance your bartender attended Iowa