Husker in WI

Does that have anything behind it? JD certainly looked much better than Martinez walking off the field last week, and you'd figure he's going to try since it's in his home town. I haven't heard if he's practicing or not, but I thought there was a decent chance he'd be ready. Only reason Mo wouldn't play is if he doesn't respond to the suspension how the coaches want him to. Which is entirely possible, but I don't think he'd do something to get suspended again. Maybe just a limited role.

I would seriously doubt it. We've got people complaining that Washington's half game suspensions have been light, to be suspended indefinitely is pretty severe. Maybe next year or something depending on what it was, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Good points, and an October mock draft is not worth very much. I do think he'll get drafted in the first few rounds though, and bearing in mind he's only had a year and a half of competent coaching he's still got room to grow. As far as the 2020 draft, wouldn't be shocked to see Darrion go pretty high as well. I think Tuoti said he played ~60 snaps against NW. You just don't find 340 lb men who can move and play that number of snaps often.

Yeah I've wondered as well, I just immediately thought of that play Saturday and assumed it's blocking. But then thinking more, those are almost always called contingent on numbers in the box. So I'm more inclined to believe teams are specifically gameplanning looks that we don't want to run those against.

These? Although that one is actually an RPO. I think we're just not blocking them well enough to be confident calling them, or defenses just aren't giving us the numbers we like to want to run them.

Was it though? Michigan sure, but at least OSU, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois are better this year than last. Probably Colorado and Iowa as well. Purdue was better last year, but that was still a mediocre team. Michigan State had their worst offense of all time last year. On paper last year was a tougher schedule, I don't really believe it was in reality.

My instinct is the same, but honestly I can't think of a time when his speed has been an issue so I'd bet he's faster than we assume. When he has problems it's been biting on double moves or not recognizing and breaking on a route quick enough, I don't remember any receivers just running away from him.

I would agree, but screens have not been our strong point..

I am very much not an expert on weather, but blowing into the closed end of a stadium seems like a recipe for swirling winds which would not be great. For either team really, so mostly a wash.

Fair enough, I guess I took the quote below about getting things moving to mean open up the deep passes, and that's not exactly true. I still saw very little different with Martinez out, the shot to Wan'Dale is the same route we'd run twice with Martinez. I think people are seeing what they want to see, and putting way too much weight on a good drive against the NIU backups and a nice pass to Wan'Dale Saturday.

Hopefully the wind is blowing along the field instead of across it, the at least you can take a few shots in 2 of the quarters. One of my only issues with the coaches this year is they've mentioned Woodyard/Williams/Nance as guys who can be deep threats. I know they want them to practice well and earn the coaches' trust, but we can't work them in enough to take some shots? Obviously can't be every play or it's easy to pick up on, but it feels possible. The last drive of the game when we needed a score, not "as soon as he came in." And we ran the switch concept a few times in the 2nd quarter with Martinez, one was just out sooner so not as long and one was a bad throw/drop. One deep shot in an end of game scenario is not magically opening up the deep passing game with Vedral.

Exhibit A for why I think PFF is cool but very flawed: Eric Lee was still the highest graded Safety in the country through week 5 (link). He balled out against South Alabama and maybe you can argue he should be playing more, but I'm pretty sure we're not bringing the best Safety in the nation off the bench for a few snaps at a time. Impressive grade either way though.

There was one stretch where they were clearly mixed up on which side of their rosters they were looking at - just mumbling players like "Miles Jones" when it was the other 22, Alex Davis. I forget who the other mixups were, they knew something was off but just kept throwing out the names anyway.

At best it's that. I believe they do meet with the coaches ahead of time and go over any points of emphasis, whether that's the NCAA pushing it (like targeting calls) or just something they've been told to watch from previous games.

He is a senior, as crazy as that seems. JD would be the only potential early entry I would think. EDIT: @ColoradoHusk beat me to it.

I don't know if the answer is using another scholly for a kicker. We're thin enough at other positions - just kind of a freak thing where the backup kicker (Jorgenson) is also hurt. Not sure why Heins, the other walk-on kicker, isn't an option. But it's pretty bizarre to have to resort to punters and I don't think you can keep 2 scholarship kickers happy, let alone justify another specialist scholarship.

Our women's soccer team: I don't know how to find club soccer stats/results, but I don't think we have a ton of talent on the women's team right now.

From what I heard if people had seen his foot/ankle we'd be shocked he could even walk.

We do have a history of handing out more extra chances than guys deserve, mostly from Osborne but obviously since then as well. Some people love that, some people think it's just an excuse to try and keep talented guys. We'll see how the charges end up (really don't want to open that back up), I just don't think a half-game suspension issue is the straw that breaks the camels back here.

What exactly are our losses here? The practice reps he's getting? Honestly we need backs to take them. Leaving the ongoing legal matters aside, the recent suspension doesn't feel like the kind of thing you cut a guy for, whatever it was. I understand the argument that a guy is better off on a team has its limits, but if the staff felt he couldn't grow past the issues with support he'd already be gone. We have no idea what the recent issue was, other than it was only worth a half game suspension. Nate Gerry was suspended more.

The "problem" is I fully expect Vedral to perform very well and that will not quiet the people who want Martinez benched. It's not a real problem because we'd all love for Vedral to do well! Just going to be annoying to hear about one big performance even if Martinez would've performed well in the same situation. Minnesota's defense is worse than OSU/NW, and I think the coaches are finally at a point where they have to rotate in some new skill guys. I think whoever plays QB will have a big game, but the Martinez critics will conveniently ignore the difference in defenses/surrounding player performance and insist Vedral is the guy.

Frost did say the snaps have gotten "progressively better" just today, go doesn't seem entirely true. I have not looked at the exact numbers, but there has been a step back the past couple weeks after a decent stretch.

I assure you, your kicking situation is better than ours.

Heck maybe Bunch is better than Martinez! We have a similar sample size between Bunch and Vedral, so if we don't know about Vedral we don't know about Bunch either. Coaches don't just roll with a QB that might be worse than the backup unless there's some kind of competition, and I've heard nothing that makes it sound like it's particularly close between the two. I think our offense gets rolling this week whether it's Vedral or Martinez, but it's going to be super annoying when people are calling for Vedral to remain the starter if that happens. I think he'll be good, but I'll take the ceiling on Martinez any day.

I doubt we hear anything until game time honestly. Martinez didn't practice today, but I don't think anyone expected him to whether he plays this week or not.