Husker in WI

Bradley is our best bet at a consistent running game, so we better hope the injury mentioned today isn't bad. I love Ozigbo, but we can't block the opponent's big guys and he can't consistently get to the edge. I'm trying not to read too much into a few carries, but Bradley has the most functional athleticism of the healthy backs. I guess Wilbon is pretty athletic too, but he's just really tentative. Lee has dramatically improved, but our complete lack of creativity holds the offense back. I don't know if it's predictable playcalling or what, but we make DBs look good - they're all over the receivers most of the time. Lee can put it where the receivers have a chance, but there a lot of our throws are into coverage. I don't know what the deal is with our o-line, but it has to get better and I don't see that happening. Overall Gates/Foster/Farmer are solid, but there are way too many mistakes for a relatively experienced group. At this point a full reshuffling is not going to happen, but (injuries taken into account) honestly I'd try: LT - Jaimes - Better fit than Gates LG - Foster C - Raridon? Wasn't he practicing at C? Just not Conrad, C is not his position. RG - Wilson - Don't know why he disappeared. Farniok may be better at G than T, but the only positive for an OL with a club on his hand is it makes holding difficult. RT - Gates/Conrad - Gates has been mostly fine, and at least here Lee won't get blindsided when he whiffs. I though Conrad was decent at T last year if the holding/misses continue from Gates.

Ozigbo keeps his streak of 100+ yard games. I think he breaks a couple decent runs, and even with Wilbon back he's the guy right now. Nebraska covers, but I just can't see a path to us winning. Closer than people think, but even at my most optimistic I can't see a W here. We find out who our 4th string (I think?) safety is. Sounds like we might be starting Kalu/Dismuke with Kieron as the backup - I'm gonna say one injury and one (probably bogus) targeting penalty, and I have no idea who we send out there. If Aaron can play this probably doesn't happen, but seems like he's been beat up all year.

That's super helpful - I there might be some debate about whether it's truly incapacitating since he's already getting close to back, I don't know how picky they are about that. I'm not sure the NCAA will buy "knee issues" as a season-ending injury, but I'm sure they get more details than we do. If 'season-ending' just means he doesn't play again that year, barring a setback sounds like it's up to him and the coaches. It would really suck if they denied it because it shouldn't have stopped him from coming back though.

They're talking about a medical redshirt - I think you have to apply for it or in some way get approval from the NCAA, but if you only played a few games they usually don't care. I think the cap is 4 games played, but I might be making that up.

Not excited to watch Young trying to make tackles with a club on his hand. We're going to struggle enough with their speed, if Barry's ready I hope he rotates in a lot. This is the type of game where athleticism is important, and we don't have sideline to sideline linebackers. A big nickel package with Reed would've been nice, but that's not happening either.

I agree he seems out of touch - we offer a ton of preferred walk-on spots, and have as many walk-ons as anyone. The in-state guys we don't get here either A) have a scholarship offer to other FBS schools, or B) prefer to take a lower level scholarship. I don't follow it incredibly closely, but who are the guys we're missing that would be walk-ons if offered the chance? I think he started off saying something about walk-ons being important which is true, and now he's just stuck talking about it. We pretty much do have a whole team of walk-ons, 50 is a lot. More walk-ons won't make this team better - we might get another starter or two, but there's a point of diminishing returns. It kind of sucks that some of the walk-ons don't get much or any time with coaches outside their position group, but it's a big team. The HC/OC/DC aren't going to be super focused on specific players until they've shown they can make an impact. It's a harder route to being a difference maker - the coaches are already invested in scholarship guys, as a walk-on you have to make them invested in you. Maybe TO was better about making the walk-ons feel important, but I doubt the overall view was different. The coordinators/head coach will notice when your position coach tells them you should be contributing. Walk-ons as a group are important. A single walk-on isn't until he proves it, as harsh as that sounds.

I really can't see us going for either of the triple option coaches - and can you imagine that transition? You're definitely looking at a true freshman/JUCO qb, if they got hired with enough time to find one. Lee, POB, and Gebbia would be gone in an instant (plus some receivers probably), and with DPE graduating I don't think we'd have even a high-school QB on roster. Maybe you convince a decent option qb to come here because he'd have no competition for the job. Besides that, I agree with the people saying teams with that offense have a ceiling. We obviously ran a lot of option but it was I-backs not wing backs, and not so much of the motion/deception. That being said, Spielman/Lindsey as wing backs would be pretty fun. Frost seems almost inevitable whether Riley gets another year or not. I don't think he goes anywhere else this year because he's talked about wanting to build a program, but being able to rebuild your alma mater and get paid more has to be pretty tempting. But he can win at UCF, and there's a lot less pressure.

You never know, but I feel like there would be a different vibe from his interviews (like the one below) if that was the case. "Joking" about needing to tell the coaches he's not coming just sounds like they don't think he should come here, not that he doesn't want to. If Riley stays I'd be shocked if Bookie signed elsewhere, and I think we still have a shot if Riley's gone. There was some article on Tyjon recently where he talked about coming here to be a player who can help turn the program around, and I get the same vibe from Bookie. As long as they click with whoever we would hire, a lot of the good things (fans, facilities, academics, early playing time, etc) are still here. That being said, nothing is certain in recruiting. I just don't necessarily trust the uncle of another recruit saying he's not solid - I'm sure Hightower isn't coming here, but I'm optimistic with Bookie.

True, but Gilmore hasn't done anything to make me wish he was back here. I don't know how much of it you can attribute to coaching, but it seems like their receivers are always good for a couple drops. The exceptions are the walk-ons that turn into really good players like Abbrederis/Alex Erickson, but for the most part it seems like they have athletic guys who are really inconsistent. It's not a problem for them if they run for 300+ though.

Anyone know who Wisky's O-line coach is? Does he want to be an offensive coordinator?

I think Riley really doomed himself by bringing basically the entire OSU staff with him. He's a pretty good recruiter and I like the idea of letting the assistants do their job without micro managing, but you need good assistants to do that. I'm not convinced we'd still be talking about his replacements if he chose a new staff coming here - Banker and the special teams coach (already forgot his name) cost him a lot of time, and Langsdorf may end up costing him the job. I don't believe he could have done it, but to be successful here he needed to build the staff from scratch.

A lot of the second half issues had to do with the playcalling. I'd have to re-watch it to make sure I'm remembering right (and I don't really want to do that), but it seemed like if we got stopped once on a run we wouldn't try again that drive. You're not going to get 4 yards every carry against Wisconsin, but we did show that we could break off some decent runs. Our line didn't really have a chance to try and assert their dominance in the second half, but I'm not sure they would've been able to anyway. Size is definitely a factor but they just all get where they're supposed to be, and we were either too tired or too athletically limited to get off the blocks. Block destruction only works if you can actually disrupt the block, we just ran right into them and got driven back. Kind of reminds me of the B1G championship where they regretted redshirting Valentine - Stoltenberg couldn't hold up all game, and in his defense most NTs don't play every snap. It would not have been a game-changing difference, but Daniels might've helped. Deontre played a little bit, but they have him playing a weird technique way off the ball. Probably helps him use his quickness to avoid double teams, but it doesn't fly against a team like Wisconsin and I don't remember seeing him out there a lot.

Yeah, Cav seems to care more about how much time they've been here than how good they are. I understand wanting to lean on the older guys, but you just can't do that if they're not the best players. All in all I thought the line played a pretty solid game against a tough defense, but they're still inconsistent and I think if Cav had a choice it would still be Conrad and Knevel starting. They have improved, but I think Langs/Riley should be the ones to decide who plays on the line. Cav either can't or won't figure out who should be starting.

We desperately need d-line depth, and athleticism at linebacker. It's embarrassing how many times in a row they were able to run it. Lee was a lot better, although the stats aren't incredible. The line did a pretty good job protecting him. Completely different ball game if Ozigbo doesn't let it bounce off his helmet and DPE catches the touchdown. I think we would've still worn down and probably lost, but a lot closer. To everyone talking about needing to go back to power football - that's all playcalling, we were running the same plays they were. They were just committed to the run and have a better line and backs. You can attribute that to coaching or recruiting, but our playbook is almost the same.

Troy Fumigalli Jason Pierre-Paul Frodo Baggins

I thought Bradley was always in the depth chart, but didn't actually play until Northern Illinois. Didn't the coaches make some comment on adding him to special teams once Bryant went down? I suppose we could check the participation reports, but I'm lazy.

I guess that's true, he has good size. I was thinking more about Utter/Pelini/Pensick, although I think Pensick was a scholarship player. They played hard, but they just seemed overmatched a lot. At the very least the line seems to handle the stunts and blitzes better with Decker. Could be because they have more games under their belt, or it could be Conrad hadn't played much center and Decker has in practice at least.

Seems like Bootle should definitely be starting over Lee. I've actually thought Jackson looks fine in coverage, he just has some bad missed tackles. He blew up some of the bubble screens against Oregon/Northern Illinois, so it seems like more of a tackling in space issue than not being physical. Decker is already our best center in a long time. Definitely an improvement over the string of walk-ons we've had - I love the walk-ons, but it seems like our center recently has been whichever undersized guy they trust to make the calls, regardless of their ability to actually handle a DT. If we give him time, Lee can avoid most of the bad decisions. Still one really bad one (thanks for the save, Hoppes), but we should be used to that. You have to go back a long time to find our last QB who wasn't good for at least one ball straight at a defender per game.

It's been Austin Rose (23) the times I've noticed. A lot of coaches instruct the returner who doesn't catch the ball to keep the actual returner in the end zone if that's where they catch it. Unlike a punt you can't really read the coverage when you catch a kick, unless somebody is completely unblocked. Coaches don't want to risk getting stopped inside the 10 or 15, so they take the decision out of the returners hands. That being said, I think we should give him the green light if he's 5 yards deep or less.

I'm really hoping it's because he's supposedly a decent pass rusher and we might get more opportunities to actually get to the QB this week. With their speed I don't think they'll sit back and take the short throws all game, they'll take some shots. LilRed pointed out we had both Gifford and Newby out there a lot last week, I'd expect to see the same unless we're in some kind of Nickel package. Against spread teams I feel like Gifford/Barry/Weber/whoever you want at Cat would be the best grouping. Maybe even Ferguson instead of Weber. Hopefully Oregon runs fewer RPOs, but if I'm them and trust my QB's decision making even a little bit that's my gameplan. Looking at their depth chart (think it's in another topic, but looks relatively unchanged from the one posted in this thread) - I know you can't jump to too many conclusions based on listed measurables, but once you get past the 330+ lb NT there is not a lot of size. The Mike backer is listed at 200 lbs, and the Duck (must be a S/LB hybrid) is 198. Looks like they both rotate with bigger guys, but I like our chances to run pretty much at will. Much less confident about preventing them to score just about whenever they want.