Husker in WI

It doesn't make me feel better about it. But part of me is happy to see Michigan State lose a game where they largely outplayed the opponent because their punter kicked the ball to a dangerous returner in the middle of the field, instead of towards his coverage.

There were people saying it at the time too, FWIW. It is too soon to say though - Payton has a nice role as the backup at NDSU, but honestly by looking halfway competent against Michigan Haarberg has a huge early lead. Looking back, none of the 2021 QBs we had a even a small shot with (Jake Garcia, Dematrius Davis, Peter Colstelli) have really panned out anyway. All these 2021 guys are showing up now though - Wimsatt at Rutgers, Kaliakmanis at Minnesota, Deacon Hill at Iowa, Altmeyer at Illinois, Sheduer at Colorado, and Haarberg were all between 25-40 ranked QBs in that class. Sanders is the only one who has shown more than flashes, and several have transferred. In retrospect maybe we should have checked out that Riley Leonard guy (58th ranked).

That's rough. I'm fine rooting for Iowa to do poorly, but I never like to see guys get injured.

All the same, Colorado has one more win than us and their receivers are getting the ball. It's not that crazy to ask. If you're losing some games anyway, you might as well lose them while getting a chance to impact the game. That being said, I don't think he's going anywhere. He was starting to get more snaps, missed last week while in the concussion protocol from a hit in practice according to Rhule.

Well...

We ran a few. The option is great when the other team isn't prepared and/or you like your QBs/RBs against their back-seven in space, but we had neither of those going for us. It didn't go anywher, and probably wasn't a huge part of the gameplan because Michigan is equipped to shut it down.

Yeah, but this is a case where YPC just doesn't tell the whole story. Having few attempts and getting to play against their 3rd string defense helps, you take out Fleeks run and we're at 20 for 32 (1.6 YPC). You can take out their 3 longest runs and they were still at 48 for 194 (4.0).

It's pretty easy to figure out the correct decision after the fact though. I was nervous about Sims throwing into the end zone before the half, but to that point he had one turnover on a slightly overthrown ball. Nothing had screamed bad decision maker to that point, and with the amount of time left calling a "safe" pass play and settling for a field goal if it didn't work was the right call. Agreed on Grant, that one I did question at the time. Not sure why it was him and not Ervin. It still took a facemask penalty caused by Lenhardt being held, dropped INT by Gifford in the end zone on third down, a missed false start, the best throw of Kaliakmanis's life, a serious misstep in coverage by Hartzog, and an incredible catch to lose the lead. Some of those were controllable by the players, some weren't. But it's not like the series of events went Grant fumble > game-tying TD - there were many opportunities for players to step up and stop it. And I also don't have a problem playing to win. You can question whether Sims should have still been in there, or whether we should have been throwing it, but I don't think it was the wrong decision at the time. Overtime would have been in Minnesota's favor - both defense were playing well, and you start in position to kick a 42 yard field goal. Their kicker gets to kick at home, and isn't a true freshman playing in his first college game. And again, all decisions aside we had them 3rd and 13 with what would have been a 57 yard attempt, and let a draw go for 11 yards. Sure, with the benefit of hindsight you can put players in a better position to win. But they still had a lot of opportunities that the guys just didn't seize.

Mockobee is pretty good for Purdue, and if you can believe it the kid that went over 100 used to play for Iowa. They actually do get some talented guys there, Ferentz just has no idea how to use them so they leave. But yeah, Illinois lost almost everyone on defense and it's showing. Their DT is really good, not sure about anyone else. Their offense is more Minnesota than Michigan, so if the defense shows up like Rhule challenged them to I like our chances. But "showing up" gets more difficult as the injuries mount - Reimer is our best tackler, Singleton our best hitter/enforcer (and definitely a better tackler than Bretz), and Lenhardt probably our best bet to handle zone read/QB run game on the DL. We really missed all three against Michigan (not that we would have won anyway), if we're missing them again I'm a lot less confident.

The breakdown of our defense is up as well. They're a little bit limited by which game(s) to watch film on, no one we've played is particularly similar to Michigan. And the closest one is Minnesota, but every time has changed for the better or worse from game 1 to game 5. So some of the takes I question a bit (maybe just bad games for certain guys), but all in all I think they make up for that with actual grading and no blind spots that we develop as fans for certain players. https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-nebraska-defense-2023 TL;DR - they are not particularly worried, and expect to wear down the defense. Our run defense has been really good, but the YPG/YPC numbers are being driven down by huge sack numbers against Colorado and relatively few true rush attempts to cancel that out. They're very impressed by the improvements on defense (particularly Hutmacher and Newsome), but not at all scared by our offense. Which all seems about in line with what we expect - it might stay close for a bit, but the outcome feels inevitable. Hoping for some chaos in the form of offensive creativity and turnovers from the defense, but not betting on it. I also like this assessment:

This Michigan guy's stuff is always incredibly in depth: https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-nebraska-offense-2023

And I think it is - but you can't just not recruit QBs while you build up the OL. And I don't think the dual-threat guys are super interested in a pitch like "well we really want to throw it more, but our OL sucks and we think you can survive better than guys who fit our scheme." OL is clearly a priority, it's just hard to land guys like Baker. Taumua is a big pull, and I'm really hoping we can land Brix.

Right - if there is a week to just do your job and do it well, this is it. Also hoping we're healthy, it could be a really long day if we're short a guy or two on the DL or at LB. For example replacing Lenhardt with Jeudy terrifies me - maybe the rest of his plays were great, and formation-wise this is not what Michigan will try to do. But people got so caught up in the missed tackle from Gbayor and Newsome that we missed Jeudy getting knocked 7 yards back when he's supposed to set the edge. If we can't do things like set the edge and tackle reliably, even getting a couple turnovers won't matter.

I don't hate the idea of it - I remember a game (Washington maybe?) where we rolled out the old school option pass with T-Magic on the first play and hit a bomb down to the 2. And I'll admit spot checking the other games, I don't have any actual data to back up us being predictable with the shot plays. Honestly if we just blocked better I wouldn't be mad about it. There's a super fine line between getting cute by going away from what has worked, and being smart by exploiting an overcommitted defense. And as much as I want to pretend it comes down to the playcall and timing and we can blame the OC, which side of the line a play falls on usually just comes down to the team executing it properly.

He got some big jobs, but neither OSU nor Texas were really thrilled with him. Actually got demoted from OC while at Texas - the OSU job was a big step up (albeit co-OC), but since then I'd argue it's trended downward until he got the Coastal job. But it seems to have all worked out, and after seeing what our offense has been I feel much more positively toward Beck than I did while he was here.

Don't forget to thank Callahan for kicking a meaningless field goal while down 30 to preserve the streak! What's almost as impressive is even if you that game was a shutout, we'd still be second at 6,891 days.

Especially when he's played some RB before, and may be better equipped to pick up the pass blocking schemes than a freshman like Ives. I expect Emmett will still be the #2, but we need all the depth we can get and Fleeks is immediately the biggest body in our RB room. Which is not ideal.

Lol - didn't he even cite Brian Ferentz as one of the main reasons he wanted to go to Iowa? That guy must sell himself really well.

Obviously there's time for teams to adapt and come together, but right now I think Iowa would beat Wisconsin straight up. Mordecai tries to be a gunslinger, and if he doesn't reign it in he'll throw several picks and Iowa would probably take at least one to the house. But Iowa (like every team here) is just very beatable. Nothing would shock me here, I just think Wisconsin's offense is way behind where they expected to be and Iowa is fully capable of exploiting that.

Yeah, we're a little too predictable in when we decide to take our shots. First play of the game is a common one - we don't have the track record of opening the game running the ball down peoples' throats for them to bite on play action right out of the gate.

There are even a few walk-ons who just blow past what we thought their ceiling was, like Spencer Long. And I think Reimer (when healthy) is closer to that than just a decent role player who can be successful surrounded by talent. But I have not seen a whole lot from Bullock, that does feel like a scenario where he would be fine as a rotational piece but is overmatched as a starting Big Ten LB. And more walk-ons fit in that bucket than the one where they truly turned into above average players.

I agree with the first half, but I have no idea how he would loaf on offense. When he's out there, he's usually running 40 yards downfield. Either way this is now 2 coaching staffs who have felt the need to get the ball into his hands, hoping he shows why at some point.

Depending on health on the defensive side, I'd guess something like 24-10 Michigan. But if Reimer can't go and some of the DL are dealing with things (Lenhardt missed last week and I don't think Gunnerson is 100%), and/or we turn it over 3+ times it could get ugly. I think there are scenarios where we can make this a game. But it would take consistency on offense and turnovers on defense, neither of which we've hinted at being able to do so far.

Sims over Haarberg despite ORs supposedly being alphabetical is mildly interesting. Although I agree it probably doesn't make a huge difference this week, and I think Sims is the better QB if he can limit the turnovers.