Husker in WI

Fair enough, not claiming we all need @hskrfan4life's outlook to be a real fan haha. I just think saying that 6-6 is our best case for next year is as unrealistic as saying 11-1 is. There's a lot we don't know about 2020 Nebraska, and more we don't know about the opponents in 2020. In a few more years I may see it differently.

The only way you see 6-6 as our ceiling next year is if you assume the absolute worst case scenario for Nebraska, and the best case scenarios for every other team. And I get it, the past couple years/decades have made that easier to do. But seriously, no hope for you guys at all? Would you say you enjoy being Nebraska fans?

Who though? None of the "proven" ones are taking a Nebraska rebuild job. Les Miles? No thanks. I don't think the sole reason Frost was hired was to save the streak. He was as qualified as you can be with only 2 years of head coaching experience, which can definitely be seen as less qualified than other coaches. But it's not like we hired him straight from a coordinator position.

Who should he have hired instead? It wasn't a pr gimmick, Frost was the hottest available coach for any opening, not just Nebraska. It's fair to wonder how good a coach he currently is to some degree - this isn't the AAC, and that easily could've been a 10-2 season instead of 12-0. But that's true for a lost of undefeated seasons, and it at least shows he's not a bad coach. I think a little more time is justified before claiming he's not a good coach, and that top recruits won't follow him.

I know there were theories, but I'm curious if you have sources on that. I think most of his issues could be explained by an injury, extra pressure with the expectations, and defenses knowing more how to attack him this year. Maybe the second piece is what you mean by off the field.

QBR is better than the old rating, but it's still somewhat subjective at the end of the day. There's not necessarily a clean way to do the bolded on a given play. Again it's definitely better than rating which is only passing and doesn't account for drops, pressure, etc, but QBR can only account for those in a limited way as well. QBR can lessen the penalty against a QB if an incompletion is because of instant pressure in his face, but there's no way of accurately assessing what would have happened if the QB had time. Also, it's great that QBR assesses both passing and running, which does give us a better idea of MccCaffrey's performance. But the run/pass ratio with him this year is unsustainable, and using the QBR just for passing plays is back to not enough data to say much about him as a passer. I guarantee you his QBR goes down if he plays a lot of snaps next year with the same ~3 to 1 run/pass split we had with him this year.

I shudder just seeing Diaco mentioned. Kids been through a lot.

Based on how he (allegedly) hurt his shoulder, or you don't think the injury affected his play?

Retweeted the Hunt/LeGrone ESPN story, so definitely feels like he's not happy with us. I'd rather believe the telling SMU he was just saving a spot so we pulled his offer story, but who knows what really went down.

The article made it sound like it's the length of time until the woman involved graduates? Although I don't know if that would be extended if she took an extra year, or what happens if she leaves. I dunno. Like Minnesota_Husker said though, probably the least of their problems.

They're different situations and you know it. Either way, I don't see anyone arguing for less time for these two. And it's entirely out of the coaches hands anyway, it's a university suspension.

Right, totally my opinion. I have no sources so I don't know about locker room problems - haven't heard that a lot on here though. Oof, I dunno if I can go through and pick ten. I guess it depends on what we're calling 'reasons' - I'm thinking individual plays that in my opinion changed games more than playing Jurgens at center vs. Colorado. There were a handful of plays against Colorado, Indiana, Purdue, and Iowa that each could have swung the game. The flea flicker against CU, the sack fumble against Indiana, the pick in the red zone against Purdue, and the kick return against Iowa all come to mind. Plus several missed field goals/third down conversions allowed. I don't know if it's exactly ten to be honest, but roughly anyway.

Those were 9-10 years ago, so I think it's still accurate to say the defense has been a problem for "so many years now." I'm sure different people have different definitions of "so many years," but whatever.

I just think that is a very, very small part of why we're not going to a bowl game. Like not in the top ten reasons.

I hate to break this to you... Also, a lot of that boils down to "play better." Which we all can agree on at least!

I'm a little less confident on MSU - that's 3 of the last 4 years they've been down, and the gap between them and even the second-tier east teams (PSU, Michigan) is growing. And I dunno about UCLA either - they've been down as long as us for the most part, and their recruiting last year and this year looks worse than ours. You're probably right about Texas and Miami, but man I hope you're wrong because I can't stand either of them.

Cherry picking the years a little bit, but Michigan State is 26-24 over the last 4. Texas is 40-36 over the last 6. UCLA is 25-37 over the last 5. Michigan State and Texas have obviously been a bit better, but what inspires confidence with them?

Gomes taking the ball away from the receiver on a crossing route is possibly my favorite individual defensive play I've ever seen.

Playing a little bit of devil's advocate, how do TFLs show anything with pass rush? Pure sack numbers, Khalil's 8 in 11 games isn't far off of Gregory's 10.5 in 13 games ('13). Again, that's why hurries would be helpful because I assume Gregory had more of those. Not to mention forcing teams to account for him. I don't even think we need a Randy Gregory, but like a Pierre Allen would be great.

I'd want to look at the stats for things like hurries too though, and I haven't found those anywhere. I'll admit the numbers show a better pass rush than it feels like we have, but my gut is those other defenses forced more hurried throws and backs/TEs kept in as blockers. I'm always critical of the eye test, but there were a lot of times this year opponents had all day to throw. I'm sure there were plays like that in 2014 and 2010 as well, but I'd bet significantly fewer.

I don't think it was. The snaps contributed against Colorado, but much less than a complete defensive meltdown and not having a kicker.

I'd sum up my backup QB feeling this way - McCaffrey was exciting to watch and has a ton of potential. I didn't see anything from him that made me more excited than I had been watching Martinez last year, which isn't a knock on McCaffrey at all. So either Martinez steps back up or McCaffrey does, and both have shown the ability to be game changing players. I expect every player to have to continue to earn their playing time, QBs included.

Wouldn't it likely be Bleich from Florida since we were in on him as a HS recruit?

The play McCaffrey threw the TD on has been in our playbook, we ran it a few times against Indiana I believe and probably a couple other games. It's an RPO, just a hard sprint to the edge - if the defense comes up you throw it over top, if they stay back it's tuck and run for 5-10 yards. It was a good throw and a good sell on the run, but one good throw doesn't mean he's definitely a better passer. I'm all for an open competition, we're just going to hear a ton of whining about how it wasn't a fair competition when Martinez likely wins it again. But in any case I like where we are - either Martinez overcomes the injuries/whatever he was dealing with and is the QB we expected, or he's not and McCaffrey or Vedral take over. I expect it to be the former option, but we'll see. Lol no The announcers are morons who get talking points and hammer them home whether they're accurate or not. I was laughing one of the times where Martinez just made it to the first down marker because he hesitated, and they go "he was very decisive there!" because they had to fit something in. I agree he had problems this year, but using the announcers' comments doesn't work to back it up IMO.

And I think Johnson can contribute right away, he's just going to contribute better after a few years of development. But the people saying he's not a day 1 guy - did Garrett Nelson seem like he was going to be a day 1 contributor? I know he wasn't a starter, but I don't think most people are expecting Johnson to be either. But rotating him and Nelson with Domann and Tannor on the other side works for me.