Skeeball

On 3/25/2020 at 9:38 PM, runningblind said:

 

I suspect both of those would be temporary effects. Things go back to normal for 6 months and a large percentage of people go right back to the way things were.

Yep.  Here's the deal. At some point over the next year and a half we will all have been exposed to Covid-19. The govt is just looking to flatten (albeit extend) the curve in order to make the available medical supplies and supply chain meet the current need at any given point in time.  Slowly over time they will let up on restriction even though it means there will be a continued (but steady stream) of new cases.

Issue Husker red surgical masks and Purell with the tickets this fall.  The curve should have flattened by then and the supply chain will have caught up. Make everyone sign a waiver.  I don't want a refund.

5 hours ago, 1.Time said:

The fact that 2AM is injured literally could mean he won't be starting since he's already not even likely getting the majority of starting snaps in practice due to physical limitations. And this is not Luke's first year in the system. That kid is actually experienced in it at this point and everyone already noted last year how he took a quick learning to it as soon as he got on campus to where it literally shocked everyone how fast he was catching on. Not to mention Luke is already "mentally" much smarter than the other QB's which was evidenced by Verduzco saying Luke scored exceptionally high on his idk... QB exam or whatever to where coach V just simply had to inform us about it. When you have a person who "starts high" like at where Luke's at, that person is veeerrrry likely to surpass the "inadequates" ahead of him do to such preciosity. Tua passed Jalen. Lawrence passed Bryant. And so on. 

 

I can't think of too many reasons not to start Luke over 2AM's slow blinking, not knowing when to run, can't throw an accurate ball, 2-4 interceptions a game, losing to a 2 win Purdue, always injured a*s. What experience? Well as mentioned in my last line 2AM has mostly "bad experience" over Luke. Sure. But I haven't heard of a crowd (our own) in a while literally *cheer* for a QB like how they do for Luke when they shout his name do to such appreciation of him on the field. When's the last time you heard a crowd do that for a QB they were so proud of? 

 

It's doing Adrian a reeeaaal disservice to be injured while an intelligent calculated athletic young-gun like Luke is getting exceptionally better and smarter each day. That could easily wind up to Luke passing him. Luke could pass him in this off-season alone let alone during the actual real games when Frost has to switch to Luke for whatever reason and sees for himself that Luke's a better d*mn QB than that gotd*mn complacent screw up Martinez. 

It doesn't matter to me who wins the QB competition as long as that QB can: 1.  Deliver the ball accurately and consistently.  2. Check down to his 2nd and 3rd options.  3. Run the ball when it's there.  4. Put his shoulder down and run someone over while securing the ball.  5.  Doesn't run out of bounds 6 yards deep, instead of just throwing the ball away.

Martinez recovering from shoulder surgery.  Noah off helping the B-ball team.  Looks like McCaffery is the guy this Spring, with Smothers on his heels.

On 3/7/2020 at 8:51 AM, MyBloodIsRed16 said:

The only time AM hit a TE when they were the primary target.  There we several occasions when Stoll was wide open and Am was not looking his way.  

You hit the nail on the head here. AM sticks with the primary receiver (usually a wideout) way too long and rarely makes it through his progression.  

8 hours ago, Saunders said:

I wonder if it could be concussion related. JD's been knocked around quite a bit during his career.

I also had this thought.  He was hung out to dry by many a bad pass last year.  Took many shots I figured were game enders, but always came back and continued running those crossing routes.  A real stud.  Maybe he figures he'll sees nothing but more of the same this next fall.

7 hours ago, MyBloodIsRed16 said:

Remember when Kurt Warner was so good at Quarterbacking that he bagged groceries for a living

Maybe we need to make our QBs spend a couple years playing arena football.

12 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

Many of his critics are not impressed with his raw stats last year and they are not good by any reasonable comparative look but the biggest issue for me is more the lack of “it” factor plays.   I understand that his supporting cast was not good.  This hurts him too.  One can look past those things but its hard to point to very many special plays he made something out of nothing for example.  His highlight video would be pretty short so far with “difference maker” kinds of plays. In my opinion Frost’s offense by design requires a very special player as QB - its QB centric essentially and being a basic manager is not enough.  He needs to have and actually use exceptional run skills as well as read and throw with rare accuracy. Being average is not good enough to help the team overcome problems.   Maybe none of our QBs have this “it factor” but until we see it in AM there will be plenty of interest in trying other guys to see what happens.  We are not winning for many reasons and less than stellar QB play is one major one.  

At CFU in 2017, McKenzie Milton definitely had "it".   In 2018, I thought Adrian had "it", but he appeared to have lost "it" in 2019.  McCaffery looked like he might have "it", but the sample size was too small to know for sure.

There was plenty of blame to go around.  Missed passes QBs should be able to make in their sleep.  Running out of bounds for a 5 yd loss (throw it away for crying out loud).  Embarrassingly whiffed blocks it open space.  Undependable snaps.  WRs failing to create separation or sustain blocks.  Ridiculously poor kick coverage.  Team defensive hustle dried up after the 1st half of the Colorado game (Where'd the gang tackling go?).  Nonexistent pass rush.  The list goes on.  Inconsistency was the killer.  Play makers can be game changers, but until we can field 11 player who can execute play in and play out, the games that should be "blow outs" will be close and many of the close games will be losses.  Lets hope year 3 is the year where consistency in execution reigns.

20 hours ago, BigPeterJ said:

Ill admit I've actually never seen Brody Belt play as far as i can remember.  So I can't really choose a side to this, but if he is anything close to Rex, that would be a great walkon to have.

 

Edit: film does look good, but it could have just been a few plays.  Just he is so much smaller than Rex, with the same speed.  

Brody didn't look too bad in the spring game, but then again Jaylen Bradley didn't look too bad either. As I recall, Brody looked better running in traffic.  Again I'm not saying he's anywhere near the category of Burkhead. Just that that's the style he'll need to emulate to see the field as a Husker.

18 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

Belt has played so little that I’ve seen so far but he is not shown me anything like Burkhead.  Rex tore up TX high school football and was a fine Husker RB.  Still a pro.  

Belt is not 4.5 but might be 4.6ish to my eye test.  Runs too straight up and not elusive or really powerful as a pusher (small).

I'm not arguing that he is in the "Burkhead" category.  Far from it, he gives up 2" and 30lbs (currently), but I'd like to see him take strides in that direction.  If he doesn't, he likely won't see the field much as a Husker.  Not going to argue the 40 speed as I've never timed him.  Only repeating what I've read.  Full pads slows some more than others.  I can see your 4.6ish assessment in full pads as legitimate.

8 minutes ago, Decked said:

I think we would run a 4.7. No way he’s even close to a 4.5. 

He ran a 4.5 in high school at Millard West.  Has he lost a step since becoming a Husker?

2 hours ago, BigPeterJ said:

I think our offense will be really good too, if our QB is good.  Bad QB play can ruin this offense.  Good QB play can make this offense, like it did at UCF with Milton.  Between Martinez and McCaffrey chances are one of them will be good. As long as we play whoever is, i like our offense for next year.  

 

Defensively, we will be a completely different team.  Not sure it will be better or worse than last year....but it will be different.  Last year we had a great DL, terrible LBs, and an average secondary.  This year our DL probably will be much weaker, but our LBs will be way faster, and our secondary probably about the same. 

 

Where as last year teams really struggled running the ball against us inside, but could pass all over us in the middle of the field.  Next year our pass defense should be much better with improved LB speed, but teams probably wont struggle as much running up the middle on us for 3-5 yards.  Our defense will be very young.  Probably alot better at the end of the year, than at the beginning.

 

This year could go either way.  I could see us anywhere between 5-7 and 9-3.  If we lose games early , the wheels could fall off.  If we win early, our young defense may be good enough by the end of the year to win some of those tough games.  If things go like i hope, next year will be like Minnesota was this year.  We barely get by beating average teams early in the year in some close games, build confidence and experience with our newcomers, and beat some really good teams at the end of the year. It's not like Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Iowa are OSU.  We can beat all 3 of them if we improve the way we potentially could.

Good post.  We'll need more than incremental improvements to achieve bowl eligibility next year.   We have a difficult schedule in 2020.  The keys as I see it and as you noted are how quickly we can gel on the OL, DL and LBs.  We'll need to make hay early in the season and perhaps "steal" a game or two over the last 5.

On 2/13/2020 at 8:12 PM, onlyHskrfaninIL said:

Dont sleep on brody belt

I'd like to see him develop into an elusive yet hard to bring down back in the mold of Rex Burkhead.   At 5' 8" 185lbs, he needs to beef up a bit but his 4.5 40 speed is certainly respectable.

On 2/3/2020 at 7:14 PM, Toe said:

If Ozigbo's other three years had looked as good as the last 3/4 of his senior year, we'd be having a very different conversation.

Been reading through the old Ozigbo thread.  I just don't get all the hating on him from fans and coaches for the first three years as a Husker.  He was clearly our best back, certainly better than Wilbon, yet he received far fewer carries.  That was Riley.  Frost seemed pretty cool on him to start the 2018 season also.  Some players are game players and some are practice players.  I have to wonder if Devine was the former and perhaps a bit deficient in the latter.  His senior game performance spoke for itself.

After a couple of years guzzling the Husker red kool-aid, I'm going try ease up to sipping this year.  It would be great to make a bowl game,  but to do that we'll need to go at least 6-1 in the seven.  Easier said than done.  We have yet to beat Purdue under Frost. Three others were bowl qualifiers (including an 11 win Cincinnati) and an FCS power in SDSU.  Now, we could steal a win or two in the last 5 games, but if we haven't already reached bowl eligibility by then it will be a struggle for a team that will no doubt be suffering in the self confidence department.

8 hours ago, Ziebol said:

Bradley has entered the portal.

Bradley looked good in the spring game when he had room.  Somewhat ordinary when running in traffic.  With a new crop of RBs, his opportunity to see the field were certainly diminishing.  Wish him the best of luck where ever he end's up.

2 hours ago, BigPeterJ said:

What we had was a worse version of Taylor Martinez.  Now Adrian hopefully turns it around, but as far as last year goes there is no denying that he was worse than TMart.  But according to some on here, that is only my opinion cause he is Hispanic or darker than white.  So here come's Antifa, coming to hang the guy who hates whatever Adrian is (btw my worst enemies have all been white)

I agree that Adrian's 2019 performance was perplexingly disappointing given his outstanding 2018 performance as a Freshman.  I was looking for at least an incremental improvement, but instead we got a significant step backwards.  Some of this could be blamed on the O-line and WRs, but not all of it.  I'm hoping it was just his nagging injuries and he's back to 100% this fall.  That said, I too, believe their needs to be an open completion at QB, with a short leash on the winner.  Our 2020 schedule is brutal and if we can't get things together quickly out of the gate it WILL be a very long season with another Christmas at home.  ... and yes...Race, color or creed will have nothing to do with this.

9 hours ago, man eating mastodon said:

Our ritual exorcism?  I'm not sure the dredge will hold all of husker nation, this ones all on you chief. Just get video. 

Are we talking about the Logan creek?  We used to refer to the Logan as the dredge when I was growing up, although there are likely a hundred different creeks in Nebraska referred to as the dredge.  Edit: I didn't realize it had any mystical powers.  

1 minute ago, Skeeball said:

Isn't this basically Troy Walters responsibilities with a slightly different title?

OK.  I see Sip cleared this up.

Isn't this basically Troy Walters responsibilities with a slightly different title?

Maybe our coaches should reach out to Joe and turn him down one more time.  Just for good old time sake. 

Wasn't it NDSU/James Madison?

5 minutes ago, ColoradoHusk said:

I’m sure everyone in KC is hating a quick strike offense which can score 4 TD’s in one quarter to come back from a 24-0 deficit. 

Call me greedy, but I'd prefer both the quick strike offense and a decent power run game.

5 hours ago, DrinkinwitTerrellFarley said:

I'd rather have Christian McCaffrey.  The deserved Heisman winner from 2015

We have his brother.  Not nearly the size, but has the same speed and elusiveness (and a better arm).