J-MAGIC

This is completely asinine. QB run is often a tool less talented teams can leverage over teams with a talent advantage, which is why every service academy runs the flexbone and K-State manages to win seven games every year, and it "won conference titles" in the past and still is now. It was also the thing our offense was best at last year. You don't want it to be your main thing because you don't want your quarterback to take that many hits, but it has been a very important part of every successful offense SF has been involved with and will be a big part of any success we have. Just admit you said something dumb and stop digging the hole deeper.

I'm sure now that I've said that they'll go like 11-1 or something but next year seems like one of their reload years to me.

Do you know how the option works?

What is the reasoning for Northwestern being above us (or even high in the West), other that Fitzgerald gives them a high floor? They lose a ton of production from their roster, will be breaking in a new QB, lost their long-time defensive coordinator, and got extremely lucky in close games last year. I think they might just suck next year.

I subscribe to The Athletic for their Cubs writers so I read Sherman's stuff every once in a while, and I wish they would hire someone better than Sherman to cover us. He does nothing but hunt clicks with inflammatory/low-brow controversy stuff. Ideally The Athletic's subscriber structure would make it the one place where you wouldn't have to be worried about how many people are reading your article and could instead just make good, interesting stuff people want to read.

Right. People are mad at Frost for "missing" on recruits who were redshirt freshman and sophomores last year who didn't have a spring. It's essentially being mad that a bare cupboard didn't get immediately replenished, which is nothing but impatience and a lack of understanding of how good college football programs work. Iowa and Wisconsin are good because when they have a contributor graduate or go pro, they've got another three-star redshirt junior at his position they've been cooking for four years ready to step in and play. That wasn't happening under Riley in the first place, and then everyone from one class transferred when Frost got the job. It's not really going to be an excuse going forward, but a lot of our problems are affected by not having any depth and that's not really on the new coach.

McKenzie Milton looks like he can barely throw the ball 40 yards and was awesome in this offense. We haven't seen any of these guys take a game snap. People need to pump the brakes.

I don't understand the "this offense doesn't work in the Big Ten" stuff. It's already proven it has; his first year when he two good receivers and a good back and an experienced line the offense was ranked top 25 nationally and moved the ball on a lot of good defenses (with a true freshman QB). There have needed to be some tweaks as any good coach would make to a new situation, but the offense's lack of success the past couple years has been far more about not having skill position players who would start at many other B1G schools than it has about any sort of scheme or player archetype. And you need all sorts of backs and receivers who are good at different things to be a successful offense. Bigger receivers were a glaring need so they've been the priority, but we're also still recruiting a lot of small fast-as-hell type of guys.

People who think the West is bad are basing that on historical assumptions and narratives and not how good the programs currently are. The West was the fourth-toughest division in football last year behind only the two SEC divisions and the B1G East. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Northwestern are in the midst of the best five-year eras in their programs' histories. Purdue and Minnesota have nationally renowned coaches. Illinois had a guy who took the Bears to a Super Bowl. Nebraska is the best HISTORIC program in this division and long-term we shouldn't be consistently losing to anyone in this division, but right now this also isn't the Darrell Hazel-Bill Cubit-Gary Anderson-Tracy Claeys version of this division either. These are good coaches hitting these programs' ceilings at the same time while we're picking ourselves up off the program's floor. It won't be like this forever.

Passing yards/attempt says very little about if you're actually pushing the ball down the field because it doesn't differentiate between air yards and run after catch. If Team A and Team B both throw a two-yard drag route, but Team A has Travis Etienne and Amari Rodgers catching it and Team B has Wandale Robinson and Kade Warner catching it, Team A's yard per attempt is going to be a hell of a lot higher than Team B's and neither quarterback will have pushed the ball down the field further than the other. The stat that would illustrate your point is ADOT (Average Depth of Target). I'd look it up but I don't have my PFF account anymore.

Absolute worst memes in this fanbase, ranked: 1. "Adrian only throws short passes!" 2. "P.J. Fleck beat us with a team of backups!" 3. "Why won't Frost give up playcalling duties to work with special teams?"

Agree on Wisconsin, Texas and Georgia, though the Dawgs are probably going to have their best offense under Smart with a legit NFL first-round QB. Penn State was more a victim of close game luck last year than a significant regression in play and has been stockpiling and developing talent as well as anyone in the Big Ten not named Ohio State for the last five years, and Miami returns a ton from a very good team last year.

Yes, Hannah made the tackle on Scott's long run. I actually thought I had heard positive stuff about him this spring.

He completed 71 percent of his passes last year and threw three interceptions in 151 attempts, which is an above average rate (two of which were in the last game; he had 1 INT in 123 attempts before that, which is really good). Say whatever you will about him, but completing a high number of passes and throwing a bunch of picks haven't really been his problems at NU. Adrian absolutely checks every physical box to be drafted. The things that will keep him from being drafted are accuracy, quick decision making (especially diagnosing stuff pre-snap), fumbles, and his injury history. If he can show improvement on those I think he can have a big season and get picked in the draft. Wilson from BYU had a similar arc: showed talent as a freshman before injury/inconsistency/surrounding cast set him back and then he put it all together for a big last year (I am not saying he goes as high as Wilson lol don't start that)

Yeah I wasn't trying to roast him or anything; it was a good throw. Zach Wilson just went No. 2 in the NFL draft and underthrew stuff to ball-winners all the time. Sometimes it's an effective strategy. Considering the wind I thought he had a pretty great day throwing the ball. That out route from the opposite hash to Martin was some NFL stuff.

I honestly don't understand why some of you watch or care about this team if you're determined to be negative all the time. Has to be a miserable way to be a sports fan, but to each his own. Very little to take away from this game but I thought it was mostly good signs. The starting defense shut down the backup offense, the starting offensive line moved people, running backs looked good, seem to have more receiving weapons, Smothers and Haarberg each had a couple good moments. Not going to get upset about QBs not having perfect ball placement in 30 mph winds because I'm not an insane person.

As we all know, the NFL selects quarterbacks on what their career college records are.

Was that throw with or against the wind? With the wind that's underthrown but into the wind that's some really impressive stuff.

"Steamrolled" did not refer to the final score but to what Iowa did to us when they needed to make plays to win in all three games. I categorized it as a "likely L" based on the totality of both team's past seasons (not one game) and what our preseason rankings are from a variety of sources. Iowa is a bigger favorite against us by FPI than we are against Buffalo, but everyone here calls Buffalo a "Solid W" so I don't see how Iowa is then a "Toss-Up" unless we're really pulling the wool over our own eyes. I'd love to be wrong. EDIT: I said it was a "very likely L". Of the four I feel its the most winnable but I'd categorize it as a likely L.

Iowa has been notorious under Ferentz for getting a lead and then packing it in and getting hyperconservative. That's their whole thing. Steamrolled was a poor choice of words, but when they have needed a stop or a drive against us in all three games, they have executed and delivered and we have not. I think that would indicate that they have been the better team. If you disagree, that's fine.

"Steamrolled" was a poor choice of words, but I didn't mean it to suggest that we lost by a large margin. My post was saying that when stuff got serious in each game we've played against Iowa or Wisconsin, they executed and made winning plays and we didn't.

2018: Game tied with three minutes and change left. Give up a big return and Iowa runs the ball five times and completes one pass to get in field goal range. 2019: Tie the game at the end of the third. Proceed to not score on our final five drives. Last drive of regulation give up a 22 yard pass on third and 10 and then another 22 yard pass on the next play to let Iowa in field goal range. 2020: Take the lead first drive of the third quarter. Do not score again on our remaining four drives. Defense gets a great stop and then we give up a blindside strip sack to end the game. We fought hard and played well! That's awesome. But when Iowa needed to make plays to win each game against us they did, because they were ***the better team***

Husker fans consistently underrate Wisconsin and Iowa. Both are considered to be top 15-20ish teams by the national media while we're considered a 30-40ish team. ESPN's FPI would favor Iowa by 11.2 points on a neutral field. They shouldn't be blowouts and preseason projections are meaningless once the games start, but they're all we have right now, so I don't get why saying we're probably going to lose to two top-15 teams should be controversial.

Hanging close and then getting steamrolled in every important moment down the stretch is not playing a four-quarter game.

Yes, if the season starts and we're better than we're reasonably expected to be or Wisconsin or Iowa are worse than they're reasonably expected to be, they may be toss-ups! Based on the information and expectations we have right now, they're not.