J-MAGIC

Opposing fans and the media will throw this in our faces because it's embarrassing and that's what opposing fans and media do. That's annoying but it was a stupid move, so what are you going to do it's probably deserved. But I would be shocked if this had any lasting or significant effect on recruiting or the perception of the athletic department as a whole. Recruits are not going to give a damn about this if we are winning games and showing we can develop players. Other athletic departments are not going to turn down big paydays to schedule nonconference games with us. And our coaches can just as easily point out that, outside of Wisconsin, no one else in the West is even attempting to schedule hard or play marquee non-con games in the first place. Iowa/Minnesota/Purdue/Illinois can get their jokes off or tell recruits whatever they want, but they don't have any tough nonconference games to "bail" on because they don't schedule any in the first place. People are overreacting to this.

I don't think people understand that a head coach going above their AD on the schedule would be an on-the-spot fireable offense. Any AD with any modicum of pride or self-respect would quit if that happened and the HC were retained. They were either in-concert on this or it was outside both of their control.

Yes, Frost obviously had some input and role in this. But he also absolutely would not be allowed to make changes to the schedule or discuss them with outside parties without the clearance from the athletic director. The track team can't change its schedule without consulting the AD. What do you think the level of clearance is for the multi-million dollar enterprise? The overwhelmingly most realistic scenario here is: (a) Frost thought getting another game closer to bowl eligibility in a season where we're playing Ohio State, Michigan, and Buffalo outside of our division was more beneficial to the program than going down to Norman to get stomped; (b) Moos wanted to get an extra $5 mil for the athletic department that has had its budget decimated; (c) neither anticipated the fan backlash or expected word to get out and NU began kicking the tires on seeing if anyone would take the game; and (d) OU got wind of this and leaked to put public pressure on keeping the game scheduled. Reasonably assuming this is what happened, both Frost and Moos are at fault.

Anyone who seriously believes the head coach of the school's biggest money maker was making or contemplating major changes to scheduling without consulting their AD is incredibly gullible and has no idea how an athletic department works.

You're going to stop supporting Nebraska football if they don't go down to Norman to lose by 20?

This is an absolute weak sauce move but the math seems pretty simple: 1) Make more money for the athletic department and increase your chances of bowl eligibility in a season with an exceptionally tough conference schedule 2) Make less money for the athletic department and take an auto-loss to a team you know is out of your league. This is a perception disaster but I see why they're doing it.

Let's also keep in mind that this was likely leaked by an OU source to generate public pressure to keep it scheduled. So it very well might have been some preliminary kicking the tires on the revenue/seeing if we could possibly even get an opponent and now it's "nEbRAsKa'S tRyINg tO CaNCeL".

Even if this is to re-coop some of the money lost from last year, the PR of this is terrible and it shouldn't have even been considered. I can also see why our coaches think that going down to Norman to get our asses kicked by a top-five team is probably not what this program needs right now and that's a tough break, but trying to weasel out of a game is the weakest sauce possible.

The next KU head coach is going to get an incredibly long leash with no immediate expectations and be paid at least a couple million a year. And Miles had done some pretty decent recruiting so he's walking into a better setup than it looks like. Seems like a pretty good gig to me. But this is just one radio guy saying it makes sense because of past connections. There are no legs to this; it's just rampant, unfounded speculation.

Bo, it might be a good idea to spend more time applying for jobs instead of posting on this message board.

I was really impressed with his creativity on film. If somebody could teach him to play in structure and he's able to retain some of that playmaking he could be a really good player. He doesn't seem super athletic, though, and his deep balls kind of hang up in the air for someone with such a purportedly strong arm.

Benhart, Piper, Hickman, Thompkins, Robinson, Javin Wright, Pola-Gates, Farmer, Henrich all still redshirt freshman. Some consequences of the COVID season weren't all bad.

Awesome, thank you for sharing. Can't see how this is anything but a positive thing.

Bringing in positive examples to communicate and reinforce to the players that certain ways of behaving and working can help them achieve their goals is a good thing. Doing a bunch of "Back in my day we actually worked hard and kids these days are all weenies," is a bad thing. I don't know which it is but hopefully its the former.

I think getting a conference title and BCS win would have given Pelini more leash, but after 2012 his teams had been delivering diminishing returns and his record was being propped up by winning close games in the Gary Anderson/Bill Cubit/Darrell Hazell/Jerry Kill/Hot Seat Kirk Ferentz version of the Big Ten West. His teams would not have been going 8-4 in the 2019 or 2020 versions of this division. Pelini was still delivering top 30/40ish-type teams, and maybe he'd have turned it back around with another year, but there was a football case to be made for moving on. And you can't be underwhelming in your job performance AND a raging jerk to the people you work with and expect to keep your job. As far as Riley, anyone saying he wasn't expected to come in and win as much or more than Pelini is doing some big-time revisionist history. The narrative was that "If he was able to win eight games at a bad program, imagine what he'll be able to do at a program with resources!" Instead he came in and ran the program with resources exactly like the bad program. Many fans thought it was a bad hire but that wasn't the consensus.

2017 Minnesota is the only Nebraska game I've ever turned off early. The late Riley period the team was just miserable and I was getting apathetic and had no interest in watching anymore. Brutal stuff. Not sure if 2015 counts or not but that Wisconsin game also made me want to walk into the ocean.

You two are repeating what I've said in this thread back to me like it's some sort of counterargument. I understand that the sport is arbitrated on wins and losses. That doesn't mean the binary of a win-loss record is the only, or even a good, way to evaluate the quality of teams in the most complex sport in existence. We need to start winning games. The numbers would say that the wins are coming. If they don't come, we should find a new coach.

I am aware that winning football games matters. It's also a s#!tty way to judge the quality of a team. I have to keep posting the analytics because people keep saying we've made no progress. I would love to stop posting them if people would stop saying dumb stuff.

I feel as if I'm beating my head against a wall. Riley's last team was 103rd in SP+. That sure seems like rock bottom to me! Year 1: Up to 49th in SP+ with a veteran roster, but blow a bunch of close games early in the year so don't finish with a good record. Year 2: Slight step back to 55th with one of the most inexperienced teams in the country as attrition hits us hard. You're correct that it's a step back but also not a massive step back. Year 3: Up to 32nd and look significantly more competitive against our toughest competition, but record isn't good because we play one of the toughest schedules in country and decide to start a WR at quarterback for a game. If you want to only look at the record you don't see progress. But again, there's a difference between a bad record and a bad team.

I think the main disagreement here is coming down to, "How do we want to measure success/progress for a developing program?": 1. Pure binaries like wins/losses, other contextless numbers like points per game, recruiting rankings, etc. 2. What do the underlying numbers and advanced stats say? How do we actually look on the field? How tough was our schedule? Have we been lucky/unlucky? I think subscribing to ONLY Option 1 is very dumb and the people who do so are going it are going to be proven very wrong. But if you want to just yell "12-20!" you're not wrong and no one can really stop you.

Can you show me where I said that Frost doesn't deserve criticism or that the current state of our program is "all good"?? Because I have a lot of criticisms! I have done nothing here but push back on the narratives (a) that things are as bad as they've ever been, (b) that the team hasn't improved significantly under Frost, and (c) that our talent level/recruiting wasn't horrific under Riley -- using I think some fairly objective measures such as SP+, our recent NFL draft history, and rerankings of our recruiting classes by The Athletic. If you think that means I don't understand shades of gray or that I think everything is "all good", then I would question your reading comprehension.

Every point you make here has been refuted multiple times in this thread, and you are more than capable of reading through it to see why you are wrong. If you'd like to ignore evidence and context to stick your head in the sand and be a pessimist, be my guest.

Again, this is not true. Last year was our best team by the numbers since Pelini's final season, and that was with a much younger roster than we had in 2018

Your argument that our talent wasn't that bad being based entirely on three UDFA guys on the fringes of the rosters of terrible teams is proving my point. Oh, what? The transition class in the first year of the early signing period that was a mash-up of the bad coach's guys and whoever our new coach could flip in two weeks while preparing another team for a bowl game part-time wasn't good??? Freshman and sophomore linemen weren't as good as junior and senior linemen??? Crazy, man. Can't believe it. The Riley stuff is less and less impactful each year. But not having the class that would be redshirt juniors and true seniors not exist is absolutely still impacting this program. It's why our depth sucks and we play like garbage every second half. It's why we have to play true freshman walk-on Isaac Gifford on every special team. I wish we were magically good and that Riley hadn't cratered the roster, too, but come on.

I don't care what the classes ranked at the time; all the Riley recruits either left or were bad, dude. Not a single player he is responsible for recruiting to Nebraska has been drafted into the NFL yet and outside from maybe Farniok and Jaimes I don't think any are locks to. The Athletic just did its re-rank of the top 70 2017 recruiting classes and Nebraska finished 70TH. Last place out of all the teams they ranked! I mean, come on!