J-MAGIC

I think our fanbase greatly underestimates/undersells just how bad of a job Mike Riley did. It's genuinely one of the worst P5 tenures relative to standards at a school in recent memory. He took a team that was consistently in the 20s-30s in SP under Pelini to the 100s in **three years**. Perception-wise, Frost dug his own grave when he talked all that trash when he got hired so he's not blameless, but this wasn't "leaving the cupboard kinda bare." This was ripping the cupboard out of the house, smashing it with a sledgehammer and setting the debris on fire.

Missouri seem to be in on all these guys and are projected to be significantly worse than us. Either they're paying dudes or Drinkwitz is a snake-oil salesman.

Understanding how numbers and college football programs work is not making excuses.

Nebraska's SP+ ranking in Riley's 9-4 season: 33 Nebraska's SP+ ranking this past season: 32 If you cut through the bologna, the 9-4 season was Riley inheriting a veteran team Pelini had been cooking for three years, and then winning a bunch of close games against an easy schedule early while getting killed by everyone with a pulse late in the year. I wish people here understood the difference between a good record and a good team and a bad record and a bad team. We'd all have a better time!

As difficult as our schedule is, I care a lot less about what our record ends up being than I do how we look overall and how certain players and position groups have developed.

Hilinski was pretty good for SC as a freshman if I remember correctly before a weird year last season. I think Buffalo and NW will probably outperform their preseason ranking because they always seem to. I also think last year was probably a blip for Michigan as they've consistently been a top-15ish team under Harbaugh and weren't really as bad as people have suggested last year. Teams that could underperform, I could see Illinois going off a cliff because it seems as if Bielema likes to burn stuff down to the stump and start over wherever he goes. I also think OU is maybe just a top-10 team instead of a top-5 team; a lot of their good defensive games late in the season came against some pretty spotty B12 offenses and a Florida team starting a ton of backups.

Preseason SP+ for 2021 was released this morning. We're projected 30th nationally with the 43rd-ranked offense and the 19th-ranked defense. Our schedule: Illinois: 83 (72nd offense/91st defense) Buffalo: 77 (80/79) Oklahoma: 3 (1/16) Michigan State: 59 (94/18) Northwestern: 75 (124/14) Michigan: 23 (32/27) Minnesota: 31 (20/48) Purdue: 40 (31/63) Ohio State: 4 (2/38) Southeastern Louisiana: NR Wisconsin: 9 (36/2) Iowa: 16 (51/1) Based on this we would be favored in seven games. The preseason rankings heavily factor in returning production, so I'm assuming losing all our receiving yards in Wandale killed our offensive rating and we're realistically a little higher.

The thing with David is that he's still playing at a really high level and could realistically have a couple more years of All Pro-level production. Not getting deserved awards recognition early in his career is really going to hurt him, though.

That's part of the nature of being a DT; you just don't accumulate popular stats like sacks. He's in the twilight of his career now and is probably just an above-average starter, but for most of the 2010s he was the most dominant defensive lineman in the league, and the voters know that. I think he'll get in.

Can someone with more scheme knowledge explain to me why we wouldn't be recruiting him as an OLB? He seems like a rich man's version of Caleb Tannor.

I'm assuming this means if Smothers looks competent/good we're rolling with him as the backup and not bringing someone else in. If he fails the audition we add a transfer.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that Mills wasn't the best back we had last year. I think they're suggesting that Mills wasn't particularly good and the chances of one of the five freshmen backs/Stepp developing to be better than him are fairly high.

That's fair, but I think the original point being made here is that Mills was a very boom-or-bust player and was far often more bust than boom. That's not really going to be reflected by looking at just pure average per carry. I would be interested to see what Mills' yards after contact stats were. That's more reflective of how good a back actually is. Any yards gained before contact are mostly a result of coaches scheming stuff open or great blocking and any replacement-level player can get that yardage. The truly worthwhile backs are the one who can get you yardage beyond what would be immediately available to replacement-level players. I remember most of Mills' big games coming from him running through Mack-truck sized holes and going down at first contact quite often. I'm not trying to trash anyone, but I think we can get a lot more production from the RB position than he was giving us.

From the highlights I saw, Hardy looks like he had really good speed and lateral movement for a 6'3 guy, too.

I'm sure our coaches would prefer to be able to run inside zone every time we get inside the 5, but unless you have a decisive talent advantage, that's not really realistic, so coaches have to get creative. One of the dumber fan complaints.

I, too, magically wish Nebraska was Alabama

Real-life football isn't Madden. You don't just bring in a new system or coach or playbook and everybody gets it right away; these things take months and years of teaching. Lots of people are great at getting on the white board and scheming stuff up, but scheming stuff up is maybe 25 percent of the battle; the other 75 percent of it is the logistics of teaching 50+ teenagers the system. The more base stuff is already installed, the more fine details you can teach them. We should all be hoping for continuity. Also Tom Herman is a giant dbag.

With the transfer rules changing without the 25-a-class rule changing, I think it's going to become increasingly important to hit that 25-man quota or your roster is going to fall behind and you won't be able to fill all your schollies. I think we should definitely fill the open spots with people if we think they can even remotely contribute or provide depth.

Sam says a lot of things on that podcast that end up being incorrect, haha.

Please don't cite win-loss record as the only measure of a team and expect me to take you seriously.

Which is very dumb and bad for the overall health of the program. And most of those other situations are not really applicable to Frost and Nebraska: Taggart and Moorehead inherited good situations relative to their programs they were supposed to continue and the team got demonstrably worse right away under their leadership; Sumlin, Morris, and Pruitt inherited average/bad situations relative to their programs and cratered them further; and Luke was a sacrificial lamb for the NCAA sanctions. Frost inherited the worst situation relative to his program, burnt everything to the ground because he knew he had the leash from the administration, and has steadily improved the team each year.

Generally I'd say to give someone more time, but McCaffrey's arm looked so bad it's hard to imagine him ever being a good enough downfield passer to keep a defense honest at the P5 level. Maybe with a few more years of development, but that's a long time to wait for an "if." If Smothers is showing that he's a more capable option, then I'm not losing sleep over this.

When they move guys from other positions so that you don't see the field ... that's when you know you've really messed up.

Some of our fans love to take things our coach says completely out of context or in pieces and twist them into meaning the most negative-possible outcome. It's weird as hell and I don't understand it!

I agree with your overall point, but we were 62nd in 2017, not 103rd.