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J-MAGIC

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Everything posted by J-MAGIC

  1. As usual people are wildly overreacting to this loss. Minnesota was only 12 spots below us in SP+ entering this game; by that system we were expected to win by 3.6 points. We then missed a chip-shot field goal, had officiating swing the game eight points away from us, lost the turnover battle 2-0, gave them great field position all game, and left two big completions on the field ... and we lost by a touchdown. The "33 players out" were almost entirely reserves, and they got two weeks of rest while we got beat up at Iowa and played on Purdue's cow-field turf. Losses are losses, mistakes are mistakes, and I hate having opposing fans and national media people talking trash, but this was not some crazy, rock-bottom disaster. Our young team did some dumb stuff and we lost a game to a team we were close to even with. It doesn't invalidate the clear improvement we've made this year and some fans of this team need to get a grip.
  2. I get we're mad this season didn't turn out well, but talking about firing staff is absolutely asinine. What this program needs more than anything is continuity. Aside from receivers *every other* position group has improved from a talent and development standpoint from where it was under Riley. Barring a disaster against Rutgers, we are going to finish as a top-35 team in SP+ -- we were in the 50s last two years and the 70s when Frost took over. Losing sucks and being patient is hard. But this team is still very young. The schemes are working and people are improving. We just need these sophomores and redshirt freshmen to turn into seniors and juniors. Firing coaches only sets that back.
  3. Some fans care more about coaches cosplaying a set of "responsibility" values than they do about a coach actually competently doing their job. Riley ran a soft and undisciplined program. Jurgens snaps were seriously hurting the team. If you polled Husker fans with eyesight you would get 95 percent-plus agreeing with those two statements. A coach saying them out loud isn't passing the buck or abdicating responsibility; it is someone stating simple fact. It doesn't mean excuses or throwing someone under the bus; it is accepting and verbalizing reality when asked. People get frustrated with coachspeak and then jump on coaches for stuff like this when they actually speak their minds. I always find it ironic that these "fans of opposing teams" posts always completely confirm the priors of a certain part of our fanbase. Hmmmm. It's almost as if a random MSU fan didn't actually seek us out to talk s#!t on our coach in the exact ways certain Husker fans want to and probably isn't real?
  4. I very much disagree. There is some overlap in playcalling with the QB draws and that mesh play, but the playbooks are very different with Luke and Adrian in the game. With Adrian in we are running the offense we ran Frost's first two years. With Luke in we have essentially been running a single-wing.
  5. Not coming at you or anything, but you are illustrating my whole point -- you're blaming one guy for the actions of 11. "Decision-making" (or all the other generic stuff people have been trotting out as criticisms of Adrian for the past year-and-a-half) isn't just on a quarterback. If you, as the quarterback, know that against Cover 3 a post route is supposed to settle into open space on a hook curl, but you don't trust your receiver to do that so you hold the ball, is that a bad decision on you? You could just wing it out there where the receiver is supposed to be and possibly have it intercepted and have "made the right decision" but hurt the team. A lot of the things Adrian did wrong last year can be directly attributed to either 1) not trusting those around him to do what they were supposed to or 2) being injured. Based on who we're seeing on the field this year (Warner and Falck are "trustable" options) and what coaches have said about "getting better around the quarterbacks", this stuff was a big issue. But for some reason every time fans saw the offense not working or Adrian miss a throw it was "aDrIAn'S rEGreSsInG, bENCh HiM" instead of looking with some context at the real causes. Now that some of those things are being fixed and he's playing better, it's "Adrian needed to be pushed". It's all bologna, always was bologna, and we never learn. And Luke was not running the same offense as the other two QBs. He was essentially running a version of the Wildcat. He had a very small package of plays and was not asked to make reads down the field as Adrian and Vedral were. If you want to argue Vedral was better than AM, I think that's much more fair. But Luke's production at QB was always a flash in the pan if you actually wanted to look at it critically.
  6. It's hard to throw any pass, short or long, when you 1) have to focus on catching a snap you're not sure is going to be a foot over your head, 2) face immediate pressure from the interior because Hixson and Wilson couldn't pass pro and a tight end was playing center, 3) look down the field and see no receivers getting any separation, and 4) have a bum shoulder and knee. I'm not saying he is a perfect or even great player, that he didn't make mistakes, or that facing competition didn't help him improve. But he was never the problem with our offense, and the narrative even two weeks ago was that he was. That's on Husker fans and media, not him.
  7. Regarding the "Adrian had a fire lit under him" narrative, Adrian has never really been the problem, so I don't buy this either. His play dipped last year as his supporting cast went off a cliff and he got injured, and not enough of our fans were smart/patient enough to realize this and got stars in their eyes after a freshman wide receiver completed one wide-open pass out of a Wildcat package. He then looked just okay against two of the ten best defenses in the country to open this year and pressure mounted for him to get yanked, and Frost obliged. AM didn't turn into Marcus Mariota or anything and has his areas where he struggles, but he has been a good quarterback this entire time and would probably be an all-conference type of guy if we had any competent Big Ten receivers playing who weren't freshmen and sophomores.
  8. Wins are not a quarterback stat and our running backs are collectively averaging fewer that four yards a carry.
  9. Tommy played with Westerkamp, DPE, Brandon Reilly, Cethan Carter, Alonzo Moore, and Stanley Morgan in a Mike Riley offense that is designed to give QBs tons of easy layups and inflate passing stats against a much-worse Big Ten West ... and he never completed over 55 percent of his passes or had a passer rating over 133. Adrian's true freshman season was significantly better than Armstrong's best season. You guys are just doing revisionist history because you're being overdramatic and want to pretend like things are worse than they've ever been.
  10. HUSKER FANS TWO WEEKS AGO: "We absolutely have to start this freshman who wasn't offered by any P5 schools as a quarterback." HUSKER FANS THIS WEEK: "Why can't we throw the ball???? Fire Verduzco!!"
  11. Saturday was deeply disappointing for everyone, and I think raises some concerning questions. But before we get out the pitch forks too much, I'd just like to point out our SP+ ratings over the last five years and this year: 2015: 33 2016: 38 2017: 62 2018: 48 2019: 55 2020 (before Saturday): 36 We're making progress and this team has shown improvement. We played three good teams to open the year and laid a stinker against a bad team while starting five freshmen on offense and turning the ball over seven times (if you count the fake punt and 3rd-and-25 hands-to-the-face penalties as turnovers). Sometimes that happens. It was disappointing and it sucks, but it doesn't mean we have to throw the whole thing out or that this experiment is cooked. We all agreed early in Frost's tenure that he needed a lot of time and latitude to fix this but we believed he could; progress isn't linear and the definition of faith is trusting something is happening, even when you can't necessarily see the results. I, personally, am just glad we got to play this year and am going to chill out and see where this goes.
  12. Dedrick was on Instagram live after the game and said he hurt his knee on the first play of the game. Hopefully he's either healed or some of the other backs can be ready with a week of practice so that we don't have to subject Wandale to that again lol
  13. The third down pass play to ice the game I think was the same concept. We had two crossers settle against zones underneath wide open and Luke threw it to the over that was well-covered. That felt like a misread. I hate breaking down QB play this way, though. Just because we can see a guy open on the TV doesn't mean the quarterback automatically made a mistake. Sometimes that's not the progression, sometimes there's pressure or pre-snap stuff, sometimes it's just physically impossible for a QB to the get the ball to a guy. No one outside of the building really knows.
  14. Luke is going to do well against the worst defense we've played with the actual good receivers playing a higher percentage of the snaps and then media and fans are going to be like "See, he should have been starting all along."
  15. I wouldn't be against giving Martinez some run this week. You gave Luke a game to himself and he didn't really do anything with it. Now that we're finally playing a not awesome defense, Luke gets the start but I give Adrian a series in each half to give him a chance to win his job back. If he flames out, we roll with Luke rest of the season to see what we have.
  16. IDK Indiana had a 6 percent postgame win expectancy against Penn State and their offense has been pretty spotty. I think OSU crushes them. I'd love to be wrong though.
  17. All of the defenses we've played so far felt comfortable leaving their corners on islands with our outside receivers in Cover 1 or 0. Doing that allows them to keep an extra guy in the box to stop the run game and can mess up your entire offense. It's also probably a bad sign for the level of talent out there, and I think that's why we've used a ton of 12 personnel so far (which is not Frost's preferred method of play) to account for that extra defender. But we're also about to play a lot of defenses that maybe don't feel as comfortable playing 1 and 0 with their corners. If Illinois/Minnesota/Purdue are shutting down our offense, then we have real problems and I'm willing to say they're schematic. We'll see. When you really look at it, the "Frost can't coach/adjust" or "Frost went conservative" thing that I'm seeing everywhere is misguided. You can only do so much with any offense if your skill talent is making you play with one hand tied behind your back. I wish more fans understood this instead of just seizing on the most surface-level criticisms.
  18. I agree; I think Luke showed more than enough to warrant further starts to see if he can improve. My only point was that Saturday was not a good performance by him and pretending otherwise is kind of silly. It's very possible (even probable) this stuff I'm talking about goes away with experience. I also think with the offensive complaints and quarterback play people are forgetting some context to the defenses we've played to open the season; we've played the No. 7, No. 5 and No. 23 defenses in the country by SP+ so far. We finish playing the No. 73 (Illinois), No. 3 (Iowa), No. 57 (Purdue) and No. 85 (Minnesota) defenses. Our offense is ranked 29th right now by SP+. A lot of these "offensive issues" people are talking about will go away when we ... stop playing awesome defenses.
  19. Positives: Offense moved with more tempo Ball came out quicker/more decisively (though that's not always a good thing; you can be decisively wrong) Made some nice creative, out-of-structure plays Obviously a special athlete/runner (thinking about that third-down run on the first drive) Intangibly, the team seemed energized with him in the game Negatives: Missed several reads in the passing game (including the last third down when he had two crossers wide-open underneath) Has to understand game situation and just take the sack on the interception Should have had 1-2 other picks if PSU's defenders could catch and was lucky the ball he fumbled bounced out of bounds Does not have an arm to throw downfield It was a freshman's first start against a good defense, so not trying to be too critical and I think we're going to learn a lot more about how good he actually is this upcoming week. That being said, I was not really impressed by this game and he needs to be a lot better moving forward if he wants to be the quarterback of the future. The quarterback McCaffrey was Saturday seems like the quarterback you start if you want to be K-State: tough, ball control guy who can hurt you with his feet and creativity but is a negative in the passing game. I still think Martinez has significantly more arm talent, and we need a guy who can really throw if we are going to unlock the "Frost offense" that we were sold when he was hired and that all these talented receivers are coming to play in. Frost clearly did not trust Luke in the second half (correctly; the times he did let him throw were ugly) and that shut down our offense way more than any of the "playcalling" or "taking the foot off the gas" people are complaining about. Again, not trying to roast a freshman making his first start and hopefully he improves against Illinois, but I do think that 1) getting the win is making people pave over some pretty bad play, and 2) there is a lot of partisanship going on here and that the "Start Luke" camp would be losing their minds right now if Martinez had done half of what McCaffrey did Saturday.
  20. Two of those were drops, one was the hail mary at the end of the half and two were batted down at the line, so the numbers aren't as bad as they seem from the box score. And I'm not flippantly dismissing anything; it was a bad series for him, but everyone has bad series, and this bad series and one interception seem to be overwhelmingly and unfairly coloring an otherwise pretty average/fine game from him in which he did make plenty of good plays. And to say that it doesn't matter what a QB can do with his legs in Frost's offense is absurd. He averaged eight yards a carry against the No. 5 defense in the country; that counts for something. He needs to be better through the air, but passing success isn't only on the QB as so many people here would have you believe. I think he deserves another chance.
  21. I rewatched the game in 60 on BTN and I don't even think Adrian was that bad. He missed those short throws on that one series backed up on our own end (that weren't going anywhere anyways), he threw the pick, he airmailed the throw in the endzone to Allen, and he one-hopped the ball to Wandale. But otherwise he was fine and doing a ton with his legs. We were only in position to throw the pick because he made two monster runs on broken plays.
  22. But you're not pointing out facts. You suggest that the reported numbers of cases are "five to ten times the confirmed number" without citation, and then ignore that almost every credible public health expert estimates something like 100,000 deaths attributable to COVID have gone unreported based on the nation's annual average fatality numbers. You're fitting the facts to say what you want them to say. We all don't have to sit and stare at the walls of our homes and never leave for fear of the virus. If everyone is taking basic precautions then there is stuff we can do safely, and people should! But that also doesn't mean that doing whatever we want is fine or that taking those precautions or limiting some non-essential things is "living in fear". It's not. It's basic intelligence and empathy. And, to get back on topic, not being able to watch teenagers run into each other at high speeds for our entertainment for one year is ... pretty non-essential.
  23. I'm happy for your mom and step dad. My completely healthy 26-year-old friend who played college soccer and is in great shape got it and was severely ill for three weeks and almost had to go on a ventilator. She still is having complications from getting it in July. The ICU beds in Wichita right now are all full of people with similar stories. I am about done tolerating people talking about COVID like this. It is a highly contagious and deadly illness and we can all collectively make minor sacrifices to prevent the spread of. Stop being an a$$h@!e and do them.
  24. I was not aware it was possible to be under the age of 60 and named "Ernest"
  25. No one has hung their heads. Frost said Saturday he was confident that the team wouldn't. People need to get a grip.
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