All Hail Herbie

Please do. Since I do not watch the games live any longer, you are welcome to tell me how wrong I was on Monday. Honestly, I would love to eat crow for a change when it comes to my predictions of this team. Unfortunately, poor fundamentals and lack of discipline are not principles you install during a game week, but rather in the offseason.

Absolutely. My backyard is a landscape paradise since Coach Riley came aboard! No lost or ruined weekends any longer. Several of my neighbors are Husker fans who still torturously devote themselves to these games each week. I do feel for them as I know the result of the game when they walk outside 4 hours after kickoff still steaming. Timing is everything in life and sometimes you just need to set something aside for awhile for your own good.

I have since I stopped watching these games each and every Saturday. I do enjoy commiserating with the Husker faithful on this Board. Great fans who are long overdue for, and deserving of, a winner once more.

While I would like to believe again, I find this prognostication to be something akin to a John Lennon title song rather than our current reality. MSU is physical and well-coached. Conversely, NU has more in common with the FSU team that just lost to JSU than MSU. Moreover, Tucker has already had great defensive success against Frost in their only other meeting (Tucker's 1 year at CU) where he embarrassed NU. MSU will simply wear us down and win by a couple of scores. I am not convinced the OU game, however large the final deficit is, will detract from another tough day next weekend in East Lansing.

Completely agree. That said, hindsight is always 20 / 20. I wonder if Florida feels as if they got the better end of the deal (with sarcasm)?

To summarize, the team has not changed much in the past 3+ years. Saturday will be a highlight bonanza for Spencer Rattler and the OU offense. The NU offense will remain anemic at times and the special teams will be good for 1 or 2 mistakes. We do not possess the ability to limit mistakes or control either line of scrimmage (regardless of opponent). This spells trouble when you run into teams that are not only superior from a talent perspective, but also from an execution perspective. For the first time in 35 years of following this program, and for those two reasons, I am hard-pressed to find another win on the remainder of the schedule.

This game produced highlights? Sounds as if we also have a few coaching prospects on this board so if anyone is interested in the job in 15 months, please submit your resume. For $5 million annually, I would think one of our own could do better than the 2 wins we will finish with this year.

In light of how great our loss to IL looks right now (IL fans are already discussing coaching alternatives), let's not get too presumptuous about our prospects. While I did not watch it, I hope this Board enjoyed the methodical win over Buffalo on Saturday. It may be the last one this season.

While the new look Big XII is simply a second tier conference from a football perspective, the league does look promising from a basketball standpoint. Houston / BYU / Cincinnati are all regular tournament participants and the league could easily surpass a few of the new Power 4 leagues in terms of post-season success.

Your message just made the best case for why this will be a close game. We will not pound the rock, but rather be creative and innovative and in the process, fumble and stumble our way to a field goal victory. Like Kansas a week ago, the fans may storm the field!

We could try for an alternate record this year, perhaps 10-2 as opposed to the reality of 2-10. And the uniforms are really important also...

I like the use of "arbitrary" analytics. A good adjective to describe our offensive approach the past 3+ years.

Relief for an anxious fanbase. With luck, we have one more week of distraction before reality returns in the form of OU. I never thought 2-10 would sound good, but with this schedule, it might...

Let's be clear about one thing. The only real measure of competition between teams last Saturday were SAT / ACT scores. On that count, Fordham players likely won by a country mile. The game itself will not even qualify as a footnote in either school's football history.

Coach Frost will be our coach in 2022 for two reasons; 1.) He is one of the state's favorite sons and 2.) Alternatives are limited given the investment we have made in this staff. Position development, recruiting, S&C, etc. are all kabuki theater intended to keep you engaged. And for HI, the newspapers, and other pay publications it is good business. UTSA did to Illinois with one week's preparation what we could not with an entire offseason. The problems are much larger than the select items you or others have highlighted. That said, we can pridefully claim that we overwhelmed a team of 5 stars this past weekend in Lincoln (Fordham). 5 star academics if we need to be clear.

We all arrive at a point in time where realism meets idealism. For me, it was the complete collapse at the hands of 1st Year Head Coach Mel Tucker in Boulder two years ago. Incidentally, the same Mel Tucker who will out-scheme Coach Frost when we play MSU in a couple of weeks. At any rate, with my late arrival to the Board this week perhaps I missed the congratulatory messages to the staff and players with UTSA for their win over Illinois. Watching that team offensively outmaneuver and outplay the same Illinois defense that held us in check the previous week further illustrated how much we are underperforming. No need to analyze the tape gents, the results speak for themselves.

While myriad structural deficiencies remain with this team (too innumerable for this board), the primary issue with getting to 0.500 this season is timing. We are progressing in too few areas at far to slow a pace. MSU and Iowa are weeks away and if their first games were any indication, both are far out of our league already. Both have strong identities (physical line play, downhill rushing, opportunistic with turnovers, etc.) including MSU, in only Year 2 under Mel Tucker. Buffalo is the lone remaining game on our schedule where the odds of a win are better than even. As I had said for months, and will repeat again, IL was necessary for bowl eligibility this season. The odds of a bowl are remote.

I would agree with your assessment. A fluke is a rare occurrence. However, these "rare" occurrences happen each and every game with a different player or unit involved. This to me is an established pattern that is linkable to the poor instruction that takes place in game week preparation. The trend of these occurrences is now undeniable.

I am of the belief that Coach Frost is a fan of the late Norman Vincent Peale (power of positive thinking fame). In other words, that to express any doubt, regret or weakness is to ultimately doom your effort. The only problem is that he would be very wise to listen one particular line from Peale. "The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism." The instruction is faulty, the schemes are faulty, and the results have revealed this. Commitment to a faulty methodology is not noble, but devoid of wisdom. Listen to your critics.

I truly get your enthusiasm and a desire to see success. But when you are squinting to find progress, it isn't really there. Candidly, I was a big proponent of this hire nearly 4 years ago. Everything about it looked right; hot head coaching commodity, a favorite son returning home, lineage to coaches like Parcells and Osborne, and experience as an Offensive Coordinator at perennial power Oregon. That said, things for me changed in year 2 when I witnessed the same in-game, self-destructive play (penalties, turnovers, and poor execution). The game in Boulder was the clincher as I witnessed a double-digit lead evaporate against a 1st Year Head Coach, Mel Tucker, and a CU team that ended the season with 5 wins. First year coach with a sub-500 team beating the Huskers, does this sound familiar? I wish him well, but this current situation is not going to work.

Without question, it will get worse given the schedule. That said, I unfortunately believe the administration will give him a 5th year despite the poor results. Call it deference for a state's favorite son. For Coach Frost, a fifth year means renewed and unflinching faith in a system that is overmatched in a Power 5 League.

Given the state of the program, the more difficult question for us as fans to confront is, what is there to gain? The drills, the schemes, the system may all be gone next season anyway. We are all simply waiting for the eventuality of transition.

Without a bowl appearance this season (5 in a row), this staff is on a 12 month performance plan, period. Consistently falling short of expectations is one matter (Division competitor, occasional upset win, etc.), but outright failure is another. Missing a bowl game for the 5th straight year when you are collecting a $5 million annual check is deserving of scrutiny and consequence. With your generous timeline, he might as well construct a hammock and allow the assistants to coach the team for the rest of the season. Who knows, they might perform better.

No need to criticize the staff's sole loan officer. Our QB was merely doing as he was instructed; loan the football to the opposition for a defensive touchdown. The borrower made good on the loan and avoided re-possession.

The problem is, we cannot execute plays at regular tempo. I suppose under this scenario our goal would be to hurry up and get penalized.