Alabama Husker Watcher

Nebraska has a lot to be proud of. They kept this game really close and did much better than everyone expected, including me. The errors have to be fixed, though.

I think Frost's problems are indicative of a larger problem in college football. Everyone is looking to hire the next big time head coach, so schools jump on coaches the instant they do anything impressive and become the next big name. Texas hired Tom Herman after he had one excellent season with Houston. Herman had only been head coach for two seasons and was given the reigns of the Texas football program. Sound familiar? Frost had been head coach for all of two seasons before he was hired at Nebraska. He had one excellent season and one average season. He had not proven himself yet and he was not ready to take on such a challenge on such a level. He's like a boxer who was put in the championship bout too soon.

11 minutes ago, Florida Husker Watcher said:

Let's just focus on the "variety of machine" aspect for a moment.  And let's take Wisconsin as an object lesson.

 

If you pointed out to Alvarez that Wisconsin aims to build a type of football team that, by virtue of how it is constructed, will win 9 or 10 games each year, but cannot win them all, he'd privately tell you: "no sh!t?"  He knows they are not trying to win every game.  They are trying to win 9 or 10 games.  And here's why: the risk in trying to build a machine that is capable of winning all your games is that you win very few games.  If you are willing to build a machine that by virtue of its construction cannot win certain games, then you will win much more often than you lose.  But you will lose - reliably and by design - those particular games that require your team to operate outside of the operating capabilities of the machine you built.

 

Let me be less abstract.  Will Wisconsin recruit 2 true #1 NFL-caliber receivers?  No.  Not as the result of failure, but by design.  They value receivers that block for the run game.  Period.  And #1 type receivers won't go to Wisconsin.  But Wisconsin doesn't care - they know what sort of machine they are building.

 

You guys have an opportunity to build a species of machine that, by design, is better than Wisconsin's.  But you're not going about it the correct way.  To be clear: the machine you are trying to build would, in fact, be superior to Wisconsin's.  The problem is that the machine cannot be built on anything like a year-in, year-out basis.  But there is a type of machine that you could build on a nearly annual basis that would top Wisconsin's.  You should build that machine, instead of hunting for Milton McKenzie.

So, it sounds like you are talking about teams needing to have an identity and stick to that identity. Is that right?

Wisconsin knows that they are a power-running team and they stick to that. All of their players are selected to play in that system and they do well with this system. I'm not sure that I could pinpoint what Nebraska's identity is or what system they are trying to run.

4 minutes ago, Florida Husker Watcher said:

This is one of my basic points.  You can recruit well enough to win 10-ish games most years.  And to compete on a national level for all the marbles at least once a decade.  But you are trying to build the wrong sort of machine.

 

-There's what variety of machine you are attempting to build.

-Then there's how you operate the machine you have, in fact, built.

-And then there's how you maintain the machine you've built.

 

You guys are failing on the first point. 

I'm not sure I know the difference between what a top 5 program is doing and what a top 25 program is doing. Aren't they both just trying to be as good as they can be?

I'm new here. I've been watching Nebraska football for many years, though I'm not a fan of the team. I like Nebraska and I remember watching those dominant Husker teams from the 1990's. I'll never forget the greatness of Tommie Frazier. College football is better when Nebraska is playing well.

I've heard so many times that Nebraska cannot compete anymore because they don't recruit as well as the top teams anymore. The people who say this must not be paying attention to recruiting. Nebraska has averaged a national recruiting ranking of 20th and a Big Ten recruiting ranking of 4th over the last 6 years. Sure, the team doesn't recruit like Ohio State or Alabama, but not many schools do. Nebraska has had the talent level over the last 6 years to have 8-10 win seasons and to be ranked in the top 25 each year.