Goon

I'm not sure if this is a question that belongs in another thread. But I'm curious, what are some of the ideas and discussions around how we improve our recruiting power/pull? I know that having a 50% or less win-rate for years on end obviously doesn't help, but what are some of the other factors and possible solutions?

True! That one was only less-frustrating to me because it looked like we might have gotten away with some holding/PI there anyway so I figured "eh, maybe that evens things out on that play". But wow, bad officiating for sure. I usually am pretty lenient when it comes to judging the refs since throughout the game there's often a mixture of close calls going either direction, but a lot of those were just inexcusable.

sigh... thanks for the reminder :|

The incomplete pass ruled fumble at the end, and the missed PI the play before HH threw his last interception are 2 of the most obvious and impactful missed calls I can remember in recent history. I think I'm in a state of shock. In both instances, multiple announcers and the rules analyst REPEATEDLY said that the calls were obviously missed, how often do you hear that?!

Hate to see the OL let so many people straight through to Haarberg. It does make me happy to see him protect and keep the football though!

As long as it’s not a turnover, I approve!

I agree with a lot of this. Although I hope “never” is a stretch! I’m definitely tired of “dual threat” QBs who threaten a breakout run a couple times a game, and threaten US with turnovers and poor passing the rest of the time. I feel like the program might suffer from a bit of small-town-syndrome, like favoritism, the legacy factor benefitting alumni hires, being afraid to hurt feelings, and focusing on the wrong things when it comes to hiring staff and recruiting. As an example, Mike Riley. When we hired him, I heard tons of people raving “he’s such a nice guy! Yeah, great guy, real genuine, etc…” Couldn’t be too surprised we weren’t winning if being “a nice guy” was a main draw to that coach lol mentioning Deion… if i remember right, he TRULY scrapped the old team and built from scratch, I think only kept 1 starter. Wasn’t afraid of hurt feelers. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like an NE coach has had the nerve to really do that. Does anyone know if that really has been the case here or not? (Also I understand that Deion alone had a massive impact on recruiting power which is helpful.)

I think at the absolute least, you need to bench Sims. Can’t set a precedent that performance this poor is even remotely acceptable. He already lead the country in turnovers before NE. Based on his history, this isn’t far from what we should have expected. Can we really expect a drastic improvement from him? I think an overlooked risk to keeping him at QB: imagine being one of the other players, especially on D… how long can you rally behind another player performing even half as badly as he is, and maintain a decent morale? At some point, teammates are going to feel their efforts are wasted. Play anyone else, play 2-3 other QBs, let them battle it out at first if there’s no clear choice. Sure it might be messy. But messier than this?! Maybe one of the other QBs even starts to show more promise as they get some game-time under their belt.

I am definitely not throwing in the towel on Rhule yet. But I do think he should take a hefty amount of blame for all of the issues we have with Sims. If I understand correctly, Sims was HIS guy. Even the announcers during today’s game said something like “you can’t predict/prepare for these mistakes from Sims.” I believe Sims was already leading the NCAA (or at least the big10) in turnovers before coming to NE. So really… this was extremely predictable. It’s actually EXACTLY what should have been expected, based on his history.