zoogs

I guess you're right. I'd be happy to land Keller, or at least, happy if Keller doesn't go to another Big 12 school. I'd just always envisioned grooming Ganz (or maybe Hildebrand) as our next QB...logical line of succession, suddenly interrupted by a transfer? Still, you're right in that he has a lot of talent...too much to resist, perhaps.

Well, it's all about winning games, isn't it? As talented as Adrian Peterson is, he's a junior, I believe, and OU will probably drop a game or two this year. If we manage to go undefeated in the regular season - and that is a HUGE IF (I don't think we will) - but just supposing we do, I think Zac Taylor gets a great shot at the Heisman.

Otherwise, he'll be off the top 10 radar.

**edit** I forgot Adrian Peterson isn't going to come back.

You're right, it wouldn't hurt Witt's development. My bad

You have a point with getting the talented division 1 QB, but the reason I'm reserved about this is - Ganz is a Husker. Davis is a Husker. Keller has always been a Sun Devil. By all rights I still think he should be a Sun Devil. It just doesn't feel right...

[link]

Zac Taylor is #24 on this list of Heisman candidates, a list which runs 100 deep. He's in front of Rhett Bomar (before he transferred), Drew Weatherford, Kyle Wright, Erik Ainge... Who knows? It's possible. With wins against USC and Texas, I think he'll be guaranteed a top five. He could even win the whole thing. In fact, I think he should.

24. QB Zac Taylor, Nebraska – The light went on for Taylor and the rest of the Husker offense late last season, portending really big things in 2006.  In just over a year, he’s come a long way in the West Coast offense, and Nebraska now has the supporting cast at the skill positions to catapult him into national prominence. 

Sam Keller is NO reject.

 

 

I'd take him over Ganz, Hildebrand, or Witt in a heartbeat.

I wouldn't. Ganz and Witt are potential for our future. Keller would be a one-year plugin that will only hurt Ganz's and Witt's development. I believe I should include Hildebrand in this list too, because he has three years to play three, if I recall.

From what everyone has posted so far, I'm guessing the reason he's not starting is that Carpenter is only a sophomore and did just as well as Keller did. Koetter probably just wants to build up a young guy for great success in the next couple years.

And I just want Nebraska to build up a young guy for great success in the next couple years, too. I have faith in Ganz.

And I'm also a little hesitant about players that transfer this late. I mean, he's been a Sun Devil for just about his entire college career. How can he just step in and be a Husker, regardless of his talent level?

Let's see if he get's here before we start putting the guy in front of players that are already here.

Yeah^.

Granted, I'd rather have Keller on this team than on OU and CU. So if that's the alternative, let's get him here. Better playing for us than against us. If he comes on board, I'm ready to support him. But I have a feeling that with Keller, Hildebrand, Ganz, and Witt all in the mix, someone is going to get pissed and left out.

I think, however, the most important thing to take from all this is that the ASU coach handled this thing like a blind donkey. There's no reason he couldn't have had Keller, a senior, and Carpenter, a sophomore. If Carpenter wants to be a crybaby and leave if he doesn't start straight away, well, that certainly sounds familiar.

John David Booty has been named starter, I believe.

Personally, I hope he loses it to Sanchez. Young QBs are easier to faze.

USC's defense...well. They did play some good offenses, but they had shootouts there. 38-28 v Arizona State, 42-21 v Arizona. 34-31 against Notre Dame, 51-24 against Washington. 50-42 against Fresno State, and of course the 41-38 loss to Texas. Their uber-powered offense has been their strength. If that offense sputters, they aren't invincible this year.

He's a senior, correct? I'm not familiar with transfer rules, but why would we want a senior QB to come here? Seems to me we've been focusing a LOT on the skills positions in recruiting. We're pulling in more RBs and WRs than we can handle, the same goes for QB I think (Does BC not have confidence in Ganz??)...while we're getting razor thin in the secondary.

I agree with that assessment - while there's not going to be a magical cutoff point, the idea is our offense needs to be clicking like the Energizer bunny if we stand a shot. USC has questions on defense, I believe - they've had shootouts last year and lots of close calls. We have the defensive edge in the game, so all prayers will be on Zac Taylor and co working out all the chinks by game 3.

That said, our defensive edge is not THAT huge and they'll still put up lots of points on us, esp given the state of our secondary without Bowman. I think the Trojans will score at least 31 points in this game, so we had better fan the fire to put up a barnburner. If we fall behind early and get reckless...well, let's not think about that.

On the other hand, we've got a good corps of linebackers, more than we can field at a time.

4-4-3?

Ah, I got you. The three flaming smiley faces didn't load for me the first time, so I missed your point.

If I recall, his brother Eli played us in '02, when we went against Ole Miss in the bowl game. We lost that one though.

USC plays Notre Dame this year, and also Arizona State and Cal, in addition to Nebraska. I'm guessing they could lose two out of four there.

Isn't it sad that we almost pulled that off in 2002?

I forgot about that. Pretty bad year for our defense. *shudders at PSU game* Then again, PSU had some remarkable talent, look where Larry Johnson is now...

I agree it's probably already been decided. However, while we're hearing all this great news about Glenn, Wilson, and Jackson, we haven't been hearing too much about Lucky lately...have we?

“This is college,” he added. “You can’t get any better than this. It’s one step toward the next level.”

does this make sense??

Sure it does. At any rate he sounds like he's bubbling over with excitement. All indications are good.

The sooners will do alright this year. They replace their QB and their offensive line but they have a great defense. But unless they find a way to beat the horns we will probably play Texas twice this season.

Can't be that hard. Remember, back in the recent day until last year? The Red River shootout was the game Texas couldn't win, ever since Oklahoma destroyed them 63-14 or something in 2000. My friend a Longhorn fan has been moaning about that for a while, until this year.

USC will be fine this year. John David Booty or Mark Sanchez, I think they'll still come out with a great year, if the recent past is any indication. I mean, three of their last two starting quarterbacks are in the NFL.

Yeah I agree with Bleedin Red, although I wouldn't call it exactly "well behaved." Not storming the field is not indicative of being well behaved, necessarily. It's just, when Kansas snaps a 68-year losing streak or however long it was and throttles us, they go crazy with school pride and Jayhawk euphoria. Let them have their fun, it doesn't happen very often. Whereas, we are never quite so satisfied to win any particular game, because we come in with expectations to win in the first place.

I suspect if we went 0-12 for five or six seasons, then welcomed USC to our home turf and laid a 42-0 lambasting on them, you'd see Husker fans storming the field too.

Not one of them even mentioned Tommie Frazier.

Weakness in the secondary doesn't kill a program. It depends on how the team and the coaches respond to it. *Points at the latest Patriots championship team* Which, coincidentally, had a wide reciever playing corner...not unlike what we're trying to do with Fluellen/Spain.

As good as this team is, I think we're still in the improving process and will have some issues with inconsistency this season. I think we'll start off strong, stumble against USC, and have some midseason difficulties before bouncing back to close - hopefully. I think a fair estimate would be 9-3 heading into the conference championship, with the other two losses coming against Texas and perhaps Iowa State, A&M, or Colorado - one of those three. I threw Colorado on the list just because back in the '97-'00 years, it was a hair-raising affair regardless of Colorado's skill level and rank.

After that, I think we'll be able to pull off a win in the conference championship game against Texas (probably), and all bets are off if we get into a BCS game. If we do, well, I can't tell if I think we win or if I'm just hoping.

Yep, I believe Hardy is a junior this season. It's nice having more young talent than we have room to list as starters, and I hope we'll get to see all of them contribute throughout the season. Hopefully, egos won't take first place and we won't see receivers or backs complaining about how they're not getting enough playing time...

In '01, I believe, when we played a ranked Notre Dame team the broadcasters noted that we had two games under our belt while Notre Dame was in their first game of the season against us, and it showed.

I think USC, despite having to break in a new quarterback and running back, is considerably better that '01 Notre Dame team.

And having a 2-1 advantage is a far cry from a 2-0 advantage.

It's too little to draw conclusions on - they have one game, we have two; they'll be breaking in John David Booty (or Mark Sanchez?) while we return Zac Taylor...it's all guesswork at this point.

I think it's too early to expect a win here. I'll hope and cheer for one with the rest of you, but let's be fair here: to pull off a victory at USC would be a huge upset, which by nature indicates it's completely unexpected.

For them though, they get more time to prepare for the game, thus more game planning for them against us, and Pete Carroll can really dissect film of us.

In that same Notre Dame game mentioned above, the broadcasters also said it was just pure, simple football, not much to analyze or give away. Of course, I don't think you could say the same about WCO.

That said, I don't think we'll necessarily limit what we do. I think it's good sense to add in a few surprises, bells and whistles for the USC game, but I don't really think it would be a good idea to constrict the gameplan against any opponent. The advantages are too sparse, IMO, for it to be worth it. Think about it: the first two games, our team has to gel together and tune-up for USC. We can't do that if we're going to be playing a fundamentally different game against USC. And if we don't play a fundamentally different game, there's no advantage of not letting them screen videos of us at all.

Luckily for us, there are a lot of new players on the team, which means USC can't look at film from last year.

True, but we do return a lot of starters, too, particularly on defense. And we return Zac Taylor, while they've lost a QB, two trophy running backs and I believe their top WR.

I don't recall any black on the helmet, but as far as uniform changes go, I'm pretty sure the last change they made was in '02, when the Away Team uniforms were all white, with a red stripe running down the sides. I think a year later we had gone back to the red pants again.

Eric Crouch was in CFL news not so long ago. I don't have a link handy, but the third-stringer QB for the Toronto Argonauts got a chance to start when the two guys in front of him went down. He went 4-9 I believe, and threw a 90-yard pass en route to a victory. Imagine that.

beck was just mad that he couldn't be him:

 

NOONE CAN DETHRONE...

XD!