EbylHusker

Oh yes, and this is not really Nebraska related, but I don't think it's possible to have two bigger idiots calling a game than we had for this one. They should be fired simply on the grounds of being too stupid to live.

My thoughts on the game... We played well and did what we had to. This only confirms my belief we're a far superior home team than road team. That'll change over the next couple seasons though as we settle in more and our consistency picks up. Brandon Jackson has incredible vision when running. I only hope everyone else is learning to have the same vision like he does. I remember watching him when he first started and now seeing how smart he runs is amazing. Congdon is a good field goal kicker, but I wish we had someone that could consistently put our kickoffs into the endzone. Still, Congdon is pretty steady for us from 40 or so yards and in, so yay for him. For the most part the play calling looked good and I think we managed the game well. Eating up 6+ minutes on some drives was essential to keeping Missouri's offense off the field. And our defense played pretty well, too. Our wideouts can make some spectacular catches. Nunn and Swift had amazing grabs, apparently Purify can throw just like Lucky! Fumbles are still an issue and I still think they need to be worked on more. I find myself thinking, "Hold on to the ball!" everytime we run it and that's not a good sign. But, all in all a good game and a big win for us!

One of the best ever college football games, imo.

I believe it's the biggest game of Callahan's career at Nebraska. Unfortunately the last few years have shown that many Husker fans don't seem to have the patience to go through rough spots. Despite the obvious progress that's been made, there are still droves of people who think Callahan is worthless. Everyone seems to be pinning their hopes on winning the North division this year. If it doesn't happen, even more people will forget the progess that's been made. So yeah, definitely a the biggest game of his Husker career (not overall career).

I would agree, I think we partly lost the game ourselves and partly were beaten by an Okie State team that played a good game. Like Nebraska, I think Okie State is on the way up.

I thought they'd play us tough, but they were a better team than even I gave them credit for. Good stuff from them. I think the Big XII is going to have a large number of scary teams in the next few years, Okie State included.

Maybe we won't have any more losses...? hehe

I've already addressed that, obviously you missed it. I won't bother to go over it again.

I really don't think there's any harm in going back and looking at Bo to compare with Cosgrove. The problem is the comparison is hard to make because Cosgrove's standing is clouded by a lot of things. I think it's hard to say exactly what the problem is because it's a combination of a lot of problems. In a couple years I think we'll have a number of those cleared up, which will make it much easier to see what Cosgrove really has to offer. That's why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt until he's able to work a defense without some of these lingering issues that have come with the transition and injuries.

I think Bo was a better defensive coordinator, yes. And I think in general some of the players he had were superior as well. Like I said, Solich brought in some good recruits and a much larger number of decent ones. I can keep saying it as much as it takes to sink in...the left overs we have are just not up to snuff in some positions. But that is one problem among a multitude of others. In the next couple years we will see what Cosgrove really has to offer. And btw, this isn't a Solich topic. But you can't address problems on the team without mentioning that Solich was not a good recruiter and some of his leftovers leave a lot to be desired. Once again, that is just one problem among many.

And yes, we need a kicker that can put it into the end zone on a somewhat regular basis. That's an issue even Callahan has admitted to.

When we have a team mostly consisting of Callahan's recruits? And by that I mean people that have been recruited as freshman, not juco's (though we have gotten a few high caliber players from them, some still need maturing at the I-A level). Look, nobody is blaming Solich for all our problems. But like it or not, he left us with a bad legacy in recruiting. If we had no other problems, it wouldn't be a big deal. But that's not even close to reality. We have Cosgrove, who I think is just average, injuries (especially to our best cover man), inexperience, players recruited into a totally different system than they are playing, players being moved to positions they were never recruited to play due to injuries, etc. There are multiple problems, no one thing is the source of all the problems. And to me that includes Cosgrove.

I think we have had better than Cosgrove in the recent past, I'm not trying to say he's super great. I just think he is an ok defensive coordinator that is having to deal with a host of other problems at the same time. The next couple years will tell us for sure, though.

Uh, we are still playing with a fair number of Solich recruits. Just because they are playing doesn't mean they are at the level we need them to be. It just means they are as good as we've got right now. There are several reasons why they are as good as we've got right now. We've had injuries, some players have simply not ended up playing up to the level they were expected to play at, some are inexperienced at the I-A level and need maturing, and so on. The point is, Solich was not a good recruiter and the general caliber of recruit he brought in was not as high as we'd like. It takes time to establish your recruiting at a college when you first get there, you just don't get all the recruits you want after the first season (especially if that season is 5-6, or whatever Callahan's first was). We have some good players from Solich and a much larger number of decent players. They are not the only problem, just part of it, along with all the other things I listed.

I think our front 7 has been overrated by a lot of people. They're good, but they're not the gods they were made out to be. Our secondary is full of players who were not recruited to play in the secondary, not to mention inexperience at the I-A level. What does all that mean? I think Cosgrove is suspect, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a couple more years. I'd like to see what he does after Callahan and crew get all their recruits in and get things fully in order on both sides of the ball. To be honest, I think Cosgrove is average at what he does. When combined with our problems in the secondary, which have nothing to do with coaching, and the inflated view of the front 7, you get a defense that isn't great. Like I said, I want to see what he does over the next couple years before I decide he's bad. I haven't seen enough to convince me it's all his fault, because I know our secondary is just poor.

Every single team goes through letdowns during the season. One of the biggest struggles in football is coming out and playing with the required intensity and focus week after week. At some point, you're going to have a week or two where you just don't play a good game. When you have an established system with the right recruits and all that, you can play a poor game against a decent team and usually pull out a win. That's what the best teams in the country do. For us, we're just not there yet, and it's ridiculous to expect us to be at this time. We have to accept that we don't have the ability to put it fully together each and every single game yet. When we have a decent opponent and have a big letdown for a game, we've got a good chance of losing, especially on the road. That's all part of rebuilding. We're still far ahead of where we were last year.

I think you're blind, then. We are still playing with a fair number of Solich's recruits, and many of them were not recruited into this system and aren't quite up to the level we'd like. We're still rebuilding a very depleted secondary. Whenever you make a total system change, you need to give it about 4-5 years to start really seeing consistent results. If you think we aren't better than last season, then you're completely blind. We are so far ahead of where we were last season it's unreal. And that season was so much better than the first you can't even compare them. What you're seeing now are growing pains. It's the inability to put it all together each and every game. You see flashes of great play, followed by lulls. Then you see a game where they collapse totally. But such a hard loss isn't the rule, it's the exception. All these things are magnified on the road. So yeah, there's your answer. I stepped up.

Yep, I've been saying it all along...we're doing incredibly well considering the drastic changes that were made. It's an unfortunate truth that we're just not good enough yet to play poorly on the road and still pull out a win against a decent team like Okie State. That's just called rebuilding. It's impossible to have the top level consistency so many have come to expect so soon after all the changes we've made.

The play calling wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. Okie State started stopping the run better, so we turned to passing. Unfortunately we kinda went too far into mostly passing. But it wasn't bad enough to lose us the game by itself. Our defense isn't that bad, they just played pretty bad today. I'll keep saying it as long as I have to...we're not a very good road team. And the reason for that is we're just not to the level yet where we can play consistently at the level needed to beat good teams. Despite what anyone would like to believe, Okie State is a good team who can play with anyone if they put it together like they did today. We need another couple years of recruiting to get the players in the positions they need to be in. We're still working with pieces of Solich's recruiting failures. Just like Okie State, when we play up to our potential, we can play with nearly anyone (as we showed with Texas). On the road it's been very hard for us to do that, and we just lost it totally today. It wasn't just the play calling, which wasn't as terrible as everyone is whining about anyway.

Sorry, but anyone who says Okie State sucks has clearly not been watching them play this year or looking at their numbers. They have had trouble putting it together, but they are a GOOD team that is incredibly dangerous on offense.

It was a complete team failure, not just the defense. Our secondary has been suspect from the start of the season. We're playing with players who were not recruited to play there, as well as some other inexperienced guys. When you have such a weak secondary, you have to shift you defensive scheme to compensate, and that opens up options for the opponent if their offense is good. And Okie State's offense is good. The defense didn't play well, but the offense started misfiring too. So yeah, you can't blame it on the defense only. It was just a total team failure. Like I said, not a good road team, and we were playing against a very dangerous Okie State team with some real weapons.

Yeah, this is worse than I expected us to play during this game. We just didn't keep up the consistent play, which you have to do to win on the road. I honestly expected us to drop the A&M game, not this one. But in saying that, I do think we have a good chance to win out from here. We just have to pick it up and get a good road game in against A&M. Anyway, the road is where you expose the real weaknesses of a team. And we've looked a bit shaky in places on the road. We've had a couple places breakdown and then the rest of the team followed in the downward spiral this half. While our defense certainly has let them score at will, I say it is our offense that really hurt us when it started misfiring.

Sorry guys, I'm not sure why everyone was expecting us to win out. We had no easy games left, and have shown we're a questionable road team before this. I hate to say it, but it was nearly inevitable that we drop one of our remaining road games. The Mizzou game is what really counts, this one means very little at this point.

I think the answer is pretty simple. We're just not a very good road team.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. I only hope the you are in the minority of people, rather than the majority. I'd hate the think most of the Husker nation sees football like you do.