RedDenver

That's a good point. I thought Kolter mostly ran zone read against us which is his specialty. Fitzgerald is a great coach IMO, so I've got to think he knew what he was doing. Trevor was considered the better passer, maybe that's why they played it that way.

erm, he lives in papillion and is a legacy. See bold. Reading the entire post is an important part of a message board. My point was a generalization as indicated by the quote but used Kenzo as an example in the generalized situation since this is his thread. Anyways, just keep trying to read every word in the post, and you will get there! I took it the same way as desertshox. Since Kenzo doesn't fit the generalization as an example, either your generalization or example make no sense. Before telling us to read every word, maybe you should consider what you're typing. Considering how all the words fit together to convey meaning is an important part of writing. Ok, well then I question your reading comprehension. I said "if KC was not from nebraska." then "out of state kids." then "kids" (twice; as in more than one, referring to a general example). then "they" twice. All of which refer to a generalized example that was opened up with a hypothetical situation involving kenzo cotton's name. you can take it however you want, but according to the diction, if you interpret it the incorrect way, that is your problem, not my word choice. If I kept saying "him," "kid," "he," that would be my bad, but this case is not. Anyways, I don't really care. It's fine if you misinterpreted what I wrote to all. What do you think about the comment "Oregon is currently a stronger program than NU". agree, disagree, why? Think whatever you want about what you wrote. Oregon has been stronger than NU on the field the last few years, not much question there. But on the recruiting front, they have a new HC. IMO that hurts them a bit since it makes their strong performance the last few years less meaningful for the new regime. Regardless, I don't think Cotton is coming to NU.

It makes sense if you think (as I do) that the combination of Trevor Siemian and Venric Mark is the better backfield for NW. And was Kolter under center for the 80 yard run? (I honestly don't know.) That's 50% more touches than last year. I'd say that's significant. And it's not so much what Colter was doing running the ball. He was on fire throwing in the games surrounding ours and they torched us with the pass the year before. But they stuck with the guy completing 43%. Not sure where you're getting 50%: 26/19 = 0.36 or 36%. But no matter the percentage that's only 7 more touches. Our pass defense was the strongest part of our D and was better than our pass D from the year before. They might have gotten as close as they did because they did NOT pass as much. That might have been great coaching, or it might have been a mistake. There's just no way to know.

erm, he lives in papillion and is a legacy. See bold. Reading the entire post is an important part of a message board. My point was a generalization as indicated by the quote but used Kenzo as an example in the generalized situation since this is his thread. Anyways, just keep trying to read every word in the post, and you will get there! I took it the same way as desertshox. Since Kenzo doesn't fit the generalization as an example, either your generalization or example make no sense. Before telling us to read every word, maybe you should consider what you're typing. Considering how all the words fit together to convey meaning is an important part of writing.

Sure, it's entirely possible, but not plausible. Colter went nowhere running the zone read, and he's not enough of a threat to throw. He was a non factor and nothing he did helped them score. In fact, it's just as possible (and more likely based on the what he actually did) that NW wouldn't have even been in the game with Colter playing QB, because' Siemian's few passes kept them in it and led to points. The year before he threw for 115 yards and a TD, ran for 57 yards and 2 TDs and had 57 yards receiving. That's 26 touches (plus however many handoffs) on their 78 plays. Last year he only got 19 touches on 75 plays. Perhaps we were doing a better job against him running the ball but Siemian was 15/35 passing the ball instead of the 16/24 they were throwing against us the previous year and Colter was 10/10 the week before (Minnesota, granted), 6/9 the following week (still only Iowa but better), 8/14 the week after that @ Michigan and 13/20 the week after that @ Michigan St. It just didn't make any sense why he didn't get more chances at QB throwing the ball when that's how they torched us the year before. That is plenty plausible to me. So he got 26 touches in 2011 and 19 in 2012. Not much difference there. While it's possible and maybe even plausible, it seems very unlikely to me. I agree with saunders that it's more likely they would have done even worse. Remember that they were trying to get Mark the ball in space, which could be why Colter got a few less touches. I'd MUCH rather Colter had the ball than Mark.

The only way we lose the championship game and still go to the Rose Bowl is if the team we're playing ends up playing for the title. What if OSU or whoever we're matching up against is only ranked 15th or so? We'll likely be an at-large bid for another bowl but it won't be the Rose. Even if we lose to a MNC game participant, we're still unlikely to get into a BCS bowl. Georgia from last year is one example among many.

This. UCLA pulled out some stuff we'd never seen them run before. Pretty easy to do in the first few games as a HC. Let's see what they're capable of this season. Also, I think home field was the deciding factor last season for them and will be this season for us. I see your point to an extent reddenver, but let's not pretend UCLA did anything we haven't seen before. That was basic football. They did nothing fancy what so ever and that tends to be Mora's style. I expect much the same. We failed to adjust to a very basic offensive game plan last year. Yes, we didn't know what to expect but it doesn't take a guru to make the changes to stop the three play play book they were using. Take another look. They ran more than 3 plays that they hadn't run before. And I didn't mean to imply they did anything fancy, just unexpected. But I agree that we should have been able to adjust. Just good game planning and play calling by UCLA to take advantage of us. Even with all of that, UCLA barely eked that one out in Pasadena. I think we'll eke by them this year in Lincoln.

This. UCLA pulled out some stuff we'd never seen them run before. Pretty easy to do in the first few games as a HC. Let's see what they're capable of this season. Also, I think home field was the deciding factor last season for them and will be this season for us.

PSU has all season to get their guys experience before playing NU and the game is at their stadium which is always a tough place to play. Depth might get them over the course of the season, but it could also get us since we've got so little experience on the D. It's hard to predict any games before the season starts, and especially hard for the games towards the end of the season.

I think the Huskers go 11-1 regular season with the loss at PSU. Not going to predict the B1G CCG or bowl game until we know the opponent.

Can we stop with the wifi updates? If I cared what he had to say, I'd read another board.

Yep, this kid is a guaranteed All-American. I mean, he's an instate kid with some talent, so that has to be true. No reason to even let the coaches take a look at him. And the coaches should have already made NU more academically prestigious than lowly Stanford. That's just bad coaching and recruiting right there. Have you seen our defensive line lately? We need all the talent we can get, regardless if phillips doesn't pan out the way you want him to Is NU even recruiting him for DL? My sarcasm is directed at your assertion that the coaches screwed up. Kid could just like Stanford more. Or want to leave the state. Or a host of other reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the coaches. And that's even assuming he's going to become a good player in college.

You linked bleacherreport. Enough said. Find a link to a player saying this. Linking Bleacher is almost an indictment of your point.

Yep, this kid is a guaranteed All-American. I mean, he's an instate kid with some talent, so that has to be true. No reason to even let the coaches take a look at him. And the coaches should have already made NU more academically prestigious than lowly Stanford. That's just bad coaching and recruiting right there.

While I usually agree with you knapplc, I've got a quibble with this statement. I hear year after year from fans of every team that getting the best athletes on the field is the way to have the best team. But there's nothing concrete to support this statement. IMO this is the result of years of recruiting analysts trying to convince the fans that recruiting is the most important part of college football. But lots of great players weren't the most athletic at their position - just look at the walk-on history at NU. I'm not saying we shouldn't have athletic players - far from it. But I contend that the guy making the most plays is the guy you want on the field. Sometimes that's going to be a supreme athlete like Lavonte David, but sometimes that's going to be a heady player like O'Hanlon. And there's positions like WLB that can free lance more, as Cody Glenn showed, where athleticism means more than at a position like safety. There's no one size fits all solution here. Different players bring different things to the field.

which one? South Dakota State

Michigan seems like one of his favorites that he has an offer from. An Oregon offer would have play with Ballage, but he has not received one yet. Fixed it. You can actually edit the original post so that it's fixed there. And you still didn't answer the question of whether Michigan was his first offer. (I don't know who his first offer was.)

Steve Pederson was fired.

Yep. We could certainly use him, but he's not a necessity. Good get for UK.

Or we can continue to not care. I'd prefer they are ranked dead last by the recruiting services and play like All-Americans for the Huskers than all getting 5 stars.

If you watched the film, its pretty obvious (at least what they showed in the tape) that he was dominating people at LEAST 50 pounds lighter than him, if not more. It is not like every DT we have ever recruited hasn't played kids smaller than him. Not always - there's usually at least one player during a season of similar size/weight. All the players he faces on those highlights are substantially smaller. He looks like every other DT I've seen on a highlight film (I'm just a fan so that doesn't mean much). Is there any video of him against some players that are at least closer in size? Coaches usually request film from a couple of complete games and not highlight type films, which makes me wonder if there's something on some other film that's keeping him from getting offers. If he is as good as you suggest, I'd think SOME team would have offered by now.

He may also fit in as a return man.

I somehow doubt Solich would have agreed to be the RB coach just after being fired as the head coach.

Where are you looking? We have a consensus preseason rank of #18: http://preseason.stassen.com/consensus/2013.html We're ranked in the top 25 by all five publications listed on stassen.