huskers1

Hopefully his mom doesn't need a job.

What do you mean by your last sentence Zoogies?

Look I'm not saying in any way that Taylor should start just bc he started this year. I'm just saying that we are trying to become a national title contender and it just doesn't happen with first year starting qb's. Absolutely play the best guy, but I'm just saying it's going to be another long year to start a redshirt frosh. If Taylor doesn't DRASTICALLY improves his passing/pocket presence I would be willing to sacrifice his running ability in favor of someone like Green. Inevitably we'll become too one dimensional against teams like Wisconsin, OSU, Iowa, Michigan State with the Taylor of this year.

While I really don't like hearing that Wats is so stressed that he's losing that much weight, that's the business that he's in. He's known since he came here that NU is a very high pressure job and only winning matters. I do hope we go a different direction but I wish him luck in the future.

Theres two things to that for me: 1. If we do happen to go to Green or Turner or Carnes next year that will mean that we will have 4 first year starting qb's in 4 straight years. If one is better than play him but it's damn hard to create continuity and great timing when you're constantly having different guys throw you the ball. 2. Unless Green starts that means that we will be starting a different RS Frosh/True Frosh for the second year in a row. We would go through the same growing pains that we went through this year. Maybe not to the extent that we went through w/ Taylor's complete lack (shockingly lack) of pocket presence but still frosh growing pains.

LOL!! I know I probably shouldn't feed into your posts but what the hell does "do you really think the big 10 wasn't watching" mean? Do you think coaches were scouting us or something? You think the players were sitting there making notes? I'm sure having 5 games of film for NEXT YEARS team will give them plenty of time to scout us.

It's obviously not all the coaches fault. Taylor still fumbles a ton, players are still dropping passes and missing blocks. BUT it's the coaches job, whether it be Cotton, Gilmore, or Wats, to put players in position to get the job done. Too many times we just run the same play over and over again. Most of the time the plays aren't even in a different set. How many times have we seen the play where Taylor is in the gun, reverse pivots and hands to ball off to the back? At first this play was going for 50 yards, however after running it close to 50 times during the year it became ineffective. How many times have we run the play where cotton is line up as an H-Back behind the tackle then cuts across the line to down block? The offense is just so damn predictable. It really reminds me of Chase Daniels comments about our D in 07 about being a high school D except now it refers to the O.

Again I'll say that Wats went into his shell. I'm all about staying committed to the run but good Lord call some different plays and mix it up on first and second down! I realize he tried to run a pass w/ Burkhead but it was obvious UW's D was stacking the box and blitzing an awful lot. Why not run some misdirection-a reverse, a throw-back, something! Something to take the pressure off of the run game and off of Taylor when he drops back. Taylor obviously needs work in pocket presence but Watson sure doesn't make it easy on him. How many qb draws did Washington run for big yards? Why not run that against UW? I'll say it again, we just run nothing out of the ordinary. It's pretty sad when our most innovative formation/play is the wildcat. Something that was being run 3 years ago.

This would be the dumbest hire for two reasons: 1. This guy was accused and fired for some pretty hard core racial remarks among other things. We don't need that type of press/negative recruiting, etc. around our offense. 2. We currently have an OC who is a west coast guy trying to run a zone read/spread type of offense and pretty much learning on the job/off season how to do so. That's not good enough but we want to go to an OC who is a pass happy spread guy? We absolutely HAVE TO get an OC who's background is in the type of offense we want to run or at the very minimum let Watson keep progressing (as much as I don't want the latter). If we hire a guy just because he is a great offensive mind even though he doesn't fit the direction of our offense we are doing nothing but spinning our wheels. This should be and hopefully will be put to rest and never written about again.

YEEEEES! Huge addition! Will he be here by spring ball?

Man, again enough with excuses. Every single team in college football has injuries throughout the year. Keith Williams was out there playing. If he was that hurt where he couldn't play then put A-Rod in. All we heard throughout spring and fall camp was that we are going to have much more depth on the o line, so where was it? When exactly were we really banged up? Started the 2nd quarter of the mizzou game? Right before the A&M game? We were sure able to push back CU, but for some reason we weren't able to push back KU so maybe we got healthier in bt those two games....? Also being banged up on the o line is a reason for not using rex and roy in the backfield at the same time? Being banged up on the o line is a reason for not running a slant pattern w/ Rex out of the backfield?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb671XwyCYU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evjOIHPGoUw&feature=related This is the main reason Watson gets on my nerves. Watch these two games and look at how many times we are in two back sets in the gun, where was that later in the year? Look at how nice that triple option looks in the Idaho game. Did we see that again at any point in the season? How lovely looking were those two passes to Rex on a slant route out of the gun in the WKU game? That was sure a nice long ball to Paul in the WKU game as well. How many times did we try going deep to Paul this year? I would be willing to bet it was less than 5 times. I realize that these are lesser teams than UT or Okie St. or OU but who's to say that these plays wouldn't have worked, we didn't even see them. This is yet another example of how I believe that Watson goes into a shell and clams up.

It isn't very logical to say that because they scored this many we should score this many but at the same time it says a little bit about their defense. Throw out SFA bc that could have and more than likely was a lucky score. However, look at all of the other scores against A&M: 16,20,30,17. We didn't even score one single td. That kind of goes into the same discussion with Wats not being able to adjust. Why not throw a wildcat pass in that game? Why not run a reverse in that game? That's what I mean when I say he just goes into a shell. He'll sure as hell run them when he's up by 2 scores or playing a lesser team, but I've only seen him run them once against an equal team, OU.

It appears they like to have the cotton/reed combo.

According to rivals his main recruiter was Ek...hopefully this doesn't have an impact on his decision.

EZ....come man expand on that! You mean as far as coaches like sanders, c. pelini, JP or some offensive ones?

I understand that Wats has been here for a while and understands his qb's skill sets but I still don't understand how you think that if Wats is here then our qb situation is better than if we have a guy in here who's background is in the zone read. I don't think that if Wats leaves Cody would leave mainly bc if I were in that position with a new set of eyes coming in, I would think that it's a brand new start and chance to impress the coaches. Possibly the year after though if he's still down on the depth chart. We will still have Taylor, Carnes, Kellog (if you want to count him), Cody, and Turner for spring ball. Yes it would be ideal to redshirt Turner, but for practice/competition purposes the qb position is in decent shape even without Cody. If we can get a OC with the zone read background I don't think we pass or don't go after them bc we might lose our 2nd string qb.

Yep Jimmy Williams is the one I'm thinking of. I really think he would be in a good position to at least get a look.

Zoogies, you think that if we brought in an OC in time to be here by spring practice with a background in the zone read and didn't have to have an overhaul on offense you think that we would take huge step back or be in bad shape at qb? Watson is basically learning on the job right now in regards to the zone read concept that our offense is based around. Bottom line is that he's a West Coast OC trying to fit the role as a zone read OC.

Isn't there another LB coach who was at Buffalo with Gill? I don't think that was Coleman was it?

At what point do we stop making excuses for Watson and his offense? 2008 was Wats best year, but how many good defenses did we play? I don't even need to mention 2009 because we were horrible in every aspect for the entire season. This year he did swallow his pride against Washington and actually stuck with what was working. KSU has a terrible defense. Okie state was a well called game. Mizzou we scored 7 points in the final three quarters so I don't even really count that game. Then after that game it just turned into the typical offensive performances that I am now used to. Does this offense have to have a superstar 5th year senior at qb in order for his offense to click? Hell Lee was in the system for 3 years before he started last year, but his excuse was he didn't play a lot. Isn't it his job to get the qb ready? Then this year when Martinez is doing well it's "I didn't go stupid over night". Oh wait then when he's hurt it's oh well he's a freshman so we need to be patient with him. I see teams like Stanford with Luck, Oregon with Thomas, Auburn with Newton, OU with Bradford, Texas with Mccoy, Mizzou with Daniel, USC w/ Barkley, Okie State w/ Weeden, I could go on and on and on. Teams have injuries, teams start young players, even at qb, and are still successful. Every year OC's find ways to insert young players are just keep on ticking. I'm sick to death of hearing excuses.

Just watched his highlights again and I think he has more top end, straight line speed than anyone on the team or coming in for this class. Would be a HUGE addition. I'm just wondering if he's kept that speed after being out of football for over a year.

I'll say it again...man I really want this guy to make it! I like Tray but he really doesn't fit the zone read style that we are running. Taylor, Rex, Green and Heard will be the most dynamic group of playmakers we've had since crouch, buckhalter and alexander. If our young guys on the line can step up and Watson can become more consistent we will have the best O in the big ten. I do fear that Qvale and A-Rod are too big to run the zone read effectively though.

Yes you're right, it was third and 8. I really don't think Bo's on the headset telling Watson what to run or go for the TD or whatever. He may say something like "don't lay off the gas" or something like that. That's just my opinion though. What I'm saying is even if it's 3rd and 8 in field goal range, why even put taylor in the position that he's proven in that game he can't succeed at consistently? Again, I don' think that he's a terrible OC, just that he has a handful of times in every big game where it's like "what the hell are you doing?!" In most cases it ends up costing us the game or at least puts our D in very stressful situations.

First drive in the second half? I listed the zone reads in the third quarter and it by far wasn't just the first drive. 4th Quarter: 1st play: 4 yard dig route/comeback to Broekemeier. 2nd play: drop back pass, incomplete pass on a crossing patter ten yards short of the 1st-punt 3rd play: wildcat, burkhead for about 16 yards 4th play: wildcat, burkhead for about 6 yards 5th play: wildcat burkhead fumbles 6th play: drop back pass, slant or stop route over the middle to mcneil for five yards 7th play: slant, almost picked off by travis lewis, incomplete pass 8th play: drop back pass, taylor scambles for 3 yards, comes back due to holding-punt 9th play: wilcat, burkhead run for 9 yards 10th play: wilcat, burkhead runs for about 5 yards and a first down at the 41 yard line. 11th play: wildcat, burkhead runs for 3 yards, now at the 39 yard line. 12th play: wilcat, burkhead passes to t mart incomplete 45 yards downfield (didn't mind the call at all) 13th play: drop back pass by taylor sacked fumbled for a loss of about 10 yards-mind blowing call! 14th play: 1:46 left with the ball the 46 yard line, needing about 15 yards to have a shot to tie. Slant to Broekemeier, 3 yard gain. 15th play: drop back pass taylor is sacked for a 8 yard loss. 16th play: Drop back pass, out route complete to Kinnie for about 13 yards. 17th play: we call TO after an apparent slant called to the right side. Out of the timeout we run a slant to the left side incomplete, we lose. So in the 4th quarter we passed the ball 10 times w/ Taylor completing 4 of them for a total of 25, that of which was bolstered by Kinnies catch. Without that we have 3 completions for an average of 4 yards per completion. To compare that we ran the wilcat 7 times 6 of which were runs which included a fumble in the 4th quarter for a total of 39 yards rushing for an average of 6.5 yards per rush. What I am saying about Watson driving me crazy with how he chokes and goes into a shell is why when it's 3 and 5 and you are already in fg range and you are averaging close to 7 yards with burkhead running the wildcat do you drop taylor back to pass when he's completing less than 50% of his passes? What's the worst that happens if he doesn't get it? We send out possibly the best, most accurate kicker in college football history to tie the game. On top of that, on our last possession why when there is 1:46 left, do we run 4 pocket passes with Taylor?! Even if we get 5 yards a pop with Burkhead we still have more than enough time to get into fg position-then take a few shots at the win if you want to. Watson, whether you or anyone wants to admit it or not does not put players in the best position when it comes to crunch time.