HuskerNative

I agree with just about everything on this thread. I thought coming into the year that Purify would be this great weapon with supposed gunslinger Keller, but he's been irrelevant most of the year. I thought, well, he's had a lot of personal stuff. Arrests, brother died, girlfriend died; maybe his head just wasn't in the game. Yesterday showed that he should have been a primary target all along and that Callahan doesn't know how to use this purportedly great talent he recruits. Purify was a WEAPON against a great defense, and we just holstered that weapon all year. Another point on Callahan and his supposed recruiting prowess: If he's so good and he's running the team, how did he ever let the defense get so thin? I think the talent is way, way better than it's being coached and used. I think next year we will surprise some people and bounce back with heart.

Yeah. Funny. We're gonna stop losing kids in Iraq really soon.

I am okay with 1st string until the 4th quarter... its stupid. what if they lose their QB? they just screwed their season trying to put 100 on us With the way our defense is playing... they don't have much reason to worry about that The problem isn't Kansas. It's our defense.

WTF??? Why not the deep kicker?

Makes you wonder what difference Ganz would have made all year.

WOW! And a nice, nice, touch toss from Ganz. Ganz lookin' good for next year.

True that. But if Callahan is such a great recruiter, why are we thin on the D line? They both suck and both have to go.

Here's the answer: Rose replaced for personal reasons www.journalstar.com/articles/2007/11/03/huskerextra/football/doc472c9a68a582d763464822.prt So far, it's today only. Oops. This ended up on the wrong thread.

Yeah! The Turmanator!! Man, he could hand that ball off to Lawrence Phillips! Last year, early in the year I think, Callahan or one of the offensive coaches said about Ganz, "He just doesn't make mistakes." I suspect the reason he hasn't started is that he just doesn't have the arm Taylor or Keller had. And Taylor didn't really have the greatest arm -- just the greatest grit and a good enough arm. The biggest flaw in the idea that he might help revive the team is that he doesn't play defense. I'd love us to beat Kansas, win out and make a bowl. But we're deluding ourselves if we think this defense under Cosgrove is going to stop anybody. Texas did us a favor by trying to throw for three quarters.

He was a great player -- an amazing player -- who won some games for us. One of the most talented Huskers ever. Fun to watch. Tough. There's some truth in these posts, though, I think, about it being all about him. And it is such a shame that he won the Heisman and Tommy Frazier didn't. Compare the two. Frazier didn't have the individual stats Crouch did, but there's no question who was the better Husker QB.

Where's the rant about how Callahan went NFL conservative after we got the interception? We needed points then and there. Our energy was back up. Instead, we do two runs up the middle and one shot at the end zone. It's not like we couldn't get guys open for 8, 10, 15 yards. But we went three and out. The defense, which made one of its biggest plays of the year, goes right back on the field. That blown opportunity falls on the coach in my book. I know, I know. He's trying to eat some clock and play a field-position game. But this defense has routinely given up 95-yard drives this year. We needed to be aggressive and get points. Period.

There was a run defense out there? Texas kept us in the game by passing. Kept telling my Texan wife, "Mack Brown should make Nebraska prove it can stop the run." The kids played better today, really the whole team was like the team we should have fielded all year. I feel bad for the players over the whole debacle of the season.

He did play a good game. Until the game was on the line. Same as the team.

Turner Gill lived in Lincoln for a long time -- longer than I did, and I still go back to visit. He was visiting. He has an excellent relationship with his former coach and boss, who is -- even if he hasn't coached for 10 years -- an offensive genius, organizational mastermind and outstanding motivator. I'd take notes, too.

Beating Texas would be SWEET no matter what else it means. Maybe even sweeter this year because we are such an average team.

Look at the coverage map, and you'll see an odd little donut hole in southeastern Michigan -- where I live and have taken to wearing an Appalachian State T-shirt on Saturdays. Big Ten wasteland here ... Ordinarily, it would really tick me off that the local ABC affiliate is picking up the ESPN Classic feed of the Michigan-Minnesota game. This year, I can live with checking the Internet now and then to see how it's going.

That'd be too simple for Callahan's sophisticated offense. He'll have NONE OF IT! It's probably too complicated for us to understand while we wander about in the Sandhills.

It perpetuates the old saw about what the big red "N" stands for on the helmets.

Do you suppose his experience as an assistant and coordinator at Nebraska prepared him to do well at a lower-level school but might not translate to success in a bigger job at the top level? These are different worlds, and the fans would give Craig Bohl ZERO grace period. I don't think Gill is the guy, either. A little success at a little program doesn't mean he's ready for the biggest stage. The guy at Appalachian State would be one of the few D2 coaches who might be. He's won and won and won, in championship games with tough travel skeds and at Michigan. I trust Osborne to learn from his Solich mistake and make a hire that just adds to his legacy.

He's already pretty much bitch-slapped Callahan by showing up at practice (twice) and having Charlie McBride show up at practice, giving former players sideline passes and reversing a whole lot of the tradition-crushing decisions by Pederson -- which I think it's fair to say were done partly to be supportive of Callahan establishing a new direction. Osborne has been clear that the walk-on program is going to be resumed and that he blames part of the Huskers' fall on Callahan's decimation of that program. Callahan is emasculated and knows he's gone. But really, how would it help the players to bring in new coaches with four games left? There's no time to establish a new system. You couldn't make the change last week -- Osborne's hiring wasn't announced till late Tuesday. So we'll suffer through this. I suspect that what IBR has right is that Callahan will, very soon, announce his resignation effective at the end of the year. Sipple, who used the same terminology in forshadowing Pederson's firing, suggested as much today. I think that with new coaches, the same kids will be better next year. Look at what Pelini did in '03 with many of the same defenders who were pretty pathetic in '02.

Read that Grixby had a thumb injury, so he wasn't returning punts.

One thing hiring Osborne did is keep the sellout streak alive. It bought that much hope and goodwill. That was big, and, as Osborne said the day he was hired, football is the financial driver of the athletic department.

What he did with the Raiders is a lot like what Solich did with the '99 team, which fumbled like crazy all year, but was just a fumble away (at Texas) from being undefeated and in the national championship game. As long as I've gone on this tangent, remember the '99 Big 12 championship game, when McBride sent the house time after time against Applewhite? I have that game on tape, and he rushed EIGHT guys at one point. Gawd, wasn't it sweet to have a defense?

He's already quit. He's just collecting a check now. Wearing tan to his news conference Tuesday when he normally wears NU gear (see World-Herald) was intentional, and his half-assed, unenthusiastic leading of the team onto the field yesterday (see tunnel walk video) showed he just doesn't care. As far as his having good recruiting classes, this is among the biggest indictments of his tenure. He brought in good athletes and coached them to vastly underachieve. We'll see next year. Things won't be entirely fixed and we won't compete for a national championship (in part because we will have a new QB), but I FULLY believe that the kids' athleticism and football talent will be better drawn out by better coaching. If it's Pelini -- and I'm not really for or against that -- the defense WILL be vastly better. He turned around what was a terrible defense in '02 and made essentially the same kids killers in '03.