MJSkers

Well, Turner knows what the issue is. And I agree with the coaches on this. Why play guys that want handed a job?

"Honestly, I think like I folded when I saw him step up," Turner said. "He showed me how much he really wanted it. I kind of folded and sat down and let him have it. I never really had to compete for a position. I've always just been given it because I'm athletic."

"He shows me the film, and I'm not running even close to the speed I know I can," Turner said. "It looked like I was jogging. It kind of opened my eyes and showed me that, hey, I have to work a little harder."

LINK

Is it me, or does anyone else notice how Nebraska always plays down to lessor opponents?

 

Gone are the days when we took pride in running the score up into the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even 70's on an opponent. And we did it with 3rd and 4th stringers. Now when we play a lessor opponent, we always let them stay close, or even take the lead by the half, then just barely win (when we win).

 

Northwestern should have been an easy game, where we healed up some guys, and knew we would win by the half. That never happens anymore. Look at our non-conference games, and where they stood at half-time. When is the last time that we have had a lessor opponent, and actually played and scored like they were one from the start?

 

What do we have to do to bring back the days when we could beat a lessor opponent handily, and get some of the younger kids some experience?

 

Right now, if Martinez goes down, we have nobody with any real game experience. The trend at QB goes farther than that even, after the starting QB graduates, we have nobody to take his place that has real experience, and basically go into Spring practice with an open competition for the starting job, with the heir apparent usually being who ever the junior is. Martinez will gain more experience because there was no Junior to be the heir apparent...but because we have to give him game time, even if we do get a lead, nobody behind him is getting any experience. Cody Green was a perfect example of what happens then, last year. He would come into the game and look like he has never seen competition at that speed before...and screw up.

 

So there is some value to winning big, and doubling up the score on opponents. It isn't just an "in your face" thing. It actually is key to the developement of future teams.

 

Another thing I notice about Beck is that he never seems to make real changes when needed to the offense in the first half, but some how makes really sweet changes at the half, and we have a good series or two after the start of the half. Then it is like he pulls back the reigns, like he don't want the other team to see too much, and goes back to what wasn't working earlier. I know coaches script the first series or two, but it seems almost as if he is scripting the whole first half, and come hell or hight water, he isn't budging off the plan. It would be nice to see a time where he would make the changes as the game rolls along, and realize that the other team is not going to give him what he thought they might.

 

So...throw those flames...I have my flame retardent suit on today. But these are observations that I have made over the past few years. Observations that I have to wonder if anyone else notices...if the coaches are aware of.

You state the obvious.

 

It's year 4 and I guess Bo's still learning how to be a HC and how to manage and prepare a team in all 3 phases. Based on what most here think, he should get about 22 more years to do that as long as we average about 3-4 losses a year.

 

The question is WHY? Unfortunately the real answers make all the KA drinkers here very uncomfortable but to me it's simple:

 

1) Bo's simply not good at teaching the little things and holding guys accountable. Remember how Tyler Moore was yanked for 1 false start never to be heard from again but Marcel Jones can continue to make the same false start penalties game after game after game and still not get benched? Just one of the symptoms of bigger problems with his style of HC'ing.

 

2) Recruiting & Player development: The main area where Bo's failed esp. on defense. We just don't have talent on defense and the borderline guys that we have are simply not developing! Period. And now we're scrambling and going after 4 & 5* guys. Lets see how many we actually sign and what the plan B guys turn out to be. Other than guys like Hagg/Amukamara Bo's not developed anyone worth a damn. Case in point: Tackling. The most basic aspect of football. Look how horrendous this team is at that. That indicates a lack of development and ultimately a lack of confidence with the players. Bo's too in love with his schemes..... and it bailed him out in 2009 with Suh but we all saw the warts last year with the inability to stop the run. Guess what - it's now all come to fruition. If you can't stop the DAMN run, all bets are off - no scheme will work! How Bo doesn't get that after all these years indicates a basic flaw in his personality.....

 

Cool. Character assassination through baseless facts. ^^This guy here, should be our next football coach as its obvious he knows how to make football teams win national titles.

Haha...preach it.

 

 

Mean "nothing"......

 

 

So you think they mean something?

 

 

Ask Dan Marino if he'd trade some of his stats for a ring.

 

Ask Dan Marino is his stats mean absolutely nothing? Of course they mean SOMETHING, they made him a hall of fame QB. Of course he would trade some to win a Super Bowl, but that's not saying the stats don't mean SOMETHING. Just because Dan Marino didn't win a Super Bowl doesn't mean he wasn't a damn good QB....which can be proven because of stats.

 

 

I don't believe in participation ribbons.

 

 

NU lost. T-Mart played a fine game according to the stats (and even in the tape I have rewatched). But NU still lost.

 

 

The only stat that matters (to me) is wins and losses.

 

 

 

The points I am trying to lead people to are:

 

1. The reason NU needs to RUSH the ball effectively and continually is not just for points, it is to protect a WEAK Defense.

 

2. Teams will continue to try and make NU throw the ball. By definition, that means that T-Mart will likely have "stats", but opponents are only too happy to put the game on T-Mart's shoulder.

 

3. As Burkhead goes, so goes the offense (as currently designed). I think this premise is sound, EXCEPT that NU MUST rotate in the Triplets. Why they refuse to do so (and substitutions across the board have been baffling) is beyond me.

 

4. Reviewing the passing game on TV game tape is hard. You can't see the entire field. The reason I mention this is because opponents will dare NU to throw and, sometimes, on what tape I have seen and in the game I saw in person, T-Mart makes a completion, but he leaves yards or points on the field because another receiver was open with more room to run (or score). Now, T-Mart, or any QB will never be perfect in that regard, but opponents have demonstrated they are willing to let T-Mart beat them with his arm (and will continue to do so).

 

 

 

This post violates my length restrictions.

You're right...QB's that lose suck. Matter of fact, all QB's suck because they all lose. Even worse, every QB that hasn't won a National Championship or Super Bowl suck. Peyton Manning sucked for a long time, and sucked in college too...no National Championships. But he finally won a Super Bowl so he no longer sucks.

It's not participation ribbon, it's admitting that one player can have a good game, but the team can still lose.

Is it me, or does anyone else notice how Nebraska always plays down to lessor opponents?

 

Gone are the days when we took pride in running the score up into the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even 70's on an opponent. And we did it with 3rd and 4th stringers. Now when we play a lessor opponent, we always let them stay close, or even take the lead by the half, then just barely win (when we win).

 

Northwestern should have been an easy game, where we healed up some guys, and knew we would win by the half. That never happens anymore. Look at our non-conference games, and where they stood at half-time. When is the last time that we have had a lessor opponent, and actually played and scored like they were one from the start?

 

What do we have to do to bring back the days when we could beat a lessor opponent handily, and get some of the younger kids some experience?

 

Right now, if Martinez goes down, we have nobody with any real game experience. The trend at QB goes farther than that even, after the starting QB graduates, we have nobody to take his place that has real experience, and basically go into Spring practice with an open competition for the starting job, with the heir apparent usually being who ever the junior is. Martinez will gain more experience because there was no Junior to be the heir apparent...but because we have to give him game time, even if we do get a lead, nobody behind him is getting any experience. Cody Green was a perfect example of what happens then, last year. He would come into the game and look like he has never seen competition at that speed before...and screw up.

 

So there is some value to winning big, and doubling up the score on opponents. It isn't just an "in your face" thing. It actually is key to the developement of future teams.

 

Another thing I notice about Beck is that he never seems to make real changes when needed to the offense in the first half, but some how makes really sweet changes at the half, and we have a good series or two after the start of the half. Then it is like he pulls back the reigns, like he don't want the other team to see too much, and goes back to what wasn't working earlier. I know coaches script the first series or two, but it seems almost as if he is scripting the whole first half, and come hell or hight water, he isn't budging off the plan. It would be nice to see a time where he would make the changes as the game rolls along, and realize that the other team is not going to give him what he thought they might.

 

So...throw those flames...I have my flame retardent suit on today. But these are observations that I have made over the past few years. Observations that I have to wonder if anyone else notices...if the coaches are aware of.

You state the obvious.

 

It's year 4 and I guess Bo's still learning how to be a HC and how to manage and prepare a team in all 3 phases. Based on what most here think, he should get about 22 years to do that as long as we average about 3-4 losses a year.

 

The question is WHY? Unfortunately the real answers make all the KA drinkers here very uncomfortable but to me it's simple:

 

1) Bo's simply not good at teaching the little things and holding guys accountable. Remember how Tyler Moore was yanked for 1 false start never to be heard from again but Marcel Jones can continue to make the same false start penalties game after game after game and still not get benched? Just one of the symptoms of bigger problems with his style of HC'ing.

 

2) Recruiting & Player development: The main area where Bo's failed esp. on defense. We just don't have talent on defense and the borderline guys that we have are simply not developing! Period. And now we're scrambling and going after 4 & 5* guys. Lets see how many we actually sign and what the plan B guys turn out to be. Other than guys like Hagg/Amukamara Bo's not developed anyone worth a damn. Case in point: Tackling. The most basic aspect of football. Look how horrendous this team is at that. That indicates a lack of development and ultimately a lack of confidence with the players. Bo's too in love with his schemes..... and it bailed him out in 2009 with Suh but we all saw the warts last year with the inability to stop the run. Guess what - it's now all come to fruition. If you can't stop the DAMN run, all bets are off - no scheme will work! How Bo doesn't get that after all these years indicates a basic flaw in his personality.....

1) You know, with 100% certainty that's why Tyler More doesn't play now? 100%? No guessing, no assumptions, 100%? How do I get the sideline tickets and the inside track to all knowledge, I'd love it. And I can't believe you know how Bo teaches! And the simple fact that maybe our players get taught, but just don't perform what they are taught!! I mean, it's how it works right. When I was in school I was taught things, and I aced every single test because I performed what I was taught. Such a simple thing, so it's obvious these football players aren't taught correctly. I mean, there are some guys that perform well and do the right things, but that's because they must have taught themselves from various youtube videos or something.

2) Suh credits Bo a lot for his development....a lot.

 

 

Mean "nothing"......

 

 

So you think they mean something?

 

 

Ask Dan Marino if he'd trade some of his stats for a ring.

Ask Dan Marino is his stats mean absolutely nothing? Of course they mean SOMETHING, they made him a hall of fame QB. Of course he would trade some to win a Super Bowl, but that's not saying the stats don't mean SOMETHING. Just because Dan Marino didn't win a Super Bowl doesn't mean he wasn't a damn good QB....which can be proven because of stats.

Quite frankly, if ever there was a team that NU should have scored 60 on it was MN a few weeks ago. They are bad.

 

 

It speaks to the fact that this NU team remains an above average, but far, far from an elite team. That is a recipe for a Top 25 ranking and 9-4 seasons.

 

 

I guess that is better than the BC era.

 

 

But, in year 4 I was hoping for a bit more.

If that's the case, then Iowa and MSU must be REALLY REALLY bad.

One word: Parity.

 

There are no more "gimme" games in the world of FBS football.

Totally agree here. Sure there are bad teams, which is what we thought Minnesota was. Then they beat Iowa and almost beat MSU. Players don't always want to go to the big name schools and ride the bench for 3 years, when they can go to a different school and start right away.

I hesitate to say ALWAYS plays down. I mean, we smashed Minnesota. Every year we smash teams we are supposed to....also seems like we may have a game that we should win that we don't. So on occasion, yes I say we play down.

Several teams using a sideline signals via big poster which displayed a weird faces or scenery pictures, mascot, strange formulas, etc.

 

What's the purpose? I don't get it.

Exactly, they have you confused too.

 

You know re watching the game, you can plainly see both Northwestern and Michigan State doing this.

Truthfully, i think Tim Beck needs to lay off the false count. It was working before to draw teams offsides, now defenses have figured out it just to bluff them into moving while they look to the sideline for the play from Tim Beck. Now unfortunately defenses are reading our plays being signaled in by either Ron Kellogg, Joe Ganz, or Ron Brown.

Nothing you can really do about signalling in the plays except change whoever the real caller is every possession to throw the defense off.

Michigan State jumped offsides a lot. Maybe NW didn't, but MSU sure did.

Very interesting if they did figure out our signals. I didn't hear the press conference, but hopefully he wasn't using this as an excuse. Either way, still doesn't explain the defensive struggles.

I thought Taylor played great. I don't care what national ranking NW's defense had...his passes were on point and he played hard the whole game. Good to see, gets me excited for the next couple of years.

Marlowe surprised me, good to see since he gets so much playing time, but has hardly gotten the ball.

Stein was manhandling his guy up front....pushing him in the backfield a lot.

And that's about it for me. On to PSU...Go Big Red

Here are Northwestern's ranks in the four major defensive stat categories, year-to-date:

 

Rushing Defense - 84

Pass Efficiency Defense - 103

Scoring Defense - 88

Total Defense - 96

 

That's after our game. They were worse before - prior to our game, their highest rank in any of these four categories was 90th in the nation.

 

This is a team that entered the game 3-5 on the season, 1-4 in the Big Ten. They lost by double digits at home to Penn St. and Michigan, and at Iowa.

 

This is a team that LOST TO ARMY.

 

I should not have to stand and scream all game long to "pump up" the Huskers to win this game (note: I did anyway). We have talent advantages on this team all over the field. It is absurd to point a finger at the crowd for this game.

 

 

I cannot stand the griping at the crowd for being non-energetic when our team is losing at home to Northwestern.

YES

How many of these threads do we have to create? Can't we just bump the same thread each week? It's all the same things being said. At SOME point people are going to realize that memorial stadium isn't that loud when we play bad against sub par teams.

Great post Matthew_m_g

Taylor sliding or running out of bounds did not lose this football game. Taylor played a great game. Our defense and offensive line lost this football game.

 

That's 100% true (although wr drops/fumbles didn't help either, or Rex's fumble). But it's difficult to imagine our Oline being able to do much vs a MUCH, MUCH defense than NW. I think we'll need Tmart's run threat in a big way.

 

Otoh, I've been so wrong about this offense before.....so who knows??

 

GBR!!

Absolutely the fumbles killed us, and drops didn't help. But the thread is just sort of weird after this loss. Taylor had very, very little to do with us losing. He played a really great game. Who would have thought that at the beginning of the year? Most people think if we lose it has to be Taylor's fault. This game is just the opposite of that theory. Bottom line our defense stunk, Taylor played will, and sliding did not keep us from winning.

Funny how after a game like this, there are still husker fans that feel the need to complain about Taylor...

Taylor sliding or running out of bounds did not lose this football game. Taylor played a great game. Our defense and offensive line lost this football game.

Here's an idea.....we should go and get Turner Gill!! You know he'll be looking for a job soon, if only we would have hired him 4 years ago!! I remember so many people being so upset we hired Bo instead of Turner, and look what happened to Nebraska football. It's obvious we know so much about hiring coaches, recruiting, motivating, sideline demeanor, blitzing....we want Turner Gill!

Per USA Today defensive stats. 10/30/11 Link

MSU: #2 total defense #14 Rushing Defense

Wisc: #11 total defense #53 Rushing Defense

PSU: #10 total defense #24 Rushing Defense

OSU: #17 total defense #26 Rushing Defense

Statistically speaking, we've played the best defense we will face all year, as of now.

Why fix what's not broken? Do you REALLY want our QB doing what he did against Wisc? Play to your strengths. There is a reason Tommy Frazier and Eric Crouch didn't throw a ton...we had a good running game.

I don't get the concern for injury. One guy in about every 10 seasons gets clobbered on a fair catch, and we're supposed to protect Rex? He's got good hands, that's why he's back there on those plays, to make sure we don't turn it back over deep in our territory.

 

Maybe we should keep Rex out on 1st and 2nd down too, because he might get hurt on those carries, and he's really most valuable getting us a first down?!?

 

To everyone poking fun at this topic...you'd all be standing there, jaw dropped, hands on your head if you saw him get hurt on a punt return! Then you'd all be crying about how it's dumb to have him back there and how these coaches need to get there heads out of their.....

 

Don't be hypocrites and act like if we lost Rex on a meaningless punt return/fair catch, that our team would be fine and you wouldn't be upset. If something like that did happen, every husker message board would be going berserk!!

 

He's way too valuable at RB and we need all the carries out of him we can get. I'm not saying to coddle him and run him once every drive....but the point is not to give that 1 extra chance for the opposing team to take a cheap shot on a defenseless player.

 

If you think this happens once every 10 seasons, you're naive...

He fair catches the ball and NEVER returns it. That's all he's doing. The odds of him getting hit and injured compared to another guy fumbling...I'll take the injury risk. That's part of the game, you play odds. The coaches aren't stupid, they know the odds are MUCH higher for another guy to fumble than Rex to get injured on a fair catch. I can tell you they probably tell him never to return the punt.

HiSD is correct... we are undefeated in hypothetical matchups and in games not yet played.

 

We're #1 !!!

Hells yes!!! In my head, we've already won every game next year!

Rex doesn't return punts. He fair catches them. Does it bother you that Rex comes out of the backfield to catch passes? A LB or Safety could easily take his head off. At least with this the players are supposed to actually not hit him when he fair catches it. And, it doesn't take a ton of energy to fair catch a ball after you've been sitting on the bench for the last 3 plays (optimistic 3 and out plug)

You're talking 2013 schedule? I'm not ready to anoint us 8-0 since it's 2 years away. We have no idea what our team will be like, or ANY of the other teams (maybe besides the cream puffs) Heck, we don't know what UCLA will be, though lately not good at all. Also, Michigan is the 8th game we play...that's always going to be tough.

I'm totally confused? Michigan State @ Nebraska?

PSU is an enigma.... Their D looks tough but it's hard to tell based on the competition. They played 1 tough team - Bama - and Bama quit scoring in the 3rd. We, OTOH have played WI, MSU and OSU - 3 legit top notch defenses. If PSU forces us to pass & TM starts throwing INT's then we're in trouble but as long as we can get 4-5 yards a pop we'll be in good shape. One thing I noticed about PSU is that they're getting better at the QB spot. McGloin (sp?) looks like he's cemented the starting spot - which is good for NU bec. he's less mobile than Boldin - but still a lot more mobile than Cousins.

 

Lets see how we stop Persa this week - he's mobile I hear......+ a great passer.

Persa used to be pretty mobile before tearing his achilles last year and getting turf toe this year. He's got 34 yrds rushing in 43 attempts. Great passing though, he's completeing 75% of his passes. Should be interesting to see how we do.

Have they scored 31 points all year combined?