knapplc

Nebraska used to have a card section. Then things went horribly, horribly wrong: Pre-horror days:

Your band didn't make the trip. I think if the events of this past summer hadn't happened and OSU's record was different coming into Lincoln that they might have come, but it didn't work out that way. I was looking forward to seeing Script Ohio in person. No such luck.

Mike Caputo Ohio State game – didn't change anything from first to second half. They just ran them better. Same stuff. Our D Line, what are they going to miss about Crick? He's a great palyer and a great leader. Guys will step up and fill his shoes. It's important to keep Crick around because he's a leader for the whole team. Rex Burkhead – he's better this year than last. He's always been a great player, but he's getting better and better. Awesome player, great character guy. Love blocking for him. Huge favorite for this game – haven't looked at Minnesota much, but in this league and in college football there's no room for taking anyone lightly. Bye week was nice, but it's time to get back to work and everyone knows that. Nebraska has finished 5-1 the last three years – not sure why that is. Just keep taking it one game at a time, try to get better. As a group they're trying to get better. Every week.

Rex Burkhead How important is a bye week to a player? It's that mid-season time out. Your body takes a pounding throughout the year and it helps to take time to get recharged. Rex did NOTHING over the last two weeks. Some recovery things. Watched Michigan/Michigan State. He watched the Alabama game. Trent Richardson is a guy he watches, just to see how he does things. Rex isn't sure he could make that "dirty" move Richardson made. It was a good move. Rex doesn’t know how to answer the question about whether it would be good to have kept playing after the Ohio State game. It's also good to get time off to get reenergized. Minnesota has a good defense. They fly to the ball quickly. Rex played against some of the guys in high school. Crick – it's huge to have him travel. He's a guy people on the team look up to. It's huge to have him aournd because he's so valuable. It will help out to have him around. The guys have talked to Jared since last week. He knows it hurts Crick to be out. Just trying to help him stay positive. They know he's going to have a great career in the NFL, so they just try to keep him around as much as possible. Rex thinks they executed very well in the second half against Ohio State, but they have a lot more to get better on. O Line – the line has gotten better. Have some younger guys on the line and they're just going to get better with experience. Finishing blocks, shutting off their first reads quicker, and that's just going to get better the more they play. Rex feels he gets stronger as a RB as the game goes on, and the tempo they run at helps with that. The tempo keeps the opponent wearing down and gets them gassed. The Wildcat is still part of the offense, depends on the situation.

Nice Link. I'm making a note here - huge success.

Shades of Rex Burkhead vs. Iowa State. Total bush league.

According to Kugler, Chatelain asked the questions about Crick staying connected with the team and Bo gave him a solid answer. Hopefully that hatchet is buried.

I do. And it's not a big deal. No worries.

Bo Pelini: With Crick out, how does the defense change. It doesn't. Feel bad for Jared and obviously you lose a great football player. We have a lot of guys who have played a decent amount of snaps for us so we feel like we'll be OK. Thad Randle and Chase Rome. It's not going to threaten Jared's career, and that was Bo's biggest concern. Jared's injury happened right there in the 4th quarter. Initially they thought it would be a short-term thing, but then when the MRIs came in it changed in a hurry. It took two MRIs to get it. Bo thinks Crick got hit there, like by an elbow, but can't be sure. Pulled the muscle away from the bone. Crick had successful surgery this AM and it went exactly as planned. All looks good for the future. Chase Rome has really gotten better, he's understanding what we're asking him to do. Thad Randle has to pick it up a little bit and Bo told him that. He feels good about those guys, same as Terrance Moore. At times Moore looks really good, just looking for consistency. Crick will still be involved. They talk to these guys about the worst thing that can happen is when you get hurt you drift away from the team. You don't want that to happen. Crick has the right mindset right from the start. He'll be around, he'll help coach up the younger guys. It's important to Jared to be there. He has strong character and integrity. They did apply for a waiver to allow Crick to travel with the team, and that's done and he can travel and not count against the travel party. A young man like him should be able to be part of the football team. Stanley Jean-Baptiste – it shows a lot about what kind of kid he is and what kind of competitor he is that he could come in in just three weeks and compete like that. Bo feels really good about where he's going and what he can do in that position. They've really worked him in practice, and they wanted to break him in at the right time, but they needed him right there. You look in a guy's eyes and see if he's ready, and he was. He made the play when he was called upon. He's a good athlete, tough, and he wants to compete. SJB had come to them before about making the switch to defense. He was right there in the mix for getting reps at wideout. They never make the decision and just say, "Hey, you're moving." When they recruit a guy they talk to them about the possibility, but they have to be involved in the decision. It has to be something they want to do. It doesn't make sense to make a change if the guy doesn't want to change. Why do we get better in the second half? The more you practice, the more development happens, you get better. Bo feels good about where the team is going and its potential. He thinks the bye week came at a good time and they've made progress. Had a good couple of practices last week. Doesn't want to wear the press out with this, but they do talk about the process A LOT around there. Bo thinks they're very close to making a big jump as a team sometime here. It's about the daily grind to getting better, and the team is committed to that. It's a challenge every day to get better and improve on the things you need to improve upon. Remaining schedule – how does that shape up? They took some time this past week to look at the upcoming schedule. Also did some self-scouting. Didn't exactly make some personnel decisions, but looked at places where they have to get better. Rex would take every snap if he could. Each week they'll put stuff in, but Rex is a guy you have to be careful with because he's the kind of guy you could tell him he has a day off and he's going to find a way to get into the huddle. Heard is back, ready to go. Infection is gone, no swelling. O Line is better due to consistency. We're trying to do a lot more "same as," which means that you do the same thing despite different formations. Despite that stuff we're still just asking them to do the same things. Executing, getting better, consistency. Minnesota has been doing a lot as a program to get better. Bo met Coach Kill last summer and he's a good coach, a nice man and a good person. It's obvious when you get to meet him. He's been through some tough times recently, but they all wish him well going forward. It's difficult for that stuff not to affect a football team. They've had some struggles, but at times you see their potential, too. You take over a program that's struggled, you're not going to be dominant from year one. But they play hard, they present problems, and they're well-coached. We have them at their place so they're going to give us their best shot. It's hard to say what's going to happen. They prepare for both QBs, so whatever they do we have to be prepared for. We're going to see some things that they haven't shown yet because they're coming off a bye week, too. Lavonte David – he's made the adjustment to Big Ten style of play very well. He's a really smart football player, realy instinctive. He's grown a lot over the last year, and he's a better football player than he was a year ago. He played an outstanding football game against Ohio State. They're a pretty downhill team and David did well. You could put him in any style and he'll adapt. He's holding up well. He's a guy who has a knack for hitting. He's not a 240lb linebacker, but he's mid-220s, fluctuates up and down, but he has unusual pop for a guy his size. Plays big for a guy his size. He's not a prototype guy for the NFL, but you talk to those scouts and they all say he's a football player and he makes your team better. You don’t care if he's 5'6" he makes your team better. Maher – Bo is excited about Brett. He's done a good job, but he can get better. He understands what JB and the coaching staff is looking for, both punting and kicking. He's handled the dual role well. He's a very confident young man. Nothing has phased him. You worry about a first-time kicker when the lights come on, but he's done well. There was a game where he was begging Bo, tugging on his shirt to let him try a 61-yarder at halftime. They feel real good about Bondi, too. He gets a lot of reps in practice. Communication is key. With a kicker you have to go off of what he says. He knows if he's getting tired, and Bo thinks they've repped these guys well. It's the same way they handled Alex. Defense – Bo says they were concerned about it coming out of camp. They had a lot of injuries coming out of camp. Playing a lot of guys early and repping a lot of guys through camp really helped out. We've gained more continuity as the season has gone on. It'll help as the season goes on. Big Ten style – not really surprising. It's what Bo thought he'd see going in. He didn't watch a lot of football last weekend, but he's not surprised about what he's seeing so far. Week to week you'll be challenged. The coaching is good and you're going to be challenged week in and week out. Post-game handshake – Bo doesn't know what happened between the two coaches at the Detroit/San Fran game. You like the guys to shake hands after the game, it's the right thing to do. Bo says he can't speak about what happened between San Francisco and Detroit yesterday, but he knows both coaches personally and they're both competitors. Obviously you have two guys at opposite ends of the spectrum after a game. One guy is pretty excited, one guy just got his heart ripped out. It usually goes pretty well. Bo can't remember a situation since he's become a head coach where there's been an issue. He thinks the post-game handshake is a good thing. Chase is up there around 300lbs. He's big, he's strong, he's powerful. For the last few _____ he's just been trying to figure it out. He came in as an End and he's settled in at Tackle. He's doing well. No starter named yet to replace Crick. They're going to play four guys, Baker, Thad, Rome and Moore. They don't get caught up in that. They play four guys. EMart can do a lot of things. He's still primarily an End, but it depends on gameplan. They put him standing up at LB for Ohio State, but that's not necessarily permanent. His training as a LB really helps with that.

I just found out that the game will be played at either 11:00 AM on ESPN/2 or 2:30 PM on ABC. We will know next Monday. LINK

The media is blowing stuff about guys in gym shorts out of proportion? I'm totally lost now.

We'll have a couple of replays on the BTN today. The Wisconsin match (three-game sweep) airs at 1pm today. The Minnesota match (lost the first two, came back to win the match) airs at 7pm.

I know, I read your explanation and I was responding to that. Still don't get where you're coming from. Whatever.

None of the behavior in that video is stereotypical of a specific kind of person. I've witnessed folks of all skin colors, racial backgrounds and national origins behave this way. Where does that put the stereotype thread tangent?

We are going to miss Yoshi in so many ways next year. The guy is aces. Not just a good player, but he's a SOLID teammate. That kind of unwavering support of your teammates doesn't come around all the time.

Depends on what time the game is. If it's a 7pm game almost everyone will pack up and leave. A lot of people tailgate and never go into the game at all, so there should be folks around the lots if it's an afternoon/11am game.

I give a lot of credit to the QB. It will be interesting to see how well they fare next year without Moore. I think it will be a similiar result to what you see in TCU without their QB this year. I love both TCU and Boise St and what they have done. I don't see either team going away. I think we would lose to Boise this year ... TCU as well. I agree that Moore is a HUGE part of their success. I don't know how well Southwick will do when he takes over next year. He'll lose Byrd © and Potter (RT) from the line, and Shoemaker at WR and Martin at RB, but I think they'll be just fine at skill positions and on the O Line. The big difference will be Moore.

The poll was conducted from 9/30/11-10/2/11, the day before, during and day after the Wisconsin loss.

Boise's worst ranking in the four major offensive and four major defensive stats categories is #35, and that's in Rushing Offense. They are top ten in Scoring Offense, Passing Efficiency, Total Defense and Scoring Defense. They've compiled this against the #29 schedule in the country. At the moment (and this will change as they go through conference games) they've played a tougher schedule than six of the other nine teams in the top ten. Boise is legit this year. I understand and agree with the argument that they have an advantage in that they don't have the conference grind that AQ schools have, but that doesn't automatically mean they're crap. I am usually on the "Boise is a paper tiger" bandwagon, but this year they aren't. They're pretty good.

Thought this excerpt was pretty interesting. You have to wonder how silly both Oklahoma and LSU feel right now:

From Public Policy Polling.

Booooooooo!

I wouldn't bet anyone's money on this or any other Husker game. You never know which team is going to show up, and this defense has underperformed so badly that you cannot count on shutting down an otherwise hapless opponent.

We have Rex Burkhead. Advantage = Huskers.

Prior to this game Michigan State's SOS was #112 in the country. Those defensive stats aren't that impressive. I think their defense is just fine, and probably as good of a unit as there is in the Big Ten, but you have to take all factors into account when boosting them up.