knapplc

For what it is worth, LITR posted an update from Watson. Watson said that Green has had a great last 3 days in practice and closed the gap between him and LTW, it is an even battle now. Take it for what it is worth. I caught that. I think that bodes well for us in the long run. I think that means that Washington was showing some good things, and Green has now caught up to that. I'm hoping it doesn't mean that both are stagnating somewhere near inefficiency. Washington showed something out there in the Spring Game. He didn't look like some incompetent hack former linebacker masquerading as a quarterback. He looked like a guy with a lot of raw athletic ability, a bit of a loose cannon, who needed refinement to become productive. Green just looked over his head. We need both to step up. Green is the future at QB, while Lee is clearly the present. Washington can be a vital bridge from Now to Then, providing depth and an inability to become comfortable for Lee. That's my perfect scenario, anyway.

We went in to Fall Camp with 16 wideouts on the roster. That's a crazy number, considering that only six or seven are going to see anything like real playing time this year. There are a lot of names being tossed about, but it looks like Niles Paul and Menelik Holt have stepped up their games, hoping to secure some of that hard-to-find playing time. Regarding Niles Paul: Regarding Menelik Holt: STORY This story by Steve Sipple contains a rundown of a lot of the offense - who's in what position, how they're doing, etc. Regarding Tim Marlowe: STORY It's looking like we'll be OK at WR if these guys are performing as well as the coaches are saying, and the coaches aren't just blowing sunshine. Presuming they're being honest, it seems like we have plenty of guys to catch the ball, especially when you count McNeill and guys like Cotton and Kyler Reed. If Zac Lee can be even competent at QB, we should be able to move the ball and score on most teams in Watson's offense. If he's as good as Ganzy, we're going to be just fine.

As great as Green's pedigree is coming into college, I'm really interested in seeing what LaTravis Washington can do when the green jersey comes off. Everyone at the Spring Game came away impressed with what he did, and there was a lot of talk about his foot speed and how he looked running the ball. Washington in a Zone Read with Helu could be devastating to an opponent.

I see NOTHINK!!!

How well does the wife get along with the in-laws?

Agreed. Love me some Joey Ganz, but I will not miss the turnovers.

I have checked on games before I actually sit down and start watching, I'll admit. It helped soften some of the blow of the first five minutes of Oklahoma knowing the score, and it actually made me awfully curious to know how it all happened. Good thing I didn't have to wait long to find out. I also skipped ahead during the Gator Bowl, because I felt like we should be winning and I was grumpy that we weren't. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find that we were ahead, but a lot of that was due to the fact that I got pissed and went to live TV when Witt fumbled. Imagine my surprise to find that Clemson didn't have 28 points. I had to surf through most of the game to get back to that spot, only to find out it wasn't a fumble. From then on the rest of the game was a lot more fun. I don't always do that, but it happens. And it's better (to me) to do that than suffer through all those commercials.

People point to this as a knock on Lee, and it's true that he never stole the #2 spot from Witt outright last season, but the prevailing wisdom is that they were essentially 2A and 2B, with very little difference between them. The main difference is Lee's scrambling ability, which better resembles Joey Ganz' than Zac Taylor's, while Witt was the opposite. I would bet dollars to donuts that if you gave the coaches a mulligan on who they put in the Gator Bowl after Witt's near-disaster, they'd have put Lee in instead. In that situation knowing (as the mulligan would let you know) that your QB would be flushed and running in the open field, Lee is your man, not Witt. The play was a pocket pass, not a run, and Witt is a pure pocket passer. Regardless, Witt went in on that play, and pretty much every other mop-up play last year. But that was last year, and heading into the Spring it was clearly NOT Witt's job in the eyes of the coaches. We know that because, by popular rumor, Witt asked for some kind of assurance that he really had the starting gig locked up and Bo refused to give him that, and Witt left. Tim Griffin touched on this in one of his mailbags in the Spring:

It's soooo not the same as watching it live!! Is there a sports bar in or around the airport where you can duck in and watch until halftime? If not, then give them the necessary $$ to get to your place on their own. This is a Husker game, for God's sake. You only get 13-14 times a year to see them. Priorities, man, priorities! It's not the same - it's better. I typically let the game run for a good hour or so before I watch so I can skip past the commercials. I hate how they break up the game with commercial breaks, ESPECIALLY the ever-popular "TD is scored - Two-Minute Commercial Break - Kickoff - Two-Minute Commercial Break - Series starts," and it's even worse when that next series is three-and-out and they go to commercial again after the punt. You'll have six to seven minutes of commercials for maybe two minutes of game time. I really dislike commercials.

That's a good point, but Scott's issues were more due to injury (his and a plethora of others on the team, including the O-Line) than actual factual performance. If a similar thing happens to Green it'll mean that nobody, not Lee, not Green, not Washington, will be OK this year. And let's hope that doesn't happen.

I've seen a very, very few. And no memorable ones.

Do the Blue Hairs allow people to put up signs at Husker games?

I'm pretty sure this is why they invented DVR.

I read that he was replaced on the 105 as well, but now I read this at the bottom of the Niles Paul blurb in Life in the Red: So take that for what it's worth...?

junior, maybe we need to just convince TO to move the franchise to TX or CA in the middle of the night. It is clear that NE is no longer the correct spot for this team, can't get any support if NE kids are no longer going to be contributors to the team right? I thought you looked suspiciously like Robert Irsay....

Winner winner chicken dinner. It's all about where they can make the most money.

It was a play on words, nothing more.

This is exactly how I feel about the situation. I love the potential Green has, but I think he's getting a little "flavor-of-the-month" bump here, while Zac Lee's potential is being overlooked. Lee came to Nebraska with no small amount of fanfare, but that has since died away and Green was a pretty big deal when he signed. I wouldn't be surprised to see Green seriously challenge Lee for the #1 spot next year, but this year is pushing it a bit. I hope Green is all that people think he is, for if nothing else, that'll push Lee to perform at his highest. With nobody looking over a player's shoulder, there's always the potential for slacking. A strong challenger will help with that.

Who are you hearing this from? The coaches? The fans? The media? Joe on the Street? I know there was some random belief back in the day that we "had to" run a running offense because it got so cold on the plains that we "couldn't" run a pass-oriented offense in the snow, but that was random fan blather justifying our Option attack when pundits would crack on it as old-fashioned. Of course, that flew in the face of the offense Devaney ran as well as offenses run by several Big 10 schools, so it was easily dismissed as the kind of nonsensical justification of know-nothings. But I haven't heard lately anyone talking about the weather as a factor in producing talent...?

Brian Christopherson has a good personality piece about Cody Green today. Sounds like he’s not your typical freshman, not wide-eyed and cowed by campus life. Sounds like they’re bringing him along and he’s handling it well, and it sounds like he’s taking it all in stride. I thought this was really interesting, especially considering the wholesale redshirting of the last class: Full article with more quotes about Green here

Agreed. There shouldn't even be a debate now. I'm done with this conversation. We'll let the play on the field show everyone, on either side of the question, how lucky/unlucky we are that we don't have Mr. Paulus here.

Before anyone gets too hung up on the fact that Paulus is the starter at Syracuse, go look at what the Orangemen had at QB before Paulus stepped on campus.

I had a point that you didn't understand because you're looking for a 1:1 analogy, while no such thing exists. Since none exists, you have to think a little outside the box. Since Michael Jordan's failed baseball career didn't make sense to you, try looking up Deion Sanders' career, or Bo Jackson's. Go look up Tony Gonzalez, if you must have a football/basketball comparator, but realize that through college Gonzalez never stopped playing both sports so again, it's not a 1:1 analogy. The point is that athleticism doesn't overcome rust. It's not enough to simply be "athletic" because everyone on that field from the wide receivers to the fat, ugly linemen are athletic at this level. His athleticism may prevent him from getting killed, but if athleticism was all it took to go from one sport to another, even one you used to be talented in five years ago, more people would do it. But they don't. And there's a reason for that. And that reason has a lot to do with why Nebraska and Michigan and every other school but Syracuse (who is completely desperate for a QB) didn't let him come in.

I don't think you could have missed the point any worse had you been aiming in the opposite direction.

It's the second week of January that everyone hates.