knapplc

Let's see if we can count the number of differences between that team and this team.

That works both ways. This is the price of playing major college football. If they can't handle sitting in the sunlight for a few hours signing their names to a piece of paper in exchange for all that goes with playing football for Nebraska... well, let's just say there are literally thousands of 18-22 year old kids willing to take their place. Luckily almost every player on the team likes doing things for the fans, so this kind of stuff doesn't come up much. Sure they get bored, but they're willing to do it for the fans.

You and I are in the same boat about Nebraska's offense - I can't assert we're going to light up the scoreboard and you can't assert we won't. There's just too much unknown at this point. What we do know about Nebraska's offense is we figure to have a good line and a couple of good running backs. That's a darned good base to build an offense from, so if Zac Lee is even competent (and doesn't give the ball away like Ganzy did too often) we should be able to score and control the clock again.

Exactly. The same Kerry Meier who went 6-6 in his only season as a starter. Kerry Meier doesn't start at QB for pretty much any program in the Big XII, so beating him out for a job isn't much to hang your hat on. What Reesing can hang his hat on is his scrambling ability, several very good wins he led the team to (including a BCS bowl victory) and numerous school records. The kid is good, I'm not taking anything away from him.

no doubt speed kills. KU's D will be much faster this year. Also notice with all that speed we still scored 35 in lincoln. Ah, but Nebraska's D will be even faster than it was last year as well. And I'm not seeing that Reesing's speed has increased in the offseason. If not, he'll be getting chased down by Suh and Co. once again, with similar results. Not to mention the players admitted they didn't fully buy into Pelini's system last season, but they are now. All things considered, I see no reason to believe Kansas is going to score 35 points again. Mangino is a good coach and will game-plan for the Huskers, I have no doubt. This is most certainly NOT a "W" for Nebraska, and I expect a dog fight. But unless I see something very different from the Jayhawks this year, I have no reason to believe this year's results will differ from last year's. And let's not hang our hats too much on the number 35. That last TD by Kansas came against a very soft defense when Nebraska had a 17-point lead with 3:30 to go. I'm going to disagree with you if you assert the game was truly a ten-point margin. Nebraska's margin of victory did not reflect the way that game truly went.

In general I agree with what you're saying here, but I wouldn't go as far as you're going here. It's not as if Reesing didn't make mistakes. Ganzy was irresponsible with the ball on several occasions and cost us some crushing turnovers. That Tech INT was a great play by the defender, not unlike Berringer's attempt to throw the ball away against Miami in 1994. Joe threw some passes he shouldn't have, but he also threaded the needle on occasion and made some brilliant plays as well. The biggest difference between Reesing and Ganzy is Reesing had nobody around him to push him out of a job. Ganzy played second fiddle his first four years here, and wouldn't have sniffed the field except for Keller's broken collar bone. Callahan was notorious for giving the non-first-stringers next to no reps in practice. Who knows what Joe would have been under Mangino? I'll guarantee he would have been different. Reesing is better than Ganz, I'm not saying he isn't. I'm saying the gap between them isn't that big.

Everyone stop. Just stop. The name of the Nebraska quarterback is Zac Lee. Not "Zach" Lee. There is no "h" in ZLee's name. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Zac. Learn it, know it, live it. Resume thread.

Also, Jayhawker, you may want to watch . Pay special attention to: 0:20 1:12 1:34 2:14 3:29 4:42 5:30 and last but not least: 5:44 Notice how many times Reesing is run down by a defensive lineman. Speed on defense kills, and we have it.

That's all well and good, but you remember the result of the game. The bottom line is, our defense figures to be better as well, perhaps leaps and bounds better. It's gonna be a great game. I don't see either team blowing out the other. It could come down to a field goal, and there I gotta give the Huskers the edge.

Griffin had a good Freshman year where he burst on the scene as a previously (mostly) unknown commodity. This year teams will have a season's worth of film on him and they'll key on stopping him. Unless they get much better at WR and RB than they were last year, I don't see them as any better than 4th in the South.

I hope he does well. The Bears have a history of good former Husker cornerbacks.

Yeah. I can't wait to see Suh go all "Little Hawk" on Reesing. }=) If they get their passing game going with Briscoe against our weak-ish secondary, and if they can sneak Sharp past the D Line a few times, I think we're in for a long day in Lawrence. But if our front four wins the line battle I think we'll have enough pressure on Reesing that he'll be running for his life more than picking apart our secondary. We gotta beat these guys. Enough is enough!

"Summer reports seem to indicate Turner’s totally back on track." Awesome. A healthy Turner on one side with an experienced Allen on the other, Suh in the middle with either B Stein or Crick helping out, sure sounds like a great front four to me.

Robsker, I'd take Reesing over Lee right now, too. I think most sane people would. But that's not what SkerChicago and I are discussing. He's saying there's no way Zac Lee can ever be the QB that Reesing is, and I'm saying we have zero info on which to base such an assumption. We know how good Reesing is, but we have no idea if Lee is good or bad. Unfortunately, your premise doesn't settle this. The only thing that will settle this is play on the field. Luckily, football is a team sport. As you said, our big advantage this year is our defense, which should be better than most any others out there, and certainly ought to be better than Kansas'. Reesing could be the second coming of Joe Montana but if he's running for his life and/or on his butt the whole time, we'll win the game.

Reesing is good, no doubt, but he hasn't set the bar so high that it's impossible to catch him. Again, you're dismissing even the possibility that Zac (not "Zach") could could be the equal of Reesing, and you have nothing to base that on. Lee could be the next Tommie Frazier or the next Harrison Beck. At this point we have zero idea which it'll be. Let's let the kid play for a while before making these judgments on him.

You have some kind of crystal ball that shows you Zac Lee's career? Because you're as far off base as all the folks calling for NU to go undefeated with this "will ever be" tangent. Reesing may end up better overall than ZLee, but let's let the guy start a few games before we dismiss him to the trash heap.

BOLD - Agreed. I help make a Top 25 for another site, and we do it for the traffic it generates and to have something to talk about, but I agree that we don't know squat about most (if any) of these teams at this point. UNDERLINE - You're probably right. Which is why I ranked the Huskers at #21. Right ahead of Kansas.

Of course. You don't want simply the current top 40 teams. You want programs that have proven over the course of time that they'll dedicate resources to making good football. Don't believe for a second that Notre Dame is going to stay down forever. They have too much pride and too many dollars from their alumni to be this bad for too long. Oklahoma did it. USC did it. Hopefully Nebraska is on their way to doing it. There's a big difference between schools that have a football team and Football Schools. Notre Dame is a Football School.

Can't argue with that. Any self-respecting rational football fan would have to give Reesing an emphatic nod at the QB position based on experience alone. And if you have any doubts, watch the symphony he conducted against Mizzery last season. 37/51 (72%) for 375 yards and four touchdowns. And it wasn't only the numbers; it was the broken play ability to make magic happen. All told, he's a very solid quarterback in a league full of them. Nobody knows where Lee will top out, but preseason hype means diddly next to Reesing's experience and stats. Boom and boom. Two very good posts here.

I don't suppose you've looked at the teams ranked in most polls between 10-25, have you? There are a TON of question marks on a ton of teams this year. Basically your top four should be Florida, Oklahoma, Texas and USC, and then it's pretty much a crap shoot from there. Remember 2007, when everyone lost all the time and we had like six different teams at #2? We stand a good chance of seeing that again this year.

Looks great. Now we just have to do enough on the field to make that thing light up all the time.

It would stop the pretending, because in the current system those teams that make a title run now don't have a real chance at the title. Boise State last year, TCU a couple years back, Kansas a couple years back, etc. Did any of these teams have a real shot at the title? Really? If they had been given an equal shoot at one yes. The size of the divisions have little to do with the system the teams play under. Utah by all rights should have played for the Nat. championship last season, but changing the size of the leagues wouldn't have changed the outcome. Only changes to the egregious BSC selection process will change that. And I don't think shrinking the playing field will do anything to help solve that mess. They would have an equal shot if they had been given an equal shot, but they weren't? Isn't that what I said? I'm not sure what you mean by "size of the leagues." If you're talking individual conferences, that's not what I'm saying. If you're talking Div 1A as a whole, yes, that's what I'm saying. Pare that down to a manageable level, and you won't need the BCS. But yes, I agree that the BCS has to go. It's a joke, and I've been saying that throughout this and other threads.

Agreed. It's WAY better than the NFL. But it could be better than it is, and I'm just tossing out ideas to make it better. 30-40-50 teams in 1A may not be the answer. But I'd like to see something change that would allow for better champions crowned. Without a real system that doesn't involve excluding teams that have legit arguments for being there (or a way to determine how "legit" that argument even is), we're one step above intramurals. Maybe even half a step. And for a sport we all love so much, I find that unpalatable. What's wrong with the current system? I think a better question would be, "What's right with this system?" Aside from the ridiculously bloated number of teams in 1A, you have vastly different budgets for these teams, no real method of determining a champion (or at least, no method used by any kind of organized sport in history other than Div 1A of NCAA football), out of control TV contracts being signed with specific conferences.... the list goes on and on.

Agreed. It's WAY better than the NFL. But it could be better than it is, and I'm just tossing out ideas to make it better. 30-40-50 teams in 1A may not be the answer. But I'd like to see something change that would allow for better champions crowned. Without a real system that doesn't involve excluding teams that have legit arguments for being there (or a way to determine how "legit" that argument even is), we're one step above intramurals. Maybe even half a step. And for a sport we all love so much, I find that unpalatable.

It would stop the pretending, because in the current system those teams that make a title run now don't have a real chance at the title. Boise State last year, TCU a couple years back, Kansas a couple years back, etc. Did any of these teams have a real shot at the title? Really?