knapplc

What do you mean by that? What's wrong with supporting the team? And why does saying "support the team" make you a "liberal?" Man, I'm finding a lot of your posts confusing!

It's not that the tire slashing or assaults have happened to 90% of Husker Fans, it's that 90% of us have heard the accounts of those things happening. I have never in my life ever heard of an entire section of a stadium having to be cleared out of a game because of unruliness. That fact alone lends credence to these stories, you have to admit. It shows that the mentality that would precipitate those actions exists there. However... I would bet money that it's upwards of 95% of you guys. The problem you face is that the minority of you who are acting like soccer hooligans give the rest of you a bad name. We know Colorado Fans aren't horrible by and large - you're not geographically far enough away from us to be that different from us, for one thing. Your biggest obstacle are those wholly true reports of slashed tires, broken windows on cars, beer bottle missiles at Folsom Field, and all the other stories we've all heard, all of which are done by the vast minority of "Colorado Fans."

From the land of unnecessary comments...

Although I'm taking part in the Callahan bashing, I would agree with you that the whole angst-ridden posting thing is getting old. But these are the times we live in, as this post so eloquently says:

Why? Both of you - or anyone else who wants either of these two guys - tell us why they would be good, and/or why they would be better than the other guy. I will go on record as saying I doubt either Gill or Pelini gets the HC job here. Gill needs more time and Pelini doesn't seem any more like a Husker than BC ever did.

Come to Lincoln this Saturday, go to the ticket window, and try to get tickets. That'll answer your question better than any of us can. While you're here be sure to stop at Lazlo's in the Haymarket. Best microbrew in 500 miles.

Some nitwit has a nationwide radio show and you believe what he says about this program rather than guys here who have been following Husker Football for 30, 40, 50 or more years? Man, W.C. Fields was right about suckers being born every minute. I will say this about Cowherd - he's more than likely right about Nebraska not returning to what we were in the late 1990s. However, NO team will EVER return to what we were then. People just don't get how utterly dominant those teams were. USC isn't what Nebraska was then, and they're the closest thing to it in college football today. The 1995 team would wipe their feet on any of the recent USC championship teams. Of COURSE we won't be that again. What is very possible, even likely if we get the right staff in here, is that we return to what we were in the 1980s - a solid team every year. Every year we vie for the conference title. Every few years we vie for the MNC. That's very attainable with the facilities, the program, the boosters, the fans, the tradition and the culture of Nebraska Football. This program wasn't built in a couple of years. We're not Kansas, people. We're a force in college football, current situation or not. Let's please stop listening to these airbags on their four-hour, desperate-for-content radio shows as if they actually KNOW anything. They're just filling air so you listen to their commercials. They have NO IDEA what Husker Football is about. K?

So.... if people ask you if the sun rises in the West, which direction are you going to look come sunrise? Seriously - learn how ticket sales at the University work before worrying about this. It will take years and years and years for the sellout streak to end.

Let's say I had a favorite steakhouse. Let's say I ate there every Saturday for 30 years, and for 30 years I had great meal after great meal, the next one greater than the last, until finally after 30 years the last dozen or so meals were the most magnificent food I had ever eaten. Then let's say the Head Chef of the steakhouse retired. They hire a new guy. The food is good for a while, but after a few years you can tell - it's not the same. They're using different spices, or the veal isn't so fresh. So in a fit of pique the owner cans the new chef and goes out to find a new chef. After a search he says he has found THE GUY. This guy doesn't know how to cook steak to save his life, but he CAN make crudite like nobody's business. So this guy comes in and starts making food. Every Saturday I go in, but clearly the food is not good. It gets worse, it gets worse still, until finally I get food poisoning so bad that I spend a month in the hospital, clinging to life. I get better, and in the meantime the Head Chef fires his sou chef and promises to get a new sou chef, and wants me to come back. Now, are you telling me that I'm supposed to be happy with this guy because the croutons on my salad were pretty good? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't eat there again. And I'll tell you another thing - neither would Tom Osborne.

As ga-ga as Callahan is over QBs there is NO WAY he would let Blaine Gabbert walk away from his verbal without a huge fight if he even remotely thought he was staying here. Callahan knows he's gone and he's not doing anything to convince his recruits otherwise. That's proof enough for me.

Couple of things - I think you are overrating recruiting stars. The recruiting services have been "off" quite a bit lately (see: Notre Dame, Nebraska, Michigan, etc.) and further whatever a kid does in High School really doesn't mean much to their success in College, just like success in College means next to nothing in predicting success in the Pros (see: Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, Mike Williams, etc.) Also, don't count on Nebraska needing even three years to "rebuild." We have an atrocious coaching staff that can recruit players but cannot coach them or gameplan properly. We have a LOT of talent on this team, and a lot of young talent. See what Bob Stoops did with the players he inherited his first year, and his MNC in year #2. We have that kind of talent on our team, we just have a staff who doesn't know how to motivate or exploit it.

Eh. You've got a point about the rehashing. And you've been here longer than me. ;-)

That pretty much sums it up. We knew coming into this season that we had an inexperienced D-Line, but we were supposed to have this great offense chock full of talent at every position from QB to RB to WR to O-Line. The best-laid plans of mice and men...

Please place rant here. Thank you.

And the other Jim Rose thread on Page One of this forum was not used... why?

So are you going to be Jerry for us and get your pointer out and explain how that cigarette must have turned 90 degrees - in midair, mind you - while Kramer and Newman stand by, abashed? =D Once again, sCrUmptious, I would repeat that several of us have seen cigarettes flicked quite a number of feet. They do fly, whether your personal experience says so or not. On top of that, remember that back in the 1980s they wore shorter jerseys, so it didn't necessarily have to go through the breathing holes in the material. It could have gotten under the shirt. The reality is that this could have happened. You and I think it's highly unlikely and that there are more probable explanations, but that's not proof. It's possible. Just not probable. And since it's possible, and we have no reason to think that Danielle is lying, I think we can probably give her the benefit of the doubt on this one. At the end of the day it's not a big deal whether it was a cigarette or a pom-pom or an orange - we all know that stuff gets thrown on the field at games.

It's kind of fun to sit back and watch a thread spiral out of control. I imagine this is what a spaceship would look like as it is slowly sucked into a black hole. Round and round it goes, until finally it tips over the event horizon and :blink!: it's gone. =)

I'm not trying to start anything either. I just disagree with your premise that coaches don't affect attitude and performance. I believe they do. And while it took T.O. 22 years to find the National Championship formula, I would counter that he had a great deal of success throughout his career. He was one play away from winning the MNC in 1983, and how many more years was he one win away from playing for it all? And even more than T.O. looking for a job, remember how everyone and their brother was calling for Charlie McBride's head in the late 80s? "He can't coach," "He has no idea what he's doing," etc. He turned out pretty well in the end, though. But it was only after he learned to adapt to the current game and learned how to get the most out of all of his players. HE was responsible for those dominating defenses of the 90s, not ONLY the players. And yes, "even I" would agree that there is something wrong with this defense. =) It is certainly a few players, but it is also Cosgrove. There is just no way to absolve him from wrongdoing in this debacle. He is doing something wrong, and the players are doing something wrong, and the result is... this season.

I just cannot stress enough how much I disagree with the underlined parts. Either you don't follow college football much or you're simply looking for a reason to like these coaches. I fail to comprehend how anyone can look at the body of work Tom Osborne put together - along with his coaching staff - and think that coaches have no effect on wins and losses. There was a 20-year stretch where Nebraska didn't crack the top ten in recruiting classes more than twice. Most Husker Fans grew up ignoring the recruiting rankings because they meant so little to our success year in and year out. T.O. would take decent-to-average players and, through his own personal brand of excellence in coaching ability, would make these kids top players. It didn't happen once, it didn't happen a few times.... it happened every single year he was running the ship. The kids we put on the field were NOT highly regarded. They were NOT sought-out players for the most part. They were kids with guts and determination and will. The coaches molded those raw materials into some really great players. They then took those great players and made them into excellent teams. Man, there were dozens of games - literally - where we demolished our opponents not because we had greater athletes or because we got lucky, it was because our coaches instilled a winning attitude in our players, and with that training, with those attitudes, they could not lose. Absolving a coaching staff from the debacle we see before us this season is simply one of the most myopic things I've ever heard of.

The only time I ever "met" T.O. was at Meridian Park. He and Nancy pulled up to the stall next to mine. We both got out of our cars and I looked over and there he was, and he was looking at me like, "Are you going to freak out or are we going to be cool about this?" I just said something lame like, "Hi, Coach!" He smiled and he and Nancy both said, "Hi." That's about it. Pretty lame "brush with greatness," huh?

I totally agree. Let's let these kids go out with a resounding ovation, win or lose. Love 'em, hate 'em, whatever - they've strapped on their pads, sweat, bled and played for us. They are Huskers. Let's give them the respect they deserve.

Osborne cannot talk to the recruits. That's a recruiting violation and would bring the NCAA down on our heads. Osborne is doing everything he can short of firing the whole staff right now, which he's on record as saying he won't do. We cannot expect the man to go back on his word. We got Bo Pelini in a situation exactly like the one you're describing, and I'd say he worked out OK for the one year he was here.

Thankfully, we won't have to worry about that scenario. He won't be back. One year's recruiting class is the least of our worries right now. We need to fix this from the top down, not the bottom up. Every single coaching staff in America works under those conditions. Notre Dame is willing to forgive one crummy season like this, but if they aren't noticeably better next year, you can bet Charlie is going to be out on his Weiss.

I can't see that in my browser without downloading it, so I made it into a .jpg:

Let's not go totally overboard here. It's cool that you didn't like the job the guy did, but let's not make him out to be Attila the Hun, K?