Toe

There are those who say that Devaney really wasn't such an amazing coach himself, he just had a hell of a knack for picking the right assistants. Whatever works, I say!

A thought that scares me is that they didn't show the 3-4 in the spring game not because they didn't want it on film, but because they were so awful at executing it...

I'm sure there will be some growing pains with Diaco, but I think that this transition will be smoother than the transition to Banker. For one, I don't think the players were nearly as attached to Banker as they were to Bo - I don't expect nearly as many buy-in problems. And two, I'd say Diaco is probably a better coach overall than Banker.

I think what you just described is a pretty below-average coach. I think what he just described is Bill Callahan. And Callahan, for anyone who needs a refresher, took Nebraska to a conference championship game in his third year. Bo Pelini reached that point in two years. So what would you say the odds are of Riley reaching that mark in year three?

^ I would argue that such a conference would basically just be the next AAC. One formed from the weak remnants of the old Big East, the other from the weak remnants of the old Big 12. Calling it a better fate would be a stretch.

Athlon's preseason top 25 has Texas at #13. You know, the team that's had three losing seasons in a row, and has finished ranked only once in the last seven seasons.

DeLoss Dodds retired, too. I still don't see a real fundamental change, though. If something were to change, I think we would at least have been hearing rumblings of it after the Big 12's failed expansion attempt. It's not like there's a lot of rumors that the Longhorn Network will become a Big 12 network or anything. I think they've decided to accept their status quo for the foreseeable future. I'll tell you what might change their tune, though: when the Big 12 gets left out of the playoff again, and it's Texas that gets slighted. Of course, Texas has only finished ranked once in the last seven seasons...

This is exactly why this whole discussion (at least on the UT side) is kinda silly - Texas won't join a conference where they can't just impose their will on everyone else. Have people forgotten the whole 'Exodus to the PAC' they were talking about in 2011? Texas said to them "We'll join you and bring a few other schools... you just have to let us have our own TV network." The PAC said "Aw hell naw," so Texas took their ball and went home. Literally the only reason the Big 12 still exists is because they're the only ones dumb enough to let Texas run the show.

Yeah, that doesn't happen when you hire a guy that's as old as Osborne was when he retired. Then again, Devaney coached 11 seasons. If Riley coaches that many seasons at Nebraska, he'll still be a good five years younger in his final season than Bill Snyder is today...

I remember a line from an article after that: "On the day before Halloween, Missouri was unmasked. Nebraska snatched the scary off the Tigers like it was the end of a Scooby Doo episode."

I don't know if it was my very favorite, but the game in my avatar was pretty good.

We aren't actively recruiting a QB. I was referring to this staff's performance since they've been here, not this year specifically. They've brought in some strong recruits at WR and QB, yes. But look at the other 80% of the team, and the recruiting has been, well, not as much of an upgrade as some are making it out to be. Though getting recruits earlier in the cycle is an improvement over Bo's last-minute scramble.

Last class, half of the 4* guys were WRs. So far this class, half of the 4* guys are WRs. We might need some receivers, but receivers don't comprise 50% of a team.

Now about that recruiting for positions that aren't WR or QB...

I wanna see how Dabo does post-Deshaun before I crown him king as a coach, let alone Clemson as a program.

I don't know if I agree with them being kings, but both have achieved at least some amount more than us over the last ~20 years. They have three conference championships and 3 BCS/major bowl appearances since 2000. And they're hotter present tense. Nebraska would probably have about the same if they'd been in a conference with co-champions and no championship game like the Big Ten pre-2011. I'd say the biggest thing separating the two is that last year Penn State got lucky and won a conference championship game. That 'hotter at the moment' thing.

How come there's two fourth-team defenses? And what's Stanley Morgan doing on defense?

Long-term, I think we'll be fine with Diaco. It's the short-term transition period that's a huge question mark...

I mean, Callahan at least two winning seasons between his 5-win years...

Or at least put an asterisk next to him. Meh, we'll see how Dabo does post-Watson.

What I mostly heard was that Armstrong had his core group of friends like Westerkamp, but a lot of his teammates really weren't too crazy about him. Liked to throw other guys under the bus. I always shook my head when people proclaimed that Armstrong was such a great leader just because he didn't seem as introverted publicly as T-Mart...