They all have much better freshman to play. Their recruits are more developed by the nature of the caliber of player they are. Every school you mentioned has a bunch of Blue Chip kids who are farther along than the typical recruit (the likes of which NU gets). Simply put, we do not land enough recruits who are capable of playing as freshman --- the top programs do.
What's the point? Everyone bitched when Callahan burned redshirts. Just let them be. We need to see the big picture, not just the here-and-now.
If Pete Carroll, Mack Brownl, Bob Stoops, Nick Saben, Urban Meyer, and Les Miles think it works, I don't see what they problem is with it.
Lets take a look at those programs, they are all in, or near, the top 10 and fighting for a national title. They play freshmen because they have a chance to win it all this year. In 3-4 years if we get back on track and are in the top 10 and bringing in top 10 recruiting classes like those you mentioned above, you will see more true freshman playing. Until then there really isn't a reason to.
With that said, Wald has been a wild man on special teams, and Dennard has really impressed me with his blocking on kickoff returns, he guided Paul to his return for TD and seems to get after it even if he doesn't receive the kick.
These freshmen will have a year of good coaching under their belts, and will be hungry to rip someone's head off next year. Bo knows we aren't a top 25 team this year, so why not build for the future?
when i started rewading this post that is the first thing that came to mind that Nebraska doesnt have the high caliber recruits to win now. So let pelini do what clownahan wasnt teach the young guys the fundamentals and develop them into better players.