dave

I was sitting in the stands watching that game in horror, along with everyone else. As it came to a close, I was watching the time on the clock, and looking at that bar on the scoreboard indicating we had one timeout remaining. I don't understand why we didn't use it. Wouldn't it have forced them to run just one play of some kind or even kick a FG? The odds of us doing something with just a few seconds left was slim - but wasn't that the case against Northwestern a few years ago, too? Am I wrong? Did we not have a timeout left, or was I just not considering the clock mechanics properly?

Take it easy, guys. In the time it took me to read through the 5 pages of this thread, I've gone from inexplicable horror to optimism. I was one of the Tressel/Frost dreamers, but I knew it was just that - a dream. Heck, I even dreamed Bo could hang around as DC and keep all the recruits. But, there's one thing I really like about this choice -- we hired a HEAD COACH. I think we learned with Pelini what happens when you hire a coordinator as your HC -- you get a HC with 0 HC experience. He brings an OC with 0 OC experience and eventually a DC with 0 DC experience. The fact that we managed winning seasons was a combination of quazi-good coaching, luck, and the fact that we're playing the likes of Purdue and Indiana. Let's all give this guy a shot, and do what we CAN DO - which is support this program and the players. Let me remind you that those recruits you guys don't want to lose are going to be watching things like Husker message boards to see people's reactions. GO BIG RED!

Do a Google search for Jim Tressel.........

I don't recall anybody complaining about Abdullah's four 1-yard TD runs a couple weeks ago against Northwestern. Abudllah was hurt when a lineman fell on him. It had nothing to do with the playcall or down or field position. It's football. Injuries happen. That's the point. Cross wouldn't have taken 4 attempts either time. 1, maybe 2, and he's in. Ameer is an OUTSTANDING player, I'm not trying to take anything away from him. Cross is listed at 230, Abdullah at 195. It's just a matter of physics in short yardage scenarios. ....no difference than others have pointed out regarding having Imani being put into scenarios like speed plays on the edge. And yeah, I was complaining about it last week and every other time it's 3rd or 4th and short. Just ask the poor people who have to watch a game with me.

IMHO Ameer should have been on the sideline watching Cross pound it up the middle for four downs in a row instead of being in the middle of it getting hurt. The dude's a tank (Cross) - I think we need to put him in there every time we need 1-2 yards. Line up, show what we're doing, hell just tell them what we're doing, and do it. Good ole Husker smash mouth football. No reason to have Ameer in there in those scenarios.

I agree with Jax. The only thing in our control is to beat Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa at the moment. Doing that will put us in the B1G championship game. The rankings will be what they are, and I think we just need to collectively ignore them for the time being. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see Nebraska stay right where they are in the polls, even with a couple of teams ahead of them losing. I'm guessing we'll drop a spot or two with MSU being ranked ahead of us. We'll see in a few hours.

The whole problem with strength of schedule and which teams are ranked is the so totally flawed AP poll. Just look at this website - http://collegepolltracker.com - and for fun, let's specifically look at Doug Doughty from the Roanoke Times in Virginia. This joker has voted Nebraska generally where it should be, but in the last three weeks, put as #22, then #11 and now #16. It's voting like this that makes absolutely no sense. Meanwhile, Drew Sharp has hasn't rated Nebraska all year long. These journalists, who probably don't even watch any games, are the ones dictating which teams have the best SOS? Give me a break. I really, really, really hope the selection committee doesn't even look at the AP poll....ever. Kudos to whoever put that website together -- spend some time looking it over, and you'll really quickly see how much of a pile of crap "the system" is.

So, that loss by Oregon last night -- I would think it makes at least a few people on Michigan State's team feel just a bit deflated. They've been hanging their hat on how they were ahead of Oregon like that matters. Well, now being ahead of Oregon suddenly doesn't mean much. I played college sports, but not football -- what do you who played football think of this? Do the players get distracted by that? Do the coaches? I think the other thing that loss did was make it imperative for Nebraska to win tonight to stay ranked. The "close game" against Oregon now means less and I think even with a hypothetical win over Nebraska, MSU drops in the polls.

HAHA! Hilarious.

Whoops. Right, typo. #40 was Oregon. Post edited.

So, back to the topic of Michigan State stopping the run game.... (You guys should go talk McNeese on another thread, I recall several of them...) I was looking at 2014 stats this morning and saw that Michigan State's defense has seen the likes of: #40 Rushing Offense - Oregon #74 Rushing Offense - Wyoming #99 Rushing Offense - Eastern Michigan FCS team worse than McNeese State - Jacksonville State -------------- NOW, in efforts to not have a log in my own eye, our awesome rushing offense hasn't exactly played the best rushing defenses either, but I thought it interesting, nonetheless. (#119 Fl At, FCS McNeese, #123 Fresno, #65 Miami, #122 Illini) ... addition - ouch, that was worse than I thought it was going to be. However, how much of Nebraska running all over those teams makes their stats drop?

Here's the problem, guys -- IF we go to East Lansing and beat MSU on Saturday, we just killed the only piece of glimmer the B1G has. MSU falls to 3-2, beat by inferior Nebraska. MSU's early close game with Oregon gets dismissed as a sluggish start by Oregon, and the B1G has no legitimacy left at all. (Even with a hypothetical then 6-0 Nebraska) They'll just drop Michigan State all the way down to #20+ or out of the polls completely and move us up the 1 spot vacated by them, #18. If anyone above us loses we could slide up those as well, but I just don't see ESPN saying, "Oh, Nebraska is the new Michigan State. They're now the ones on the outside of the playoffs looking in." That all said - this is 100% on us. It's not the pollsters fault we've lost 4 games every year in recent history. As it's been said over and over again - JUST WIN. Historically speaking, even if 2014 Nebraska beats both Michigan State and Wisconsin, it will piss itself against Iowa or Rutgers.

Exactly! I don't coach football, but I do coach, and this is exactly why coaches "discuss" things with the officials. It's to keep them on their toes. Perhaps you're not always going to get that make up call, but it's just a piece of subconscious thought that might make the official think you're watching over his shoulder on the next would-be bad call. HOWEVER, there's a very fine line -- cross it, and just get more and more calls going against you. I think the Bo of years past crossed that line frequently. I haven't seen it yet this year -- and as others have said -- if any time warranted crossing that line, that was it. BTW - that ref that fell over calling the non-PI was hilarious. I laughed my ass off over that. Not sure what the TV caught, but it was very comical live.

everything was making sense, then I read the bolded... Then you must not know Nebraska history. No, I do. As well as anyone here. I just am having trouble seeing how anything Tom Osborne did as head coach is influencing voting right now in CFB polls 17 years after he retired. I could probably have left that piece out -- I think the difference between the TO era, the latter TO era in particular, and the Solich/Callahan/Pelini era is that TO teams didn't lose the games they should win. They won them. (Example, 2013: beating UCLA, Minnesota, and Iowa leave us with 1 loss) However, throughout recent history, even under TO, Nebraska has been prone to losing the big games. Beating Georgia last year was great, and taking down Miami yesterday was another building block. We better not fall into a trap game this weekend, but I'll admit I'm already looking forward to Sparty and that creepy badgeresque mascot up at Camp Randall. The only way we're going to beat a top 5 team is to go through our regular season undefeated, because just like the Big XII did when we were there, the B1G is self-destructing, losing games it shouldn't and then proceeding to beat up on each other during conference play. We control our future. Win out. At that point we can start talking about how great we are....but we have to prove it.

Welcome back, Doc, and thanks for watching. Regarding the booing -- like others have said, pregame I think it was absolutely classless and out of character. The fact that we DON'T do stuff like that is what makes us classy. During the game, particularly while they were raping Gregory and flipping us off - yes, boo away, by all means. When they left the field, I'm torn -- it would have been more classy to clap. I was personally over in the tunnel high-fiving our guys walking out, watching as my boy tried to intercept every glove, sweat rag, and other accessories the players were casting out, so I didn't see it. What I really had more of a problem with was the crowd chanting "bullsh...." -- yeah, it was BS, there were some really bad calls and some even worse no-calls, things that weren't caught on video, but again, NOT doing that is what makes us a class act. I think booing those calls is fine, but escalating to mass profane chants is over the edge.