Utah_Husker

I think the whole point is Callahan is too arrogant to tweak his offense to fit the talent. I've said before on this board that if he was as great as pedersen says he is, he could adjust to fit the talent he has and transition to what he wants over the next two years. I miss the option and think it was a mistake to scrap it, but I'm not so stubborn to say it should never change. But the fact that in all the games I've seen this year I can't remember seeing the option run once shows the stubbornness of Callahan. I think forcing things to change when you don't have the talent to do it isn't 'necessary growing pains', its just stupid.

Hey, I've been a true Husker fan my whole life and I will be until I die. I've stuck by the team through some pretty ugly losses in the past. Even in the 7-7 season, I had continual optimism week in and week out that we would turn things around. I still have that optimism that eventually we will get back to where we were. But that doesn't change the fact that Pedersen and Co. took the program in the absolute wrong direction. I'm not talking offensive philosophy, I'm talking attitude. How can you fire a 9-3 coach and expect your fans to have the same amount of patience they've had for 40 years? The cancer you speak of is Pedersen.

OOps, I meant better than Williams. Man I'm off my game tonight.

I know they don't have to play anyone really tough this year. But those of you outside the Mountain West don't know that Colorado State is a tough game, especially for Utah. They always have problems with them. Wyoming is a really hard place to play. And BYU is a rivalry game besides the fact that BYU is getting better every week and they have the toughest defense that Utah will face this year by far. Granted, I'm a BYU guy, but Utah will lose to at least BYU and maybe one more game. You heard it here first. Now, Playoffs. I guess it depends on what you mean as a 'true championship'. If you mean the team that is hottest at the end of the year, then yes, college football should have a playoff like every other sport. I think that what makes college football great is that you have to win every game to be able to win the championship. There are some years like last year where 1 loss might get you in, but the fact remains that every game is so intense every week because the teams know if they lose they're most likely out of the title hunt. You don't have that in any other sport. I have no doubt that the '99 huskers were playing better than any other team in the country at the end of the year and would have beaten FSU or Virginia Tech. If there was a playoff system in place, they probably would have won. I just think they didn't deserve to play for the title because they blew it at texas. It was the 1999 national championship, not the november-december 1999 championship. It has nothing to do with money for me, just a difference in philosophy as what a championship should mean. Wow, that was long...sorry.

I screwed up that last post. I was trying to quote newearthhusker and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm the new guy. Anyway, I'd say better corners than Minter would be Craver and Groce. Contrary to popular belief I don't think Washington or McPherson are that bad either. The whole point is I don't think we have a bunch of inferior players. 2002-2003 might have been a low point in the cycle, but we were definitely getting better. I agree totally with what Benard said in his previous post.

Utah will lose at least one game this year, probably two. They're a good team, but have you watched any of their games? I went to school at BYU, so I'm a Mountain West Conference fan, but I'm the first to admit that football in the MWC vs. the Big12 or SEC or ACC is totally different. If you want to see this talent gap I keep hearing about, watch a Mountain West Conference game. Yes, they can compete with the big schools because of their system, but they would not be undefeated if they had to play an ACC schedule. As far as a playoff goes, I could argue all day as to why that's a bad idea, but I guess this isn't the place for that.

I'll give you the Peters and Wistrom. I don't think there's a huge drop off from Tomich and Williams to what we have now. You're reaching with Minter.

You've proving my point. Even in the national championship years, name defensive players that would have started on a top ten team. We've never had overwhelming talent, especially on defense...Never! It was always the sytem, game plan, emotion, intensity, that got the most out of the players. And by the way, Utah is a joke. I live here and I can't wait for them to lose.

We DO have one of the best secondaries in the country. I'm not going to accept that our secondary wasn't awesome last year. Yes we got torched by Kansas St. and we wore down late against Missouri, but other than that, they were solid. And who did we lose from that secondary to make it so much worse...Pat Rickets? The difference is last year they were flying all over the field, aggressive and hungry. This year Cosgrove has them sitting back on their heels and reacting. No, I don't think Dailey is as good as Crouch, but Crouch is possibly the best we ever had. I think Dailey would have been more than adequate in the traditional system. HuskerBob made some great comments, though. It's the shift in the attitude of the program that is killing us. Ok, so we want to go West Coast and get the big talent so we can compete. The problem is, we have no heart now. The heart went out the window with all the tradition. As Bob said, look where that has gotten Texas.

ARG! It's not a lack of talent and speed! I wish everyone would stop saying that. Benard is right on. I'm not saying we have the speed of Miami or USC or even Oklahoma. But it seems to me everyone wants to believe we suddenly belong in the MAC talent wise. That must be more comforting than admitting that we the completely wrong bunch running this team...especially Cosgrove.

I'm with you. Before Solich was fired, I was thinking we had a real shot to make a run at the title this year. Our defense was on fire but just needed to show a little more consistency in the biggest games, and the offense was going to be reminiscent of '99 (minus the fumbles) with Dailey and Ross running the option.

I still don't buy all this talk that our talent is so much lower than it ever was before. And I still think Dailey would have been an absolute star in a Cotton/Solich offense. I think Frank did everything he could to save his job after a 7-7 year, but the one thing I do criticize him for is sticking with Lord too long. Lord was a great athlete but I can't remember a Husker QB making poorer decisions than him. Except maybe this year, but I don't put that all on Dailey. I think Lord would have made a much better tailback than quarterback.

All I know is the Blackshirts blew in 2002 and Pelini came in and fired them up. Yes they had some letdowns late against KSU and Missouri when the offense couldn't get anything going and they were on the field the whole game. Texas was just a disaster, but those things happen. So Pelini comes in and gets things turned around and now he's gone. Wisconsin, on the other hand, totally sucked on defense last year, giving up over 350 yards per game under Cosgrove. They were 44th in total defense and 50th in scoring defense. Now that he's at Nebraska, Wisconsin is 3rd and 1st in defense. Nebraska under Pelini was 11th in total defense and 2nd in scoring defense. For people who seem to talk a lot about the supposed "direction" of the program, it seems odd for Callahan and Pedersen to remove Pelini in favor of Cosgrove. Stop talking about a lack of talent or players not giving it their all. Cosgrove blows and everyone knows it. Maybe the players aren't trying as hard as they should, but coaching the mediocre coaching and failure to motivate the players has to be considered.

I don't know Dave. If Callahan is the great mastermind he's supposed to be, he could tweak his offense to fit the personell and transition to what he wants to do over the next 2 years. That's what great coaches do, they adapt to the situation. He could have kept Cotton on to help with that, or at least hired someone that has some idea how things have worked here. But he scrapped everything in one shot and that's why I compared us to Notre Dame. That's what Willingham did and they still haven't turned it around. If you can't get the recruits to come to Notre Dame to run the WCO, how can we expect to get them at Nebraska? The point is tradition only attracts people when tradition is still in tact. Nebraska has no identity right now. Not just because of the offense, because of the way the coaching situation was handled. I'm just glad Turner Gill is still here. And you're right, nothing like this has ever happened at Nebraska. That's what makes me fume still. Firing a coach with Solich's record showed that Nebraska cares about only wins, there's no leway. Frank got one year with his new staff, and got fired after 9-3. So I just think Callahan should be given the same deal, and Pederson too. Pederson can't bring this attitude in here and then demand time for change. He needs to win now. I was always loyel to Tom Osbourne and Frank Solich when everyone said they couldn't win the big ones. With the attitude the program has taken, I feel no obligation to show that same loyalty to Callahan.

How's this: K-state was giving up 146 Rushing YPG coming into Saturday's game against us. Remember, that's before they face some of the better rushing teams on their schedule. This compares to KSU last year which gave up an average of 109 Rushing YPG all year. They gave up over 200 yards to LA Lafayette for crying out loud. Quite simply, our offense would have rolled right over them. Defensively, I agree with Bernard. Bo would have had them more fired up. This Webb kid looks ok, but he's no Roberson. As for your little dig at Solich's record vs. K-State, I'm sure you know that Osbourne went 55-16-2 in his first 6 years. Solich went 58-19. What many forget is that Osbourne went 1-6 vs. Oklahoma his first 6 years. Some of those losses were VERY lopsided. Frank went 2-4 against KSU. The point is, every coach has their demon they need time to overcome.

It's true they lost 5 of 7, but you know they played better at the end of the season. Besides the Kansas St. debacle every other game should have been a W. Especially the Texas and Miss. St. Games. And yes, we would definitely be undefeated with Solich this year. Don't blame all these losses on a lack of talent. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think we've ever had vastly superior talent at Nebraska. Yes, Osbourne change his recruiting philosophy in the early 90s to go get speed after getting shelled by the Florida schools so many years in a row. But even in the championship years of the 90s, those schools still outclassed us in pure talent. That can be seen by how many players they sent to the NFL compared to us. It was always the SYSTEM that leveled the playing field for us. The power option takes the talented football players that other schools might not want as much and turns them into stars at the college level. Our problem is that decades of tradition (and I don't mean just the offense) were tossed out the window by Peterson because he wanted it to be his show. And while I don't despise Callahan nearly as much as I do Peterson, he has shown himself arrogant and impatient in insisting on an immediate change-over to his system when everyone on the planet knows he doesn't have the personell to pull it off yet. Dailey showed flashes of brilliance as an option QB in relief of Lord. I actually wished Solich would have played him all last year. So the point is, strap yourselves in because we're the new Notre Dame. People will pay attention to us because of 'past tradition', but we'll only have a great team every once in a while because everyone knows that PAST is the key word in that phrase.