Utah_Husker

Now Utah ran the WCO? They ran the spread option, which is a relatively new phenomenon. IMO, the spread option is employed to use the effectiveness of the option when you don't have the hogs to push people around. So instead of lining up and knocking people over, you spread the field with 5 wide and run through the holes in the defense. Very effective the way Meyer ran it. But to answer your post the reason no one runs the option is that most of those schools don't need to. Superior athletes already want to go to schools like that. Not to mention the fact that the NFL would never run the option, so all the big time recievers and pro-style quarterbacks wouldn't want to go to an option school. But the option is still used as an equalizer. That's why the service academies run it. They are at a disadvantage when it comes to recruting, so a well-run option offense demands a disciplined defense to defend it. Not to mention the teams that play against it only get one week a year to prepare for it. Now, if you can run the option with speed and strength...then you've got something. That's what Nebraska used to do. I'm not saying we should go back to it...I just think it's really naive to say that its dead and irrelevant in today's College Football. There are athletes out there who want to play QB or OL in a running scheme that wouldn't necessarily be recruited by other schools at those positions but are great athletes.

Doesn't change the fact that it doesn't seem to have gotten us anywhere. No, it doesn't. It's funny when a play doesn't work. To some, it's automatically a bad call. What about the defense? Is it impossible that someone made a good play on that side of the ball? Is it impossible that the play broke down somewhere? I agree. But when it happens repeatedly you have to start thinking about changing it up. It's been an amazing string of good calls by a number of opponents this year. They seem to have BC's number on those first 15 plays.

Mariotti's an idiot.

Of course they're going to say that. Who wouldn't? "Look be patient, we're trying to do what brings multiple national championships." Wow, I want multiple national championships. I guess they are on the right track. I'm not saying they're lying when they say its similar. Because it is...similar. But BCs version is way more complicated (more of the NFL version). Combine this with his apparant lack of ability to gameplan and adjust and you have the 96th rated offense in the country.

You start to win because you have good coaches (ala Weis). You turn into a machine when that good coaching and wins attract superior talent (TO, Carroll). This coaching staff had a good recruiting year, but I don't think they will be able to sustain it if they don't start showing some results.

Doesn't change the fact that it doesn't seem to have gotten us anywhere.

Their offense is only slightly more horrible than ours, gaining 30 ypg less. However their defense is slightly more incredible than ours giving up 30 ypg less. It should be interesing. I think it will be an ugly game, with each defense scoring at least once.

"Ty got all the talent for Weiss." Are you kidding me? One of the main reasons Willingham got fired was because everyone was saying that the quality of athletes were down at ND. Many people thought they would have to lower the academic standards to be successful. Ask IrishAZ, I'm sure he remembers the debate. In the runup to the ND-USC game, all anyone could talk about is how missmatched the Irish defense was (especially their secondary), and if it was decided by talent alone, USC would rip them apart. So Weiss inherits a team with supposedly inferior talent, and makes them successful and almost knocks off the two-time defending national champions. You make it sound like he just came in and ran the same offense as Ty. No. He's a coach's coach. An X's and O's guy. He knows how to gameplan and adjust, and they will only get better with the players he wants in the future. As former pointed out, BC's offense is not what USC is running. How many times do we have to go over this. I grew up watching Norm Chow's BYU teams, and never once did I hear a play call that took half the play clock to even say, let alone execute. I really don't see your point detailing Florida's schedule. If you think the SEC east is the same as the Big12 North, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. It doesn't change the fact that Meyer has won everywhere he's gone...and he's done it by not being stubborn.

Shouldn't we be seeing some results of this after two years?

Let me predict the responses to this one: 1) There aren't any talented lineman left because of the previous coaching staff. 2) The lineman that are here don't know how to pass block because they weren't brought in for this system. Did I get it right? As far as I'm concerned, these two excuses don't hold. Nebraska always had the knack of turning farmboys into monsters on the line. That just doesn't happen anymore, and it can't be just because they're asked to pass-block a lot more now. Maybe the conditioning isn't what it once was, as godd suggested. Maybe the coaches can't teach that well. I don't know. It's a good question. But the twin excuses of no talent and new system can only get you so far.

I'm not as abrasive as former, but I agree with what he said in his last post. That was pretty silly saying the option is dead, Nameless. It still works when it's tried. But that's not the point. I think the problem that Former, myself, and many others have with this staff is they are stubborn. Former is right when he said these coaches should have phased things in instead of dropping it like a ton of bricks. No one's disputing that they didn't have the personnel to run their system last year, but they decided to anyway. They could have won more games, had they been more flexible, but they don't care. A great example of good coaching was in the State I currently live. Urban Meyer ran different versions of his offense at BG, Utah, and Florida. He plays to his strengths and always has success by doing that. Not as much this year, but he still wins as much as can be expected. He's not making Chris Leak do exactly what Alex Smith did for him last year because he knows it's not possible. He's playing more to Leak's strengths.

Heupel was a JC transfer that Stoops brought in his first year. I don't have the time to do the research as to the recruiting classes in the 3 or 4 years before each coach arrived. But I'd be willing to bet that the talent level was about the same on those teams and Nebraska post FS. Again, you can't tell me Nebraska 2003 was that much worse than OU 98 or USC 2000. I'd also be willing to bet Stoops and Carroll did a lot of shuffling and playing to the strenghts they had in order to put together their first season. Maybe they are just better coaches? I know no one in here wants to hear that, but it could be the truth.

Total offense 2004 362 ypg 69th in nation 2005 320 ypg 96th in nation Granted it has been a little easier on the eyes as Taylor is definitely more comfortable with the offense than JD, but the results aren't any better. We have a couple more wins at this point, but that's largely due to Total defense 2004 372 ypg 56th in nation 2005 325 ypg 25th in nation which hasn't played well over the past couple of weeks. Used to be in the top 10.

former, you are wrong here.....completely wrong. one year of recruiting has not nor will it not make for instant success.........instant gratification is for juveniles, get real with the world.........any changes, be it in how your company is run or how a football team is put together takes time......be realistic and qive these guys a chance, hell how would you fare if you were told to take over a failing segment of your company and turn things around? i guess if you couldn't change it immediately you should be given the boot too? think about your unrealistic expectations........alot of things have happened this year that are beyond the control of the coaches, think about it......... hunter Maybe...maybe not. The examples that are used most often on this board as teams that have regained prominence are Oklahoma, USC, and Notre Dame. USC - 5-7 year before Pete Carroll 6-6 1st season 11-2 2nd season Oklahoma - 5-6 year before Stoops 8-4 1st season 13-0 2nd season Notre Dame - 6-6 year before Weis 5-2 so far 1st season These coaches were able to take what were percieved as bad teams (or at least underacheiving teams) and make them respectable their first year. Then with their first full class under their belt, they exploded. So what's our deal? Were we really that much worse than OU in 98 or USC in 2000? Point is...when do we stop making excuses? These guys were brought in to bring us back to prominence and so far they have shown us nothing. I say if there aren't big results (minimum North division title) next year, I'll be convinced it's not going to happen.

I don't like Callahan even I think this whole thing is ridiculous. It's silly for him to deny it and sillier that its even an issue to begin with.

Exaclty my thoughts, Junior...only much more level-headed.

You overlook the fact that with the exception of Penn State, the teams you listed didn't just regain dominance by the passage of time. They got new coaches and almost immediately began to have success. We made a coaching change and immediately took a huge step back and have yet to regain our footing. Am I missing something here?

This post hits it right on as far as I'm concerned. Pay attention to the things you get excited about and ask yourself if it ever happened that way before the coaching change. It doesn't matter much, though. Callahan will get his 4-5 years, we will continue the downward spiral, and after he's let go at the end of his contract, the damage will be so severe it will take 10 years or more to resurrect the Huskers. I might be wrong, but I don't think so.

I agree with the Tech game, and maybe I'll give you the Oklahama game...although I think Oklahoma pretty much won that game. But no way with Missouri. They shredded us, there's no two ways about it. Now if you factor in the losses. Yes, ISU and Pitt could have gone either way. So you have 2 wins that could easily be losses and two losses that could be wins. That's a wash, putting our record right about where it should be.

I've been warning about this for weeks. Although I didn't believe we'd acutally be 5-6 after the first 5 games, I always knew it was possible. Two things are happening. 1) After playing an extremely soft first half of the season, we are being exposed against better teams and coaches (which is sad to say, considering the piss-poor condition of the North division) and 2) After catching several breaks to pull out early season wins, the luck is evening out and the breaks are going the other way.

On the football section of www.huskers.com, they have pdfs that go through all the seasons complete with the rankings of the huskers and their oponents at the time the games were played and the final rankings of Nebraska. It's under the history link. http://www.huskers.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB...SPID=22&SPSID=8

I agree with most of what has been said so far. Callahan will be given at least 4 years, and most likely his entire contract to make it work. We're going to sink or swim with him because Pederson's fortunes are directly tied to Callahan's. If we are back on top next year or the year after, Pederson will be lauded as a genius. Another season or two like last year and it will get very difficult for both of them. Personally, I don't know exactly what will happen. Maybe BC will work out, but my gut says things aren't as good as they appear. I had a feeling Missouri would expose us last week and despite all the optimism on this board I really think Oklahoma will beat us this week. And I agree with others who say we will probably lose the Colorado game. Above all I think we've taken a huge step back. We're excited about 1 point wins over crappy teams at home and going into overtime with perennial cellar dwellers of the Big 12. I think it's ironic that one of the things that got FS canned was losing 41-24 at Missouri. Only difference between that game and the one last week was in 2003 we were winning going into the 4th. So to summarize, I really don't know if we're headed in the right direction or not. It seems to me we're excited about things we used to just take as givens and the coaching staff treats this a little too much like the NFL. Losses don't really matter...we just need those extra pieces of the puzzle so we'll be better. Be patient, exc. Anyway, I really didn't mean to go onto such a tangent. Just saying what came to mind when I read these posts.

Don't park near the stadium if your car has Nebraska plates.

This won't be a very popular post, but here goes. I think this team has problems. Mainly on offense. Granted there has been improvement from our stellar 7-6 thrashing of Pitt and our overtime classic at home against ISU, but the offense still has major issues. All year the defense and special teams have bailed the team out by making huge plays to score or give the offense a short field. Even in the big loss to Mizzou, two of our scores were due to the fumble and the blocked punt. If they don't make those plays, it really turns into a blowout. This offense simply doesn't move up and down the field consistently enough to win against tougher defenses. Our total offense is like 90th in the country or something like that. I hate to break it to everyone, but the teams left on our schedule all have tougher defenses than Missouri. Unless our defense plays out of their minds and comes up with 4-5 takeaways each game, I think we definitely lose to Oklahoma and Colorado. The other two games are tossups. I will be here to recieve my verbal thrashing if this turns out not to be the case.

Again...I agree with you for most teams, including Missouri. But have you ever been to a Colorado game? Someone help me out here.