ticks

Stivrins and Sun are the only players without any eligibility remaining, but there is going to be a scholarship crunch next year so there are sure to be other departures.

Lee is really struggling and I'm doubtful that he is far enough along in his development to think he has any chance of turning it around. He has very poor mobility and pocket awareness. His progressions are slow and he seems oblivious to opposition linebackers in throwing lanes. He routinely makes poor decisions; particularly when he is under pressure. It takes a lot more than an arm to make a quarterback. Wilbon has ball security issues. He is a liability in pass protection. Our receiving corp isn't very good. Morgan is well-rounded, but his hands are sketchy. Everyone else is inconsistent at best. Reimers doesn't have the talent to play at this level. The offensive line struggled to generate any push for the running game. Pass protection was even worse. The defensive stats look good for the day, but the defense didn't play well. NIU consistently moved our defensive line. Their RB was physical, but most of the yards he accrued were easy yards. He didn't add much to what their offensive line gave him. Our linebackers were slow to fill gaps and seem generally confused. NIU's QB was rather poor, which made our pass defense look much better than it really was. It's time to consider other options on punt returns. The team looks poorly coached. There is an excess of confusion and silly mistakes that certainly give the impression of a lack of preparedness. I have difficulty seeing how this team can reach bowl eligibility. Rutgers and Illinois are winnable games, but not guaranteed victories. Minnesota and Purdue have looked really good so far this year. This could be a really tough year for us.

The officials were dreadful, though I think Arkansas St. got the worst of it. Contrary to most everyone else around here, I wasn't impressed by Lee. He was a statue in the pocket with poor awareness. His deep throws had zip and were well-placed, but his progressions were a bit slow and his decision-making wasn't impressive. He got away with some bad decisions by throwing bullets through tight windows. He won't get a ton of help from the receivers without more touch on his intermediate throws. The numbers looked alright, but he could've killed the game off with a bit of consistency in the second half. The team went into 'mission accomplished' mode way too early. We have had a terrible habit of complacency in the Riley era. I'm a Riley supporter, but it's frustrating to watch our offense consistently sputter anytime we get a score or two ahead. I thought we rode Bryant too hard. He looked good, but he also wore down as the game went on. We have the backfield depth available to keep fresh legs on the field at all times. We looked confused in zone coverage all night; particularly the linebackers. They carved us up underneath, but they couldn't beat us over the top. A lack of blitzes wasn't the issue, though there is obviously merit in doing anything you can to confuse the opposition's QB (which we didn't). That said, their QB seldom had the ball in his hands long enough for blitzes to have mattered. I think one can optimistically argue that their offensive scheme was a difficult matchup for our (new?) defensive scheme, but it's never a good thing when the blueprint for your dismantling is made public in the first game of the season. We never adjusted and it nearly bit us in the ass at the end.

I will be happy with a win. Northwestern has been poor this year, but I'm not ready to bury them. This is a dangerous game.

The good thing these days is that voters are far more willing to bounce teams around than they were ten or so years ago, so these early season polls are far less of an issue than they used to be.

It's this. Alberts was a blatant homer when they worked together and it was apparent that the two didn't like each other. May took every opportunity to rankle Alberts over Nebraska's decline. I don't generally buy into persecution theories, but May just doesn't like Nebraska. Aside from this, I pay little attention to May as he just isn't very insightful about college football in general.

Lebron's ego has grown unabated into a monstrosity, but even he has to realize that his relationship with Lue as his HC has to work. While he will never own up to it, it is obvious that he was instrumental in Blatt's removal. He had passively made his disdain for Blatt obvious over the past season and a half, and the firing of the head coach of a team in Cleveland's position is unprecedented. When the dust settles, Lebron is going to find himself in a situation where it is championship or failure, and there really isn't anyone left around him that he can convincingly point a finger at when that championship isn't realized. I actually see this as a good thing for Lue. He enjoys the good fortune of taking over a team that is going to win a lot of games in the near future. That will pad his resume, and if things go pear-shaped, the blame probably isn't going to be directed at him. That won't necessarily guarantee him a long head coaching career, but it's better than getting your first shot with a dysfunctional organization that won't afford an opportunity to win on a nightly basis.

Maybe, but I never saw it. He got to return kicks because he threw a fit over redshirting, but he looked very poor in that role. Any Husker fan should know that recruiting rankings have been a very poor predictor for success in the Nebraska backfield.

How much more of this until Husker "supporters" stop referring to themselves as the greatest fans in college football?

I'm reserving judgement on Langsdorf. I honestly don't know how I would approach playcalling in this system given that our execution is so poor on plays that are designed to keep us on schedule. We have improved on WR screens, but I don't think I've ever seen a team so inept at RB and interior screens. These are high percentage plays (or should be) that may go down as passes in the box score, but they are effectively running plays. Tommy seldom puts the ball where it needs to be when it needs to be there, and our offensive linemen either whiff on defenders or draw drive killing illegal block penalties. I was skeptical of the Banker hiring, and nothing I have seen has been particularly reassuring. I don't understand the scheme. I see coverage switches at times, but it seems to play like man-to-man in that our defenders almost always have their back to the ball and there seldom seems to be any deep help. Blitzes are never disguised and are of the 'all or nothing' variety, which puts a struggling secondary under a great deal of duress against any competent QB/offensive line. I am just thankful that we are facing Big Ten offenses that are generally ill-suited to exploiting this the way Big 12 offenses are.

Then we have no options at QB. Changing quarterbacks won't fix this team, but our production at the position has been well short of adequate. Every team has drops, and you should expect at least a few when you throw the ball 50 times, but the vast majority of our incomplete passes today (and throughout the season) are due to poor decision-making and accuracy. I'm not calling for change, as I know next to nothing beyond the names of our other options, but I have a great deal of difficulty believing that any random FBS backup could be significantly less productive.

Mechanics aren't his only deficiency. He is very reminiscent of B.J. Daniels of South Florida, another immensely talented athlete who never developed into anything more than a backyard quarterback.

Or for better examples, how about Baylor, TCU, Stanford, and Kansas St. These programs all crawled out of holes far deeper than anything Nebraska has ever seen.

Whichever one can complete a five yard pass? I don't understand the unwavering support Armstrong receives from some, nor the plaudits thrown his way by members of the media. He has a tremendous set of physical tools for the position, but he lacks some of the most basic fundamentals necessary for consistency. He never steps into throws and he never steps up into the pocket. I've seen no evidence that he has the instincts to run the read option nor to move through his progressions. Given his experience, it's difficult to expect any of this will change. I really don't want to be too critical of a student athlete, but I have difficulty believing that our other options could be significantly less productive than Armstrong, who is really struggling. I get that some are really frustrated, and for those of us old enough to have lived through the glory years, this is particularly difficult to swallow, but I also see a team that has really improved over the course of the season in a number of areas. We still continue to shoot ourselves in the foot with penalites, and our QB and cornerbacks are really struggling right now. Otherwise, I see a team that is playing much better than they did at the beginning of the year.

Congrats this makes zero sense. I ask you ?? How many names does our new coach have ??? It only violates logic if you make an inaccurate inference. It is possible to receive confirmation that a deal is in place without knowing specifically who said deal is with.