Paul in WI

I agree that we've gotten a favorable schedule this year. Because of that favorable scheduling and having already beaten Missouri, it appears that we have a good chance to get in the championship game. Both Texas and Oklahoma are beatable this year--even if B12 South homer Tim Griffin thinks both of them have better defenses than NU. I'm not saying that we are going to do it, but those two programs certainly have looked more pedestrian than stellar thus far. Think back to Pelini's irritated response when asked about the South's dominance at the beginning of the year. I believe he growled something like "Are they?" as he gave that patented disgusted look of his. He just may have been serious about what he was saying.

YOU'RE bitter about that game? I'm so bitter about that game that I personally count that year as a national championship for us. The only explanation that I can come up with is that the results of that game were pre-ordained. We were simply not going to be allowed to win it. Period. The only other game that I can remember in Husker history with such criminal officiating was in 1987 when we went to South Carolina. It was like the entire team walked straight into the movie Deliverance--but I digress. You composed your thoughts with a Shakespearean eloquence that falls wasted on the mere forum homer such as myself. It was shear prose that held me riveted and nodding like a bobble head. My neck hurts..........

It's amazing what a week can do. Does everyone remember NU beating New Mexico State last season? We had looked average defensively against Western Michigan, and then stuggled mightily against a bad San Jose State team. Everything looked all gloom and doom in Husker land. Then all of a sudden the Huskers rout a pathetic New Mexico State team. All of a sudden, Husker nation was sure we would beat a rebuilding Virginia Tech team. Of course that was a mistake. Take away a special teams score, and NU gets throttled by Tech last year. Prior to the K-State @ Tech game, the Red Raiders were "reeling" along. Their offense had been innefficient, and teams were moving the ball against them. Then Kansas State comes to town. From the eyeball test alone, k-State did not belong on the field. They were noticeably smaller, slower, and weaker than the Red Raiders. This was understandable considering K-State has been overmatched by virtually every Big 12 team except Iowa State the last couple of seasons. The Red Raiders score at will on the Cats, and "shut down" their worthless offense. All of a sudden, most Tech fans believe they will not only win in Lincoln, but win rather easily. Secondly, most Husker fans are also thinking Tech is going to come in an give us a game. Folks, don't buy into the hype! Tech is a flawed football team. They turn the ball over TOO MUCH. They give up sacks. Their QB is not battle tested. Their defense makes mistakes and sells out for the big hit to a fault. Their offensive line is a work in progress, and it had all kinds of issues prior to facing the joke from Manhattan. They do HAVE plenty of TALENT. Don't misunderstand my point. They DO HAVE A GREAT SCheme, but think about this matchup, this week, in Memorial Stadium. I have been on this soapbox for a week now. Nebraska WILL ROLL Tech in Lincoln this weekend. Turnovers, Emotion, and momentum will create a major snowball effect. This game has all the makings of a return to the good old days of Nebraska football. We used to blast teams whom were honestly not 50, 60, or even 70 points worse than us. Defense, change of possession, turnovers all feed from the emotion of the crowd and they all feed the emotion of the crowd. You will see it this weekend. Look for short field scores, defensive touchdowns, and big plays creating significant momentum switches from our defense. NU 44 Tech 17. You've made two, well-thought posts in this thread. Judging from the spread, apparently the odds makers are with you as well. I had been thinking that it might be a maddening afternoon of dink and dunk ball with quick releases that don't allow us much pressure on their qb, but I'm feeling a lot better about the game after your posts. You make good points.

I wouldn't call him a fraud. I like Tebow. I'd trade Egg for him in a second. That's not a knock on Egg's struggles so far - Tebow is just legitimately that good. I'd never, never trade Tebow for Frazier. But I'd maybe trade him for Crouch. Yeah, you're right. He isn't a fraud. He's a good player. I just feel that it is "fraudulent" that he is the leading Heisman contender for his performance thus far this season, and that's the national media's fault--not his. I stand corrected.

The problem is: That 95 team was fast (and physical) by any era's measurement. Just watch the vids and tell me that Florida wouldn't get trampled. I don't think there was a game all year that the starters weren't pulled wayyy early. By the 4th quarter, those NU lineman would have made red paste of Florida's defenders just like they did to all the teams that they played. The stretcher-bearers worked overtime that year from all the opposing players that were carted off the field. I would love to see Jesus Tebow put his head down and try a tough run on that D-line. Another concussion would be the least of his worries. They would have found his head and helmet about 30 rows up. Putting that fraud in the same paragraph as Frazier makes me want to vomit. This is ludicrous--especially on a Husker forum. People are actually trying to favorably compare a team that just scored a measly 13 points in their last game to the greatest team that ever graced a football field, REGARDLESS OF ERA. Are you friggin' serious? Some people OBVIOUSLY were in diapers or under a rock and didn't watch any of their games, or they'd know what a laugher this comparison is.

Easy one. Go to the BCS bowl game.

I agree that turnovers are more important, but TOP is also very important when playing these "rhythm teams". The longer we can keep their offense off the field, the less chance their qb has to get in sync with his receivers. That helps breed 3 and outs.

I don't think you will find anybody around here that doesn't think we can't win every game on our schedule. Our point is, until we at least are competitive for or win a B12 title and are in a BCS game, we aren't back. This is Nebraska. It takes a little more than a win over a barely top 25 team to bring us back to where we were. Not that I wasn't happy about the win, I wanted it a lot and thought it was important. The thing is when we fell, as you know, we fell a really long way. It just simply takes longer to climb when you have to go that much higher than most programs do. As said before; when people just know we are a force and stop asking if we're back, then we're back. After being in the wilderness for those years, I'm just enjoying the fact that we're part of the conversation again. You know that you've sunk pretty low when just the return to being RELEVANT feels really good. Think back to where we were a couple of seasons ago. There was nothing to look forward to. In my heart of hearts, I know we found exactly the right coach at exactly the right time. In the span of ONE year the new staff has taken us from the depths of the unknown back to the nation's consciousness. That's HUGE, so have a little patience and faith. These things do not happen overnight (although this staff appears to have us going at warp speed in the right direction). Enjoy the ride!

Actually, wasn't it after the Fiesta Bowl pasting that Florida grabbed K-State's defensive coordinator and started to make a concerted effort on building a defense--or am I remembering incorrectly? Yes they brought in Bob Stoops to run the defense in 1996, the year after NU beat the tar out of them. Thanks. My memory IS getting bad (no offense Mr. Stoops).

Actually, wasn't it after the Fiesta Bowl pasting that Florida grabbed K-State's defensive coordinator and started to make a concerted effort on building a defense--or am I remembering incorrectly?

I guess I'm a damn fool. You should not speak of things with such certainty when you were not here to witness them firsthand. If you were old enough to have experienced those years as many of us were so fortunate to have witnessed, you would have realized that what you just said makes you sound like the damn fool (or more kindly said "suffering from the petulance of youth").

That's the most concise answer that I've heard on this matter--worthy of being in a signature line.

Yes, you will see the NU/TT game on ESPN. Whew...........thank God for the occasional free one that gets televised in Big 10 Hell !

Exactly. If that constitutes Nebraska being "back" then those are some pretty low expectations. When we take out the South Champion and are regularly in the conference title game for a BCS bid, then I'd say we're back.

They've limited it to one vote per day. The votes are legit. Have a nice day.

We were fortunate to get him here in Green Bay, but the fans here never really seemed to appreciate what they had. (It was all about Favre yanno. ) Green was one of my all-time favorite NU backs--even if he didn't switch hands very well. I liked his presence off the field as well.

Let's see how he performs against a good team outside of a monsoon before we toss him under the bus, okay? Both of his shaky performances were in some pretty extreme environments, and I didn't exactly see the heralded opposing quarterback during those games doing any better. Give the kid a chance. We can always sacrifice him later.

I just checked the votes. Suh is getting so many votes that only Tebow is clinging to double figures (10% of the vote). I figure that he'll have him pushed down to single digits tomorrow. Even after getting a late start, Suh is sitting at 31% of the total vote. It is embarrassing.

Bo doesn't have enough history with the program to make that a fair comparison. He inherited a mess which translates into a few early losses against ranked opponents before he gets the program turned around. Now, if he plays 23 games against ranked teams and gets only a few more wins, you've got a valid point. However, what do think the chances of that are going to be?

For some reason, I thought that I was going to get the TT game on ESPN here in WI on Dish. Was I smoking crack?

It doesn't matter if CU wins another game between now and when we play them. They are going to make it a war.

One favorable mention about NU will not make me change my mind about ESPN. I've lived outside of Nebraska since 1992. For years I have had to rely on ESPN for video highlights of NU games. I would sit down and watch them do their rundown of highlights of the Top 20 (and now Top 25) teams. No matter where Nebraska was ranked, be it Top 10 or Top 25, they would mysteriously omit the Nebraska highlights when they got to their coverage of the xx ranked team. It was like a game wasn't even played. Thinking that I must have missed them, I'd sit and go through rundown after rundown to no avail. Odd yes? About the only time they wouldn't do this is when Nebraska was ranked #1, and they HAD to give highlight coverage. Now most of you Husker fans that have local coverage probably wouldn't even notice such a thing, but I sure did--and this has gone on for years and years. It sure seemed funny that when NU actually lost a game the highlights would appear though--usually along with some snide comment. Now perception is everything, and considering that polls did go into BCS formulas, lack of positive coverage to voters helped to keep NU out of sight and out of mind. ESPN manipulated their highlights JUST LIKE they manipulate their Heisman coverage to their own end. So tell me again just WHY I have to cut ESPN slack for an occasional nice comment here and there? ESPN blows goats.

The first problem that we had after Osborne retired is that Solich didn't know how to be his own man. He tried to be a clone of Osborne. Heck, he even tried to mimic his demeanor. I can almost hear him thinking on the sidelines "What would Tom call on the next play? " instead of using his own noodle. However, the real nail in the coffin was in 1999 when Charlie Macbride retired at the end of the season. After that, our defense began to frankly......"suck" (by our standards). Bo's hiring at DC was too late to have the impact needed to save Frank's job. He didn't have the time in one season to restore the defense, and frankly our offense had also slipped some under Solich. Solich was not the recruiter nor the play caller that Osborne was. That's when the baby went out with the bath water. Two babies actually: 1. Our wonderful offense and 2. Bo Pelini. Fortunately we got Bo back. I wish we'd get the other back too, but I don't know who would be qualified to replace an Osborne in that type of system. As for our current OC, I don't care for his style of football. If I knew we had an Osborne-caliber OC to reinstate the old offense, not only would I toss Watson under the bus, I'd be the first guy to slam it in reverse too. Don't get me wrong--I'm sure he's a great coach, but his style of football makes me throw up in my mouth a little . We need a lot more skilled players to run a Watson offense on an elite level than we do to run an Osborne-style offense on an elite level. Besides, it'd probably be easy to load up on awesome running backs since nobody wants to use them anymore! Contrary to the naysayers, I firmly believe that if we could take 20 years off of Osborne and have him call the plays today, he'd prove it to be just as successful as we were in the mid 90's when he perfected his system and then retired on top of his game. The problem is finding an offensive guy that can replace him.... Just remember this: By the time Osborne retired, he perfected it to where nobody could shut down his offense. With the right guy at the helm, it is practically unstoppable (and not really affected by rain ).

All that I know is that I miss being physical on the offensive side of the ball. All this finesse sucks..... I miss having an offense that can play well in the rain. I miss having an offense that says "We're coming right at you and are going to beat you down. Try to stop us, b*tches." We were bullies on both sides of the ball. I LIKED us being bullies! And yeah......I remember how Florida's "quick-strike" offense was going to kill Nebraska. I can still hear Corso blathering on and on about it...... Those "quick-strike" offenses don't strike so quickly when their quarterbacks are laying on their backs, do they? Yes, I would go back to the old offense in a heartbeat if we had a coach that could run it like Tom did. That offense was ALWAYS capable of bringing us championships. People need to remember that it was the DEFENSE that we had to tune (add speed) in order to bring us our last championships. We had a much more masculine team identity then, unlike now. Hell, now I feel like I should be eating cheese and drinking wine when watching the offense. "Can I have Albert get you another glass, my dear? It WAS a good year for grapes." I find myself secretly enjoying it when we punt, just so I can see some physical NU football.....

That looks more like a submission from the last UFC fight night.