Danny Bateman

Excerpt from ESPN's Gameday article: " 3. Does Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill give the Aggies a chance to beat Nebraska? After replacing Jerrod Johnson in the second quarter against Kansas, Tannehill is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes for 1,109 yards with 10 touchdowns and three interceptions in just under four games. Cyrus Gray has four straight 100-yard games rushing as well. But it could be slow going against a Nebraska secondary featuring two of the best cornerbacks – Prince Amukamara and Alfonzo Dennard. Nebraska clinches the Big 12 North with a win or a Missouri loss to Iowa State. Simply answered, nope, he doesn't. Tannehill will be playing tiddlywinks at the end of the day with Landry, Blaine (twice ), Nick Fowles, Locker, and the whole crew at the Pelini Bros. QB graveyard, most likely by halftime. I do think it'll be a good game, but I think the kid will crack under the pressure of our road D. Also, reading further, number 7 and 8, respectively: 7. ACC Race 8. Big East Race

Remember Oklahoma was seriously starting to hit up Aaron right as he committed to Nebraska. Obviously Bo wasn't the only coach in America that saw a lot of potential in this kid. Definitely could see him moving up the rankings when he is re-evaluated after his senior year by the services. The only thing that could hold himback in my eyes was the tweeked knee early in the season. He will not greyshirt. I do not see Davie greyshirting either. With his background being from Detroit, who knows what the families financial situation is. If they asked him to greyshirt, I easily can see him jumping ship and taking a full ride and playing time right away at a lower level. Again not saying he will, but can see it happening. Yikes. And thus the poor black kid from Detroit stereotypes commence.

Science was retarded. Mine was all graphs and charts of scientific systems and questions about them. It seemed so easy and yet was my lowest or 2nd lowest score. Got a perfect 36 on English though! I wish I could will to to Braylon... 36 on English, huh? j/k Embarassing. What I meant to say was obviously that I wish I could will my tutu to Braylon.

That was my thought when I initially saw this thread... That if we lost in the B12 Championship game, we'd get picked as an AT LARGE for one of the other BCS games and not the Cotton Bowl. I think this is what the OP was getting at too, he just never seemed to back it up. If that is indeed what he meant, he's got a valid point. Obviously, losing in the B12 championship would not be ideal, but would very likely pair us with an opponent superior to Pitt. I'd rather leave with some B12 hardware, though.

He makes excellent reads, but he doesn't seem to lay the wood very often. Almost all of his tackles are arm tackles wrapping up the feet. I want someone who will lower his shoulder and deliver a hit. Granted, this is probably his sophomore year. I want someone who when they grab a guy to tackle him the guy doesn't get away and gets tackled. I don't care if he lays the wood or not. I want every tackler on our team to give up 0 yards after contact. Screw the big hits, tackle like you're supposed to. +1. I'm in this guy's camp. Give me a good sure tackler over a thrilling Rickey "Failed Hit Stick" Thenarse any day (for those of you who go back that far... remember Madden 2005 when they first introduced it? I think it was the year after it became so easy to bounce off... IIRC the first year was really easy to use it. Of course, I played as Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and the Ravens in 2005. WAYYYYY off topic). Anyway, we have another Rickey on the team already. Eric Martin on special teams... like Rickey 2.0. I have high hopes for the kid as he changes to defensive end, though.

Science was retarded. Mine was all graphs and charts of scientific systems and questions about them. It seemed so easy and yet was my lowest or 2nd lowest score. Got a perfect 36 on English though! I wish I could will to to Braylon...

That's always easy to bring up a certain few players and say they could turn out like this player. But unless Ankrah or Williams develop a 6'6 290lbs frame with freakish athleticism to boot, it's tough to compare that given situation. Even more that Ankrah and Williams are getting quality PT due to our substitution patterns and are producing very little. Granted they are young, but even with youth you expect flashes of their ability, and neither have done that yet at anytime. No pressure on QBs, no stability in the run game, nothing. In fact, the Kansas game exposed a bit how weak our backup lineman are, as they were all pushed around when the starting 4 needed a breather. Even worse when we changed up our scheme a bit to allow our DL the ability to get upfield and produce more pressure. In the Mizzou game I thought that Randle and Moore looked quite good. Did not hear too much out of Ankrah and Williams though. But as you noted, they are still young. Ankrah was coming on very nicely and then hit a wall in the fall from what I heard. Yikes... I had not heard that about Ankrah EZ. It would certainly support BigWillie's argument that Ankrah might not be ready to break out for a while. I was totally unaware he wasn't still doing well in practice. That's too bad... As I said, I had higher hopes for him than Williams. Anyone can surprise us at any time, though. It's just like the whole "Great player that was a 2 star recruit" argument. Just b/c a kid isn't highly spoken of or doesn't garner gushing practice reviews early on doesn't mean it won't click later on. Hopefully, just by the law of averages, one of those many guys we've taken the last two years pans out and becomes a stud on the line. Rome is producing some of the same chatter Ankrah did last year... coulda played this year if we needed him type talk. I'd like to reiterate my high hopes for Martin's switch to end. Kid is absolutely a physical specimen. Any word on how he's doing at end so far? If not, we're supposed to see a bit of him this weekend.

Owa already has more TFL and sacks than Williams and Ankrah do - in their careers - combined. Neither Ankrah or Williams have even a single TFL in their career, which is needles to say, sad. It's actually quite sad to watch how he has been used at UCLA. Getting starts, then little run afterwards. Would have to wonder if Skippy promised him he'd be a starter as a freshman and that is his way to keep his promise. Either way, Owa would have came here and been a situational rusher as a freshman, which is exactly the role we would have needed from a DE. Well, to offer up some proof that not all guys have popping stat lines their frosh years, look at this dude's freshman stats: 9/0 2 1 3 1-9 1-9 3 (Games/Starts) Tackles:(Unassisted) (Assisted) (Total) (TFL-Yds) (Sacks-Yds) (QB Hurries) Those are Carriker's freshman stats. Most would agree he's the best DE we've had since Demorrio Williams. Just something to back up my point. I agree 100% with you, though, about how we would've used Owa. Would've been a nice new weapon for our D, coming off the edge. Coulda just let him pin his ears back and go. Hopefully that's how we'll use Martin, although if he can really set the edge and play the run well (we know he can lay the wood), I think he could definitely be a full-time starter. Again, depends on mental aspect. Oh well. Football wise, NU definitely woulda been better for Owa's development (and championship hopes). I guess lifestyle and Nigerian wise, UCLA trumps us.

Did Antonio Bell come in the spring semester after he didn't make the cut, or did he end up enrolling a whole year afterwards? If the latter is the case, he's still got plenty of chances to get his score, at least based on the Antonio Bell timeline. Although, it is worrisome that he's taking it this many times and hasn't gotten the score yet. However, some kids are just terrible test takers. You can crack under the pressure of the situation and do terrible on it and still be a really bright individual. Happened to a girl in my HS class who graduated 3rd in our class... terrible test taker. Had a ton of anxiety. ACT/SAT alone is a terrible marker for intelligence.

Willie you really feel De is a need? NU took five DE last year and Allen is the only loss from this year. I personally feel Walker Ashburn could easily be a Jared Tomich type player. Not well sought after, but has an extreme high motor. He was the Louisiana State Title Game MVP as a junior and played at a highly competitive high school, plus with his dad's job with the Saints he's been around the game so his knowledge should be great. I think getting a DE would be nice but not overly a need. Besides next year almost could be the year of the DE in the recruiting world. Agree about a DT and LB though. I think a TE would be very helpful as well. There have been a few guys I have not heard a peep about on the field wise, and Walker is one of them. Take from that what you want. I have heard that Lincoln isn't what he expected it to be as well, so he may be unhappy here, I'm not completely sure. Ankrah and Williams have been given a chance to shine this year, and both have produced very little. I have heard good things about Vestal though, at least. Regardless, none of those guys are great rushers from the edge, and more than anything, that is what we need. Would have been outstanding to land Owa last year, because he is exactly what we need in this defense off the edge. Well, by the same token, BigWillie, Owa isn't exactly wreaking havoc off the edge for UCLA this year either. So who knows... he did have scouts drooling, but he also has a lot to prove yet as well. Don't forget Ankrah and Williams were both big time recruits not too long ago. Though my hopes of Williams becoming a big time rusher off the edge are beginning to dwindle, I still hold high hopes for Ankrah. We all heard how he repped with the ones last year, which said he had enough Frosh potential to get worked in with Barry Turner and Pierre, who were both very decent players at one point (if they somewhat regressed as they've had their respective injuries). Hopefully Jason is just getting a taste as a RSFr., and the light will click soon. I don't know, I haven't followed him personally in games, it's quite hard to keep an eye on who's getting rotated into the game when you're watching TV. If anything, even if Ankrah never reaches his potential, we can still hope for Cam to continue progressing and for us to get decent amount of production from a Williams/Ankrah/??? platoon at the other end. Vestal is highly regarded, as you've said... kid physically looks like a grown man at this point. And we can always hope for Okuyemi or Ashburn to sneak up on us after being quiet their first few years to contribute. I think moving Martin to DE will help out our corps there tremendously. He is just a FREAK athletically that was having trouble grasping the intricacies of being a linebacker in our system. Hopefully, putting him at end and having his only responsibility be to set the edge and get after the QB should let him just pin his ears back and go. Obviously there's more involved than that, but I could see him being an absolute terror. We all know he likes to hit.

Haven't heard anything on Mitchell since the beginning of the season when he was in a little trouble If he got in trouble, no more news is good news. Trust me, even if he isn't setting the world on fire right now, dude will do just fine under the tutelage of Sanders. You more often than not DON'T hear glowing reviews of superstars in the making during their RS year. No big deal. Hopefully, the light will click on later down the road.

I seriously doubt the BCS would select Pitt if they weren't an AQ for winning the Big East. It is looking like they might possibly drop the game tonite to UConn (although every time I mention another team losing here on HB, they always find a way to win). It's too bad the winner of the Big East gets a guaranteed spot. I'd much rather play Iowa/Ohio St./Sparty, or even Penn St. I have no problem playing the second or third team in the Big 10. It'd be a chance to scout the new conference a bit early, and any of those teams would roll Pitt anyway. Oh well, guess we'll just have to stick to rolling Pederson... IF we handle business like we should

I wondered this last week when Cody got dinged up. I thought about whether Ronny might see some game time, but my question was quickly answered when Taylor came jogging into the game. I know Ron has gotten good reviews for how he's run the scout team, and was curious how he'd respond in a game situation. I think he does play an integral role in our offense. He's the super duper ridiculoid emergency QB. Like it or not, he's probably our 6th most able QB, after Taylor, Zac, Cody, Rex, and Alex. It's a toss up between him and Latravis, but they've both had about the same time practicing as a QB in our system. I wonder what it says about him, though, that the coaches would rather run the Joker with Rex than put him in if everyone else is banged up. Gotta feel bad for Latravis, though. Anyway, if he keeps his nose to the grindstone and keeps perfecting himself in our system, I could see him passing up Cody for the #2 spot sometime in the future (assuming Carnes doesn't, which most people think is likely. In this case, Ron is #3. Throw in Jamal and possibly Bubba, and it just becomes a total clusterf*ck. Sure will be fun to watch though!)

Well, I compared AG to DG-B just by virtue of the fact that they're both big, big-time recruits. I wasn't really thinking deep enough about it to get into the intricacies our style of offense has on us recruiting different positions. But, I think the argument that we are a running team is a rather young one. By that I mean it wouldn't have really been one that would've held any water until recently. Remember, in 2008 with Ganz, we passed for our big plays. That was our forte that year. Marlon was not on the same level Roy is this year, and neither was Q. And the offense we ran last year was not our true offense, that has been said many times. That was Bo reverting to don't make a mistake mode on offense, in hopes of not hurting the D's chances of winning us the game. Only this year have we TRIED to be a spread running attack and made it work. So I don't necessarily know why we can't recruit big time WR's. We still throw the ball when we need to, although we do try to run unless we need to pass. We're just not a Mike Leach-esque TT passing style team. I see our offense as one that plays it's strengths. If the coaches want to continue using this style O, which it appears they do with our recruiting class, then they'll recruit accordingly. But I certainly don't think it'll preclude us from ever having a shot at this kid.

Lol give that to Cacti, man. He deserves to revel in high recruiting rankings with the stuff he has to watch on the field this year. It's been pretty gut wrenching so far for a team that had hopes of winning the ACC. Anyway, lol at Rival's comment for Tyler Moore-- "Helped his team to a 9-2 record in 2009." Really? You can't even come up with anything about this year? You can always tell when Rivals doesn't do their homework on a guy.

Laugh all you want, but at one point people scoffed at the hint of us landing Aaron Green, regardless of where big bro was. Proof that it can be done.

Forget what Rivals does from here on out. AG is N and truly wants to be a Husker, and whatever they do to his ranking from here on out means absolutely nothing. We got a kid everyone else wanted and they can't take that away. They can bust balls and drop him to a two star, but they can't remove him from our commit list GBR

Well if we somehow got all three of those dudes N, which is somewhat of a pipe dream (COULD STILL HAPPEN ), we'd have the best DT recruiting class in the nation bar none. At least as far as stars and potential goes. We all know stars don't equal success, but I'm sure we'd all take two 4 stars and a VASTLY underrated 3 star for Bo to work on the next 4-5 years. Williams will definitely move up in ranking on both sites, but I'm unsure he'll get a 4th star, since he's currently ranked in the bottom half of the 30's for DT in the nation. Anyway, case in point, pulling out all three = huge recruiting win. Then we just have to get our butts in gear at DE.

If we land this kid, I promise to never bitch about us failing to land big time WR recruits again. I'm happy with the guys we get, but they are clearly not on this dude's level. In my mind, he'd be a bigger get than Julio Jones or A.J. Green or Kyle Prater or Markeith Ambles or Darius White or any other WR that comes to recent memory.

Double, but I felt compelled to respond to your post. We can always hope Todd is one of those kids who is just blown away by our gameday atmosphere and immediately vaults NU into the lead. I'd love that. Also, I don't see defensive line depth being an issue for him. He'd come in with Crick (he'll be back; he's done nothing this year to improve his draft stock) and T Mo as Seniors, and Baker, Thad, and Rome ahead of him as RS Jr, Soph, and Frosh, respectively. If he's as good as we think he is, I see no reason Todd couldn't come in an challenge right away his RS Frosh year. That is, if he's willing to take that RS year to mature and learn the ropes. It all hinges on whether he really wants to be N. Who knows, maybe he pushes for PT next year and is further along than Rome was this year? Not likely, but not impossible either. Plus, I love the fact he's a Stanford recruit. Says worlds for any kid's intelligence level. s

I too would take Todd over Mickey. Now, given, yeah a lot of that has to do with making inroads to Andrus' recruitment next year... a perk Mickey cannot offer. But it has more to do with the fact that we need some studly line recruits this year to join Kevin Williams (THANK GOODNESS we have him... seriously). Todd's an outstanding player in his own right, and is in my mind an equal or superior recruit to Mickey Johnson. That opinion was formulated totally on the hoof-- just based on what little I know about them by following their profiles here at HB. I haven't broken down any film or anything... I should though. Also, though, the fact that Mickey is such a prima donna really grinds my gears. This is another major reason I'd take Peat over Johnson... seems just like a less self-centered kid who isn't all Me-Me-Me, soaking up the spotlight. I find it's funny that most of those Me-Me-Me kids during their high school recruitment flame out-- only fitting. And if Mickey Johnson reads HB: Good. Selfishness, egoism, and putting yourself before the team is not what NU football is all about. Go play for Slick Rick or Lane "My Middle Name Should Legally Be Douchebag" Kiffin.

Lol +1 to the camp that gets prepared to crap themselves whenever the see Anthony in coverage.

What scares me about Cody is this: Wats and Bo both decided he HAD to get a series in games earlier in the year to prepare him for the future (YESTERDAY), and he still comes off the bench like he just finished a freaking butter popsicle. Honestly though, aside from his obviously bad butterfingers, the kid didn't play a bad game. He tried to manage it and do what he was asked to do: Not throw a whole lot and run the zone read. His zone read running is poor due to his inability to read it correctly the majority of the time (Rex is better at reading it outta the Joker than Cody) and due to his terrible lateral speed. I really agree with whoever said he goes down too easily... if a horse like him could actually gallop thru ankle and arm tackles, he'd be more useful. A Tim Tebow type runner, that'd be nice (i.e., some thunder to Martinez's power). Oh well, that's what we have Roy and Rex for. Lol @ GHOST. Dude = Troll with a serious taste for Jack and a personal vendetta on Niles for his fumbles (... more than the rest of us, as Niles being tackled with Ball = )

ISU averaged 3.3 yards/run. And they are a run-first team. Yeah, but how many times did they take those smaller runs and plunge forward for first downs? Can you honestly say you watched our D stuff their running attack in important situations yesterday? Seems like the only times we forced 'em to bring out their punt team was after pass plays that Arnaud misthrew or Prince made some kind of good play on. When Cassidy took that pick back, I thought our D was going to stiffen up right then and there and start to lay the beat down on the Clones, and they simply did not... they kept looking absolutely lost on pass plays? When Arnaud hit that final regulation TD pass to tie it at 24, all I could think was "We're a team built to shut down the pass, and we leave the freaking flat open? One of the most common zones to throw to? Where the HELL was the zone man in the flat?!?!" It hurt us a lot yesterday that Dennard was hurt... make no mistake about it, Ciante might be an excellent corner in the future for us, and his potential is through the roof, but in the HERE and NOW, Dennard is VERY important to our pass D. Sadly enough, the majority of our sacks this year have been coverage sacks... our D-line is mediocre most of the time and just don't seem to be good enough to beat their men one on one and get a pass rush. And I agree with the guy who said QB scrambles hurt us... They always have been the kryptonite of a Pelini defense, but this year the problem is magnified by the fact that our D-lineman are not talented enough to use their hands to disengage their men until the QB is running past them.... They just stay on their linemen like big 300 lb. sacks o taters that leave gaps that QBs can simply dart through.

I have noticed something about our D I'd like to share with you guys. Maybe it's just me, but the Peso we run just seems to put our defenders into a real disadvantage, spatially, as far as shutting down the run. I've noticed the Peso back (usually Hagg) goes out, if the O comes out with a slot man, to cover said slot guy. That leaves us with SIX in the box (I don't count safeties cheating up, unless they're REALLY cheating up, like in a goal line situation, where they're not afraid of getting burnt deep). Six in the box, if the other team has 1 or possibly 2 tight ends, or like ISU did, an offset fullback, back there with the QB and RB, is not enough men to stop the run effectively. You'd need a Suh, Herculean-like effort, x2... from both your DT's... to get good penetration. Hell, our D-lineman reverted last nite and didn't get any penetration, period. So, to stop the run with no line penetration and two linebackers alone in the box, to me, is just asking too much. I suppose having Hagg split out wide could theoretically help stop runs outside by forcing the ball carrier back inside, but on dive plays or right off tackle runs (where teams attack us), Hagg has to come ALL the way over to help on those plays, and he just can't physically get into the backfield fast enough to make tackles for lost. A track star couldn't. Am I the only one who notices this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills... hope some of you guys can back me up and dispel that notion. It's like the Pelini Bros and Co. want to fit a square peg into a round hole by stopping the run well with the Peso. I know it shuts down passing pretty well, but if we get gashed like this in the run game, we need to try something else and stop being so stubborn.