corncraze

How do you have faith he’s going to be able to do the same here based on the decisions he’s made so far here and the product he’s fielded? Also do you really think this fan base is willing to have the patience and faith to endure more losing seasons just hoping it will get better? That sounds like the Frost regime… By what year is it no longer acceptable to have a losing season with Rhule? Just as a reminder Deion is likely to have a winning season his first year with CU - a program that was in an even worse situation than we were in.

I agree with a lot of what you said in your post except here. It’s a big assumption that we’ll be able to keep together this class the worse this season gets - and it’s sure looking like it’s gonna be bad with this offense. Other teams will be asking these kids the same questions we’re asking now - “why would they want to play for a 3-win team when they could go to a top-15 program?” This staff has its work cut out for itself to hold on to the higher rated players in this class

Urban Meyer…

Who picked Rhule? It’s pretty unbelievable to me he had the arrogance to not even talk to Urban. Looking like he whiffed on Deion too - he’s proving you don’t need years to rebuild a program. Our position on NIL I pin on Trev too. We can find hundreds of millions to enhance our stadium, but we can’t use even a portion of that to get top talent here? Our priority should be improving our product on the field - that’s what drives fans to the stadium, not plush seats or new video boards.

Football runs college sports. Look at the conference realignment- you think any other sport really drives those decisions? Truth is, an ADs success (especially at Nebraska) is determined by football performance. If we magically make drastic improvements and string together more than 3-4 wins this year, I will eat crow, but seeing our offense, how many of us really believe there is any hope left for this year. Maybe Rhule figures it out in 1-2 years, but the more we lose, the worse the situation he’s in. I don’t really see him being the guy to ruthlessly change up his staff and roster to make the improvements we need. His decision-making with us to date has been extremely questionable and concerning- from the coaching staff he selected (or retained - looking directly at Raiola), his approach to the current roster and lack of urgency to drastically change it, limited use of NIL, his talent evaluation at QB (Sims and HH), and on and on and on.

Let’s not forget this coaching staff created this situation. They evaluated Sims and somehow saw past his NCAA-leading turnover resume. They drove off Thompson, a serviceable QB, and didn’t bring in another qb in last year’s class. While Frost failed at the QB position and a lot of this roster he is responsible for, even he knew he needed to take two transfer QBs last year.

I’m so tired of the “we were a few plays away from being an X win team.” We’ve made that excuse for years and look where it’s gotten us. That’s a loser’s mentality. Also look at the final score, CU beat us by 3 possessions. also you’re giving Trev way too much credit for volleyball. Most ADs would’ve been able to orchestrate the same event with our fan base. Eichorst, awful as he was, would likely have been able to make this happen too. Cook and the fantastic job he does is the reason we have the fan support to accomplish something like that.

Sims has had 6 turnovers in two games against moderate defenses. It’s delusional to think his decision making will change and his skills as a passer will improve throughout the year. I agree with you we have no real options at QB though. It’s going to be a very ugly year.

Not with this offense…

Explain how… We’re 0-2, looking at a 3-win season. We really expect our fans to keep showing up for those performances and that recruits will still want to come here? We have a one-dimensional offense with no QB options, the same atrocious OL led by the same atrocious OL coach as last year (one of our OTs scored a ZERO for pass blocking from PFF last week) and a below average WR corp at best (led by a 26 year old that never played the position). We’re delusional to think we’re headed in the right direction. We point to Rhule’s track record, but I see a similar career at temple as his mentor Al Golden and one flash-in-the-pan season at Baylor in a weak Big 12 where Baylor didn’t beat one ranked team. Rhule’s career record and winning percentage is eerily similar to Riley’s, but somehow we assume he’s at a different tier of capability. Trev choose this. He chose this over a 3x national championship winning coach. He chose this over an elite recruiter that just beat us with a team that had one win last year. He chose a no-name staff that hasn’t shown any real urgency to upgrade our below average roster through the portal and NIL. Bury your heads in the sand, but the way we’re trending, in 3-4 years we’ll be looking at another coaching change led by a new AD because Trev got this pick wrong. Our fan support won’t continue forever if we keep losing - we’re close to losing it this season.

Going from being abysmal for 15 years and a 1-win season last year to 7-5 team in one year would be a huge achievement - something which our current HC has never achieved.

Our program has been on life support these last few years and did/does not have the luxury of being able to grit through a long rebuild strategy that may not even payoff. More losing seasons = slipping further and further into irrelevancy, more fan disengagement (especially the younger generations), lower perception and less interest from high talent athletes, less resources, etc. We have been in desperate need of a something/anything to re-energize our fan base and recruits FAST. Rhule’s hire, given his slow build track record, was a risk for Trev. So was not fully embracing NIL and using one of the few potential advantages our program has to improve our talent pool. Hidden-gem identification and player development is not what we needed - nor may it ever be the solution to get us back into a top 10-15 program. Most mid- to bottom-level programs try to operate this way. Difference is most schools don’t have the same financial resources we have to take advantage of NIL. Nebraska needed an elite recruiter that embraces NIL and operates with deep urgency to improve our roster quickly. Success builds on success - buy more talent to start winning games now and we become more appealing to future recruiting classes. Urban definitely could have, Deion has shown he would have, etc. TALENT is what wins games above anything else - and we dont have enough of it. It boggles my mind Trev didn’t recognize and prioritize this. Trev may have had one final shot to save this program, and it’s looking like he floundered the opportunity. But thank goodness we’ll have $300-700M in beautiful stadium updates - it will look real nice half-filled on a BTN mid-day broadcast.

You’re right but it’s kinda a funny point given we could’ve hired Deion last year. Why wait to attempt to get the talent he’s already pulling in/bringing in with him now? I think this thread is starting to show our fan base is splitting into two factions: Team Now - has deep urgency to win NOW and no patience for slow builds (Urban and Deion seem more aligned with this model). This team seems totally fine with gutting the roster and spending big bucks on NIL to get more talent. This team also seems like it’s less trusting in Trev and other decision-makers in our program. It’s seen two decades of people in power make bad decisions and ask for our fans’ patience to sit through bad seasons that end up not getting better. Team Develop - wants to win, but has more patience and a lot of faith in building to get there over years of hidden gem identification and development (seems more aligned with Trev’s vision and Rhule’s reputation). This team seems less concerned with recruiting rankings and maybe even a little angst towards NIL. The “be humble and work hard” crew. Good news is winning cures all. We just need to start freaking winning, otherwise this is only going to get worse. Truth is, we are extremely close to the point of losing a considerable chunk of our fan base to apathy. 2-3 more years of bad (or even mediocre) football will drive away fans and kill the sellout streak. We are very close to losing our next gen of fans - who only know Husker football as a losing team that dampens our saturdays.

Dude is in his mid 20s and didn’t play WR. No idea how anyone can expect him to be a major talent developer at the position.

We basically played this same game against Minnesota two years in a row. Nothing has changed.

If that’s the case, Trev is fired by year 4.

Didn’t have high expectations to begin with

We aren’t winning many games with the offense we showed tonight. Every team is gonna stack the box on Sims until he can prove he can throw - and I’m not confident he can…

Expecting statistically the most turnover-prone returning qb in CFB to play any different with us is laughable. I have no idea why our staff thought thought it’d be a good idea to run off Thompson (a serviceable passer and game manager) in favor of an athlete that is not a great passer and an even worse decision-maker. In a best-case scenario, the staff sought a very mobile qb to compensate for our atrocious OL as a short term solution. Worst case is they aren’t the visionaries many of us thought and we have a frost 2.0 offense. I just am incredibly frustrated at the lack of urgency to win now. Deion might fail, but you have to give him credit that he completely overhauled the talent at CU in an offseason. Same can’t be said for us, and while some may disagree with me here, I don’t think we have the luxury for a slow rebuild. Our program has been in a dire state for these last few years - I really wish we’d see the win-at-all costs ASAP mentality SEC schools are taking here.

Great… another no name…

That’s assuming Mickey is staying…

Those 90s teams had lots of blue chip recruits too though - Frazier, Green, Wistrom… Let’s not forget we had classes ranked as high as 5th and 6th (Allen Wallace’s rankings) in the nation in the mid-90s.

If we don’t get Urban, Kiffin, Whittingham, Petersen or some other big name coach out of left field, I don’t really care at this point.

aTm had the #1 ranked recruiting class in the country last year. They are top 15 this year and will probably finish higher. With the talent they are pulling in, I’d be shocked if they finished outside of the top 10 in the next 2 years.

Hey just like our program!