tmfr15

Looking at Saturday and some of the good play we had, and then looking ahead at the games coming up, it seems to me that Nebraska's season boils down to what happens two Saturdays from now at Northwestern, a team which has given us very difficult challenges since we joined the BIG. Not ruling out something good happening at home against the Badgers mainly because I am a fan. But realistically, we are going to be down, most likely anyway, a couple of defenders, and WOW Wisky was really impressive in week one, albeit against the Illinois football squad. Still, it looks like an uphill battle. Nebraska can have everyone back and hopefully be healthy for that Northwestern game. Shine in that one and you're in the win column headed home for Penn State. Pull an upset there and now you are running through the next four games and looking at the possibility of 6-2 and another chance to prove yourself against one of the top three in that game nine crossover. Plus a bowl game. 8-2 would be AMAZING. Lose at Northwestern, however. If you can't get momentum going and lose to Penn State. And then the back four looks like 2-2 if you're lucky. And that's 2-6. Momentum and getting a spring in the steps of these players is HUGE and that comes down to the Super Bowl at Evanston.

A message exchange on my social media compared Penn State and Nebraska. Someone, obviously an NU hater, said that he would like to see that match up annually because Penn State always destroyed Nebraska. Met with the fact that history says this simply isn't the case, the Penn State backer said we should compare records over the last 15 years. So I did. Then I just focused on the last five. Here's the result: Last 15 139-55 psu 116-79 nu Last 5 49-17 psu 28-34 nu Without the last five, it's almost dead even. We're obviously going through a down time due to Riley's influence and hoping Scott gets us rolling back to 9-plus wins. So wins and losses aside... Is Penn State that much better than us? Would anybody want this to be annual as it was under the Leaders AND Legends set up?

As I recall, it was the direction of the program that was causing pause. More blow outs and sideline blow ups. More close wins against average teams. A win at NW comes to mind. Seems we celebrated a little too much that day. Beating NW at their place is a solid Big win. But is it... Beating the Lions in Beaver Stadium, the Bucks at the Shoe, the Mazin Blue at the Big House or the Badgers at Camp Randall? No. And it's not close. It seems we were on the slow train to sub 500. That was the concern.

Listening to Dan Patrick this morning and his program indicated that the Power 5 schools have limited autonomy. The NCAA still has regulations for a return to play. The NCAA called off all of the sports it has direct control of saying that its not safe to play. The conferences can make their own independent announcements, but regardless, the schools must comply with the NCAA regulations for a return to play. BIG 10 and Pac 12 did immediate announcements while SEC, ACC and Big 10 kicked the can down the road, but if these same conditions exist in a few weeks, it doesn't sound like those schools will be able to start up with practices, let alone games. Am I way off in thinking this?

Smothers is not ready. Adrian and Luke are going to battle it out for the starting job. Adrian, I am figuring, will win the job. Scott is going want to put in packages that feature Luke instead of wasting talent on the bench. This crew needs all hands on deck. No. 1 and No. 2 QBs are on the field at the same time. What if there are injuries? Before now, you would roll out Adrian and feature Luke. Then Adrian gets hurt, you put in Luke and have Vederal as the back up. Or you can continue to feature Luke while Vederal takes the snaps. Luke gets hurt. Adrian continues at No. 1 and you have Vederal in the wings just in case. No Vederal. Can't feature Luke. If you did, and Luke got hurt, who would back up 2AM. An unprepared Smothers.? Please dude. Smothers isn't getting any time to prepare due to COVID-19 and he has dealt with HS injuries. Add this.... Bunch leaves, well, he was recruited by the last guy, so, umm, OK I guess. But how is it that Frost doesn't have a better relationship with Vederal? Everyone is thinking that Frost and Vederal had worked it out and Vederal came knowing he would not be the starter and blah, blah, blah. Something doesn't smell right here. Either Frost lied to Vederal to get him to come here or Scott and Vederal had their relationship damaged post transfer. None of that seems like good news.

My answer is both. Nebraska needs to go 7-0 in any way that they can get the job done. It would be a huge booster going into a grinder of a finish. Minnesota got their season going with some wins early on against less than great foes and by less than impressive scores or favorable circumstances. IMHO, they would not have upset Penn State had they not pulled out those early season wins. And, as a result, Row the Boat, would have a lot less ring to it these days in Minneapolis

Will Cain, ESPN talking head, and Adam Rittenberg, ESPN's Big 10 guy, recently discussed programs that are down in a segment on the Will Cain Show... Those programs were Nebraska, USC, Miami and FSU. Both agreed that USC has the best chance of the four to get to the playoff soon. That I guess is in spite of Clay. They said Mike Norvell would do well despite the fact that conversations about FSU are all about the bad culture there. Lastly, they settled on the notion that Nebraska is settling in as a sub par program and may never return to any kind of championship caliber football. How many Nebraska fans would reluctantly agreed with those sentiments? I am not ready to do so and find it humorous that they stipulate Nebraska might never come back. Never. Really. That's a long time ya know.

The Big 10, insofar as national prominence, is a one team league IMHO with that being Ohio State. Penn State quite a bit behind the Bucks with Michigan third and fill in the rest however you like there in the east. Nebraska should be the second best team in the west. Iowa's wins over Nebraska should have been dominant but were instead nail-biters. A solid season with an upset over Wisky might be enough to propel the Big Red to Indy and then NU would have to be fortunate to play an uninterested or uninspired Buckeye team in order to have a shot. Last year told us the story really. Minnesota had a charmed year and knocked off Penn State, but they couldn't beat Iowa and then got choked out by a Badger team that was promptly choked out by a much better Buckeye crew.

I thought the idea was for him to be an analyst, not a member of the staff.

Five years was my window, and I was hoping to be wrong, but it will likely take five years to develop on the LOS, both sides of the ball. We are getting ready for the third year and probably a little further along than most of us think. We had one hurt QB, a true frosh and one other solid QB, who got injured as well. Plus, our RB room was pretty empty and so was the WR room. More guys are showing up and the guys that were there are going to continue develop, both at RB and at WR. The QB deal will be better this year if 2AM can stay healthy and also since Luke will be available to use for more than four games. Vederal adds increased depth too. I think Logan will probably sit. I am hearing that he got banged up in high school quite a bit, so that makes sense to red shirt. Relevant... what does that mean indeed? If the OP means National Title, well, that's almost impossible to put a time table on. All you have to do is run the table or have a SOS that's good enough to get the committee to overlook a loss. Then take down two VERY good teams. There are great teams that were in position for a run,, yes, I am looking at you Ohio State. One bad call, and no dice. If the OP means conference title, then I am on that five year deal. A run at the title in the fourth year with a senior QB is very reasonable. The fifth year, provided a new QB, might make it tougher. But year six, with a returner and an even stronger program, maybe conference title and playoff spot.

Pass it more, run it more, swing pass it more... play AM or Luke or have Omar take direct snaps in the wild cat and pass it to himself. Just get anybody out there going. At this point, it doesn't much matter if the guy in the red suit is Santa Claus, we just need somebody to deliver.

This could be really good, as in a chance to have some fun and score some points against a guy who appeared to be clueless from the start in attempting to lead DONU. Or it could be really bad, as in his chance to poke us in the eye after we assumed he didn't know what the heck he was doing in attempting to lead DONU.

What can I say... this typing is my therapy It's a cry for help really. LOL

Nebraska "enjoys" a bye week this week and, meanwhile, Oregon State will be at home against Washington. The Huskies are favored and should roll, but, here is the thing... Oregon State is coming off a record evening win on the road at Arizona, 56-38. Washington might come in hung over after they let one get away against Utah. Washington looked like it had it in the bag. Here's what's sad, Oregon State doesn't have to beat Washington to do what Nebraska can't. They already have done that. And they could add more. The Beavers have four games left, including the game Saturday. Assuming a loss to Washington (and I ask for this humbly as it would be a stinging wound to see otherwise) the Beavers would then play Arizona State and Washington State, two middle of the road teams, before closing with imposing Oregon in the Civil War game, which is dominated by the Ducks. This is the second year of a new coach at Oregon State, and he appears to be doing slightly better than Nebraska. What a crock! This is why we are nervous around here. This should not be happening. Oregon State has been a train wreck. Despite that fact OSU has won its last two on the road.... back-to-back no less. Nebraska has one road win in the Frost tenure. Just one. If Oregon State wins against Arizona and Washington State, they'll go bowling. We likely won't. These are the moments that I just have a hard time seeing what's happening with Nebraska and believing its going to get any better. I am NOT calling for jobs for two reasons. 1. What coach would do well here given that we have had three coaches in a five-year stretch? That's a major recruiting disruptor. And... 2. I am so tired of the fire and hire cycle and the patience bull crap and so forth. I am trying to work my head around the idea that the Husker program I have identified with for my entire lifetime... I was born in the 70s, is GONE and may NEVER come back.

I do think the three games back to back to back with Minnesota, Indiana and Purdue make it hard to stay engaged this year. We should have at least won two of those games. And, had we done that, we would be improving upon a bowl qualifying record of 6-3 and eyeing 8-4 or at least 7-5. The losses mean we have to beat either Wisconsin or Iowa just to go bowling and, as we know, the feel of 4-8 is real. How can you be looking forward to that? I am glad it's a bye week. Looking forward to watching college ball without having to worry what's going to happen in Memorial Stadium this Saturday.

Hmmmm.... let's see, Purdue is 2-0 against Frost. And they'll be healthy this time around. Loss Central Michigan beat Northern Illinois by a similar score that we beat Northern Illinois... Loss South Dakota State is a very good team year to year and put up a fight against Bo's Huskers.... Loss Cincinnati is nationally ranked and 7-1 at this point..... Loss Northwestern ... well, here is a team we beat this year, albeit close... maybe a win... BUT NO... Loss Illinois ... Is very bad. We beat them this year. Maybe we get a win. Hell, why not... WIN Rutgers... TERRIBLE. They suck so so so so bad. WIN The rest.... I will say that Minnesota won't be nearly as good next year. That saves us from an 0-5 finish. Yep. 1-4 I will say two wins in the first seven games... 2-5 Then the 1-4 3-12... wait, bad math 3-9 But it will feel like 3-33 And if this nightmare plays out... Scott is GONE. Sorry, you can't be this freaking bad. Nobody can. Tom Osborne said he fired Bill Callahan because he was holding him to a standard that he felt would apply to him. During that presser, he said Bill would have likely been out the door if he had a 6-6 season because, "We don't have too many break even seasons around here." Wow.... hard to believe how far this thing has fallen.

I really wonder if this transition was handled well by this staff. I mean, we chased away a lot of players. I know they were Riley guys, but it seems to me that we could have used them as a bridge to the Frost guys. I mean, Frost brings in a bunch of guys, and most need development, and yet we are throwing them into the mix out of need because so many guys left. Take 2AM for instance. He played as a freshman. And, yes, we saw the flash that he could provide. But we also saw a ton of mistakes. It seems to me that some of those mistakes have now become habits that he is having a hard time overcoming. We could have went with Gebbia and had him just basically hand it off on power stuff and jet series and that sort of thing, then worked play action off of it and we might have had something at least serviceable. Even if it ended badly, we would still be working with 2AM in the background and getting him ready for the challenges. We saw that at least some of the guys are better than we would have liked to assume they would be. I mean where would we have been last year without Morgan and ZIggy. This year, we would be in a world of hurt without J.D. My strategy of playing Riley guys until Frost guys were ready might not have worked, but it couldn't be any worse than what we freaking have now.

This is the kind of sentiment I want to believe in. I really do. Please allow this to be true.

It's really awful to say this, but it's hard to give Nebraska much of a chance at victory here. We are horrific on the road under Frost and we all saw the terrible outings in the second half at Colorado and for all of the game in our "win" at Illinois. The defense for Nebraska has struggled to do much of anything consistently, including that pass rush issue. We make too many mistakes on offense and special teams. Before Minnesota, I thought it was our "get right" game and that we would go on a little run that would build confidence for Wisconsin, and, later, for Iowa. Then we got trashed. But we had a bye. Soooo I figured the rally would begin at home against the Hoosiers and that we would be confidence and...well We lost. I was wrong. Again. At this point, I can't say we are going to win, because, even as a die hard fan without being forced to think "realistically," I still have problems being positive about all of this right now.

At the start of the season, I was sitting at ZERO confidence that things would be much better in 2019 than what they were in 2018. Yes, we finished with four out of six wins. In that was Ohio State stumbling around and feeling like they had us beat before the game even started. It nearly cost them. Iowa let up on the gas and we rallied. That nearly cost them. One of our wins came against Bethune Cookman. I watched the Michigan State win during the offseason and they had a ton of opportunities to beat us and didn't. I looked for Nebraska to come out and get some things accomplished on the field. To make me a believer. That started with taking care of business against South Alabama. I mean 42-3 or something. Get the back ups some time. And we know that didn't happen. South Alabama is 1-5. They're not some great team. They scored a combined 9 points against UAB and Memphis. They scored 21 against us. A road win at Colorado would have bene great. We couldn't do it. But the Air Force Academy could do it. Ouch. N. Illinois went as well as I hoped. And, despite a few rough patches, it gave me a small amount of hope. Maybe we were turning a corner. Got the subs in.... but we did play, "interesting" special teams. Then Illinois... for the love of God. Horrible. Terrible. Walking backwards. Sprinting backwards. We barely won. And Ohio State. Just got punched in the face. No push back, at all. Save for the double wing fullback excitement. But that was it. That was all. Now Northwestern. Will we win? I am hoping. But I am remembering Illinois and South Alabama. And I am worried. I want to believe in Scott, but if we get housed by Northwestern, I am going to start having some bad inclinations about where this is going. And our recruiting isn't helping. We scored another three star guy today. Up to 12. Ranked 42nd. That's just not good enough. We heard that Ohio State was ROCK BOTTOM 2.0, but I have to ask, don't you have to go up before you can back down to Rock Bottom. Out of everything that has happened. Not much of it. Almost none. Really NONE. Has given me much hope. Rant Off.

I guess I was fixated on 2015 when we did everything possible to lose the game and Illinois finally said, after about 50 pass interference calls on the defense (or so it seemed...LOL).... Fine, we'll take it. And they threw it to that Geronimo guy and we lost.

Nebraska has to climb the hill directly in front of it. Don't worry about next week or the end of the season. Just install the playbook that will beat this team. Ohio State doesn't matter. We MUST continue to march forward and feed the hunger of the players for improvement. A win over Ohio State might have the same effect as hitting a home run when your team is down four in the ninth. Everyone celebrates like something big has happened when so much work remains ahead. If Nebraska beat Ohio State on Sept. 28 and then felt like it had "arrived," it would be the worst thing that could ever happen. For now, we have this game. We have the need to improve. We have the knowledge that the last time we visited this stadium—we lost. We have to prove we can do something different. We have to have that hunger. And all of that is good for this group right now.

When last season started, I had no idea what effect Frost would have on the team right away. And I had no idea what he had to work with. Turns out we were a bit talent poor. And Frost's effect was to chase away some of the pretenders. We were left with a lean team that counted on a combo of inexperienced players and guys with a mixture of buy in. Plus we had not been through S&C for a full year. In this second year, we were all expecting a big leap upward. South Alabama let us know that a big leap, at least right away, isn't happening. Colorado confirmed that on Saturday. We are at a place where we are counting on young players, some transfers, and some players who are trying to reinvent themselves after holding over from the coach change. Still not much S&C. We are still a few years away on S&C. We still have to recruit. And, yes, this will take a while. It's misery watching the team suffer like this but I think we have to count on small improvements here and there and take joy in those. A win here or there. That's it. Maybe we make a bowl. But it's going to be hard. I think 7-5 and 6-6 are reasonable ideas but not without a huge fight. We are here for now. But I hope it gets better. Maybe Colorado and Nebraska finish with similar records and rematch in a bowl. We win and change the direction of the program. In 2001, a loss against the Buffs was the first sign of trouble. In 2019, a bowl win over Colorado might be the sign that things are going to change. That's my hope anyway.

The thing that makes a rivalry is to have high stakes. Winner gets something more than just a lame a$$ trophy. This year, that looks like it could happen. Winner to Indy! Getting to play for a conference title is very noteworthy. If we have a great year and are primed for Indy and get knocked out by a FG against Iowa, the Hawks-Husker series will increase in intensity. I am ready to say they are a rival just because that would be at least one team that I care about in the BIG. Right now, I look at Wisky, and they are kind of a rival, just because they have run the west and we have not been good. But a one-sided rivalry is like Nebraska-Colorado, where we owned them and they beat us once or twice and thought... rivalry. Bo was won in 2011 and 2012, lost in 2013, and then won in 2014 before losing his job. It was not much of a rivalry then. Iowa won 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Those losses sting, but I blame the move to Mike Riley as much as I give credit to Iowa. In the BIG, I think you can see clear references toward Big 8/12 schools. Northwestern reminds me of K-State. Purdue reminds me of Baylor. Wisconsin reminds me of Okla State. Iowa reminds me of Colorado. Ohio State and Michigan are like Oklahoma. Penn State and Michigan State are like Texas A&M....

Adrian Martinez is a great QB. And if he gets better. And if we can get the WRs to step up. And if we get improved line play. And if we find an RB to lean upon. And if the defense steps forward and if. and if. and if. All of the ifs alone sound like, "Hey, we can do that." Add them up and they sound bad. Of course that's not how odds work. If you buy a lottery ticket 100 times, the odds of getting the winning number is the same each time. Similarly, the Huskers might have 10 problems each with a decent likelyhood of being solved. All of the likely outcomes don't add up to an unlikely outcome. Right? Tell me I am right. Please..... LOL