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Look at the teams you just mentioned and their success in the last 5 years, and I think you'll have your answer.

Fixed that for you.

Absolutely yes. We all seem to be forgetting that, before his injury, Martinez was in the thick of the Heisman discussion. As a redshirt freshman. That just doesn't happen very often.

I'm not sure you're giving proper respect to the WRs that we brought in this year. We snatched a good one off of the East coast (Allen) and picked up the best one in-state (Daniel Davie). On top of that, we've got several walking on, including a couple from out of state. With the way our offense is building itself, that should be more than sufficient.

Didn't he switch his commitment to USC just today?

Gotta disagree here. You're leaving out a lot of talent outside the Big 12. Here's how I've got them ranked (roughly): 1. Ingram - Not a burner but a true all-around RB 2. Leshoure - High-risk/High-reward type back. Has excellent size and reportedly good speed, but a bit of an unknown. 3. Ryan Williams - Poor senior year, but has the skillset to be an NFL back. 4. Daniel Thomas - Lacks the speed and burst you look for in the NFL, but has good vision and power. 5. Deon Lewis - Regressed this year, but is still very talented. This is the guy I'm least sure on. 6. Kendall Hunter - Looked good at the senior bowl, but unless he find a team that believes in him (ala Ray Rice Balt), he's going to be knocked as too small to be a 3 down back. 7. Roy Helu - I have him ranked here, but I secretly think he could be one of the best of the class. He's got the size, the speed, the blocking, and the work ethic to be good. 8. Demarco Murray - Good speed, good size, but doesn't jump out at you as being a difference maker in the NFL 9. Jacquizz Rodgers - He's electric on the field, but may not time well enough to get an early shot at playtime. He'll have to earn it. 10. Shane Vareen - Meh. Kind of a copy of Helu, but worse.

I feel you are only optomistic cause you haven't seen a live husker game in about a month and having to live through Watson's crappy decisions. Until Martinez can throw really well and look off of receivers he is just a one trick pony. I wouldn't want a 3 deep Martinez's at qb. That's the rub, though. One trick ponies can work at the college level, provided that one trick is good enough. Was Crouch a talented passer? Vince Young? Michael Vick? Heck, Oregon's QB isn't much of a passer either. When Martinez was healthy and the QB run threat was fully realized, he was a successful (if not technically proficient) passer. Don't get me wrong, there are many problems with our offense, but if we actually ARE recruiting for a specific mold (obviously, none of us can truly know, we're outsiders), filling out our roster with QBs that can run that mold should alleviate many of our woes. The difference is that Crouch wasn't running the option read. Young and Vick could pass but wasn't as strong as running. Oregon's QB can pass. Otherwise they would have never made it to the Championship Game and went undefeated all season long. Our offense requires a good passer and good runner. Once you take one away it blows up unless your Qb can pass the ball pretty well. Let's face it once Martinez got hurt and couldn't run we were screwed. I think we disagree here (I would say our offense needs a GREAT runner and an adequate passer, which Martinez qualifies as when healthy), but otherwise I think we're arguing the same thing at each other. You are saying that the QB needs to be able to pass so that if he gets injured and cannot run, we aren't in a hole. I am saying that we need more players at QB that are great runners, so that if the QB1 gets dinged and cannot run effectively enough to open up the passing game, we move to the next healthy guy and keep going, without having to change our offense. If Martinez was a good passer we would've won the last 3 games we lost. A good passing qb can take enough pressure off so the rb's can do their job. You can't have a qb shuffle otherwise you have no consistency when one qb gets injured. Our offense changing has to do with the coaching staff who obviously can't coach(offense). Green still being raw as he is is on the coaches. the last thing that doesn't need to happen is have an offense that relies on the qb for most of the offense. I don't want see another Crouch qb or offense. The best offense is a balanced attack. When you can only do one you get screwed cause the defense can just call plays for either running or passing. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. I see nothing wrong with relying on the QB for most of the offense. In the vast majority of situations, that is true. Great passing teams need their QB to succeed. Great spread running teams need their QB to succeed. Pretty much the only offense that can get away with not having everything go through the QB would be a Wisconsin style power running team, but even then, you need a QB that is a highly efficient passer. So really I don't see how you CAN'T rely on the QB for most of the offense. You say that "you get screwed cause the defense can just call plays for either running or passing"-- I don't really get what you're implying here. If you're a great running team, you get the defense to sell out to stop the run, opening up easy passes for the QB (Oklahoma State anyone?). If you're a great passing team, you open up the defense to be soft against the run. No one is saying that Nebraska doesn't need to pass. I just disagree that we even need a "good" passer to be successful. Passing against a defense that loads up to stop a successful run-game does not require Peyton Manning.

RE: True freshman discussion, I found this article about true freshman contributions on the top 10 teams of the year. I was a bit surprised at the number of true freshman that played for top teams this year: http://newsok.com/how-true-freshmen-impacted-college-footballs-top-teams/article/3534710 A few examples for those who don't want to read the whole article. Auburn played 16 true freshman including RB Michael Dyer. Stanford had RB Anthony Wilkerson contribute 400 yards on the ground. Wisconsin RB James White led the team in rushing as a true frosh. To round out the RBs, Oklahoma State had Joseph Randle contribute 1,161 all purpose yards.

Is it? Many players play as true freshman these days, and contribute immediately. The QBs I expect to redshirt if all goes well (I expect Martinez #1, Carnes #2, Green #3), and only see the field in a true emergency. For the RBs, however, I expect to Green to play extensively, and unless someone steps up, Abdullah as well. OL, I don't expect any of them except perhaps Moore to see the field their freshman year. But once again, I'm not saying that these new players will be the saving grace of our offense. The saving grace will be picking a system (spread run) and sticking to it, making it easier for each position to practice and perfect their schemes. I'm not syaing they wont play, but play and make enough of an impact to generate some better offensive production? Hard for a 18 year old kid to come in learn the system, and get up to game speed. This wont be highschool football anymore, this will be BIG 10 football. IMO. That's fair. We have no idea if they will be effective at the college level yet. But the spread run system is something that is quite prevalent at the high school level, and our system isn't too dissimilar. For most kids that we recruit, this won't be a complete reconstruction of their football experience, just building more wrinkles into it. On top of that, RBs in a spread run system are not required to make very many reads, as all of that falls on the QB's shoulders. The RB just has to know which hole he should aim for, and then take the ball if he gets it. From high school to college to the NFL, RB is one of the easiest positions to jump right in to. I am confident that Green, at least, will have a productive year in 2011 in a backup role. Abdullah is more of a question, as his last reported weight is much lower than Green's, and he may need some time to fill out to ~190lbs.

I feel you are only optomistic cause you haven't seen a live husker game in about a month and having to live through Watson's crappy decisions. Until Martinez can throw really well and look off of receivers he is just a one trick pony. I wouldn't want a 3 deep Martinez's at qb. That's the rub, though. One trick ponies can work at the college level, provided that one trick is good enough. Was Crouch a talented passer? Vince Young? Michael Vick? Heck, Oregon's QB isn't much of a passer either. When Martinez was healthy and the QB run threat was fully realized, he was a successful (if not technically proficient) passer. Don't get me wrong, there are many problems with our offense, but if we actually ARE recruiting for a specific mold (obviously, none of us can truly know, we're outsiders), filling out our roster with QBs that can run that mold should alleviate many of our woes. The difference is that Crouch wasn't running the option read. Young and Vick could pass but wasn't as strong as running. Oregon's QB can pass. Otherwise they would have never made it to the Championship Game and went undefeated all season long. Our offense requires a good passer and good runner. Once you take one away it blows up unless your Qb can pass the ball pretty well. Let's face it once Martinez got hurt and couldn't run we were screwed. I think we disagree here (I would say our offense needs a GREAT runner and an adequate passer, which Martinez qualifies as when healthy), but otherwise I think we're arguing the same thing at each other. You are saying that the QB needs to be able to pass so that if he gets injured and cannot run, we aren't in a hole. I am saying that we need more players at QB that are great runners, so that if the QB1 gets dinged and cannot run effectively enough to open up the passing game, we move to the next healthy guy and keep going, without having to change our offense.

Is it? Many players play as true freshman these days, and contribute immediately. The QBs I expect to redshirt if all goes well (I expect Martinez #1, Carnes #2, Green #3), and only see the field in a true emergency. For the RBs, however, I expect to Green to play extensively, and unless someone steps up, Abdullah as well. OL, I don't expect any of them except perhaps Moore to see the field their freshman year. But once again, I'm not saying that these new players will be the saving grace of our offense. The saving grace will be picking a system (spread run) and sticking to it, making it easier for each position to practice and perfect their schemes.

Beware, what follows are the unfounded beliefs of a amateur football fan: How much of our blocking troubles are related to being "multiple" on offense? As a former OL player myself, I know that blocking is not as simple as many may think. By being "multiple", we're forcing our OL to learn too many schemes, and never become proficient in any of them. They're playing off of raw talent. Yes, Shawn Watson is responsible for that "multiplicity." But this is Bo Pelini's team. Bo has made it clear (through recruiting), that he wants a spread run offense. All of his QB recruits have fit this mold. Sure, not all have turned out to fit that mold (see Green, Cody), but the goal is clear. Bo wants a QB that is either 1. immensely fast, or 2. incredibly shifty. Of course, one cannot know if a recruit will fully pan out to that mold until you get them on campus. Cody, unfortunately, does not fit that mold. He's got decent speed, but not great, he's nifty at times, but will generally not make a defender miss. Cody was and (currently) is not the type of QB that they were hoping for, but he was the next best fit on the roster, earning him the #2 spot. Do I completely trust Shawn Watson to cut the sh#t and make the full time transition to a spread run game? Eh, I'm iffy there. However, I do believe that Bo will, if he has not already, make it clear that it is the identity the team should have next season.

I feel you are only optomistic cause you haven't seen a live husker game in about a month and having to live through Watson's crappy decisions. Until Martinez can throw really well and look off of receivers he is just a one trick pony. I wouldn't want a 3 deep Martinez's at qb. That's the rub, though. One trick ponies can work at the college level, provided that one trick is good enough. Was Crouch a talented passer? Vince Young? Michael Vick? Heck, Oregon's QB isn't much of a passer either. When Martinez was healthy and the QB run threat was fully realized, he was a successful (if not technically proficient) passer. Don't get me wrong, there are many problems with our offense, but if we actually ARE recruiting for a specific mold (obviously, none of us can truly know, we're outsiders), filling out our roster with QBs that can run that mold should alleviate many of our woes.

I think some in this thread may have missed the overall point of my post. I'm not hinging my confidence so much on the individual players, but that we seem to finally be recruiting to an identity. In the days of the "WCO," we were star chasers, grabbing highly touted guys without really knowing how we would use them. Our recent recruiting classes have seemed much more focused. Why do their 40 times matter? The point is not that our incoming recruits are fast, as much as they are all designed to fit a certain mold. They are all (potentially) great fits for an Oregon-style, run-based spread offense.

I am one of Shawn Watson's biggest detractors. My friends know the vitriol I will spew on game day when things don't work out for the offense. But after thinking for awhile, I'm OK with him staying on, and feel good about the offense for the coming season. Here's why: Take one look at the players we're recruiting for offense. QB Bubba Starling and Jamal Turner are two of the fastest prospects at their position in a very long time. Sure, we're likely to only get Turner in the end, but I see what the coaches are trying to build. They want a 3 deep of Taylor Martinez's. Super athletic guys that can absolutely devastate a defense with their legs. Brion Carnes fits the mold as well, though he is less of a burner and more of a "quick" player. Think about why our offense REALLY struggled this year. After Martinez got injured, we lost that entire dimension of the offense. We had no other QB that was fast enough to run the same plays as Taylor. We can hem and haw about how Watson should be able to gameplan for the differing styles of Martinez and Green, but we all seem to forgot how truly difficult that is. No one does that. Not in college, not in the NFL. You build your program around a certain style, and you perfect it. That's impossible to do if you have to attempt to master two different skillsets, just because your #1 might get injured. I'm rambling now, but tl;dr We'll have more QBs that can run the same type of offense, which will make it vastly easier for the offense to start to click through practice. The same applies to our RB recruits. We've targeted two explosive "scat-back" types (much in the vein of LaMichael James) to pair with our existing "superman" at RB (who started with more of a scatback body-type, but filled out due to lacking top end speed). Aaron Green is lightning in a bottle, and Ameer Abdullah is amazingly underrated. I've only watched his 1 on 1 matchup videos from camps, but if he can translate any of that to the field- he'll be a good one for us. 3* scrubs don't get the offer lists that Ameer had before committing. And we're building a solid base for all of those playmakers with the absolute stud OL class that is coming in. They won't all pan out. Some may never even play a down, but when you've got an entire second string of 4* recruits, you're going to get 1 or 2 studs out of them. So there it is friends, the house is not burning down, the sky is not falling, Bo Pelini isn't leaving, and the Huskers will kick some ass in the Big 10 next year.

Wow, whoooole lot of over-reactions going on in here. Every team has poor games. The great ones pull out the win regardless. Chill out, all.

Rushed home from work to watch the game, and ESPN2 is showing ESPNNEWS programming instead of what it says "Arizona St vs Wisconsin or Neb Washington"