Blackshirt_Revival

Yet this amounted to a paltry 42% of the offensive plays we called. But heck, what do I know? I'm just a 'derper'. Let's stick with that ratio for the rest of the season and/or call 50 pass plays a game for Tommy Armstrong and see where that gets us. Either way, keep on keepin' on with the cute Hank Hill ad hominems, I guess.

Please tell me, what is so difficult to grasp about this? THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO RUN THE BALL OR COMMIT TO THE RUN. THE RUN IS MERELY WINDOW-DRESSING FOR AND COMPLIMENTARY TO THE PASSING GAME WITH THIS STAFF. The reason our rushing game is unsuccessful is because we have ZERO COMMITMENT TO IT. There is no creativity to our running game, and no technique or toughness instilled into these kids to foster a running game. Our starting running back isn't our starter because he is our best runner, but because he is our "best all around back" (Riley's words in his presser a couple of weeks ago), ie: He catches the ball and pass protects the best. How many different types of ways did we attack Northwestern's defense with our rushing game? Did you see a lot of variety besides Newby and/or Cross up the gut? I remember 1 option play with TA (when he scored a TD), 1 bootleg run with TD (also a TA TD), 1 jet sweep attempt, 2 rushes by Jano up the gut. Did you see anything else that I missed? Were there any counter plays? Did we run any zone read? Any other traditional option looks besides the 1 TA scored on? Any more bootleg rushes besides the one TA scored on? Any sprint-outs? Any halfback sweeps/tosses? Did any of our other running backs besides the aforementioned get a shot to carry the ball when Newby and Cross clearly weren't getting it done? Like oh, I don't know, those 2 freshman who looked good earlier in the season, Wilbon and Ozigbo, who have seemingly COMPLETELY disappeared from this team? "Oh, we got stuffed, time to go back to the air!" THAT is the mentality of this staff. Watch the Iowa-Northwestern game and observe how Iowa's run was kept in check at first, and then proceeded to wear down and then dominate Northwestern with their rushing attack and physicality. That is what commitment to the running game is. This team simply is not coached or taught how to have a physical running game. It is a technique and mentality which these coaches simply do not possess or understand--it is completely foreign to them. This has become quite clear. If a run gets stuffed, we go straight to the pass. How many times did we even run the ball twice in a row? Let alone three times in a row. Here are some stats for you: There were at least 50 pass plays called in this game (if you count the plays Tommy was sacked) out of 86. That is calling for a pass play on 58% of your offensive plays. Please tell me in what alternate universe it makes sense for Tommy Armstrong to EVER be asked to throw 50 passes in a game? Or in what alternate universe a Tommy Armstrong led Nebraska team has over 50 pass plays and expects to win? To paraphrase Dan Hawkins: "This ain't Corvallis, brother."

+1 Keep banging the drum Hujan! This is the offensive philosophy Nebraska MUST bring back. For sure. But it's more than just a power-run versus fun-and-gun. Stanford is beating the pants off people with a team full of guys like Janovich and Chris Weber. (Not making this a race thing, btw.) They are playing solid, aggressive defense, and smash-mouth offense. They are high on tenacity and will. Sprinkle electrifying skill-position players like DPE, Morgan, and Moore on top of a foundation consisting of guys like Janovich, Webber, and Gangwish, combine it with a power-run scheme and a punishing D and you'll have a team that will win a lot of games. ^ Here is the answer. My only twist on the formula would be using a quarterback with more dual threat ability than what Stanford's QBs and the QBs of most other current power teams have shown over the past few years. And by dual threat, I don't really mean Taylor Martinez or Michael Vick. Think more Russell Wilson. If that seems too ambitious, think more like Joe Ganz, even. A QB who can distribute the ball but who can also make defenses account for his legs. Absolutely. But I wouldn't make it a focal point of the recruiting focus. There is no denying that Wisconsin became nigh unstoppable with a guy like Wilson at the helm. But even a *3 ho-hum QB who doesn't have a ton of elusiveness would be highly effective in such an offense so long as he has solid fundamentals and can be taught to make smart decisions. I'm thinking someone like Zac Taylor. Build the team around high-quality OL/DL play, add some solid LB/TE play, and the rest is pretty much details. Add in a talented dual-threat QB and/or an exceptional RB and the team becomes a playoff contender instantly. Also, how come you no give me +1? I have been giving you tons of +1s, and you are totally right on with practically every point you have made! Ask people who are, at a minimum, somewhat knowledgeable about college football (historically) and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, to tell you what Nebraska's identity is, or what comes to mind when you mention the Nebraska Cornhuskers and their style of play. See what kind of answers you get. It was no accident we played the style of football we played for so long here. It was built upon, first and foremost, what we had available to us. This served as the foundation of Nebraska's identity. Everything after that was supplemental. Some years our playing style may have looked slightly different than other years, depending on what kind of players we had, but there was a general foundation of strong, physical running game with an O-line that was going to pound you into submission, and a swarming defense that was going to hit you and hurt you. For whatever reason, this way of doing things was perceived by some (particularly some with a lot of money, I'm guessing) to be outdated and obsolete. So instead we started doing what about every other generic, half-a$$ed program out there was doing, and now there is absolutely nothing distinguishable about Nebraska or the brand of football it plays. The only thing distinguishable about it now is the support and passion of its fanbase relative to its population and location. What is else is distinguishable, at all, about Husker football today? Now, am I saying we do things exactly as we did in the 90s with our play selection and offensive scheme? Not exactly. But as far as the general style of a physical, hard-nosed O-line and running game, and vicious, swarming D with a team built on the backs of talent roughly from within a 500 mile radius, supplemented with "high star" guys from out of region to help round us out at the skill positions and any other positions of need? Heck yes that's what I'm saying.

Mismanaged

+1 Keep banging the drum Hujan! This is the offensive philosophy Nebraska MUST bring back. For sure. But it's more than just a power-run versus fun-and-gun. Stanford is beating the pants off people with a team full of guys like Janovich and Chris Weber. (Not making this a race thing, btw.) They are playing solid, aggressive defense, and smash-mouth offense. They are high on tenacity and will. Sprinkle electrifying skill-position players like DPE, Morgan, and Moore on top of a foundation consisting of guys like Janovich, Webber, and Gangwish, combine it with a power-run scheme and a punishing D and you'll have a team that will win a lot of games. ^ Here is the answer. My only twist on the formula would be using a quarterback with more dual threat ability than what Stanford's QBs and the QBs of most other current power teams have shown over the past few years. And by dual threat, I don't really mean Taylor Martinez or Michael Vick. Think more Russell Wilson. If that seems too ambitious, think more like Joe Ganz, even. A QB who can distribute the ball but who can also make defenses account for his legs.

Minus an all American running back and defensive end, right? That's like having $105 then saying you pretty much have the same amount after you spend the hundred.Oh man do we miss Ameer. If we had him around the season would look much different. His motor just never quit. I think he would have willed us to win at least a few of these losses.I'm sorry but your slightly delusional if you think even Ameer gains that. many more yards running Langsdork's favorite Run it up Reeve's butt play with this bad oline Yeah, I'm not sure Abdullah would have even seen the field much in Landgsdork's offense, since his pass blocking would probably be considered a 'liability'. What an absolute sh!t show our complete lack of a running game and commitment to the run, coupled with our brainless 'rotation' at running back has been.

Duke, I think you should consider changing your screen name to 'The CONSCIENCE'. Your posts are consistently right on the money and have been throughout (at least) this football season. There is no, and I mean absolutely NO reason to continue this little experiment any longer. Heads need to roll. The house needs to be cleaned. Things have gotten very, very ugly. This hire was a spectacular botch on so many levels. We have completely abandoned the concepts which made Husker football HUSKER FOOTBALL. There is nothing special or unique about our football team anymore, other than the passion and continued support of our fanbase filling up that stadium for every home game. Well, this fanbase has been absolutely taken, deceived, and ripped off. Wake up people. We are witnessing the destruction of Husker football happening before our very eyes. I remember everyone thinking a monkey could take us to 9 wins. I wanted Bo gone as bad as anyone, I think he was a cancer, I think he had hit his ceiling, had a God complex, and a horribly ugly demeanor and attitude. Yet we traded him in for a career .500 coach in a completely reactionary move, who runs a system completely antithetical to Husker football, which is very similar to a system which has failed here before, who has shown he does not have the ability to adapt, and who seems to have extreme loyalty to his staff, a flaw which Bo was rightly criticized for. We have an administration and athletic department who are killing, absolutely KILLING Husker football. The longer we allow this to happen, the worse it is going to get. Something needs to be done immediately.

Not you Blackshirt, but Langsdorf. It is just such an easy tendency to notice, and Kill is one of the best at noticing and exploiting tendencies. 2nd and 5 or more? Langsdorf's gonna call a pass. You will never see 2 called runs in a row unless we are at very short yardage on 2nd or 3rd down. EDIT: "Make them use their timeouts" Wisconsin drive being the obvious exception.

2nd and 5 or greater always, always means passing in Langsdorf's offense.

I can't speak for the others commenting on this thread, but perhaps I should qualify my statement on $$$, fit, and coaches. Unlike some others I have seen posting on these matters, I am not of the persuasion of throwing as much money as possible at a Established Superstar Coach 'X' just to get him here. What I do believe is spending as much money as it takes to get the coach you want and think your program needs and will be a good fit at your program, and to keep him there. At Michigan, that meant spending $5 million a year to lure Jim Harbaugh. At Baylor, that means paying Art Briles $4.2 million a year. At Florida, they are spending something like $3.5 million a year on McElwain. I'm sure we could keep going on down the line, but you get the idea. I personally do not subscribe to the belief to just throw as much money as possible at a big name coach just because he is big name coach, unless that big name coach is absolutely the right guy, the right fit--the guy you want. It needs to be someone whom you feel will mesh with your program. To me, the fit should be the first and most important thing to take into consideration, then targeting the right guy(s), with compensation determined from there. I cannot tell you precisely who we passed up, but I can tell you, if we are to believe what Shawn Eichorst said, that this process happened very quickly, he immediately targeted Riley, they met days later, and boom, Riley was our coach. So as far as claiming inside knowledge on the process itself, I personally can't. I'm not necessarily saying this is the wrong way to go about the process (some would say it is, some would say it isn't), the question just remains is Riley that fit? Were there guys who were better fits? You'll always be taking a risk, but I think there is a difference between the risk involved in having your number hit in roulette as opposed to a winning hand in a game of blackjack. How calculated was this risk vs. its potential reward? We don't definitely know the answer to that right now. In the meantime, there will be debate and speculation until we get some answers on the field. But, like I said, I'm not sure what the OP is getting at exactly with his original post. Makes it a bit hard to formulate a concrete dialogue when I'm not sure if he is saying the Huskers are doomed to be insignificant in 'tier 3', won't get a good coach again after Riley leaves or retires, are doomed to never have a good coach again, or expects us to believe we should accept this 'tier 3 reality' (whatever that is/means)--I really don't know. With that being said, I do very much agree with your comments about being thankful for coaches taking interest in us regardless of their perceived worthiness or fit (did not intend to be snarky with my "That we should just be grateful we got Riley at all?" question. I was genuinely trying to determine what the OP was trying to convey in the post). And yes, it is humiliating to be publicly passed up. I'm not sure exactly what SP's thinking was there (or in many regards, for that matter). As negatively as the Callahan era is looked at today, thank god we didn't end up with Houston Nutt. Ugh.

Agree. It's about $$$ and it's about fit. See Baylor in Tier 4.

So...what is it you're trying to say here? That we should just be grateful we got Riley at all? That we should be content with the results that we have seen because we're just a "tier 3" school (according to this article by author Ty Duffy) and most likely couldn't/wouldn't do any better or expect to do any better with another staff? That we should just settle for whatever results we should happen to get and be ok with it? That our expectations should fall in line with this author's belief "Cuz Nebraska just ain't what it used to be, that's just the way it is, and this is the proof!!" I think most of us realize we aren't what we were 20 years ago. We know we aren't in a heavily populated area, we know we don't have lots of top flight recruits around, it's cold there, it's desolate, yadda yadda yadda-stuff that has been the case at Nebraska for a long time. But perhaps there is a chance we could drift closer to (or further in, depending on your perspective) the pit of mediocrity and irrelevance with a few more years of...mediocrity and irrelevance. Not saying that is what will happen with Riley, just saying that pendulum can swing both ways and there is the potential we could slip further in that direction (and yes, I realize that potential exists with any potential staff that may follow this one, also, but Riley is here now). I'm pretty sure most of us would like to be seen as a 'top tier' place again. I would agree we aren't that anymore. But that doesn't mean we should just settle on that and let it dictate our expectations, and frankly, I don't care what 'tier' we're considered to be in as long as we are consistently taking care of business on the field. Maybe some of us would like to see Nebraska football competing for and winning, at the very least, conference championships, and eventually, national championships again, and this is how some of us gauge our 'tier'. Basically, not letting some arbitrary, subjective 'tier' system created in this author's (or anyone else's) mind dictate the expectations or predetermine the destiny of Nebraska football. And maybe I'm totally wrong here. Maybe that's not what you're trying to say, but with the thread title and accompanying article, what is it you're getting at, exactly?

If people hated Mike Reilly for passing too much they'll despise Fuentes. If we're being consistent with our criteria, we'd despise everyone being suggested. This might be the stupidest thread in the history of HuskerBoard. If we're being consistent with our criteria as Husker fans (ie: success, winning), Mike Riley isn't getting it done here (so far), and many of us aren't seeing evidence to believe he will, and have reasons to believe this hire was a spectacular botch (reasons which have been discussed at great length in this thread and others, and surely more to come). Hence why this thread has almost 8,000 views and well over 200 replies. Just sayin'. I'll admit, the thread title was a bit silly and intended to trigger emotions, responses. Fan message boards are essentially the online version of water cooler talk, conversation you'd hear at the bar or the diner or the coffee shop, even at the games themselves, wherever. I can assure you (as I'm sure you're already aware) that this topic is not at all exceptional or deviant from conversations that are happening all over Husker nation in the 'real world'. Perhaps you think the suggestions that he should be gone after one year are ludicrous, and the talk of him not being the right guy after 6 games is ridiculous and outlandish, that we're talking about our next coach already is stupid and delusional, and you are certainly entitled to those opinions. In fact, you have argued your positions quite well and much more eloquently than many on this board from what I have seen. But that doesn't make the topic any less real or tangible.

Let's not forget that Tom Osborne had a direct hand in All-5 of Nebraska's National Championships. It would be a fool's errand to ignore his experience and expertise when it comes to having a consistent winning model for Nebraska. This is not a suggestion that Nebraska returns to running the option purely out of the I-formation. NO...this is a statement that in order to win big at Nebraska, you must have a commitment to the running game first. This model, the Devaney/Osborne model lets call it, not only produced results, it gave the Nebraska Cornhuskers an identity for over 40 years. An identity as one of the nation's most physical football teams. It's a model and identity that Nebraska turned its back on 15 years ago, and it is THE model that Nebraska must return to if it ever wants to compete for conference & national championships ever again. This, this, this, a MILLION TIMES THIS!!! This, of all reasons, is the number one reason why Riley, to me, is such an absolutely horrible fit here. He is a pass first coach with a 'pass to set up the run' mentality. He runs an offensive scheme that is absolutely antithetical to our DNA, and one we essentially already experimented with here that was a total joke with highly rated recruits, mind you. In the press conference today, when asked about offensive production and what he thought their biggest problems or things they needed to get better at were, his first answer was something to the effect of "I think our passing game needs to improve. We need to get things going the screen game." I literally facepalmed when I heard this. Listening to his explanations of why we decide to go with which running back when, and how we have "utilized" (mismanaged) them thus far, and my stomach just turned. He totally talked about it just like a guy who has no commitment to the run game whatsoever and has a total pass-first mentality, because that's precisely what he is. This is the number one reason, in my mind--drop all of the other reasons we have brought up and debated on here over the past couple of weeks--but THIS above all is the biggest problem with Riley and the hiring of Riley. His football philosophy, his football DNA and and the offensive scheme he wants to utilize is not one that matches Nebraska. At all.

This plan is fundamentally flawed, simply put you are comparing a state with over 26 million residents to one with less than 2 million... Nebraska as a state will never produce enough talented football players to fill even half of a team (at least not one that our fans would be satisfied with). In fact if we were going to go one way or the other, we would be best off not recruiting in NE at all vs. you're plan of trying to recruit most of our guys from here... No amount of high school practices will change this, we rank 37th in the country in population, if we try to do most of our recruiting from NE, our football program will be comparable to Kansas, who by the way has over 1 million more residents than we do... The 1997 National Championship Cornhuskers football team begs to differ. It's 2015, get with the times... Oh, believe me, I am with the times. Have you been paying attention to Husker football in 2015? And I never said we would produce as many talented kids as Texas. Good, because we won't Obviously. What I am saying is we should be doing everything possible and looking at everything possible to maximize our local talent, and used what teams do in Texas as an example of ways we can be creative and proactive about doing that. Waste of money for a state with only 2 "decently" sized cities, and I use the term "decent" very liberally... We used to do things like this. It wouldn't really cost a lot or any extra money, it would be more a matter of allocation. Nor did I ever say we should be recruiting solely Nebraska kids or fielding a team of just Nebraska kids. Actually you did insinuate that right here, "We should be recruiting to supplement and augment the talent available to us, what we HAVE. Nebraska has ignored what IT HAS for far, far too long. You start with what you have. You start in your backyard, obviously. But Nebraska didn't limit nor shouldn't limit its backyard to only the state of Nebraska. Nice Straw Man, though. We should be deriving our identity as a team from what we have available to us, and add the pieces we need to be whole from there." That seems to indicate that we would supplement what "we HAVE" with talent from outside NE, unfortunately what "we HAVE" is virtually nothing from a football talent perspective. The rest of your argument confirmed this sentiment by suggesting that UN would somehow have a much better recruiting pool if they would contribute money in order to run football programs year round in the state of NE... When I say local, I don't mean just Nebraska, I mean Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, The Dakotas, etc. Unless you plan to get 100% of the quality recruits from every state that you listed there, this plan will never produce a Nebraska team that our fans would be satisfied with. The state with 26 million also happens to have 12 FBS programs, or about 1 per 2 million or so. Only 5 of these teams, MAYBE, are getting the quality of recruits that NE fans expect us to have... Which is why you supplement/augment/compliment what you have with out of state/national talent. Like I'm pretty sure I said. Half of those teams could probably beat Nebraska right now. Be honest, on their best day and probably not even our worst, every team on that list would have a 50/50 shot at beating NE, along with probably every FBS team in the nation, we suck, like seriously... It is not impossible nor impractical to field a team with rosters composed with a majority of local talent. Nebraska did this for years. Good and great teams (that aren't in talent hotbeds) continue to do this today. Again, please join me in 2015, this is no longer a viable option for Nebraska Football... Once again, I'm right here with you in 2015 seeing Nebraska doing things that obviously are not successful and have not worked, rather than following a blueprint (although admittedly one that would need to be somewhat altered compared to the 90s) that it had success with for decades. My replies in blue I guess my final take from all of this is that if I ever end up having kids, and they decide they want to pursue athletics, I'm going to have to relocate to Texas, California, or UTAH instead of Nebraska so they don't grow up destined to be un-athletic pansies.

This plan is fundamentally flawed, simply put you are comparing a state with over 26 million residents to one with less than 2 million... Nebraska as a state will never produce enough talented football players to fill even half of a team (at least not one that our fans would be satisfied with). In fact if we were going to go one way or the other, we would be best off not recruiting in NE at all vs. you're plan of trying to recruit most of our guys from here... No amount of high school practices will change this, we rank 37th in the country in population, if we try to do most of our recruiting from NE, our football program will be comparable to Kansas, who by the way has over 1 million more residents than we do... The 1997 National Championship Cornhuskers football team begs to differ. And I never said we would produce as many talented kids as Texas. What I am saying is we should be doing everything possible and looking at everything possible to maximize our local talent, and used what teams do in Texas as an example of ways we can be creative and proactive about doing that. Nor did I ever say we should be recruiting solely Nebraska kids or fielding a team of just Nebraska kids. When I say local, I don't mean just Nebraska, I mean Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, The Dakotas, etc. The state with 26 million also happens to have 12 FBS programs, or about 1 per 2 million or so. Half of those teams could probably beat Nebraska right now. It is not impossible nor impractical to field a team with rosters composed with a majority of local talent. Nebraska did this for years. Good and great teams (that aren't in talent hotbeds) continue to do this today.

^feel free to delete above post (#32), mods (and this one, for that matter). I accidentally hit 'quote' instead of 'edit'.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I will keep saying it until I am red in the face: Nebraska needs to stop worrying about 'out-recruiting' other schools who really don't need to work as hard at it as we would. It is a fool's game (for us). It is a game Nebraska will never win and shouldn't worry about winning. We need to dump this silly generic copycat impersonation shtick, and as fast as possible. I am not saying we shouldn't recruit at all, we need to recruit, but not in the same way most everyone else does. We should be recruiting to supplement and augment the talent available to us, what we HAVE. Nebraska has ignored what IT HAS for far, far too long. We should be deriving our identity as a team from what we have available to us, and add the pieces we need to be whole from there. The University should be doing everything in its power with all that money they make from us fans to try to foster, re-ignite, and encourage the competition of our local football teams and improve the quality of our local talent. Clinics, camps, setting expectations, offering conditioning guidelines and scheme plans, you name it. Whatever it takes. Look at all of the 7-on-7 leagues and intensive off-season programs and resources/activities Texas has for football. Being a football player is like a full-time deal. Do you see anything at all even remotely on this level occuring in Nebraska or the surrounding area? As another example, I'm a huge advocate for trying to implement rugby at a greater degree at the high school level in the state of Nebraska. Don't you think that would toughen the hell out of some kids and get them accustomed to playing the kind of physical football we all love and expect to see (and miss dearly)? Find a way to improve your local talent and encourage competitiveness! Investing some of that big money the program makes back into the local area in this manner would pay dividends. Practically every high school in the state played a brand of football similar to what NU did during its glory years (not all with the same success, obviously, but with similar styles of play, unless the team had a QB who could really sling it). This functioned as a veritable 'farm system' for the Huskers during its best years. Start with what you HAVE, start with your foundation, then look at what you NEED to supplement that to get what we all WANT (wins, championships). This was our identity and what made us unique. This is what made Nebraska NEBRASKA. You want to know why so many of these kids on the team today probably seem so erratic and anxious and on-edge? Besides the high expectations? Because they have no place of refuge. They have no sanctuary besides each other. They are strangers in a strange land far from home where the expectations are super high and when they don't meet those expectations, it makes them feel commodified and dehumanized. They have nowhere else to turn. Although they are getting a lot from the university, a free education, a chance to wear the 'N' on the helmet (things most of us would have killed for), let's face it, it's not the same thing to most of them as it was to us, and this can lead to them understandably feeling used on some levels. Having a team made up of largely local guys offers a built-in sanctuary as well as a litmus for what the expectations at Nebraska are. They know what the expectations are. They are used to the expectations here and how are fanbase is. They would be friends and family with them, and fans themselves for crying out loud! They could function as buffer between the fanbase and the out of area kids and make those kids from far away feel more at home. They can help them understand and appreciate what the red 'N' is all about and help them to become as passionate about it as they are. This is builds more camaraderie, unity, vision, and purpose, and most of all, an identity! This is of all things is what has been sorely lacking with Nebraska for the past 10 years plus. Until we get staff and administration in place that understands and appreciates this (in addition to the big money people), and can cultivate it and appropriately translate it all onto the field, I don't see Nebraska ever being truly great again for any sustained amount of time. I think that is the way it needs to be done here, they 'key to success' at Nebraska, if you will. It all starts with what you have.

I"m not talking about having a few good years. Utah has never been a consistent top ten team. Boston College had their day too..but they've disappeared. I"m talking about being the "Nebraska" of old...perennial powerhouse, always top ten... Utah has consistently been a better team than Nebraska for the last 15 years. They have also had 2 undefeated seasons during that span. I'm surprised Whittingham is still there. Maybe he is looking to lead a big time program like Urban Meyer when he jumped to Florida.

I"m not talking about having a few good years. Utah has never been a consistent top ten team. Boston College had their day too..but they've disappeared. I"m talking about being the "Nebraska" of old...perennial powerhouse, always top ten... Utah has consistently been a better team than Nebraska for the last 15 years. They have also had 2 undefeated seasons during that span.

You're right, and about half of their roster is made up of 'unathletic' 'untalented' local guys. Kinda like K-State's (which has an even heavier 'unathletic' 'untalented' local talent lean). Kinda like the team Nebraska lost to today. Kinda like Nebraska had back when they were good.