ESPY

12 to be exact (4 freshmen, 5 redshirt freshmen and 3 sophs)

http://huskers.com/pdf9/2528852.pdf

Over. Number of fans hauled out in a stretcher due to heat issues: 18.5 Push Husker penalty yards - 60 Under Tackles for loss 7 Under. Martinez' completion percentage - 70.5%

The 1st score of TM's senior season will look exactly like this ... because it's only fitting that it ends just how it began.

Knapplc, you just beat me to the punch. I think Zaire Anderson is going to have a heckuva day and a fantastic season as one the B1G's best LBs. He's under the radar now b/c there are lots of great LBs in this league, but he just seems like something special. Offensively, I'm going with Enunwa for the same reasons given in the initial post of this thread.

30: # of snaps we see Randy Gregory

I see I'm not the only one excited about this year's new uniforms! Cheers! Is that Nathan Gerry? Dang! He just looks flat-out physically explosive.

NU 48 WY 24 Rush 255 Pass 260

Here's a highlight that I'll add to the mix - Whaley's pick to end Iowa's chance of beating us. If you told me he'd ever make a snag like that in a high-pressure situation, I woulda thought you were nuts. Another highlight for me was Compton's pick-6 on Aaron Murray.

Looks deserving to me. Unless we can find a way to do anything of substance, we don't deserve any better.

What a fun thread...ugh. Ok, here's my take on things. Somehow, someway we must find a way to break away from the pack of tier 2 and tier 3 teams in the nation. I'm talking about those teams consistently ranked anywhere from 10-30. To me, much of the parity that everyone talks about in college football is in this realm. The sad thing is that we're all fighting that parity to even have a glimpse of reaching the top level with the Bamas, Oregons and Georgias of the world. Until we get over that hump, we won't stand a shot at a national title. Honestly, I would love to see us become the Stanford of the B1G. They have a system in place that is physical, athletic and mistake-free, and by golly they know how to win the big games. Shoot, If you put them in the SEC, they would compete with Bama every year, just like they do with Oregon right now. Obviously that type of system works in college football today (and it always has). We're never going to get the athletes those SEC schools get - that's just life at Nebraska. So we have to make up for that by being a disciplined, mistake-free, opportunistic team from top to bottom. Clearly it's worked for Stanford (and K-State), so why couldn't we take that route and break through? Seems the most logical (and likely) to me.

This right here shows me that putting the ball on the ground has always been an issue for us. For those who sit here and call out Bo for fumbles, when they also admire TO, should realize that its a reoccurring thing, and since TO was a great coach, there are somethings you can not teach obviously. On average, Pelini's term, we turn the ball over less on fumbles Devaney: 54.8% Osborne: 51.5% Solich: 48.3% Callahan: 50% Pelini: 45.4% In all seriousness, its not a great statistic. Something we need to get a grasp on, but coaching is not to blame, as we DO play our best players. Penalties are a case of an undisciplined team. Some are not called for, as we have seen this year, and quite questionable, but that only accounts for 1/10 of the total penalties. the option lended itself to more fumbles IMO. when we are finishing almost dead least in fumbles every year then something is wrong. There are 100 teams that are better than us. However, we run the ball more than most of them, which obviously means we are going to fumble more. I'd like to see fumbles per rush attempt. But that's likely a lot of work. A lot of our fumbles this year came from Special Teams, 5 or 6 I think it was. Two players come to mind when you say the word "fumble", Taylor Martinez and Niles Paul. Taylor has accounted for most of our fumbles in Bo's Tenure, and Paul had a lot as well. Taylor makes up for his mistakes though, especially this year. I thought one of the most telling stats shared during the CCG was when the announcers said that Martinez has been either tied for and had the most fumbles outright in each of his 3 years...not on the team, but IN ALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Just a guess here, but I highly doubt any Husker has ever put together a string like that before. Definitely not a record Martinez can be proud of, but certainly one that adds to the enigma that is Taylor Martinez.

Here is the most telling part of Chatelain's investigation... To me, this speaks volumes to the quality of our wins vs. the quality (lack thereof) of our losses. Unlike Bama, Boise and Oregon, we haven't shown much at all in the arena of winning big games, and that is what hurts the 9-win argument the most.

I've heard that Bielema and Wiscy coaches targeted 2 or 3 of our players as weak spots, and they went right after them. The no-brainer on our offense that they targeted was our backup center. Clearly that worked out well for Wiscy (see: sacks = 6). The one you maybe wouldn't have guessed on our D was Stafford. They definitely saw that he was a weak point as far as getting to the outside and breaking down their offensive weapons. Now we can all see that Wiscy was right on the money with that as well. I don't think it can be stated enough that Stafford absolutely killed us with the terrible angles he took. It's not that he can't tackle or he doesn't have the speed he needs; it's that he takes absolutely horrible angles that don't allow him to wrap up the way he needs to.

Holy smokes! Big loss for the B1G. Here's the story.

I haven't gotten through this entire thread yet, but I do want to mention how important it is for Pelini to have success in the eyes of boosters and the folks on the board (the ones with the big bucks invested in this program). I mean, what if they don't like him that much? All they gotta do is say to our AD, "Hey, if you don't get a better coach, you can kiss my money good-bye." Isn't that a possibility? I'd say they're the ones that matter ... even more than our AD or Perlman. Hope I'm wrong, but just sayin'

</div><div> </div> <div>We also saw how many times Pelini/Beck had the opportunity to put him in to get some snaps and they didn't. </div> Ummm...I don't think that woulda matter one iota. He got some time earlier this year in a couple different games, and then he got pretty much the entire 4th qtr against Minn. That's more time than backups saw at all in 2011. OK, sorry to divert this thread to RKIII being terrible. Back to McKewon's assessment...

Would you want to do that show after a game like that? I sure as heck wouldn't. I would guess he just passed this time.

At the moment, I don't have anything to add to the psychology of giving up 70 points, but I do have something to say regarding the psychology of letting your QB get piled-driven headfirst into the ground on one play and then NOT totally blowing up the opposing D the rest of the game. I don't know about you, but it didn't seem like our guys got fired up nearly as much as I expected. Maybe initially when Long and Turner mixed it up a bit, BUT I expected our guys to either blow them off the line b/c they were pissed that they did that to Martinez, or go after Borland to return the favor. I know that's cheap to think such a thing. But dammit where was the "Richie Incognito" fire?! I was ready to jump through my TV to tear Borland a new one, and I didn't see any fire like that from our guys. In fact, I believe it was the very next play that they got after Martinez AGAIN, and the only thing that saved him from another bodyslam was the ref (finally) throwing a flag on what became a very bully-like Wiscy defense.

We all saw how terrible RKIII was against the lowly Gophers. How awful would it be to see Martinez go down in the bowl game, off-season or at any time during his Sr. year? We would be absolutely sunk. I dislike QB controversies, but there is no doubt we are incredibly shallow at that position. I would certainly say we are more shallow at QB than Michigan sans Gardner. And it is a miracle (especially after tackles like Borland made) that Martinez has not gone down to injury this year. this team has bigger problems than hypothetical QB injury scenarios. Worrying about this is wasted energy. Cam Newton wouldn't have beat Wisconsin. Unless said hypothetical QB injury actually takes place (which is quite possible). Then we are looking at having a QB who can't even get the ball to all the great athletes we have on offense (minus hand-offs and pitch plays). Btw, I don't think McKewon is talking about just the Wiscy game. Step back and read the entire section, and he really makes some great points about how much of a tightwire we're walking on.

I thought this was potentially the most telling section of McKewon's article... We all saw how terrible RKIII was against the lowly Gophers. How awful would it be to see Martinez go down in the bowl game, off-season or at any time during his Sr. year? We would be absolutely sunk. I dislike QB controversies, but there is no doubt we are incredibly shallow at that position. I would certainly say we are more shallow at QB than Michigan sans Gardner. And it is a miracle (especially after tackles like Borland made) that Martinez has not gone down to injury this year.

I also remember the That game was in 1996 (forgot to mention that). Another game worth mentioning is the '97 win over Iowa St. We killed them 77-14 after scoring 28 points in the first 6 minutes of the game. Our team was hot that day in spite of -10 degree weather and snow. All the scoring made the game a delight to watch even in that cold.

Great thread. Nastiest weather I've ever experienced attending a game at Memorial Stadium was our 17-12 win over #5 Colorado. We were #4 at the time, and that win propelled us to #3. Unfortunately it was this nasty weather game that I'm convinced gave half our team the flu, which killed us (and our very likely trip to the national title) the following week in the Big 12 championship vs Texas. I don't want to stray into that awful topic, so I'll finish by saying that after the game I threw my cold, soppy clothes in the dryer, pulled them out and put them back on, and (God is my witness) those hot clothes never felt so good

You beat me to the punch on mentioning those key players (Stein and Jackson) not being able to play this time around. Those added variables (unmentioned in an otherwise great article) really add a level of mystery/concern for this game. Part of the reason we had so much success in stopping their run game in Sep was the fact the Stein had his best, most dominant game of the year. And part of the reason our offense ran and passed so effectively against a stout D was Jackson's ability to open holes for the run game and give Martinez the time he needed to make as many great throws as he did. Biggest thing to note is that Chris Borland is coming off an injury and may not be full speed. He was huge in the first game. That tackle that Borland has on Rex was incredible where he jumped over a blocker. He was a major key in slowing our rushing attack. I remember Borland was no where to be found in the last 2 quarters though. That's how dominant we were in the 2nd half of that game. We gotta see more of that great blocking on Borland and Wiscy's other great LB (who had a great game himself...until said 2nd half).

Suprisingly under. O/U Abdullah carries - 12