girlknowsfootball

Dan Mullen didn't help Miss St succeed, Dak Prescott did. He was stealthy good and underrated. Just like Kevin Sumlin didn't make A&M good, Johnny Manziel Did. Find the coach who made a team good and kept them good through a couple of Cycles of recruiting. Chris Peterson comes to mind with what he did at Boise St and then Washington last year. Chip Kelly cheated his way through recruiting to get the talent to win, he left right before he got caught. Les Miles couldn't ever find a QB or run a great offense with a guy who could throw well. His defenses were always great. Brett Bilema is somebody who's going to rub the fans wrong the way Bo did and he hasn't done jack squat at Arkansas. James Franklin was one we should have gone after with what he did at Vanderbilt. He is big time. Scott Frost hasn't proven anything yet. Art Briles is available if you want to win, but count it that he will be covered in scandal and we will probably have a team of criminals. Could we get Jim Tressell to come out of the AD position at YSU? Probably not since he is great pals with Bo and has probably heard all sorts of stuff. What about Mike Brown? He won a NC at Texas. Nope, he could recruit but his coaching was about on par with Callahan. He only won there because he got lucky with some really talented recruits who were special. Could we get Pete Carrol to exit the NFL? Doubtful. He is making crazy money and has a good setup in Seattle. We need a proven, good recruiter, good coach, and someone who has won over and over and knows how to create that culture. Who is that guy? Would he even want to come to Nebraska? It's a stressful job with a ton of work to be done to rebuild and fans are only going to give him 2-3 years to do it before they call for his head.

I saw an article from Landof10 this week. Of the 11 linemen Cav has recruited, only 1 has really played much so far. He is continuing to play the guys Cotton recruited because they are the older guys. Also, if you watch the film from the game on Saturday and at Oregon, our offensive problems are largely on blocking and holding blocks. The TE's are atrocious at coverage protection and blocks. The O-Line are getting beat right and left by guys who rush up the lanes. It's pathetic looking. Farniok got beat over and over, farmer got beat over and over, and just about every one of the other guys got beat at times too. Lee had no chance to look downfield or to go through progressions. He had no chance to find a checkdown because he was hit before he even got back through his drop. This line has not improved, but digressed in their last 12 games. Last year, we dismissed poor play to injuries and lack of depth but this year it has continued. That tells me it's coaching. Even if you lack talent, the players should get better with experience and not worse. Perhaps Cav is teaching a bad technique? Perhaps the footwork is off? Or perhaps we are really thin with talent and had some misses? Regardless, our players should be growing and I just don't see it.

If you recall, in the press conference after the Arkansas State game Riley said Newby had a hamstring which was bothering him. I don't think we've seen this guy healthy all season, which is partially why I think he's gotten burned so badly. When they had to pull Gifford over to play the Cat because a Davis was getting beat when he dropped back, it really hurt the depth at the Dog position. Ferguson will have to start there now, or Gifford will have to move back and A davis will have to come back in.

I had the opportunity to talk with a former K-State coach Saturday night about Nebraska. He said it's really hard to win in college football with Riley's style offense UNLESS you have 10 very good O-Linemen. He said college football is won at the LOS. The reason Nebraska was so good in the 90's was the LOS play with the lines. Riley's philosophy is recruit the skill players and then the game will come, he is a PAC-12 guy. This coach said the first focus for Nebraska every year should be to get the best linemen. If you have great linemen then the rest of your team looks a lot better. If you have great skill players and not so great linemen then this kind of offense and defense won't be successful. I also asked him why a team would ever want to play their corners 10-15yds off the WR. He said he would have to look at the tape but usually that indicates a lack of confidence in the young players. He also said that you can be an all American but if you aren't asked to bump and run and playing close enough to run right with the receiver then you're not going to have a chance. Thus he completely disagreed with this diaco defensive coaching of asking his guys to play so far off the ball. I found it to be interesting.

And the team with the fewest sacks in America goes to..... Nebraska. We literally have zero pressure on the QB.

I watched Lee's game, Horningbrook's game, the USC QB's game and then Dak Prescott for the cowboys all in one day. Lee is not ready for the NFL. There is no comparison to his accuracy and Dak's or Eli Manning's. Even Sam's at USC is way above Tanmer's. i also made another observation. It is really hard to win college football games with a pro style, immobile QB who sits in the pocket, unless you have all American offensive linemen and some very good, big, wide receivers. Otherwise he needs to throw short, quick, slant passes that tear into a zone because an offense designed to need 3 seconds in the pocket to go through read progressions and wait for plays to develop is going to get him sacked and throwing the ball away over and over again.

Maybe he wanted to be at the game to see Nebraska's grit and comeback. He probably knew it was a great atmosphere. It's gotta impress a kid when a school half way across the country travels fans that fill 1/3 of a stadium. That screams support. That screams you have everything you need to succeed. He's gotta look at some of those balls that sailed over our 5'9" WR'd and think, man I could have made that catch and helped them win the game.

I think he is going to see everything he mentioned he saw about OSU when he comes to Nebraska. Our team will have a similar mentality and will have a similar work ethic. He will also see our stadium fully packed with fans 45min before kickoff, fans who want his autograph at the airport when he lands, and just a really really great atmosphere.

According to social media, it looks like about 20,000 fans made the trip to Eugene. That means around 1/3 of their stadium will be our fans. I can't imagine it can be that loud for them with only 35,000 to 45,000 Oregon fans there.

My Oregon friend sent me this today to warn my husker friends of what they will be getting into. It's suppose to get worse later this week...

He retweeted some Nebraska stuff today including an edit a fan made of him.

He raves about us in every interview. Our facilities, staff, campus, fans, technology, etc. He also really likes the position coach at OSU. What this comes down to is... 1) is he willing to go far from home? (he's mentioned we are really far away). 2) does he believe he will get immediate playing time at NU and won't at OSU? Or does he think he will at both schools. 3) does he think we can get him to the NFL as well as OSU would? And is he okay with being an OLB in a 3-4 vs a DE hand in the dirt in a 4-3. (He has said recently his best position is probably the pass rushing DE in a 4-3). 4) does he like the guys on the team and the recruiting class we have coming in better than he meshes with the players and recruits at OSU?

If he actually makes it to an OV here and we beat Oregon at Oregon or play them close then we have a real shot here. A lot of times these kids with close families things come down to does the family have the financial ability to travel to see their kid and can they travel on weekends. If his dad is a HS coach he probably wouldn't be able to travel to see his son play on Saturdays. Therefore there's a really good chance he stays close to home.

Questions that have me concerned. 1) why did he go from very outspoken about Nebraska and clearly openly recruiting guys to us on social media... to very quiet about us on social media and not publicly mentioning our last commit. 2) what did Florida or fans or recruits tell him that has him now conflicted and not as sure about us as he once was and talking to their coaches everyday? 3) why would he troll everyone just for fun? It doesn't seem like him to do that nor has it been any sort of pattern in the past. 4) he hasn't verbally stated an NU visit date for fall or confirmed one with recruiting site though several of his peers have. Nor has he said he has shut recruiting down. I realize most analysts arent aren't ultimately concerned, but this smoke is very concerning to me. I hope the coaches have an accurate read on this and are talking to him daily as well.

With us losing two safeties and no corners this next year, do you think this guy ultimately ends up at safety for us? Kalu graduates and K Williams graduates. Chances are pretty high C Jones takes a shirt with the injury and comes back. If all this plays out we're looking at a 2018 of... S - A Williams, J Domann S - A Reed, M Dismuke C - C Jones, D Bootle, A Anderson C - L Jackson, E Lee, T Butler it seems to me we need 2 safeties in this class who can play pretty quickly and 2 corners, one of which we could redshirt. I see Bookie playing corner or nickel and playing immediately. I see Chase Williams as a Lamar Jackson body type who could slide into safety or corner and could even help us out at wideout as many say he's better there right now and we have a glaring need for immediate contributors next year. To me Goodrich is a safety who could play corner but might be a better safety.

More than his talent, I like his character and work ethic. He seems mature for his age. One of his teachers was on a video chat he did with fans and said he has always been a great student and a great kid off the field. He seems to really be a great all around person who takes school and football seriously and will do the work. A locker room full of guys like that gives you a shot at something special.

There's talk floating around that his academics are a concern and he is a risk to qualify with a low SAT score.

Can you imagine a 2 TE set with Rafdal and Allen at 6'7" and 6'8" with a 6'5" receiver? That would give our QB some really huge mismatches to throw to. It's hard to think a 5'10" DB is going to be able to play the ball for the INT in those situations.

I'd think he's behind Griffith and Crosswell. I would hope so!

Probably need to beat Wisconsin at this point. I'm sure some of these kids want to see us take the next step and that seems to be surpassing Wisconsin and Iowa. Agreed. And we need to play Ohio State close enough that it's a game. Kids are going to want to OV to that game and if we get beatdown it will not look good at all.

A quick glance at last year's top kids in California and 10 of the 25 left coastal states. More than half stayed out west but that's a broad brush stroke. But how many of those 10 left the PAC 12?

I hope he visits Miami during the season so he can take in that game day atmosphere! It's a good thing there's not too many people to keep those smoke inhalation levels higher on a per capita level! Haha!! Right?!? It's pitiful. I wonder if it increased at all with Richt taking over. I think this is going to come down to Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska. In the end I think we will get our hopes up, finish in the top two, and he will choose Ohio State. BUT... if we have a 9 win season and play within 14 of Ohio State then he may look our way, see himself as the jump we need to win and the key missing piece and sign on.

We are one of his better offers for sure. I wonder if he is an (A) guy on our board or a (B) guy on our board. You'd have to think with how many highly ranked and highly recruited players we are still in play for that this might be a situation where we stay in contact and groom him as a backup plan. He's a close to home kid who seems to immediately have major interest in us. Have to think he might be a safety net at this point, unless coaches have already been told by top prospects they are going somewhere else.

A lot of these WC kids don't want to leave weather paradise and beauty for hot/cold and distance from home when they can play in the PAC 12 and stay with what is comfortable to them.