Jason Sitoke

Yeah, but LOL Steve Pederson. One of the great burning questions that I've had in my mind for 5 years now is, Where would the program be had Solich not been fired? Would he still be coaching? How successful would he have been? Too bad we'll never know. From what I have read in the past is that the talent pool was draining under Solich which was pretty evident in Callahan's first couple years, also that Solich didn't have much of the attention and respect from the players during his stint. But to also answer your question is that it would have been interesting to see what he "could" have done, but at the same time probably not bring in the talent that Callahan did, Taylor, Lucky, Suh, Prince etc... Spare me the silly recruiting stars BS. There's about a mathematical and statistical zero chance Frank/Bo would have racked up losing seasons, worst losses in the history of NU cfb, 0 - 19 when down at halftine, etc, etc. It was a monstrously bad move in every single way that NU fans should never have had to endure. Thanks Pedey. I hope you rot forever at Pissburg. We were damn lucky TO came back and saved our ship at it was listing badly to say the very least. How did you feel after Solich went 7-7 during the goalpost tour in 2002? Or after 2003 when we had three losses by a total margin of 110 - 40? Those were also moments that a lot of us never thought we'd see. I never had a problem with firing Solich, it was everything after that up until Callahan's firing that I disagreed with. We went 7-7 in 2002 for basically the same reason Texas didn't go bowling last season. Frank put everything into 2001 trying to bring home the trophy and his second team players saw very little action. Jamal Lord looked like a deer in the headlights in the 2002 season. In 2003, each and every team that beat us by that margin was a better team than we were. Again, look at Texas this year compared to us in 2003. I'd take our 2003 any day of the week and we didn't even have to pay Frank 5 million to get it. How do you feel about the two loss margin we sustained this year to Michigan and Wisconsin? Wisconsin is better than us, but I don't think Michigan is. If we're going to go down this road, then it appears Bo needs fired before the bowl game. I don't have a problem if Frank was fired for off the field encounters. I have a huge problem if he was fired for his coaching ability. For those who questioned him as an OC, he wasn't even the OC in 2003. He didn't call the plays in 2003. The infamous Barney Cotton did. We will never know where we'd be today if Solich wasn't fired, but what we do know is that Frank's DC is now our HC. BC inherited more first three round NFL players from Solich than Solich inherited from TO. The biggest problem with Frank's talent is that it was all loaded on the defensive side of the ball. I have never gotten how everyone is enamored by what Gill did at Buffalo claiming him to be this good/great coach all the while Frank has done just as much if not more at Ohio. In his seven years at Ohio, he's won his division in the MAC three times. In only his second year at Ohio, he took them to a bowl which was the first time they'd been invited to a bowl since 1968. I think some people tend to forget the players BC inherited from Solich. He inherited Matt Herian, Cory Ross, Richie Incognito, Stewart Bradley, one of the Bullocks twins, Adam Carriker, Jay Moore, Barrett and Bo Ruud, and Fabian Washington. How many of these guys have or are still playing in the NFL? Bo Ruud shouldn't be on that list if you're trying to point out talent that Solich left behind. Your point about the Mich and Wisc losses this year is valid, except that qualitatively I don't think either has markedly better athletes than NU does this year. I definitely thought we were athletically outclassed by both UT and KSU in 2003. I thought at the time, and still do, that Solich's ceiling as a coach and recruiter was very low. The team as a whole lacked speed, and remarkably it seemed as if Solich didn't have the understanding of the offensive scheme he'd been a part of for decades. It's debatable whether firing him after the 2003 season was poor timing, but in my opinion he wasn't getting any better as a coach, and that was a tough pill to swallow for us fans after dominating for nearly a decade. While clearly not to be mistaken as evidence necessarily, it is worth noting that Frank Solich has not been on any major program's radar (as far as I know) in terms of head coaching searches. How many major program's radar was TO ever on? Take players off the list if you will, but the fact remains BC inherited more top three round NFL draft players from Solich than Solich did from TO. As far as speed, I believe Fabian Washington at the time posted the fasted 40 ever run at the combine. In six years at Nebraska, Solich was conference coach of the year twice. We ended up #2 in the polls in 99', and we played for a NC in 01'. Mack Brown played for a title and followed it up with a five win season and stayed home for the holidays. Solich didn't do this. Solich is a solid coach and was on the verge of surrounding himself with some great assistants. Who's to say our recruiting wouldn't have gotten a lot better? I guess if playing for championships and ending high in the polls is having a rather low ceiling, then I'll gladly take a coach with a low ceiling. Who's to say Bill Callahan wasn't about to become a cutting edge player development coach? No one can prove it wasn't going to happen, but the evidence was to the contrary. Bottom line is that we were slipping in recruiting and at the time, it was unfathomable for the NU fanbase to accept the idea that we weren't among the big boys anymore. You can argue that Solich was a good coach. I tend to think there are many more that are better.

Yeah, but LOL Steve Pederson. One of the great burning questions that I've had in my mind for 5 years now is, Where would the program be had Solich not been fired? Would he still be coaching? How successful would he have been? Too bad we'll never know. From what I have read in the past is that the talent pool was draining under Solich which was pretty evident in Callahan's first couple years, also that Solich didn't have much of the attention and respect from the players during his stint. But to also answer your question is that it would have been interesting to see what he "could" have done, but at the same time probably not bring in the talent that Callahan did, Taylor, Lucky, Suh, Prince etc... Spare me the silly recruiting stars BS. There's about a mathematical and statistical zero chance Frank/Bo would have racked up losing seasons, worst losses in the history of NU cfb, 0 - 19 when down at halftine, etc, etc. It was a monstrously bad move in every single way that NU fans should never have had to endure. Thanks Pedey. I hope you rot forever at Pissburg. We were damn lucky TO came back and saved our ship at it was listing badly to say the very least. How did you feel after Solich went 7-7 during the goalpost tour in 2002? Or after 2003 when we had three losses by a total margin of 110 - 40? Those were also moments that a lot of us never thought we'd see. I never had a problem with firing Solich, it was everything after that up until Callahan's firing that I disagreed with. We went 7-7 in 2002 for basically the same reason Texas didn't go bowling last season. Frank put everything into 2001 trying to bring home the trophy and his second team players saw very little action. Jamal Lord looked like a deer in the headlights in the 2002 season. In 2003, each and every team that beat us by that margin was a better team than we were. Again, look at Texas this year compared to us in 2003. I'd take our 2003 any day of the week and we didn't even have to pay Frank 5 million to get it. How do you feel about the two loss margin we sustained this year to Michigan and Wisconsin? Wisconsin is better than us, but I don't think Michigan is. If we're going to go down this road, then it appears Bo needs fired before the bowl game. I don't have a problem if Frank was fired for off the field encounters. I have a huge problem if he was fired for his coaching ability. For those who questioned him as an OC, he wasn't even the OC in 2003. He didn't call the plays in 2003. The infamous Barney Cotton did. We will never know where we'd be today if Solich wasn't fired, but what we do know is that Frank's DC is now our HC. BC inherited more first three round NFL players from Solich than Solich inherited from TO. The biggest problem with Frank's talent is that it was all loaded on the defensive side of the ball. I have never gotten how everyone is enamored by what Gill did at Buffalo claiming him to be this good/great coach all the while Frank has done just as much if not more at Ohio. In his seven years at Ohio, he's won his division in the MAC three times. In only his second year at Ohio, he took them to a bowl which was the first time they'd been invited to a bowl since 1968. I think some people tend to forget the players BC inherited from Solich. He inherited Matt Herian, Cory Ross, Richie Incognito, Stewart Bradley, one of the Bullocks twins, Adam Carriker, Jay Moore, Barrett and Bo Ruud, and Fabian Washington. How many of these guys have or are still playing in the NFL? Bo Ruud shouldn't be on that list if you're trying to point out talent that Solich left behind. Your point about the Mich and Wisc losses this year is valid, except that qualitatively I don't think either has markedly better athletes than NU does this year. I definitely thought we were athletically outclassed by both UT and KSU in 2003. I thought at the time, and still do, that Solich's ceiling as a coach and recruiter was very low. The team as a whole lacked speed, and remarkably it seemed as if Solich didn't have the understanding of the offensive scheme he'd been a part of for decades. It's debatable whether firing him after the 2003 season was poor timing, but in my opinion he wasn't getting any better as a coach, and that was a tough pill to swallow for us fans after dominating for nearly a decade. While clearly not to be mistaken as evidence necessarily, it is worth noting that Frank Solich has not been on any major program's radar (as far as I know) in terms of head coaching searches.

Yeah, but LOL Steve Pederson. One of the great burning questions that I've had in my mind for 5 years now is, Where would the program be had Solich not been fired? Would he still be coaching? How successful would he have been? Too bad we'll never know. From what I have read in the past is that the talent pool was draining under Solich which was pretty evident in Callahan's first couple years, also that Solich didn't have much of the attention and respect from the players during his stint. But to also answer your question is that it would have been interesting to see what he "could" have done, but at the same time probably not bring in the talent that Callahan did, Taylor, Lucky, Suh, Prince etc... Spare me the silly recruiting stars BS. There's about a mathematical and statistical zero chance Frank/Bo would have racked up losing seasons, worst losses in the history of NU cfb, 0 - 19 when down at halftine, etc, etc. It was a monstrously bad move in every single way that NU fans should never have had to endure. Thanks Pedey. I hope you rot forever at Pissburg. We were damn lucky TO came back and saved our ship at it was listing badly to say the very least. How did you feel after Solich went 7-7 during the goalpost tour in 2002? Or after 2003 when we had three losses by a total margin of 110 - 40? Those were also moments that a lot of us never thought we'd see. I never had a problem with firing Solich, it was everything after that up until Callahan's firing that I disagreed with.

He wouldn't come back for it, but with Beck's offense, he'd be pretty ideal as a quarterback coach. I'd have a tough time believing, even after a horrendous 2 year run as a head coach, that he'd come back as a position coach, Nebraska or elsewhere.

I'm not going to waste time arguing why Denard Robinson is a better player than Martinez. If you can't see it, then there's nothing I can say to change your mind. Reminds me of a few years ago on Huskerpedia when I was arguing with several posters who claimed they would take Cory Ross over any RB in the country, including Adrian Peterson at the time.

I've watched Robinson this year. He is head and shoulders a more effective player than TMart. Saying otherwise is pure homerism.

The offense played poorly against both MIchigan and Northwestern. Certainly there were other factors, but come on. The team scored 17 points against UM and 25 against a bad NW defense. Have the standards for the offense fallen that much? If you even casually watched those games you would know where the major problem was. And if you had an ounce of sophistication as a fan, you would know that it wasn't ONE thing.

Double post

The offense played poorly against both MIchigan and Northwestern. Certainly there were other factors, but come on. The team scored 17 points against UM and 25 against a bad NW defense. Have the standards for the offense fallen that much?

I echoed a lot of these sentiments a couple weeks ago, but I've got to say, I think the ceiling for Martinez is a bit lower than I previously thought. Asking him to become a marginal passer would be sufficient IF he was a superb runner. He is merely fast IMO. He doesn't have great instincts or vision as a runner, and is certainly does not seem particularly great at making people miss or escaping the pocket when he needs to. I think he's gotten better, both as a leader and decision maker, and I am definitely not in the Taylor-hate parade, but I feel like he may be in a position to be the worst 4 year starter at quarterback this program has ever seen. I hope I'm wrong here and he either improves markedly, or we go in a different direction.

Damn. Looking at next year's starting defense has got me wondering whether blackshirts will be handed out at all in 2012

What's so wrong with saying, "If you don't pull your weight, your gone"? Every single one of us faces this every single day when we go to work. Why should these kids get special treatment? I'd have an end-of-the-year review and tell the kids, "You will remain on scholarship for the spring, but by next fall you won't have a scholarship." It gives them plenty of time to transfer or make other plans. Why is that so unethical? This is sports. Sports has always been about the best receiving the rewards and the not-so-good not getting rewards. This is ridiculous. You know how you cover your ass with respect to recruits 'panning out'. It's called scouting. You don't go after a kid with the idea that he's going to underacheive. You evaluate his attitude, accomplishments, and his ceiling. If you're wrong, you're wrong. If you go into a kid's living room and say 'by the way, you don't pull your weight, you're gone', then good luck competing for top athletes. One of the great selling points, especially to the kid's parents, is if the kid gets hurt and can't play football anymore, he'll STILL have an opportunity to earn a top flight education without going into severe debt. That's the trade off. The university gets a TON of money, and in return, foots the bill for the football team's tuition. Small price to pay for some of the numbers thrown around during football season in Lincoln. More to the point....what are you looking to solve with this policy? Are you insinuating that the players are all loafing because they know they've got a free education in the bag? Do you think that Collins Okafor would be a starter if he were living in fear of his ride being pulled for failure to earn his spot? What it looks like to me is another bitter fan, trying to disguise his frustration after a loss by pretending to propose a 'solution' when the team under performs. If you have a problem with college players not living up to their potential, you've got to look at the coach who recruited them.

Today was a big step back for Martinez. He looked like TMart from late last year: poor passing, taking bad sacks, missing the hole in the run game. I'm concerned that Martinez doesn't have the vision that a great runner needs. If he doesn't have it now, will he ever? Davison is talking about how the defense should get a break because they were on the field so much.....yes and no. Certainly the ST play put them out there a ton. But if you're getting owned on 3rd down, you have no one to blame but yourself. The DLine is one pathetic unit right now. Why rush 4 on 3rd down. Just put 3 down lineman in and put another linebacker in there. Not ONCE did I see DL beating one on one pass blocking all day. Lance Thorell should not see the field on 3rd and medium. Not sure what matchup we were trying to get there. Not much to take away from this game, other than NO phase of the game looked good. Lavonte played brilliantly. Compton was pretty good. Stafford was great in rush defense, his usual spotty self in pass defense. On offense, I really can't think of anyone that played well. I guess beat Iowa in the 'Who Cares' rivalry, and then get a win in the 'GoDaddy.com' bowl and call it a year. I'm trying not to be reactionary, but this game was really discouraging as far as the QB position goes. He wasn't a difference maker. He didn't make plays that were there. If he's leaving yards out there in the running game, how exactly is he going to win games? With his arm? The QB may not be on the top 5 list of things that sucked today, but it is the most concerning for me looking at the big picture. Maybe I'm focusing so much on the QB position because I don't even want to fathom what this defense, minus Dennard and David, is going to look like (shivers)

3rd down. I can't watch....

The defense has to get off the field on 3rd down. I would like to know though, what good is making a last second defensive call from the sideline when your line is blown off the ball because they're staring at the sideline when the ball is snapped?

While I agree that the coaching staff should be more forthcoming, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Bo Pelini is a lot of things, but one thing he is not is a hype machine. He's not the one ranking us in the top 10 preseason. Not the one predicting that we'll win a new conference in our first year, and he's also not the guy selecting preseason all americans. I think most Husker fans that were honest with themselves knew there were too many question marks with this team to feel real solid about where they would end up. I think we've learned some good things though: 1) We have gotten more good than bad with our new OC, who should only get better 2) Taylor Martinez is coachable and is learning to handle adversity 3) We have plenty of young playmakers at the skill positions offensively I feel pretty good about the offensive side of the ball going into next year

Yeah, it's closer to 60%, but point taken. I don't have a problem with Stafford being dedicated to the run game either, because I don't think we gain much with him in pass coverage anyways.

Stanford does not have to lose. Their fans NEVER follow their team to a bowl game. There's a chance we could get picked over them. So you're telling me there's a chance.

Things that I have seen as far as improvement from TMart: 1) Decision making (as mentioned many times all ready) 2) Presence. Buying time with his feet while keeping his head downfield. Doesn't panic and take bad sacks like he once did 3) Checking down. Made a couple great checkdowns to the back that netted us some yards in an otherwise grim looking situation 4) In the running game, he doesn't try to run around everyone now. He turns up field, protects the ball, and gets what he can when the situation calls for it. This was a HUGE must for him this year, and deserved kudos. Things he must improve if our offense is to turn the corner as a whole: 1) He MUST be able to complete the short outs and the 10 yard hitch routes. He missed 4 or 5 of them badly that really put drives behind the 8 ball. 2) Improve his throwing on the run. He is not all that accurate when he breaks the pocket. With his feet, he could be a big time threat with the naked boot or waggle plays if he improves his accuracy. Notice there was no mention of him changing his mechanics. That is not the requirement. The requirement is that he pass the ball effectively, regardless of footwork, release point, or any other analyst talking point.

This

What I like about the offense this year is that they look organized and they are being penalized far less. That's coaching and while obviously the offense is far from a juggernaut, it's tough to argue that Beck has been anything but an unmitigated success as a coordinator so far.

With all due respect.....quiet yourself.

Yes. That is pretty much exactly what I'm saying. You want to see an earned interception, look at Neb's Lance Thorell jumping B.J. Cunningham's route early in the MSU game. It was a well-thrown ball, the DB just made a great play on it. On the three interceptions Martinez threw against Wisconsin, there was basically no chance that the WR would even touch the ball. Watching those throws, if you didn't know any better, you'd think Martinez was trying to throw it to the red jerseys. Those were terrible throws, terrible decisions. I'll credit Wisconsin for creating a gameplan built to stop the big play and wait for Nebraska to make a stupid mistake - it worked. But it worked because Nebraska made stupid mistakes, not because Wisconsin has some all-world, LSU-like ball-hawking secondary. Jason - I've seen a couple of your posts in this thread, talking about who would beat us. That's not what the OP asked. The OP asked who we couldn't compete with. We beat PSU, but it was competitive. It's not who would we beat, or who would we be competitive with, it's who COULDN'T we be COMPETITIVE with? In my opinion, we could be competitive with Wisconsin, if we were to eliminate the self-inflicted wounds, and the offense (and Taylor) has improved at that significantly since the UW game. To answer the OP, I don't think we could be competitive with LSU, Alabama, or Oregon. I actually think we could compete with OSU (I don't even think they're as good as they were last year without Holgorsen calling the plays). After those teams, we can compete with anybody if we take care of ourselves. I don't think we'd be competitive against Okie St. Just my opinion I suppose

So what you're saying is 'Badgerfan, check out the games we've won, and don't pay any mind to the games we've lost'. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

wow How do you define 'matchup?'. Bama and LSU would STUFF our offense. I have no doubt about that. Wisconsin destroyed us all ready, and saying 'well, you never know what could happen if they met again' is not an intelligent argument for why Nebraska would win. Oregon and Okie St. would dismantle our defense, and our thin DLine would be sucking wind after the first drive in either case. I wouldn't bet on beating Oklahoma with our secondary, but I think we'd score some points. Stanford would beat us as well, as would Boise St. Just to name a few