brophog

That's one heckuva statement of intent by Betts, and I think he also said IGC was on pace to graduate this August. The transfer portal can be a good thing in some cases, but once guys start bouncing around in that thing their odds of graduating go down. So it's great to hear that not only are they back as Huskers, but back on track academically.

I made the mistake of assuming it had something to do with football.

What’s the two axis? Not sure what their definition of ‘unique’ is and why that means there is so much difference between Syracuse and teams like KSU/ISU.

They should probably stick to playing teams. If they only see one guy, they might all strip down and get naked.

Where in the quoted sentence does it mention Nebraska? It’s actually very uncommon to see a QB be a team’s leading rusher, if only because of sacks. The service academies vary a bit. Air Force, for instance, is very FB dominated while Army is a little more balanced in this respect. I do think Navy can be pretty QB heavy at times, at least they have been in the past.

I'm gonna say 1 win, and only because I'm not convinced Howard even has football team.

Then there's Tim Tebow and Lamar Jackson, both of whom won Heismans doing it. Tebow's numbers were no where as god tier as Jackson, but he did go 13-1 twice doing it.

I think it was against Kentucky last year that they did something like that. Motioned a TE into a 3x1 set, giving them 2 TE lead blockers, Kentucky didn't account for the motion very well and they ran toss out of it. I think that would not only be great with our personnel, but it's a play that takes pressure off of the offensive line.

It certainly can be frivolous. Bill Callahan built an entire playbook on frivolous pre-snap shifts and motion. But it can be very effective, too. One example was how UCLA uses it, like we were talking about the other day. Another example was from the Spring. One of the most effective runs was a counter in which we motioned an H-Back across the formation and then ran counter the other way. That play was effective on its own, but you can expand on that idea. He could go out for a pass. Against man you can use him to pull defenders out of position for weakside runs. Against zone you can motion into quads for some type of flood concept. You must have missed his pistol flexbone formation. He certainly could be creative at times, but some of that stuff just didn't work for them. One thing I did like, and hope we incorporate, is he would sometimes run bunch compression sets with TEs at one or more of the WR spots. Those sets tend to result in a lot of natural rub routes and having that bigger body in there is handy for that. You can also run out of it pretty effectively and it's hard for a defense to match personnel when you do decide to do so.

Good thing for Northwestern this isn’t occurring on the weakest sports news week on the calendar.

That initial decision to simply suspend could really cost them here. At this point, Northwestern just needs to cut their losses and pay to have this go away. They have very little to gain by a protracted legal battle keeping this in the news any longer than necessary.

I strongly suspect I'm the wrong person to ask because I probably have a much lower opinion of Fitzgerald than the average person. All I'll say is he really misses Mike Hankwitz. Since his retirement following Northwestern's very successful 2020 season they are 4-20 overall, 2-16 in conference with wins over Nebraska and Rutgers. Including the 2019 season, Fitzgerald has (3) one win conference seasons in the last (4), going a combined 7-29 in those seasons. Their prospects for this season weren't considered much higher. My problem with Fitzgerald isn't that he didn't guide the team to some very good seasons it is that for every time he had a "very good season for Northwestern" he also has a "this season would have gotten you fired at anywhere but Northwestern". IMO, it shouldn't have taken a hazing scandal and then the school newspaper exposing the details to get him fired. He's shown plenty of cause on the field for that, but he's considered such an icon of the program that it wasn't really considered until this controversy.

Northwestern is going to end up upgrading coaches when this is all said and done.

It's interesting that you'd use that word. He was not popular at South Carolina, and one of the common complaints was that his offense was too complicated...too many personnel groups, too many formations, and too many plays. There's the narrative down there that the offense played better in those final 3 games and two reasons they've cited for the improvement was that he either wasn't calling the plays anymore or the offense was simplified. (They were still lining up tight ends at running back against Tennessee, so if someone else was calling the plays he must also have a fetish for tight ends.) In the context of this thread, his rushing numbers at SC are not encouraging in the slightest. They had 4 games averaging less than 2 yards per carry, and in 2 of those they averaged less than 1.5. Two of those opponents were borderline Top 100 rush defenses. It's pretty hard to average less than 2 yards per carry because you basically get that for just falling forward. Maybe they had short running backs.

At SC, Satterfield would line up a TE everywhere. I think in one game I saw a TE put on a striped shirt and line up as an umpire.

It was certainly there at times under Frost. The Michigan game I remember they were always walking Safeties up, playing a lot of 1 high and the first couple of TDs we caught them. I think an RPO to Allen and Rahmir (I think) got that wheel route. That's all in the past, though, I'm only really interested in what Satterfield will do in this regard. He says he wants to be a 'positionless' offense, and I hope he means that because I think we have a few guys that could make that idea interesting.

A couple of things before I answer that. When I talk last year's offense, I'm referring to Whipple. Second, Frost's offenses weren't all bad. A couple ranked in the Top 25 in yards per play and a couple others were basically mid tier. The bigger problem was scoring. Field position seemed like a constant issue, the kicking game was often problematic, the offense simply weren't good enough in the redzone, and so a lot of yards were wasted on stalled drives that got into plus territory. One stat I put on here recently was a comparison of his yards per point vs Rhule's of the same period. I like that stat because it's not just an offensive stat, it really reflects how well all three phases interact when it comes to scoring. Short story, Nebraska was dreadful in that category during Frost's entire tenure. To answer your question, I don't know the answer. Certainly many believed his dual role as HC and OC had a lot to do with it. Problem is they didn't make the change until he was dead man walking, and I don't think the marriage of him and Whipple was a particularly good schematic fit. Preparation was probably also an issue. He'd make comments in his pressers about how a team came out in a defensive front he wasn't expecting and apparently that means you can't run your offense anymore. I don't know why it all didn't really come together because there are some really good concepts in that offense.

A couple things on this. While the Big Ten, particularly the teams on the back end of Nebraska's schedule, did have some of the best run defenses in the nation, practically every team on the schedule held Nebraska to less than their opponent's rushing average. Now, the good news (maybe) is a lot of this is play calling. The Indiana game is a good example. Early in the first quarter, Indiana was playing with 2 high Safeties and their LBs backed off and Nebraska ran the ball quite well. By the end of the first quarter, however, Indiana adjusted and Nebraska didn't. There were times they can bring 8 in run support vs only 6 blockers. Indiana would actually spend a decent amount of the game with all 11 guys within 5-10 yards of the LOS. If you're a team ranking very low in this stat, you're giving up a lot of early penetration, and while the offensive line and RB play a part in that, the offensive design has to use their formations and play calling to limit those opportunities and punish teams that get too aggressive. UCLA, which led the country in this stat, blocked well, but they also used a lot of cross motion. They pull LB's out of the box so they can't get that early penetration. You see a lot of times in their games LBs that don't know if they should follow that man or not and that little bit of hesitancy often meant they either found a hat on them or the RB was going the other way. A play they loved to run was to have a backside wing come across the formation. They could either throw to him, have the QB keep it running behind him, or give to the RB going the other way. That level of deception simply wasn't in Nebraska's offense last year.

That full letter by the President is way more scathing than that tweet makes it appear.

The suspension isn't a big deal. However, the more information that comes out, the more someone needs a fall guy. Oh, look, he only won 1 game last year. Oh, look, he only won 1 conference game in 3 of the past 4 years. If you may be close to replacing the guy anyhow, and you need a fall guy.....well, we aint talking about Lee Majors, now are we.

I think someone may be looking for a new coach soon.

I don't see it as being a little better or worse to get to 6 wins, but more looking at what metrics equate to 6 wins and how likely Nebraska is to meet those marks. Last year's data is just a starting point. Don't take this reply as suggesting you're wrong, because I'm not. There is significant debate in the analytics community on how long to keep preseason data in a data model. Everyone recognizes it has flaws, but football just doesn't generate that much data in comparison to other sports. That leaves the problem of getting rid of the preseason data too early giving really sporadic modeling results because of the limited sample size, but if you leave it in too long you're basing X percentage of your data on a different team.

There is a theory out there that's gaining some traction that QBs are like buying new cars. Why spend all of those resources on getting a new one when you can just buy someone else's used one. There are a ton in the portal and some very, very good ones. Even though Rhule wants to develop prep talent, there is certainly a scenario where he may think he has a championship contending team and decides to try the portal rather than break in an inexperienced one. Its on of those scenarios we don't know, because he's yet to stay anywhere long enough to need a second generation QB. It's certainly one of the biggest questions I have from Rhule. To date, he's shown he can build things, but he's done it through leveraging that first season and then using those guys he developed early to win in years 3 and 4.

Not only are those circumstances very different but the transfer portal just changes that whole equation. Him tearing it down and playing a bunch of young guys in Year 1 sucked for Year 1, but it meant he had a bunch of multi-year starters in Year 3, including at QB. Now, you just go buy yourself that experienced QB. When I watched Sims in the spring, it wasn't his arm or his athleticism that jumped out, good as they are, it was his experience. Unfortunately, that gap in experience between him and everyone else at the position stood out, too.

I'm a big fan of White and this defense, and certainly long term I'm more confident on that side of the ball (Satterfield/Rhule are both known for pretty meh offenses). However, there are a lot of unknowns on the defense this year. It may take a while to see how pieces fit and that may limit what this defense can do schematically. I think they brought in a lot of good pieces, both prep and transfers, and some of those will likely have to be key contributors as they transition from a very different defensive philosophy. Syracuse's defenses the last two years ranked 26th and 34th, respectively in total defense, but White's first year they were 111. That improvement shows why we should be very excited, but it should also temper our expectations a little bit. I dont think Nebraska needs to be significantly better to win 6 games because they really weren't that bad last year on a per play basis. 57th in points per play, 64th in yards per play. Not enough to carry a poor offense, but enough to win 6 games if those phases showed improvement.