brophog

You know you've had too many close calls when people start hyperventilating when it becomes a two TD deficit.

(This is after their 16/17 QB goes 2-4 in the 3rd quarter) Man.In sports, you win some and you lose some. No need to get some miserable over it. It's crazy, isn't it? It's obviously worse in college football with the smallish schedules, but it's that way basically everywhere in all sports. It's really interesting in sports with longer schedules where a team has a mid season slump then goes on to win a title. Read some of those forums during the slump and you'll really question how humanity got out of their caves! There's so much extremism. This game of ours today is a good example of why you want to stay in the middle. We weren't as bad as we seemed coming in, and we're not as good as we seem coming out of it.

That man was made for TV.

Iowa may enter the postseason as the worst undefeated team since BYU's national championship squad. They're not bad, just pretty average. But pretty average goes a long way against the right opponents.

You're never out of it when you play this sort of schedule. Sometimes when I see people say we'll lose this or that game...well, sometimes you just wonder if they've ever seen the opposition.

He's also shown his ceiling isn't very high.

No

Good thing we have the easiest schedule this side of Iowa.

Have you watched our pass defense? We have a pass defense?

Does Minnesota get to substitute in a competent offense?

156 Why cut it so close.

And/or we know Minnesota just isn't very good.

They read huskerboard.

We're the board that pays too much attention to pass/run ratios. Strong identity, this one.

The Nebraska defense. Not really, but just enough that combined with Minnesota's offensive offense that it'll be the shock story to all next week.

Next step....realizing there are more than 2 plays in a game.

It's like someone handing an angler a fishing lure to use in which they have no confidence. If forced into it, they would, but their heart wouldn't be in it: "Yeah, I know Charlie caught his limit on those Senkos the last time out, and they sell the Bejeebers out of them at the Marina and it was in Field & Stream 'Hot Lures' article, but it just don't look right to me. It just doesn't! How can that thing work? I'm sticking with my Jitterbug." True if fisherman decided there were only two types of lures: soft plastics and everything else. And then spent all afternoon charting that ratio. Because reasons.

About the same that's on him now. For two reasons: 1) It can't be much worse. 2) For it to break this threshold and actually become much worse, he'd have to get blown out. This is the Big Ten West, home of misfit offenses. To get blown out, someone has to actually score. Minnesota is awful. Their defense keeps things respectful but their offense would have to punt against tackling dummies. No one should be fooled by the Purdue game, most of that was Purdue once again giving up turnovers like it's Halloween. And the tackling by the Purdue defense bordered on comical, especially on Minnesota's big runs. Nebraska could certainly lose, after all none of the previous losses have bee to beauty queens, but not likely in a blowout. Not this week, not likely any week.

I don't know if outside runs are necessarily the answer, at least in general. Wisconsin really started stretching those out. We talked a little last week in a thread about this. It was speculation on our part, but there are many plays like this where the pre-snap suggests a play won't work and we do it anyway.

I'm already hunting gophers in the front yard as practice.

I don't mean to be dismissive (I realize I am here), but this is a pet peeve of mine ( and a reason I hate the word balance ). Balance means to move toward a state of equilibrium. When balanced offenses run on first down, they tend to pass on second down. When they pass on first down, they tend to run on second down. They make statements about how hard it is to run three times in a row. It's putting a measurement ahead of the goal. Why worry about an arbitrary ratio when you could be concerned with what works. If a play works 50 times in a row, why not run it 50 times in a row. Balance as an idea also tends to work against human psychology. If you think you know what's coming, say because they ran the ball 7 times in a row, then you start cheating that way. It often pays to not be balanced, by the typically used definition. The word that better describes what an offense should strive for is multiplicity. Multiplicity means the act of doing things multiple ways. All good offenses, from the flex bone to the air raid, work by attacking in multiple ways. That's including, but not limited to, multiple depths of the field, lateral spacing, multiple players, multiple looks within the same formation, etcetera. Being multiple is about many more things than whether the scorekeeper marked the play a run or pass! Being multiple also catches the hang up most people are referring to when (incorrectly) using the word balance; having the means to attack situationally. The two prime examples being a team without an effective passer that must come from behind and a team with a lot of receivers, a lack of a strong running game and tight ends to effectively attack goal to go situations.

Whether a play is a pass or run, tracking that ratio, etc....the most overrated thing in football. It reduces this beautiful game into a dichotomy. Playcalling and play design is a fun part of the game to talk about but football wouldn't be nearly as engaging if execution wasn't the other half of the equation. You are absolutely right. Think about this, what play do we run really well? What play do we go to on third down when we have to convert? What series of plays do we run when we need to score with two minutes left? To get one first down?

I could actually see Iowa (maybe) being similar to our 2012 run. We won so many close games that we were no where near as good as our record, and it showed in the postseason . Iowa could actually go undefeated due to their schedule (Northwestern, Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Nebraska). Already a 3 point win, 4 point win, and this last game against Illinois wasn't secured until a late field goal. Iowa is no where near as good as their record, too. Wisconsin handed them the game several times over and they struggled mightily in goal to go situations against a poor Illinois team.

I'm kinda in agreeance with this. This is really entering last chance territory. Division is probably out of reach already and there is little margin for a winning season. Win decisively against Minnesota, though, and maybe that's a catalyst. I really think the defense is a few warm bodies away from turning this around. The last few weeks have been wars of attrition. You simply will not sustain pass rushing 50 times a game without being able to rotate players. It's too exhausting. We're not talking championship level defense here, but if we can just play to the level we do when guys are fresh then it's well enough for the bums we're playing against.

As to kids, it depends on the age. Small children until they start becoming teens is all about adult leadership; parents and coaches and unfortunately parents vs coaches. Once they get into high school through early adult years it becomes all peer leadership. A coach must work through the peer leaders to really engage the group. You've hit the nail on the head on how to fix this; win big. Riley knows his task is to convince the upperclassmen that have won a lot of games in their career that he is credible enough to lead them. Winning because the opponent misses a late field goal isn't enough. He has to address players who have played 6 games under him in which only one has been decisive (and everyone knows why). Regales of what people think this is possible. This schedule is so weak that Nebraska continues to open as favorites despite having so many issues. It is very possible to string together some big wins (by margin) in the immediate future. It's probably not possible to salvage this year (Iowa just has too weak a schedule to be handed this cushion) but it is absolutely possible to transition this stretch into next year. Unfortunately that goes both ways.