Hercules

Depends on where they rank you guys to start the season. Even undefeated, it's going to be hard to get there thanks to the ESPiN - SEC network. We just got lucky that we should be in the top 5 when it starts. I don't agree with this. It doesn't really matter where you start if you're in a BCS conference. If nebraska and OSU are in the B1G championship both undefeated, the winner will go to the championship. It's all about $$$. To say nebraska would get passed up by PAC 12, Notre dame, or big 12 school just won't happen. We would bring more $ to a national championship then any other school in the country. If you mean to say that we wouldn't be passed up by a one-loss program from the PAC 12 or Big 12, I would agree. But I could see us being left out of the title game if Alabama and Oregon finish undefeated, with Nebraska or Ohio State being undefeated and ranked #3. Oklahoma could potentially finish ahead of a Big Ten school as well.

Where are you looking? We have a consensus preseason rank of #18: http://preseason.sta...ensus/2013.html We're ranked in the top 25 by all five publications listed on stassen. Then I stand corrected. This bodes well for the above mentioned situation then. Although 18 still requires some help. I don't think they'd need any help out of the normal. If there are four undefeated teams at the end of the season, yes, they'd need some help. But if there are only one or two, and Nebraska's one of them, they'll be playing for the title. That said, I would be very surprised if Nebraska was still in the BCS title conversation this year by the end of November.

Where are you looking? We have a consensus preseason rank of #18: http://preseason.sta...ensus/2013.html We're ranked in the top 25 by all five publications listed on stassen. And in addition to Lindy's, Athlon, TSN, Phil Steele, and USA Today, Big League Sports also has us ranked in their preseason top 25. ESPN Live and SI haven't released polls yet, according to: http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/preseason_comparison_2013.html

I wouldn't say that's his legacy. He's the all-time school leader in total offense. That's his legacy. I would agree however that the main statistic separating him from greats like Frazier or Gill is turnovers. Taylor's basically on par or better in every other category.

That's really not saying much...

As much as I respect your opinion, and enjoy reading your posts, I do have to with all due respect disagree about this team only having 8 wins at the end of the regular season. Too much leadership on offense, and just ENOUGH playmaking on D will help us squeak out 2 more hard wins. A season comparable to last, but with some definite growth of the defensive side of the ball. I really hope you're right. I'd love to see us return to the conference championship game and take a good shot at Ohio State. I'm going to have a pretty lukewarm attitude until the UCLA game is decided. If we can figure out a way to win that game, I'm going to become pretty optimistic about reaching 10 or 11 wins. I really miss watching the defense just fly around the field. 2009-10 were pretty fun years. I hope Bo can figure out how to re-create that in the next few seasons.

I would be pretty surprised if this was the year Bo got 11 wins. We should have six heading into November, but November is a crapshoot. We could go 5-0 or 0-5. I'm guessing we'll end up with 8 wins at the end of the regular season. UCLA, Northwestern, Michigan and Penn State should all be able to have their way with our defense. I will gladly eat my words, but I can't imagine this inexperienced, unproven group is going to be any better than last year's squad that gave up 63 to OSU and 70 to a really mediocre Wisconsin offense. Despite what should be a very good offense, I think 2013 is a building year. I'm hoping we see progress on defense similar to what we had in 2008, which would set up for a conf. championship run in 2014 (hopefully Braxton Miller does something stupid and goes pro after this year).

Yes - if the Blackshirts give up 600+ yards when they're actually wearing black shirts, they (and the tradition itself) become even more of a national punchline.

VA Husker Fan is basically right. We probably could have won every regular season other than maybe Wyoming and Colorado with Turman (although we really dominated Colorado in every aspect of the game, Turman probably could have gotten 10 points on the board, that's all we needed). We wouldn't have beaten Miami with Turman. No way does Matt Turman beat Ray Lewis and Warren Sapp. Brook Berringer couldn't have done it either. Tommie Frazier made several key plays in that 4th quarter that only he could make. While he wasn't the only factor, I don't think we win that game without him.

Could be heading towards the death of football - but the true death of football will only happen when it is no longer profitable, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. More likely, we're heading towards the secession of certain institutions and franchises from the NCAA and the NFL. If they continue to alter the game like this, football will become so watered down that it will be more profitable for those schools and franchises to form their own league and play by their own rules. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Coming to this conversation a bit late, but having a good pass defense and having a good secondary are two different things. We had a good pass defense last year. Not a good secondary. Good secondaries have players who can tackle in the open field. We were below average.

We didn't win the North in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, or 2003. Frank went 1/6. Frank likely would have won it several more times though, with Bill Snyder retiring and Colorado going into the crapper. When Frank was coaching, the north was stronger than the south.

I feel like Nebraska and Wisconsin are on pretty even ground right now, as far as divisional play goes. Remember, if they had been in the same division last year, there wouldn't have been any rematch.

Yeah, that's one of the worst breaks you'll ever see in a major. Cost him four shots, and it looks like that will be the difference for him. He'd be sitting at 9 under right now.

That's the thing... A 66 might win it for him. It's been pretty difficult to break 70 this week, and you know a couple of the guys in front of Tiger are going to have typical Sunday at the Masters implosions. If Tiger can get a couple breaks for a change and go low, he'll be in it.

I believe there are enough carries to go around - we just need better distribution than what we've had in the past. Last year we averaged about 47 carries per game. Taylor averaged about 14 carries per game. Rex averaged about 7 carries per game (because of his injury). Ameer averaged about 16 carries per game. Imani averaged about 4 carries per game. Braylon averaged about 4 carries per game. If we run the ball as much as we did last year, I'd like to see our distribution look more like this: Abdullah - 15 carries per game Martinez - 8 carries per game Taylor - 10 carries per game Newby - 10 carries per game Cross - 4 carries per game If it's not clear at this point, I don't think King Frazier is really going to contribute much unless we decide to redshirt Taylor or Newby - and I don't think we should redshirt them, because I want Abdullah to stay more fresh this season than he did last. Cross still looks like a short-yardage guy to me, not an every-down back.

Interesting to see people place Adam Taylor ahead of Terrell Newby. Why is that, specifically? I've seen people say that he's "better," more "polished," and more "college-ready," but nothing specific. I'm no expert and have no expert connections, but on film Newby looks to have better speed, burst, and he looks to be more elusive. Taylor looks bigger and stronger, but he doesn't appear to go into contact any more aggressively than Newby does - he just dances less. Newby definitely dances, but not like Jamal Turner did - he dances and gets the heck upfield. I could buy that Taylor is a little more patient, but other than that, what's the difference? Both of them look decisive and both of them look like they need to get lower to the ground. I'd also say that Taylor looks like a more typical Big Ten back while Newby looks like he would flourish at Oregon, but I don't know why he couldn't have great success in Nebraska's offense too. What else are you seeing?

Hard to tell. In my opinion, the defense seemed to be taking better angles, but the offense didn't even seem to be trying that hard and still lit it up. If the offense had run an end-around or two, we'd probably all be having Wisconsin nightmares right now.

Defense can't stop the offense - but the spring game is more about fundamentals, and at least so far I haven't seen too many missed tackles. We don't seem to be taking terrible angles like we constantly did last year.

I see people saying that the coaches were doing every thing they could to get Braylon on to the field by asking him to play receiver, but I really don't think that's how that position switch was going to unfold. Playing receiver for the first time in his career, who was he supposed to step in front of? Tarriq Allen, Jordan Westerkamp, Steven Osborne, not to mention KBell, Enunwa, and Turner? We're more loaded at WR than we are at RB. I'm sorry, but I can't really defend the coaches on this one. Braylon looked way too good on the field, he looked fresh and electric every time he touched the ball. With the injury problems we had last year, there's really no good reason Heard shouldn't have had more carries. This also isn't hindsight - people were saying this all season long. If you go back and look, you'll find a couple "Where's Braylon Heard" threads from the middle of the season.

I think it's fair to say that the coaches staff completely botched this situation. According to the OWH, over a four-game stretch in the Big Ten after Rex went down, he only recorded 10 carries while Ameer recorded 95. There's no reason to distribute the ball that unevenly, especially considering how fatigued Ameer looked at the end of the season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM2R0gcH4fs