Orangeblood

You're talking to the wrong Texas fans. Trust me, no knowledgeable Texas fan is confident of the way our offense will perform on Saturday. There also aren't very many who are extremely confident about "stopping" Martinez. I'm more optimistic about our defense but that's about it. Our offense will put it all together at some point. I just doubt it's this weekend. Weirder things have happened though.

Like I said in my post, you'll find A LOT of Texas fans that feel that way. As a matter of fact, this feeling goes all the way back to 2001 when we were struggling offensively in big games (OU). The years of Colt and Vince tempered things for a while but you still had the GD "Haters" just waiting for a down year. I'm personally not on the FIRE GREG DAVIS bandwagon and do think he deserves a lot of credit, but the fact remains that the play calling over the last few games has been frustrating. You'll also find A LOT of Nebraska fans that wanted to fire Barney Cotton after last year. You'll also find a ton of them that piss and moan about Gilmore wanting our receivers to block and wish we had fast widdle guy receivers. You know, those same blocks from both coaches' players that are springing this obscene number of big plays. So really, saying a lot of fans feel the same way is saying... nothing. I hear what you're saying but you'd have to be a Texas fan to understand the Greg Davis dynamic. He's been with Mack since the beginning and in most cases, there has always been a clear line drawn between Texas fans on their opinions of him. The GD apologists were out in full force when we won our national title in '05 but the Greg Davis haters have been in the majority every other year. Hell, even when we were putting up big numbers in 2008 people were griping about the play calling.

Like I said in my post, you'll find A LOT of Texas fans that feel that way. As a matter of fact, this feeling goes all the way back to 2001 when we were struggling offensively in big games (OU). The years of Colt and Vince tempered things for a while but you still had the GD "Haters" just waiting for a down year. I'm personally not on the FIRE GREG DAVIS bandwagon and do think he deserves a lot of credit, but the fact remains that the play calling over the last few games has been frustrating. He's extremely stubborn and tries to run a type of offense that we just don't really have the personnel for. This blog article touches on how a lot of Texas fans feel right now and also talks about the success Nebraska is having with Martinez. "Davis’ vision of college QBing is a 6-4 kid with a gun throwing from a pocket, executing an intricate passing offense, with or without a running game. He dreams of Carson Palmer. I dream of Vince Young. That almost no one in college football can run Davis’ offense extremely effectively without NFL talent at every supporting position and/or an offensive coordinator with a natural play caller’s knack doesn’t enter his thinking." Dual Threat QB's Bailed Davis Out

It's not the speed that's the question. We have more speed on this Defense than probably any defense in the Mack Brown era. The problem is that they're not playing disciplined football and opposing teams have exploited that. We'll see if Muschamp got things corrected in the past two weeks. I'd expect him to throw the sink at Martinez and try and confuse him but I'd be shocked if we don't give up some huge scrambles on broken plays where our defense over-pursued.

After four years, I get the opportunity to return to Memorial Stadium to watch the Horns take on the Huskers. Although my expectations of the football team are lower than they have been in 12 years, I can honestly say that I'm extremely excited to be making the trip to Lincoln this week. The last trip we had there in 2006 was one of the best tailgating and gameday atmosphere's I've ever been to (and I've been to a lot of them). Despite the crap that's gone on between TX & NU during the offseason, I still expect to find a knowledgeable, respectable fan base when we get there. You've been historically great fans for way too long to just change in an offseason. As for the game itself... I probably share the same feelings and expectations as many of the Texas fans headed north this week. We're just not a good team this year and to escape Lincoln with a 'W' might be more surprising than losing to UCLA. Then again, weird things always seem to happen when we play in Lincoln. Coming into this season, I figured we'd lose 2-3 games and thought we'd be in for a defensive slugfest with the Huskers. That was before Martinez trotted out for you guys in the season opener and basically reinvented your offense. To say that I've been impressed with his running ability would be a huge understatement. I'm still curious what will happen when he plays a disciplined defense (not saying ours is) that will contain the zone read and option and force him to throw the ball. Here's a brief breakdown of our team for anyone that cares. Keep in mind that I'm just a casual fan so take this for what it's worth... Offense: It's been extremely painful to watch this season and something Husker fans can probably sympathize with from prior NU teams. Garrett Gilbert has the physical tools to be a good, maybe great quarterback at Texas when it's all said and done. That said, he's going to struggle against good defenses as all first year starters might. He still locks on to receivers at times and doesn't look comfortable trying to get the ball downfield in pressure situations. I'm extremely concerned that a defense as good and as experienced as NU's will likely confuse the hell out of him. He's also not getting any help out of our receivers. Freshman Mike Davis is our biggest playmaker and that's not a good thing. If Gilbert's going to have any success on Saturday, our experienced receivers are all going to need to step up. Most Texas fans you'll find really want OC Greg Davis' gone. We've scored more points over the last 10 years than any other team in the country but most will say that's because of the talent Davis had to work with (Vince, Colt, Shipley, etc) The answer probably lies somewhere in between but there's no denying that Davis has absolutely stunk it up over the past few games. The two yard hitches and "lateral offense" that we've run this season isn't going to cut it in Lincoln. I think they know that and I'd actually expect Davis to open it up a little more in this game since the "pressure is off", so to speak. Our running game is atrocious. Some fans will blame it on the recruiting we've done over the past 5 years at that position but most will come out and admit that our offensive line just isn't as good as it should be. They're decent pass blockers but still haven't figured out how to blow people off the ball in the run game. I don't see that changing at all against NU. If we rush for 100 yds I'll be shocked. I'd expect us to spread out and try and chunk it all over the field against you. Yes, I know how good your DB's are, but I think Mack is done with trying to force a square peg in a round hole. Defense: Talent, talent, talent all over the field but we're not playing disciplined football right now. Stupid penalties, going for the big play, over running gaps.... all these things have contributed towards an up and down performance this year. I'd expect Muschamp to have a great gameplan and I'm optimistic that these guys will regroup and make things hard on Martinez. The defensive backfield is filled with future NFL starters (much like NU's) and is probably the strength of the team. Our line has questions in the middle, but have a lot of speed on the outsides and at linebacker. IF we can contain Martinez and make him throw the ball, then we might have a chance. If we overcommit like we've done all season, expect him to have another big day running the ball. So there you have it... a brief take on what a Texas fan expects this weekend. Whatever happens on the field, I'm looking forward to getting back to Lincoln. For those that actually read this whole thing, I'd really appreciate any recommendations you can give us with places to go, bars to hit up, tailgating spots, etc. This is only the second time we've been to Lincoln and it's been a while since the last trip. Good luck this weekend and I hope to run into some of you.

Husker fans... thought I'd bump this back to the top to see if we had any takers. Obviously, we're just going to open it up to anyone that wants to play now. Can't wait to make the trip to Lincoln later this week.

That's acceptable. We won't be checking id's.

Greetings Huskers. Congrats on being 2-0 and good luck this weekend. Nebraska already looks impressive this year and I'm excited about October 16th. (can't say I'm all that excited about you guys finding a dual threat QB, but that's a topic for another thread) As I've mentioned on a couple of threads, myself and a 7 friends normally take one road trip a year to the best Big XII game of the season. This year of course, it's Nebraska and we'll be coming in on Friday morning. We normally have an annual football game between everyone in the group the day before these games, but this year we thought we'd open it up and see if any Nebraska fans would be open to a flag football game the Friday before the Texas game. Eight versus eight and loser buys a keg of cold beer for after game (or during the game for that matter). Before we get a bunch of 20 something year old ex-walkon players jumping in, there has to be some ground rules to it though or else it's not going to be fun for anyone. 1. We're doing this for fun. We want to just go out there.. drink a few beers, get to know some good Husker fans and have a good, competitive game. This board seems to have some good people on it that might be interested. 2. Hopefully you all can help us with logistics. We normally just find an empty field, but if someone here knows of a good place, we'll be there. Anyone interested?

That's exactly what I needed. Thank you, and again, I look forward to the discussions over the next few weeks. And NE2, we might take you up on that. We'll bring the whiskey...

Great board you guys are running here. Let me first say I come in peace. Although things between our two schools have been heated over the last year, I've always rooted for Nebraska when they weren't playing Texas and I really don't see that changing any time soon. You've got a classy program with classy fans. I've lurked on here for a while but since football season is upon us I thought I'd register and hopefully partake in some good discussions leading up to our game in October. The last trip I made to Lincoln was in 2006 and it was one of the best road trips and game day experiences I've had as a college football fan. Nebraska fans lived up to the hype and I'm definitely looking forward to coming back next month. That said, I think some policies may have changed at NU since 2006 with regards to RV parking. In '06 we came in and parked in a lot just off campus next to a large field (I know, very vague) on the Friday morning before the game and paid $50 or so to stay there through Sunday. I called NU and they said the only parking available was at the Midway on Innovation Campus but they wouldn't open the lot until Saturday morning. Could one of you point me in the right direction for finding a location? We should be arriving around lunch time on Friday. I'll save the game day talk and breakdowns until we each have at least a game under our belts but hope to have some good discussions. I think that we can at least all agree that it's a good thing that football season is back! One last thing... I had some really good discussions four years ago on another NU message board and they were very helpful (invited my friends and I to tailgates, gave us restaurant suggestions, etc). I'm hoping this board will do the same, but are there some other NU Message Boards out there besides Rivals? Good luck against Western Kentucky and I look forward to NU being undefeated when we come into town in October. Hook'em