ColoradoHusk

This thread is pretty amazing to read after the fact. Good stuff!!!

DB, WR, DT are all deep. After that I agree. Ummmm Running Backs? Idk, I go back and forth with our RB's. I see one transferring. Somedays I like Cross, other days I don't see him as more than as a one trick pony. Wilbon and Taylor are guys I get excited about. Newby, not so much. I like this post. I was one of those that thought Wilbon and Taylor would thrive under the new staff. It turns out that they couldn't sniff the field.

You have it way wrong!!! It's HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

I agree that there is a pretty big difference in rounds 1, 2, and 3. However, if Collins has a good first 3 years, he will be able to sign a big 2nd contract and make huge money. He would also be getting that 2nd contract a year earlier than he would if he stayed at NU for his senior year. I think that's the point people are missing with guys coming out of college. Basically, Collins would be making a bet on himself to progress and get better. I think a guy progresses more with a year in the NFL, where his only job is football, instead of doing it part-time in college.

I would take him in a second. He is super hard working, has great quickness, and the d-line position is so important in the NFL. It also depends where my team had their draft pick in the first round. I think Collins has good value in the 20-40 range.

Didn't Callahan V.1 show that a pass happy, West coast style offense not fit I Lincoln? Looks like Callahan V.2 is doubling down on the stupid. It wasn't Callahan's offense that got him fired.One of the great fallacies is that Callahan ran an effective offense. More times than not, it was offensive failures that led to defensive blow ups. Sound familiar? Look at the Purdue game this year.Great point. The offense did little in 2007 losses to Missouri, Okie State, and Texas A&M. It wasn't until he decided to pad his stats that the Callahan offense looked "great".

I am not sure if it's totally fair to review college recruiting services based on their NFL success. A number of those guys weren't all that special in college, were drafted low, and have since done well in the NFL. If I am a college football fan, looking at how a prospective recruit will perform, all I care about is how that recruit performs for my school. Yes, it's nice if they also have a good NFL career, but I care more about how they do in a Nebraska uniform.

Great points about the RB's. According to most recruiting experts, NU has a stable of very good running backs. Yet, the lack of development that happened with them this year was just terrible. The coaches were more interested in them being quasi-offensive linemen than having them be running backs.

There is a fairly obvious gigantic hole in your logic:Tommy Armstrong was not recruited to play a pro style offense. If you watched at least one game this year, it was pretty obvious. No hole at all. TA has enough skills at QB to have went something like 17-5 as a starter prior to this year. This team was good enough to win 10-12 games against this schedule this season if we ran a system more suited for TA. It's simply absurd that they couldn't grind out at least 8 or 9 wins against this schedule with TA at QB. Think about this for a minute, what makes mor sense? A) Change the system you want to implement in order to make it easier for the starting QB, who was not meant for pro style, to grasp it even though you will only have him for another year after your debut season. B) Hope the starting QB has enough football smarts to grasp the system and improve as the season goes along. If he doesn't, you can replace him with a guy who actually fits the system. I think there is a middle ground in there. Riley and Langsdorf can implement their system, but also tailor it to their QB's strengths. If they had been able to keep Wilson committed to NU, were they going to shove the WCO down his throat, or were they going to try and utilize some spread running concepts with Wilson, along with some WCO and spread passing concepts. The best offense coordinators are able to adapt to the personnel on hand. We had a lot of talk about Riley doing that with TA, but there were moments where they put TA in a bad position due to their play calling.

The NFL is also full of elite running backs who get stuffed on third and inches, and/or shut down for entire ball games. Consistent winning football is tough, even for the professionals. The WCO is perhaps the most effective offensive system yet devised, and a decent high school quarterback knows how to run it. If you think WCO is merely a pass-happy offense, I'll put that on the list of things you don't know about football. I disagree with this statement. The WCO can be effective, but it's one of the most complex offenses in football. Most high schools and a lot of colleges have switched to the spread offense scheme because it's easier to coach and easier to run. Yes, the spread offenses may have similar philosophies with the WCO, but the spread offense has become much more effective in the high school and college game. EDIT -- The spread offenses also enable a program to have an effective offense without needing the best talent on the field. The spread offenses don't require super talent at the offensive line. They don't require QB's with rocket arms and who can fit the ball into tight spaces. They don't require a stud RB, stud WR, and stud TE. They utilize the talent they have, the best way they can. They capitalize on spreading the field and finding the number and space advantages.

I am not sure what to think of Read. I honestly have no idea what he does for the team. Punter Sam was good under Bo, so I don't see how things improved there. I think Read did help with Brown, and showed him the flaws in his kicking. Brown was automatic at the last 1/2 of the year. Punt returns were hindered by the loss of DPE, so I will give Read a break there. However, the kickoff return was a complete mess. I couldn't believe that Read had no idea who Stevenson was when Riley told Read that Stevenson was going to return kickoffs. That was so weird to me. Also, I think Read got a little cute on kickoff coverage teams. There were times where instead of having Brown just boot it deep, they would try a high "pooch" style kickoff which would end up being disasters. If you have a kicker who has the wind, try to have the guy kick it through the end zone.

Oh, ok. Just pillow talk for guys who think like you, he is too nice of a guy to throw the players under the bus. If that's what he's doing, then maybe you should take a page from his book. When players play sucks like Gerry's did against Purdue, I point it out, when players step it up like Gerry did against Iowa, I give them their due. So you have no problem saying the players suck, but won't do it about the coaches? Ok then... Players = Bo, so it's easy to say the players suck. The new coaches are nice and friendly so they get a free pass on everything they do.

"Probably not"?!?! How about, "Hell f'ing no!" Jesus, this guy went into the 2015 season thinking 5-7 was a real possibility. Nebraska is going to go anywhere until Charmin pulls his head out of his ass, starts benching malcontents, and shifts to a power-run offense that relies on the run to setup the pass, not the other way around. Nebraska doesn't have a ton of depth. A 5-7 season for a team with very little depth is ALWAYS a possibility if key players get hurt. Teams with little depth are similar to NFL teams. Look what's happened to the Patriots since Gronkowski got injured. Nebraska's depth is as good or better than almost every team in the conference. MSU had 3 true freshmen playing DB a lot of this year. People are flat wrong if they think NU wasn't talented enough to continue winning 9 or 10 games, at least, per year. If the players would have bought in before Michigan St, we likely would have won 10. It was a transition year ya know. Okay, which games did they buy in for...which games did they not buy in? Every game before Michigan St. Did you see any effort against Purdue, no me neither So Riley basically went 3-0, because all the games before MSU are blamed on the players because they were still poisoned by Bo. Then the Iowa loss is really a win because NU would have won by 4 TD's if it weren't for Tommy Armstrong, who had a relapse of Bo poisoning for 1 final game. #RiledUp

He's doing both

As your brief little comparison shows offensively we are not too far off overall with the 4 playoff teams. It is the execution at crutial times that makes a big difference. Crutial mistakes played a big part in the outcome of games this year. IMO if TA doesn't throw 2 pick 6's against NW and Iowa we probably win those games. It is as simple as that. He doesn't throw it on 3rd and 7 against Illinois we probably win that game. That's my main point with my two posts. Some fans want us to believe that we are an absolute pathetic team and our offense is horrible. That just simply isn't the case. Our record looks like we are and....ultimately....that's the most important stat. However, right now we are a 5-7 team. How do we improve. These stats show me that little improvements and changes in execution here and there can make a big difference. Those are very interesting numbers. I have thought the offense has performed very well at times, but also very poorly at times. When there is so much inconsistency in the offense and defense, which we saw this year, the results of the games are going to come down to a few plays in each game. NU just didn't execute at a high level in those crucial plays in the last minutes of the game. However, if you look at the top teams, they dominate most of their games, so the outcome doesn't come down to 1-2 crucial plays. Bo failed to get the team to that level, and that's why he would have 4 losses every year. Riley needs to get the team to that level so that 8-4 isn't a "good season" for Riley. Basically, Riley (or whomever the coach is) needs NU to get back to the point where it's has an automatic 7-8 wins, and then the remaining 4-5 games comes down crucial plays/luck/whatever.

Didn't he quit midseason? yes I wasn't sure if Cornographic was serious or not.

I would imagine somebody probably moves-on at QB. I would be shocked if it doesn't happen at RB, and that is sad because ya it's definitely management-related. We couldn't do anything about Green, he was homesick and really in need of an attitude adjustment. Braylon Heard we definitely dropped the ball on, like we dropped the ball on Wilbon this season. Hell I'd say this was even worse since Heard never just disappeared and ended-up on scout-team. Hard to say what's going on with Taylor since we've never seen him play. I might have my timing off, but wouldn't Green have been done last year if he stayed with us? I thought he was only eligible this year because he redshirted during his transfer year. If this is the case I would take Ameer over him in a heartbeat. Green could have always redshirted a year at NU, to get a "year behind" Ameer. Just because he played as a true frosh, doesn't mean he couldn't have redshirted later on. Does that happen much? I can't remember a situation where that has. Pelini wouldn't redshirt Kunalic when we had Henery, so I would be surprised if he would have done it with Green. No, it doesn't happen much, but it's an option. Mike Grant redshirted in 1991 because he was pretty much 4th on the depth chart, and there were 3 other seniors ahead of him. He came back in '92 as a RS Senior and started a few games before losing his job to T-Frazier.

I would imagine somebody probably moves-on at QB. I would be shocked if it doesn't happen at RB, and that is sad because ya it's definitely management-related. We couldn't do anything about Green, he was homesick and really in need of an attitude adjustment. Braylon Heard we definitely dropped the ball on, like we dropped the ball on Wilbon this season. Hell I'd say this was even worse since Heard never just disappeared and ended-up on scout-team. Hard to say what's going on with Taylor since we've never seen him play. I might have my timing off, but wouldn't Green have been done last year if he stayed with us? I thought he was only eligible this year because he redshirted during his transfer year. If this is the case I would take Ameer over him in a heartbeat. Green could have always redshirted a year at NU, to get a "year behind" Ameer. Just because he played as a true frosh, doesn't mean he couldn't have redshirted later on.

I think you will see most transfers happen after the Spring semester anyway. Yes, kids can transfer to new schools for the Spring semester, but the player still has to sit out the games in the Fall, so it's not like being there for Spring practice is a huge factor. Coaches are going to focus their Spring practices on guys who are going to be playing in the Fall. If I was a coach, I would let a kid who was thinking about transferring come to the bowl game anyway. I see these minor bowl trips as a reward for a good season (or even a crappy one) and a chance to enjoy some time away from campus as a team.

I keep coming here expecting real news on transfers and all I ever find are a bunch of whiny fans bashing coaches. Why would any player announce before the bowl game that he's going to transfer. He might as well get a free trip to San Fran and and some swag.

What if they get over that in passing yards? That's possible but I think less likely now than it was at the beginning of the year. It will be an interesting thing to watch in the game. I posted this simply because this is what I remembered from the two games we recently played against them. I still have flash backs of seeing those huge holes their RB was running through. PS....a question just came to mind. Is Gerry required to sit out any of this game due to his penalty in the last game? Gerry's penalty came in the first half against Iowa, so he should be ok to play the entire bowl game. If his penalty was in the 2nd half of the Iowa game, that's where there would have been a carryover penalty.

Why would he make changes? We aren't going to fire him after one year so why should he fire any assistants after one year? The defense and secondary was a complete mess for most of the year, and a lot of people thought the coaching staff did a pretty poor job with the team overall.

I think that UCLA will have no problem piling up points against NU's D. I think Rosen picks Banker's D apart. The only way NU keeps it close is if the offense keeps scoring with them, like NU did against Michigan State.

What if they get over that in passing yards?