Hammerhead

Cosgrove

They want Brad Childress, case closed.

 

But it never gets Chilly in Miami.

I 'd.

At worst, this is the token "we'll keep your name on file when you're looking for a new coaching venue" interview. More than likely, it's just another cog in the rumor mill.

Trying to talk Taylor Martinez into playing WR is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

Since when is having an undersized center a problem? That's extremely common. He needs to be quick enough to get to the second level. If he's really one on one with a defensive tackle, that's on Cotton.

That's a good point.

Aaron Graham was only 280-something if I remember right, and he's one of the best centers ever to play at Nebraska.

Sure, it's a lapse of judgment that we've all had, but how many of us were starters for the Husker football team?

 

Does the Husker Track and Field Team count?

Only if the UNK marching band counts.

It's not hard to have good offensive numbers when you've played against some of the defenses we've played against. Remember how Zac Lee looked before Nebraska started conference play last year? What I want to know is, how would we rank nationally if our offensive numbers against Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma were average for Nebraska this year?

I am fine with the defense of Taylor Martinez, because if you look at last year then look at this year, it's clear that Taylor was the biggest reason why we thought we saw a better offense this year.

Sure, it's a lapse of judgment that we've all had, but how many of us were starters for the Husker football team?

I know it's hard, but these kids have to realize they're representing something greater than themselves. This isn't one of those deals where close friends will get a good laugh and say "what an idiot" about it. Not very many kids end up with their name in a press release when they get a DUI.

how about the shot he gave jay cutler on sunday i am still laughing today !

 

He got fined 15 dimes for the hit, even though it was legit.

 

No Fun League

I saw that... what a joke.

Since when was shoving a ball carrier to the ground an illegal hit? He didn't even touch Cutler's helmet.

Carl's not going anywhere... yet.

You could go with Mike Leach

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

Leach will be a HC or nothing - plus his style would clash with Bo. Urban on the other hand - spread guru, recruiting genius in Florida. We could get him 3 naked blonds to help him relieve stress daily - whatever it would take. Bo/Urban on the same team..?..look out dynasty.

 

I'll learn how to recruit and run an offense if you can get me three naked blonds daily.

I'd be happy with one girl: the one in Chris's avatar.

It's an interesting concept... Urban would definitely have a lot less stress as an O.C. than he would as a head coach.

The bowl situation really isn't a big deal to me. If we got snubbed out of a BCS bowl then bowl selection would definitely be a big deal, but Nebraska didn't earn a BCS bowl bid. To me, any non-BCS bowl game might as well just be called the "At Least We're Bowl Eligible Bowl".

 

You really think, let's replace Nebraska with A&M for this one, Nebraska vs. LSU in the Cotton Bown is the same as the Texas Bowl vs. Illinois or the Pinstripe Bown against Syracuse?

To me, it's not that big of a difference. It sounds a lot different due to the quality of the opponent, but the end result's mostly the same.

Maybe it's partly just sour grapes over my expectations ultimately not being met this year, but I just can't get excited about bowl season this year. The difference between playing LSU in the Cotton Bowl and playing Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl, for me, would be "at least it'll be a good game" versus "at least we'll be able to give our second string players some playing time in the second half".

You know, if Taylor is back next year, then I really couldn't care less whether or not what Bo told the media was 100% truthful.

The bowl situation really isn't a big deal to me. If we got snubbed out of a BCS bowl then bowl selection would definitely be a big deal, but Nebraska didn't earn a BCS bowl bid. To me, any non-BCS bowl game might as well just be called the "At Least We're Bowl Eligible Bowl".

As much as I'd like to see all our other QBs see playing time instead of stand there in full pads holding a clipboard, I can't see a QB rotation working. It allows for too much inconsistency.

Maybe now these unsubstantiated rumors can finally be put to rest. They have been annoying the crap out of me lately.

Don't get your hopes up on that...

Very cool to read... T.O. is still a class act.

Thank you for sharing, and thank you for serving as well.

"HI, I'M FROM CONNECTICUT!

(Wait, which bowl game are we playing in?)"

Nobody hates the guy personally. He seems pretty likable to me. He knows more about football than 99% of us ever will. He makes more money than 99% of us ever will. And really nobody has asked him to be some kind of genius whose offenses rank in the top ten every year. We just need somebody that can put is in the top third of the conference most years. Watson isn't going to be that guy.

Exactly.

I don't want a team that's "pretty good". I want a team that's great. The only thing that makes this team less than great is the offense. We can't trade players with other schools or pick up players in free agency, so our only option is to look at the coaching staff and ask if they're getting the job done. I don't believe that Shawn is.

We found something they couldn't stop

 

By "we", of course, you mean Watson.

 

Any way you slice it, Watson designed the offense this year, one that worked very well up until the top 2 QBs got hurt. And yes, of course any offense that works well will rely on players that are good. We really maximized with this O out of Taylor and Roy and Rex this year, and it isn't putting them down to say the OC put them in a good position.

 

Again - will not argue about the end of the OU game, and those plays. That's exactly my view, pretty much.

Yes, but the zone read was a pretty easy choice for a team with a very elusive quarterback who is a freshman and doesn't have the playbook memorized from front to back and two halfbacks who aren't afraid of contact. It's simple, and it's effective... if the team you're playing against doesn't know how to stop it. Texas figured out how to bluff our QBs into making the wrong reads and completely nullified it. We thought it was Taylor's inexperience causing the wrong reads to be made, but it was simply Texas having a defensive scheme that proved better than our offensive scheme. Other than a few pass attempts (many of which resulted in drops, which I obviously can't blame on Watson) we didn't have a good contingency plan in case the zone read didn't work, which it didn't. I can't say for certain what would've been a good plan against Texas. I don't get paid to do so, and I haven't observed enough of Texas's defense to say what their biggest weakness was. Shawn does, and has.

Again, I can't blame everything on Shawn. The lack of discipline is partially Bo's fault, and partially the players' too. Bo has our defense playing as well as they have in several years, though, so we can't afford to let him go. We have to address the problem somehow, and frankly, at this point Shawn is our only expendable commodity.

If I saw Dan in person, I'd at least give him enough of my time to punch him in the face.

Be careful what you wish for, that's all I say.

 

The moment that Martinez was named the starter Watson had 2-3 weeks to develop a scheme that a redshirt freshman would succeed in. And you know what? He did a pretty darn good job, in fact we destroyed Washington, KSU, OSU and Missouri in the first half with that scheme and young QB. Scored more points on those teams than any other team all year, but once Taylor got hurt we were in trouble, we didn't have another QB that matched his talents with his legs. That combined with Bo's insistance on playing Taylor at 60-70% of his health made an ugly end to the season.

 

I say hats off to Shawn Watson for developing such a potent offense early in the year with a QB that very few thought would ever take a meaningful snap at QB for a BCS level program.

It wasn't the scheme that destroyed Washington, KSU, OSU, and Missouri. It was Taylor Martinez (mostly with the zone read, although I'll give him credit for making some nice passes in the OSU and Missouri games) with some help in the Mizzou game from Roy Helu. We found something they couldn't stop, and we pounded it at them time and again, which is something anybody at all would know how to do.

Those teams all have poor defenses though. Never mind that we scored so many points against them, as I said before if you can find something the other team can't stop and keep doing it, there's no reason why you shouldn't score that many points. What good is putting up 200 points on a crappy defense if you can't put up 20 on a decent defense? Sure, the dropped passes killed us in the Texas game, penalties killed us in the Texas A&M game, and turnovers killed us in the Big XII Championship, but they shouldn't have. A good offense can overcome those things.

Let's take a closer look at the Oklahoma game. A turnover and a sack cost us a shot at two field goals. The first time, we could've given Henery a chipshot. The second, we were right on the edge of Henery's range and could've easily gotten him a shot right down the middle, and probably could've gotten him a few extra yards. All we had to do was run the ball in those situations. That would've taken a lot of pressure off a quarterback who was injured and was getting hurried/sacked all night. Also, why did we stop running the wildcat when it was actually working? Yes, the wildcat is a gimmick offensive scheme. Does it say something when a gimmick offense is more productive than your usual offense, though? Watson said he didn't want to make us one-dimensional. We were NO-dimensional with Martinez taking the snaps. All we could do was move backwards. At least with the wildcat we could get positive yardage.

I'm not going to claim that I know the answer to fixing this anemic offense. What I do know is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Expecting the same offensive unit that struggled against a team that won't even be playing in a bowl game to be productive against the best the Big Ten has to offer is insane. Something has to change.