Year One Success

[Lorewarn]

11 hours ago, Waldo said:

It comes down to the QB position. I legit can’t remember the last QB that I felt confident in who wouldn’t/couldn’t lose the game on his own. T-Marts freshman year maybe (was electric)? We’ve had some poor QB play for the better part of two decades. 

 

 

Then you're not remembering right. Taylor put the team on his back and won us some close games in 2012, and Tommy rarely ever lost us games and the few he did he was the only reason we were still in them. He wasn't an all-conference caliber like Taylor was but he was a quarterback that could be and was trusted to take care of the team.

[admo]

When we hire a new coach (Riley, Frost, Rhule), I always look ahead to year 3 before I look at year one.  And maybe that makes me different, because I look ahead and draw it backwards to understand how we can get there.  

 

Year three in the program - the team should have experience and winning ways with a roster that has been through the battles year 1 and year 2, paying there ways, and setting them up nicely for season 3.  That's how I think.  And the reverse is how we have failed.  

 

Look who is playing this year, and then go look at what this team will look like in year 2 under this regime.  And then look at year 3.  Who do we have next year?  

 

Offensive Linemen

Running Backs

Receivers

Quarterbacks

 

I think the defense is taking the approach of rotating younger players into the fold, week after week.  Totally respect what White & Co is doing there.

 

Offensively, I wonder why it is taking injuries to put guys on the field?  Maybe that's just me, but I want to incorporate some of the younger players into the rotation like the defense has done. 

 

Without injuries, no one here had any idea if Heinrich Haarberg could play.  In fact, yall would laugh at that idea (including me - so we are all wrong).  HH playing wasn't a decision by the coaching staff.  Or by them working him into the offense here and there.  It literally took an injury to the starter Sims going down, despite if he was playing bad or not.  

 

Has he not taken care of the ball and produced?  Nobody saw it coming.  

 

Before yall get judgmental on me, I am not saying or wishing the younger guys become the starters.  No way!  But I am saying that we should incorporate the future players into the offense, like DC White does, in series when the game matters, and not just a few garbage snaps at the end of the game.  To me, that is fear and bad decision making by the offensive staff (OC, RB coach, WR, OL coach). 

 

5 offensive linemen and only one backup (Lutovsky) has played meaningful minutes?? Early on in the year.

 

Teddy has played in a few specific drawn-up plays. He's not there yet as we can see.

 

But where is the depth and future guys getting some meaningful plays, on a series once a game?  Is this offensive line so good and too experienced to break through the lineup?  Is Coach Raiola not looking at his roster and thinking about the future? What could literally go wrong with a future prospect getting one series a game?  Now that we are going deep into Big Ten season, it won't happen.  Unless there is an unfortunate injury, and suddenly you put someone in and he plays pretty darn good.  That's on coaching for not even trying.

 

I'm wondering who will be the offensive linemen in three years from now?  Will they even have experience?

 

RB:  Grant is gone.  If Rhamir comes back for his 6th year, ok I guess?.  Gabe will be back after ACL, turf toe, and Hip surgery.  That's also ok I guess?  But is that all you have?  Who do you have getting experience this year that will be a baller by year 3??  The freshmen getting redshirted this year?  Those guys who will possibly get time next season, here and there?

 

WR:  IGC and Bullock.  Next year.  Who else?  Who else is going to start season 2 and learn on the job?  Who is going to be ready to make a difference by year 3.

 

People, it's not that hard to see.  Look at year 3, look at our current roster, and figure out how we are going to get there.  It has to start now (which is called "building").  Otherwise, we won't see different results in year 3 then what we are seeing now.  Meaning, take advantage of it now so they can actually Build for the future.  

[Enhance]

@admo Nice post overall.

IMO there isn't anything inherently wrong about getting younger guys experience. I think it's mostly a good thing so long as you're not compromising your chance to win games. Only the coaches could give a sufficient answer as to why it took injuries to see more of the young guys offensively. Tough to speculate as a fan.

But one thing we can say for certain is that, by whatever evaluation metrics they were using offensively, they didn't feel confident in what they had with some of the younger players. We can only really take their word for it.

And ultimately, there is a line to be drawn. I said this in the Malachi Coleman thread recently, but I tend to believe that most players are getting the snaps they've earned. Playing a young guy 'because they're the future' isn't really a good enough reason in and of itself, not when you have good players who have also earned their snaps and playing time.

Also, in modern day college football... you have to somewhat limit how far into the future you want to think. With the transfer portal and NIL, there's really no saying any of the "future guys" are in fact "future guys." You have to find that sweet spot between playing to win and building your depth/culture. For example, it would sure look silly if they started giving a young guy tons of snaps to improve them for the future only to see them enter the portal in January.

[Guy Chamberlin]

20 hours ago, Lorewarn said:

 

 

Then you're not remembering right. Taylor put the team on his back and won us some close games in 2012, and Tommy rarely ever lost us games and the few he did he was the only reason we were still in them. He wasn't an all-conference caliber like Taylor was but he was a quarterback that could be and was trusted to take care of the team.

 

I was always a big Taylor Martinez fan, and really believed he was ready to put together his best season in 2013 before the injury. But the book on Martinez was that he had a way of keeping both teams in the game --- that playground baller mentality that sometimes led to horribly timed interceptions and fumbles. And he was less a risk than Tommy, who had 44 interceptions to Taylor's 29, both pretty unacceptable by current QB standards. They both came up around the time the Husker defense fell out of the Top 50, and that makes a difference, too. 

 

Fans are going to have some great memories of Brett Favre and Dak Prescott, too, but they single-handedly lost enough games for fans to grumble. 

 

I'd like to think Taylor and Tommy would have won more games for us in this latest down cycle, but Adrian Martinez was a better passer and a comparable running threat, and he remains saddled with the worst record of them all. 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[The Dude]

On 10/9/2023 at 7:31 AM, ColoradoHusk said:

How are you evaluating the position coaches? I understand that the “easy” way for people to think they can do it is production of that position group. I would argue that no layperson can evaluate the effectiveness of a position coach. 

 

The output from, say,  offensive line and receiver positions have been about what you should expect if you hire position coaches who haven't demonstrated they know how to do the job.

 

I get that Rhule has done this at other places, to varying degrees of success, but he has the resourses to hire the best position coaches money can buy now, so there's really no good excuse.

 

Of course people are going to be more skeptical of the more questionable hires.  It's kind of on those coaches to prove the skeptics wrong.  So far I don't really see that happening. 

 

Might as well shut down the message board if laypeople can't have opinions.

[Husker in WI]

5 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

The output from, say,  offensive line and receiver positions have been about what you should expect if you hire position coaches who haven't demonstrated they know how to do the job.

 

I get that Rhule has done this at other places, to varying degrees of success, but he has the resourses to hire the best position coaches money can buy now, so there's really no good excuse.

 

Of course people are going to be more skeptical of the more questionable hires.  It's kind of on those coaches to prove the skeptics wrong.  So far I don't really see that happening. 

 

Might as well shut down the message board if laypeople can't have opinions.

 

Also about what you'd expect 4 of the top 5 projected receivers have either been hurt, left the program, or moved to other positions. And the OL has been fine, we just don't have anyone capable of playing even an average LT at the moment. 

 

It's totally fine to be skeptical and want some coaches replaced, especially the ones who don't appear to have a great resume. But it's also fine for people to point out the other factors going into it and there are a lot of those. I don't think any of us really know the total impact of a position coach, but some of the problems we've had will take more than half a season to fix regardless of the coach.

 

Satterfield is my biggest concern because he does have a resume, and it's not an incredible one. But it's just hard to gauge in year one and with this many injuries - as long as the offense looks better as we get to the end of the year I can live with it though. 

[Undone]

I think if the offense builds off of what we did in the Illinois game we could have enough of a product to get at least 3 out of these last 6 games.

 

We were pretty close to actually blowing them out, but we missed a field goal (which is a problem) and then fumbled in the 4th quarter. But the tactics & play calling and overall execution played out well with Rhule's high level goal of wearing the opponent down by the 4th quarter, we just made some mistakes that didn't capitalize on what got us up to that point.

 

I liked what Satterfield did in that game. I'm with Husker in WI in still having some doubts about him, but if we build on that game and tighten up the false starts & turnovers this offense is probably doing pretty well for who we have to work with.

[MyBloodIsRed16]

On 10/13/2023 at 4:56 AM, The Dude said:

 

The output from, say,  offensive line and receiver positions have been about what you should expect if you hire position coaches who haven't demonstrated they know how to do the job.

 

I get that Rhule has done this at other places, to varying degrees of success, but he has the resourses to hire the best position coaches money can buy now, so there's really no good excuse.

 

Of course people are going to be more skeptical of the more questionable hires.  It's kind of on those coaches to prove the skeptics wrong.  So far I don't really see that happening. 

 

Might as well shut down the message board if laypeople can't have opinions.

What if these were the best we could buy?  We hear this every year. Just because we have the money doesn't mean a guy will leave his current gig for Nebraska.  I'm sure Nebraska has heard "No thanks" multiple times 

[Mavric]

Let's review how all these other coaches that can make these quick turnarounds are doing for those wondering why Nebraska can't make the same quick turnaround (Power 5):

 

Jeff Brohm: 7-1

Matt Rhule: 5-3

Luke Fickell: 5-3

Deion Sanders: 4-4

Hugh Freeze: 4-4

Brent Key: 4-4

Zach Arnett: 4-4

Kenny Dillingham: 2-6

Ryan Walters: 2-6

Scott Satterfield: 2-6

Troy Taylor: 2-6

[chamrocck]

If we can go bowling and even win that game this is a successful year.  It’s painfully obvious we have no offense.  We have got to be one of the easiest teams to defend against. We seriously need to hit the portal on all offensive positions. Other than Fidone are there really any other players on offense that would start on Top 25 rosters?  Recruiting and portal are critical. The coaches can only do what they have to work with. You can’t really even know if we have WRs or RBs when you don’t have an OL or QB.

In year 1…

Defense is better than I expected.

Special Teams is what I expected.

Offense is worse than I expected.

And we are 5-3., that’s about right.

 

[BigRedBuster]

6 hours ago, chamrocck said:

If we can go bowling and even win that game this is a successful year.  It’s painfully obvious we have no offense.  We have got to be one of the easiest teams to defend against. We seriously need to hit the portal on all offensive positions. Other than Fidone are there really any other players on offense that would start on Top 25 rosters?  Recruiting and portal are critical. The coaches can only do what they have to work with. You can’t really even know if we have WRs or RBs when you don’t have an OL or QB.

In year 1…

Defense is better than I expected.

Special Teams is what I expected.

Offense is worse than I expected.

And we are 5-3., that’s about right.

 

I believe that if we upgraded our O line and QB, people would realize we actually have decent RBs and WRs. I’m excited about our young WRs. 

[ColoradoHusk]

8 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I believe that if we upgraded our O line and QB, people would realize we actually have decent RBs and WRs. I’m excited about our young WRs. 

Lloyd showed his speed on his TD catch and run. He got behind the defense and there wasn’t a defender within 15 yards of him. Even the best secondaries can be surprised beat by pure speed. We saw it last year with Trey Palmer, and guys like Coleman, Lloyd, and Doss have that same type of speed.

 

As far as RB’s, I liked what Emmett Johnson has done the past 2 games. He is a solid, one-cut running back who gets upfield. 

[Scarlet]

6 hours ago, Mavric said:

Let's review how all these other coaches that can make these quick turnarounds are doing for those wondering why Nebraska can't make the same quick turnaround (Power 5):

 

Jeff Brohm: 7-1

Matt Rhule: 5-3

Luke Fickell: 5-3

Deion Sanders: 4-4

Hugh Freeze: 4-4

Brent Key: 4-4

Zach Arnett: 4-4

Kenny Dillingham: 2-6

Ryan Walters: 2-6

Scott Satterfield: 2-6

Troy Taylor: 2-6

 

And one untimely fumble trying to ice the Minnesota game away.  How good would 6-2 look now with controlling our own destiny to win the west?  

[ColoradoHusk]

6 minutes ago, Scarlet said:

 

And one untimely fumble trying to ice the Minnesota game away.  How good would 6-2 look now with controlling our own destiny to win the west?  

I understand that the loss to Minnesota sucked, but maybe NU isn’t where we are right now, without the losses to Minnesota or Colorado in the first 2 games. Teams aren’t going to win every 50-50 game, which Minnesota was. Also, maybe the players needed some adversity for the coaches to get their message to them. I just don’t like playing the “what if” game, especially when the Minnesota game seems like it was 2 years ago, not just 2 months ago.