Dear Shawn Watson,

[TheCheshireCat]

Something has to change. Someone has to go. This sh#t cannot continue. AND FIX THE f'ing FUMBLES!

[HuskerInLostWages]

Yet again, we're moving down the field with the wildcat and making 6-7 yards a play. In comes Shawn Watson and his infinite wisdom (read he's an f'n idiot) changes it back to what wasn't working. Man this guy should be signed up for life, he's just too good to let go.

[irafreak]

Dear Bo Pelini,

Seen enough?

[GI56]

Up until right now I was a huge Watson defender. He lost us this game. You can blame Taylor for the first few sacks/fumbles, but Watson putting him in that position over and over without adjusting is embarrassing.

 

Also embarassing: zone-read, loss of yards; zone-read, loss of yards; pass, incomplete.

 

Not just bad play calling, inability to read how players are behaving on the field and changing things up based on that. Rex should've carried us all the way.

[shyndy]

if we just ran burkehead out of the wildcat the whole game i bet we win.

[Haspula]

Someone fire him already I've had enough of thia guy. You have now tarnished the good name of Nebraska Cornhusker Football with the worst play call (the one on 4th and 4) in the history of Football

[Chucktown Husker]

Where the hell was Green?? I grew tired of Taylor taking sack after sack.

[irafreak]

It just baffles the mind. Why are we throwing on 3rd and goal? 3 points gone. Why are we throwing on 3rd and 8 in their territory with taylor getting sacked all night and henery clearly demonstrating that he was booming kicks tonight. 3 points gone. Plenty of time on the last drive needing maybe two first downs. Challenge your offensive line to push instead of making them pass block (cause they couldn't all night). Shawn Watson needs to go. Bo has to do something. Look at the stats! Yardage, turnovers all in their favor and we lose by 3. Defense again is wasted. Our allstar cast wasted on poor playcalling by Watson.

 

Alex gone.

Prince gone.

Hagg gone.

Zac gone.

Mike gone.

Roy gone.

 

All of these kids deserved better...

[TemporarySaint]

I know this has been the eternal debate, but I point most of the blame at the offensive line. Our blocking was horrific. Our blitz pickup was awful. I don't care what scheme you run. It won't work with the OL play we saw tonight.

[walksalone]

Watson has two glaring deficiencies

 

1) Not knowing when something's working

2) Not changing something that isn't working

[Count 'Bility]

This may be rather lengthy.

It is obvious Watson is not a good playcaller, and furthermore he is maybe an equal as a quarterback coach if best when it comes to identifying what the skillset is. Bad reads or not, bad decisions or not by Taylor, what we saw tonight from Taylor with his panicking in the pocket and his refusal to get out of the pocket and use his athleticism is an obvious reflection of coaching on the part of the position coach. I have never punched walls and kicked appliances on the behalf of an assistant coach before (not even cosgrove). Even of the 20 points we scored you analyze, again 7 were givin by the defense, 7 more was another big play, and 3 right before half was maybe the best calling by Watson of the year, but it was obvious after the Rex run that he thought it was best to run the clock out until Bo got the t.o. We left 3 maybe 6 points at the least on the field with the int by Taylor. There's just no reason why Bo should analyze what has happened over the last 2 seasons with great defenses and watch the games and analyze what happened within the games as far as playcalling to the situation and not see that it's time for Shawn to go. I dont have nothing personal against the guy, but he is flat out not getting the job done.

[irafreak]

I know this has been the eternal debate, but I point most of the blame at the offensive line. Our blocking was horrific. Our blitz pickup was awful. I don't care what scheme you run. It won't work with the OL play we saw tonight.

Sorry but if our oline is pass blocking so pooly....RUN THE BALL!!!!!!!!!!!! The wildcat was picking up nice yards fairly regularly. Taylor can't throw the ball away. The oline can't pick up the blitz. RUN THE BALL!!!!!!! OU has been vulnerable all year to the run (if they play stanford this will be proven again). RUN THE BALL!!!!!!!

[ICT HSKR 10]

When Martinez or Helu are breaking off 60+ yard TD runs, they make Watson look like a genius. The rest of the time it's like the coach in Waterboy, "Offense for Dummies". After OU figured out our 5 plays, it was over. These guys deserve better. Out D has gone from the sh**house to the Penthouse in 1 1/2 years, and our Offense kills us yet again. Leave Watson in Dallas.

[hskerprid]

Someone please explain why we go away from the wildcat when we are in field goal range to tie the game and put Martinez in the shotgun? We were getting 5-6 yds a run with Rex and Taylor takes a sack and BOOM we're out of field goal range. Bo should of called time out and asked Watson WTF??Run one more wildcat to put the ball in the middle of the field and let Henery tie the game. Just effin un-believeable. This is on Bo!!!!!!!

[zoogs]

My views, feel free to disagree...

 

1) The vitriol directed at Taylor is over the top. Cut his scholarship fund? Taylor sucks? Freshman had a rough game, but that's unmerited IMO. Another example of hype becoming a player's downfall. More moderate voices since the beginning of the year nailed the situation for what it is: Taylor is an athlete at QB, who brings explosion and the big play to the offense while being completely raw as a passer, and prone to cold spells, and extreme cases of nerves. I felt Taylor should not have started, and that's why. But Taylor doesn't suck either...and attitude or not, shouldn't deserve the kind of hate he is all of a sudden getting. I guess I did become a fan of the guy over the games, even while acknowledging that he's a potential bomb waiting to explode and implode the team. Which is a separate issue.

 

2) Defense: you got owned. 17 of Oklahoma's 23 points at least were directly caused by three huge plays given up by the secondary. Cassidy, Hagg, and pretty much everyone (I guess it was Dennard's man). These are good players in a very good defensive system. But these three plays are more costly than I could even begin talking about. There was a lot of good defense today, and a lot of sharpness from Jones with his pinpoint passes. But there was also some giving up big runs up the middle (DL?...) and those three ugly, inexcusable plays. You cannot expect to go against a quality offensive team and make THREE miscues like that, and still expect to win. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE YARDS today by the Sooners. I will not call for anyone's heads though. But just think about that. 4-5-5.

 

*I'm adding a disclaimer here because everything thinks I am blaming the D. No, I'm just trying to be even handed about what happened today. The D played balls out at times, but they also cost us at times. When miscues lead directly to points, and that much yardage gets put up, there's no way it isn't anything other than a team loss. All I'm saying!

 

3) Starting Taylor. Watson called a great game early. The fourth down playaction was ballsy and masterful. Then Taylor loses his cool and doesn't regain it for the rest of the game. Taylor was not prepared to play today IMO. I don't know what to say since we are so thin at QB and Green was even more scary of an option. But this decision to start Taylor, which is Bo's as well as Watson's, should be something to be talked about.

 

4) Watson and the Last Drive. We scored 20 points in the first half and looked on track to do more than our fair share against the Sooners. Indeed, probably most felt if we could put this number up on Oklahoma, we'd win (but see #2: defense). At some point you got to commit to Burkhead/grinding it out. Why am I so defensive of Watson in spite of 2009? Because I loved and embrace the 2009 philosophy, which Bo directed. Shut it down on offense, grab a lead and hang the heck onto it. Keep it out of the realm of killer mistakes, and I don't care if we average 3 yards a carry as long as we are chewing clock and getting a field goal here or there.

 

So WHY, when the game is on the line, we have the ball thanks to Rex on our own 40, with just 20 yards at minimum to go, and nearly 2 minutes on the clock to get there, do we not run it? Rex had success in the Wildcat and we have enough time to average 3 yards a clip and still get to field goal range with a break or two. So we throw a quickslant on first down, fine. But on 2nd and medium, after seeing how Taylor has reacted to pressure ALL DAY, and really, Taylor's dancing around into linemen in the pocket has been a chronic occurence all freaking year. When we can rely on any of our multiple ways to attack the defense on the ground to put us in third and short, why do we call something that has ANY chance at all of putting us into 3rd and 16? There's no criticism on the two plays after that because we were desperate anyways. It's these first two plays that killed us.

 

There, now I know what it's like to play armchair OC. I don't think Watson should be fired, for the usual reasons. Just like I don't think the defensive coaches should be fired. But I think this is fair criticism of a couple of very costly decisions.

 

5) Bo. This goes right with the above. I loved 2009 because of the conservative approach. Why did Bo go away from that today? It was especially evident on the last game, unless Watson went rogue on Bo, which I doubt, because it was evident on Bo's approach through the day. He did go balls out on this one, which is to his credit, but honestly there were some very dangerous decisions there that could have cost us the game at multiple times. The 4th and 1 was surprising, but it worked. That doesn't mean it wasn't hella dangerous. The fake punt - also surprising, and I'm sad I didn't get to see it. But also EXTREMELY dangerous. We are talking Les Miles dangerous or CU 2008 dangerous if we don't make those 4 yards, late in the game and down 3 in our own territory. And of course the end of the game.

 

Since when did Bo have little faith in our defense? I suppose this game gave him no reason to have faith. Still, I really believe going away from the 2009 approach when the chips were down was a questionable decision. Using it opened up Watson to a ton of unfair criticism, but using it the way it was used in the 2nd half of this game opens up Watson to a lot of valid criticism.

 

6) Misc things on playcalling...the zone read was fine IMO. Not with Taylor, though, after the first few drives. But with Rex out of the Wildcat. All those Wildcat plays were pretty good. Although I would say the throws were very dangerous. Rex should have thrown the second one away (or sooner), and the first one was off target. Good to give them something to think about though. The one that failed was Mike Caputo's bad snap that resulted in a fumble. Throwing the ball with Taylor quickly became a completely untenable option, and yet we stuck with it. I like showing faith to your players, I think it enables them to succeed. But this is a situation where no faith was deserved.