Why so much pessimism?

[Husker Richard]

Does anyone realize that opposing coaches get film of our games? In two weeks we travel to Washington. Why give anything away? Our firs B1G game is at Wisconsin, quite possibly the most important game of theyear for The Big RED. Why give anything away? Bo and his staff now know what needs to bew done with this team. The real coaching begins now. Lets wait a few weeks before we start with all the doom and gloom.

 

T_O_B

 

 

 

I really hope the coaches aren't worrying about giving game film to opponents at this point. I really hate that school of thought. This is a brand new offensive system and we should be using every game rep to learn how to execute the offense correctly, adjust to the opponent's defensive adjustments, and overall get it running smoothly. Forget about secrecy or trying to disguise our true gameplan. We need to work the kinks out before we start playing with the big boys.

 

If we do what we want to do and do it well, it shouldn't matter if the opponent has game film. We should be saying here's what we're going to do, good luck trying to stop us.

[Stumpy1]

So what are all the nay sayers going to do next week if we come out and pound Fresno into the ground? Say we just got lucky?

[Axl_sued_me]

So what are all the nay sayers going to do next week if we come out and pound Fresno into the ground? Say we just got lucky?

 

I am going to "nay say" until we consistently produce on offense against quality opponents. I am not going to be hoodwinked again like last year.

[Enhance]

So what are all the nay sayers going to do next week if we come out and pound Fresno into the ground? Say we just got lucky?

 

I am going to "nay say" until we consistently produce on offense against quality opponents. I am not going to be hoodwinked again like last year.

And to me production doesn't necessarily have to mean a lot of points. We can be productive and only score 21-24 points or something like that. Production is being better than 9/18 on third downs, working our way down field rather than relying on Martinez' legs to get the big play, and not letting mistakes cost us points over and over. Because I think many people would agree with me that putting up 24 points against teams this year will give us a victory in most cases with the defense we have.

[Husker_x]

It wouldn't be the Sunday after a preseason game if Huskers fans weren't panicking about something.

 

I'm not sure who was expecting the '95 Skers to trot out there and start steamrolling last night, but whoever it was, reality is calling––loudly. What we saw last night was a new offensive system designed by a new offensive coordinator which featured youth on the line and at receiver, and wasn't so much concerned with putting up seventy as executing a few plays correctly.

 

Are there reasons for concern? Sure. We need to get better fast up front. Our defense is going carry us through the non-con. This was always going to be the case. The time for real concern will come if we're playing like we are right now when it's Wisconsin week. I'm as big a Beck skeptic as there is on this board, but I'm not going to hang a guy after the first game, especially when we put up 40 running the same play ten times.

[Danny Bateman]

Who ever thinks that Nebraska looked better than Oregon needs to go back to sleep or start pounding the coffee right now.

We won. They didn't. I'll take the result.

Ding ding ding. For anybody that tries to claim Oregon looked better than NU yesterday... the end result is that we are 1-0 and will remain in the top 10, and Oregon is 0-1 and going to tumble. Not to mention that Oregon had a frosh turn the ball over 3 times on his own, and one more TO to boot. None of our boys put the ball on the ground like that, aside from possibly that opening kickoff where Abdullah couldn't cover up the ball.

 

The offense will always be scrutinized because of what we've seen over the past 3 years. People want to see immediate changes and when that doesn't happen, they get all up-in-arms about "this is the same crap as last year" and blah blah blah.

Hopefully, these same people can come to understand that this was the first actual game under a completely different offensive scheme. Sure you can say, well they've practiced it enough and this and that until the cows come home but at the end of the day, those practices are nothing compared to an actual game day experiencees.

There is absolutely no way anyone should be comparing us to LSU or Oregon or OU or Bama or anyone else at this point. It doesn't matter if we looked better or worse than Oregon, because we did not have to open our season at LSU. We won, we're 1-0, and we should take things week by week before we demanding perfection right away.

 

My main argument point is highlighted in red above. How quickly people have forgotten we are just starting the first game of a new era in NU football. An era without Watson's "brilliance" and multiplicity running the offensive show. I don't know how we can expect an offense that totally relied on that man's leadership to be completely fixed and firing on all cylinders the first game of Tim Beck's OC career. Not to mention that our head coach is a defensive-minded coach who has little to do with running the offense.

 

Give Beck a little slack, folks. So far, he looks to have improved the turnover and penalty issues, which have provided some super headaches for a long time. Let's take some time before we denounce him and declare ourselves happy to go 8-4 and Gator Bowl bound.

 

Yesterday did absolutely nothing to temper my expectations for the season. I still think we play in the B1G Championship game and a BCS bowl game, hopefully the national championship. I do expect things to improve, obviously. I think this just goes back to a recurring theme I've noticed in my short life-- doesn't matter what you're talking about or what situation you're in: a lot of people just really like to bitch.

[The King]

I fail to see where I said "we would crush/beat Oregon." Some people really really are selective readers I see. I said Oregon didn't look better than us, because they didn't. I can't tell if people are just tougher on Nebraska, as fans, or not. Because Oregon really, really played bad yesterday. If you knew their schemes, they missed a lot of calls on the O-line and Oregonians are already asking for Chip to find a way to get the newer receivers on the field because the WR yesterday dropped a few balls and ran shaky routes as well as missing a few blocks - which is significant in Chip Kellys offense. Not to mention, they are undersized on both lines and Darron Thomas doesn't have Jeff Maehl, a receiver that would catch anything thrown his way. So.. We won - they lost.

They had more penalties.

More turnovers.

Gave up more points.

Struggled on special teams.

Got their O line pushed around. (people will say this is because it was LSU, well yeah, and they are small and inexperienced.)

Yet, they looked amazing? Come on!

And Stanford looks like the team to beat in the PAC.

[carlfense]

 

4) Both teams were rusty. We got the win, yet people are complaining we didn't score 40+. LSU, Oregon, tOSU, Wisconsin, are all better than us because they (Wiscy and OSU) just reamed their opponent. - whoever thinks Oregon looks better than us is kind of silly... 4 turnovers, multiple penalties... At least we didn't get flagged left and right. LSU - Look at that offense... even ours looked better than that. They clearly play offense to not lose...

 

 

I think you are the one who sounds a little silly. Oregon and LSU played legitimate competition. If we looked "rusty" and gave up turnovers against a really good team it would be one thing. We looked rusty against a VERY BAD team. Oregon DID look better than us. Hard to argue otherwise.

[carlfense]

It's not pessimism.

 

It's the fact that the offense we saw yesterday, wasn't that much difference from what we saw in the beginning of last year. Granted, it is the first game, and the whole offensive scheme is still a work in progress, due to the fact that yesterday was the first real practical application of what we've been hearing about.

 

So not pessimism, but more careful skepticism.

 

+1.

 

Also, we have seen a trend over the last few years where our offense looks decent/good at the beginning of the year and steadily worsens over the course of the season. Hopefully that changes with a new offensive coordinator. If not . . . I shudder to think of what our offense will look like after it regresses from what we saw yesterday.

[carlfense]

So what are all the nay sayers going to do next week if we come out and pound Fresno into the ground? Say we just got lucky?

I'll cheer for Nebraska . . . just like I did yesterday.

 

Sunshine pumping doesn't make you a better fan.

[kyle sibert]

I'm optimistic that cotton will be fired after the season. As for our team....we are championship caliber on defense and kicking. Again. But worse on offense than last yr. Oline is awful. Saying we were simple is dumb. We couldn't push...block...or execute while being super simple ...that means we will look worse when we get more complex. Wrs can't catch and rbs are helpless without an oline. Expect to win 9 games but nothing more.

 

Offense looks worse than last year? OH. Really? Wow. We scored 40 points. 40. Yea it was Chattanooga, and FCS opponent. How did our offense fair against the FCS South Dakota State last year, when you said the offense was better? 17. 17 points with an offense that had a few games behind it already. This was the first game ever for some of the oline. That statement was just idiotic.

[Enhance]

I really have no overwhelming complaints about the offense yesterday. We still got 40 points despite not getting it in the most overpowering of fashions. I'm extremely happy about this. It's better than a 17-3 showing we put out last year against an FCS team.

 

My argument for this thread is that we need to get rid of this concept of secrecy and basics. This year I can let it slide, because we have nowhere near the experience nor the depth more complete offensive teams across the nation have (like Oregon or OU). However, every year Watson was here we had to tweak the offense drastically because players didn't perform, and his secrecy in regards to not telling anyone anything and "keeping things basic" every year ended up not helping us when we needed it. Not giving away information before the season became a staple of his coaching, and I got sick of it. After the next two weeks most of our offense will have been put on full display.

 

Now, I can deal with this offense displaying the basics because of it's youth. But the secrecy eventually just needs to be kicked out the door.

 

Give the offense time, but don't keep the training wheels on year after year like Watson did.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Don't know which I would rather have, an offensive line that lets running backs get up-field but consistently gets called for holding, or an offensive line that doesn't get called for holding, lets the ground game work for some big and intermediate plays, and also doesn't get called for holding once.

 

Maybe they (OLine coaches) are trying to teach the guys how to block without holding, and if they didn't hold at all, well then that's at least a small victory.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Double Post. Stupid UNL interwebs

[Husker_x]

It's not pessimism.

 

It's the fact that the offense we saw yesterday, wasn't that much difference from what we saw in the beginning of last year. Granted, it is the first game, and the whole offensive scheme is still a work in progress, due to the fact that yesterday was the first real practical application of what we've been hearing about.

 

So not pessimism, but more careful skepticism.

 

+1.

 

Also, we have seen a trend over the last few years where our offense looks decent/good at the beginning of the year and steadily worsens over the course of the season. Hopefully that changes with a new offensive coordinator. If not . . . I shudder to think of what our offense will look like after it regresses from what we saw yesterday.

 

Carlfense, that's the whole point. The argument is not what did/should our offense have done last night. The question is, what is it going to be like as the season progresses? Nothing else matters. The MO under Watson was start fast and deteriorate, sometimes peppered with a solid enough performance (Holiday Bowl) to keep optimism flickeringly alive. Beck's true test––his only test––is can he produce an offense this year that IMPROVES to the point where we can hang 21-28 points on a Wisconsin, an Ohio State, a Penn State. If yes, he'll be our guy. If not, Bo's seat starts to get hot, and deservedly.