Nebraska's Edge: When and where did we lose it?

[The Duke]

Throughout college football history Nebraska football has been known for players playing with a fire, a toughness, a physical edge that many other teams in the country had a hard time duplicating.

 

Our ball carriers would never run out of bounds, hook slide, or go down on the first hit. They would do everything they could to gain EVERY...SINGLE...YARD that they possibly could for their team.

 

Our defenses used to be known for playing with their hair on fire, and they would would out muscle teams for 4 straight quarters, and would have the opposing offense begging for mercy by the 3rd quarter.

 

I could go on, but to digress.....

 

 

THE QUESTIONS:

1) Where has Nebraska's Edge (physical toughness/want to) gone?

 

2) How does Nebraska get it back?

[Jeremy]

11/23/01 We were relevant before this game. Haven't been since. Don't know if we'll be 'back' in my lifetime.

[CheeseHusker]

Whenever we lost it in the trenches.

 

 

Somewhere along the way, our #1 focus changed, from owning line of scrimmage to becoming something else.

 

Bob and Tom would have never stood for a 95th ranked rushing defense pushing around our lineman like that.

[Enhance]

College football is cyclical and that's a fact. I think Nebraska has the pieces in place to be successful, and I think this is just being over-dramatic.

 

Sometimes I think fans remember the 90's far better than they do the years before it. Obviously, the 90's are a lot fresher in our minds, but Nebraska lost games like this in the past. They've lost games they shouldn't. What happened? They bounced back.

 

I thought Nebraska played one of it's most physical, hard-hitting games in Pelini's era against MSU. We had a let down this week, but I see absolutely no overwhelming evidence to suggest we're still not fighting and still working towards being one of the best teams in the country.

 

This offense is young, we replaced a lot of coaches and our defense is thin/inexperienced at many positions that require us to be dominant. Again, I see no reason to suggest that anything is wrong right now with this program.

[The Snork]

Jan 3 1998 ... the day after Tom Osbourne's last game. Now I like Bo, In fact I like Bo better than Tom. But Tom had a way of getting his players to play for him at levels you wouldn't think possible. You see some inkling of that since Bo returned. I guess we all should remember that Osbourne's early years weren't the greatest ... he was THISCLOSE to being fired.

[WYHusk]

11/23/01 We were relevant before this game. Haven't been since. Don't know if we'll be 'back' in my lifetime.

That's about right.

[CheeseHusker]

I'll add this: home field. When did we lose our swagger playing on our own turf?

 

One team absolutely owns us on our home field every year.

[lo country]

Colorado. The world saw we had lost the ability to own the trenches. When we decided that the option was dead and you couldn't win with it. When we decided to go WCO and then decided to be a spread and then a zone read and then an option and then power and then a multiple O and then run some pocket WCO mixed in with the pistol and shotgun.

 

We haven't had an identity in at least 8-9 yrs. How can you recruit a road grader O lineman and he sees us throwing the ball from the pocket, or a pass blocking behemoth who sees us running the option or the 5* WR who sees us run the ball 50 times in a game.

 

Until we decide what we want to be, accept that losses will come until to get that identity and that changing from game to game or personnel to personnel will not get us where we want to be (continually playing for the B1G and MNC) or the players that we need.

[Enhance]

I'll add this: home field. When did we lose our swagger playing on our own turf?

 

One team absolutely owns us on our home field every year.

Northwestern didn't own us today - far from it. Owning us would be what Texas did to us last year, or what Missouri did to us in 2008. This team did good and bad things down the stretch, but there was fight there at times, especially on offense. Do you think a Watson coached offense would have been capable of any of that today? That could have easily been a 28-10 loss with Watson imho.

 

Jan 3 1998 ... the day after Tom Osbourne's last game. Now I like Bo, In fact I like Bo better than Tom. But Tom had a way of getting his players to play for him at levels you wouldn't think possible. You see some inkling of that since Bo returned. I guess we all should remember that Osbourne's early years weren't the greatest ... he was THISCLOSE to being fired.

This brings up a good point. We so easily forget that Osborne had many tough games and many years where fans wanted him gone. We hung onto him and he really put us on a pedestal in college football.

[JTrain]

It's been gone since the Holy Trinity broke up: Osborne, Epley, McBride. Throw in Tenopir for good measure.

[I am I]

...don't get too nostalgic. Our old FBs and some of our RBs would dish out during games. Occasionally Tommie would lower his head to set the tone, but it's not like guys died on the field exhausted and spent.

 

the game has changed. there aren't many QBs not running out of bounds and RBs dodging tacklers nowadays.

players aren't 263 lbs anymore, they're 298 and they are fast and nasty. Rex dishes it out, and i see our linemen pancaking people occasionally, but i don't really see ANY team pound it like teams routinely did back in the 60's-90's.

 

now on Defense? that's where i'm a bit mystified this yr.

we've a MEAN streak on D since pelini came but this year (maybe due to youth?) we aren't swarming and tackling as well.

 

although we knocked a few of their players out of games this yr (Miller, Persa, etc..)

[Treand3]

You can't put a day on when the program started to loose is swagger. I believe it was a gradual decline during Solich's regime. There was so much talent left over from Osborne's days that it masked any foreshadowed issues on the horizon. Solich was a good coach but could not recruit to save his life nor did he have the staff to help. Then Pedersen changes the whole culture of program and tries to make us a USC like program and bring in a coach that didn't fully understand what it took to coach at NU. This might have worked if the local talent was better like the two teams that are playing on CBS right now (not fair but it is what it is). IMO what NU needs is continuity, can't be successful without it and can't afford to make wholesale changes when there are at best 4-5 D1 prospects on a yearly basis as alluded to earlier. Today was a definite set back but only a small one in the big picture.

[AFhusker]

It's been gone since the Holy Trinity broke up: Osborne, Epley, McBride. Throw in Tenopir for good measure.

 

Bingo!!!!!

[AFhusker]

You can't put a day on when the program started to loose is swagger. I believe it was a gradual decline during Solich's regime. There was so much talent left over from Osborne's days that it masked any foreshadowed issues on the horizon. Solich was a good coach but could not recruit to save his life nor did he have the staff to help. Then Pedersen changes the whole culture of program and tries to make us a USC like program and bring in a coach that didn't fully understand what it took to coach at NU. This might have worked if the local talent was better like the two teams that are playing on CBS right now (not fair but it is what it is). IMO what NU needs is continuity, can't be successful without it and can't afford to make wholesale changes when there are at best 4-5 D1 prospects on a yearly basis as alluded to earlier. Today was a definite set back but only a small one in the big picture.

 

This may be the best post of the day. It was a combo of everything above. I just wished that I had the same positive outlook that you do. Maybe it's the 13 years without a conference title that's doing it to me.

[HuskerBCS]

Colorado. The world saw we had lost the ability to own the trenches. When we decided that the option was dead and you couldn't win with it. When we decided to go WCO and then decided to be a spread and then a zone read and then an option and then power and then a multiple O and then run some pocket WCO mixed in with the pistol and shotgun.

 

HA....Ive been trying to tell people this for a LONG time...Ive never been able to say it quite as well though.

 

+10000000

 

The day Nebraska goes back to its roots and reestablishes its identity of a power running team is the day we will be back on the road to the National Championship. We have to go back to getting the big bad Nebraska o-line recruits and the guys who bleed Husker Red before we will be back. Im afraid that this will never happen though because people think the game has evolved so much and you have to be so many different things in order to be successful.