Manufactured Controversy?

[Nebula]

We wanted it more in the "Game of the Century" and it meant a National Championship! How about the Ohio State Game last year? Once we found out we could play harder and wanted it more, it happened. We lost the bowl game last year because we did not play with the passion and want to get the job done. Northwestern game was the same out come. We lost the Texas game for the conference championship because some fool on the clock screwed up. The reason YOU can't prove it is because you do not understand it. If you are getting your ass pushed around all up and down the field, you do not have enough want to play the game and win. L. David played hard with passion every play. Baker Steinkuhler dogged it half of the time.

 

As I said, don't bother checking out any uniform items for my team. You will not be playing.

Braxton Miller's leg says hello.

 

But, just so I get this straight, we won the "Game of the Century" because we wanted it more, but we lost to Texas because of human error with the game clock? (They had an extra second. I live and die with Nebraska football, and I'm objective enough to know that there was a second left. You want to blame that loss on someone, put it on the entire O or on Kunalic. Maybe they didn't "want it" enough.)

 

Your logic makes no sense. Not least of all because Baker actually had a pretty damn good year last season.

[Hunter94]

We wanted it more in the "Game of the Century" and it meant a National Championship! How about the Ohio State Game last year? Once we found out we could play harder and wanted it more, it happened. We lost the bowl game last year because we did not play with the passion and want to get the job done. Northwestern game was the same out come. We lost the Texas game for the conference championship because some fool on the clock screwed up. The reason YOU can't prove it is because you do not understand it. If you are getting your ass pushed around all up and down the field, you do not have enough want to play the game and win. L. David played hard with passion every play. Baker Steinkuhler dogged it half of the time.

 

As I said, don't bother checking out any uniform items for my team. You will not be playing.

Braxton Miller's leg says hello.

 

But, just so I get this straight, we won the "Game of the Century" because we wanted it more, but we lost to Texas because of human error with the game clock? (They had an extra second. I live and die with Nebraska football, and I'm objective enough to know that there was a second left. You want to blame that loss on someone, put it on the entire O or on Kunalic. Maybe they didn't "want it" enough.)

 

Your logic makes no sense. Not least of all because Baker actually had a pretty damn good year last season.

 

while i pretty much agree, BS sure ain't as good as his old man, not even close.

[Goal-line]

We wanted it more in the "Game of the Century" and it meant a National Championship! How about the Ohio State Game last year? Once we found out we could play harder and wanted it more, it happened. We lost the bowl game last year because we did not play with the passion and want to get the job done. Northwestern game was the same out come. We lost the Texas game for the conference championship because some fool on the clock screwed up. The reason YOU can't prove it is because you do not understand it. If you are getting your ass pushed around all up and down the field, you do not have enough want to play the game and win. L. David played hard with passion every play. Baker Steinkuhler dogged it half of the time.

 

As I said, don't bother checking out any uniform items for my team. You will not be playing.

Braxton Miller's leg says hello.

 

But, just so I get this straight, we won the "Game of the Century" because we wanted it more, but we lost to Texas because of human error with the game clock? (They had an extra second. I live and die with Nebraska football, and I'm objective enough to know that there was a second left. You want to blame that loss on someone, put it on the entire O or on Kunalic. Maybe they didn't "want it" enough.)

 

Your logic makes no sense. Not least of all because Baker actually had a pretty damn good year last season.

 

You can't be serious! He made some plays, was very inconsistant and could not be depended upon in a difficult situation. His problem is that he gets out of position and cannot recover. Not good for any lineman, on either side of the ball.

 

As far as the clock thing goes, that second left at the end could have passed by anywhere during the game. It is highly subjective.

 

And, with regard to Miller's leg, you bring your team and we will bring ours. Who ever plays hardest and holds up at the end ======wins! When he got hurt, we turned on the gas to a new level.

 

Too many things get caught up in technique and scheme. When it comes right down to the crux of the matter, your desire and will win out. Rex Burkhead is not the most talented back in the country, but what he provides by his example is playing hard, with a passion to succeed. It is why he is successful. End of conversation!

[Nebula]

while i pretty much agree, BS sure ain't as good as his old man, not even close.

Yeah, but that's a tough act to follow for the kid. Dean is one of the all-time great linemen in the history of CFB.

 

Plus, OL may have been the more natural position for Baker, but we needed him on the defensive side of the ball.

[knapplc]

I never said "want to" was the only factor in a game. It plays its part, that's all I'm saying. Pretending it doesn't leaves out part of the equation (to use Enhance's line).

 

We have many things to work on this year. Fundamentals. Toughness. Attitude. Aggression. Learning the playbook. Wanting it. Getting it. Beyond all that, we need some lucky breaks (anyone remember the last play of the KU game in 1993?).

 

Wanting it is part of it. However you want to define it, however you want to label it, whatever connotation you want to put on it. Call it intangibles, call it whatever. It has to be there. Any sports psychologist will tell you that.

[Nebula]

Braxton Miller's leg says hello.

 

But, just so I get this straight, we won the "Game of the Century" because we wanted it more, but we lost to Texas because of human error with the game clock? (They had an extra second. I live and die with Nebraska football, and I'm objective enough to know that there was a second left. You want to blame that loss on someone, put it on the entire O or on Kunalic. Maybe they didn't "want it" enough.)

 

Your logic makes no sense. Not least of all because Baker actually had a pretty damn good year last season.

 

You can't be serious! He made some plays, was very inconsistant and could not be depended upon in a difficult situation. His problem is that he gets out of position and cannot recover. Not good for any lineman, on either side of the ball.

 

As far as the clock thing goes, that second left at the end could have passed by anywhere during the game. It is highly subjective.

 

And, with regard to Miller's leg, you bring your team and we will bring ours. Who ever plays hardest and holds up at the end ======wins! When he got hurt, we turned on the gas to a new level.

 

Too many things get caught up in technique and scheme. When it comes right down to the crux of the matter, your desire and will win out. End of conversation!

I have a girl's name as it turns out, but it is not Shirley. (Yes, I am serious )

 

Baker had a good year, while the rest of the D line struggled. When your other three (or two, if you play a 3-4) mates on the line aren't getting penetration the O can afford to single up on the others and focus on the guy causing problems. Baker was not Suh last year, I won't argue that. But at a position that (imo...redundant) underperformed pretty significantly last year, Baker played well. I think re-watching last year and focusing on his play will verify that. If the rest of the line had played at the same level as he did, we would have gotten off the field on 3rd down far more often and been in the backfield for TFL on running plays and pressure on the QB on passing plays far more regularly.

 

Seconds throughout that CCG were subjective, but on that last play it wasn't. The ball clearly hit the ground with one second left. I would have dropped a cinder block on my big toe to have had that not be the case, but unfortunately, it is what it is. Video bore it out. One second was on the clock when the ball hit the ground. Whether or not some run in the 2nd quarter had an additional second leak off the clock is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

And if you seriously can't acknowledge that Miller getting hurt wasn't the single most consequential event in that game then this really should be the end of conversation. And before you say it, yeah, David stripped the ball. And then Miller started killing us with his legs all over again immediately, until he got hurt. After which Fickell made the inexplicable decision to go pass heavy with a cold Bauserman, who was clearly off. Maybe chalk that up to a first year HC making ill-informed strategic decisions, which, obviously, has nothing to do with player passion. That's a coaching inexperience issue, coupled with a crucial Jean-Baptiste pick and big plays from Superman along with sharp field generalship out of Martinez.

[tschu]

Intangibles can be important for sure. They can separate great teams from very good teams. But the things that determine the outcome of a game are more often speed, strength, ability, and execution. We didn't finish 3rd in the Legends last year because we didn't want it enough though - we finished 3rd in the Legends because we just didn't have the ability level of a national championship team.

 

I hate to beat a dead horse but wanting to win more doesnt even necessarily translate into playing better. That's where knapp's sports psychologists come into play. There has to be a way to mentally try to guide your desire to win into increased focus and performance.

 

I should also talk about a little thing called variance. Say that team A is a touchdown favorite on a neutral field over team B. That doesn't mean that team A will win by 7 points every time. That doesn't even mean that Team A will win every time...they might only win 70% of the time or something. Football being a sport that heavily incorporates randomness.

 

However, I will say that having great attitudes, team leadership, a will to win, etc can only help. I won't go so far as to blame any loss on these things, but I'd much rather have a team with drive, an upbeat attitude, and good chemistry than one without. I can agree with JP on that.

[Chaddyboxer]

I never said "want to" was the only factor in a game. It plays its part, that's all I'm saying. Pretending it doesn't leaves out part of the equation (to use Enhance's line).

 

We have many things to work on this year. Fundamentals. Toughness. Attitude. Aggression. Learning the playbook. Wanting it. Getting it. Beyond all that, we need some lucky breaks (anyone remember the last play of the KU game in 1993?).

 

Wanting it is part of it. However you want to define it, however you want to label it, whatever connotation you want to put on it. Call it intangibles, call it whatever. It has to be there. Any sports psychologist will tell you that.

We can discuss "want to" all we want, but I feel a greater factor, which we can all probably agree upon, is execution and what is bolded above. Each team plays their asses off (and at times both teams can be highly focused), but sometimes as subjective as it sounds, LUCK, can play a big part in how a team wins a game. One "lucky" play can seal a game for a team....or "unlucky" for that matter. Here's some "unlucky" examples in Husker history: Burkheads dropped pass against Texas in 2010. Kunalics crappy kick in the 2009 championship game, South carolina's hail mary touchdown at the end of the first half. Those "unlucky" or lack of execution plays as you want to call them, play a pivotal role in whether a team wins a game or even how they play the rest of the game. One play can change a game (for the postive or negative)....we've all seen it happen 1 time or another. Now, you can call it luck, unlucky, or execution/lack there-of. One play that isn't in the Huskers favor can somehow (now here's the mental aspect of it) drop the focus and/or "fire" so to speak from the team. I believe two aspects of a game highly dictate whether you win or lose: execution and luck. It's those plays when a player is at the right place, right time, etc. that can really make or break a game. Just my two cents...this is a crazy semantic/highly intangible topic that we are laying our opinions on lol. whew...

[Enhance]

This is the single most epicly DUMB thread I have ever read in a forum. It's gone off topic so much it is unrecognizeable. Not to mention, there are so many armchair QB's and coaches in this thread it makes me want tob kick every single one of you in the balls....especially those of you debating 'wanting it more'. God, what an incredible waste of time.

Says the guy who then comments in "the single most epicly DUMB thread" ever. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

 

If you don't like the thread, nobody is forcing you to read or type in it. Thread derailing doesn't hold a candle to pretentious, holier-than-thou posts.

[BigRedTheory]

I'm not a hater...just a little tired of Bo's "grumpy gus" act, wish he would appear to happy just to have practice starting. I know it doesn't matter, the last thing I want for the Huskers is a salesman instead of a coach.

 

saunders45 you are right, I watched it again with better camera and audio and he was fine, normal Bo reaction, it's probably just that Sean Callahan looks scared to death when he asks a question

 

Listen man, I mean no disrespect, but I doubt you have ever been a coach. I can tell you when I have had to answer some media questions after a practice that either didn't go the way I wanted or was low on energy or had to chew the team for something, I have trouble putting on that happy face...and I'm a high school basketball coach.

 

Imagine that at Nebraska with 25 reporters asking stupid questions, I would struggle. I am actually amazed he does as well as he does. You should see how Stoops and Saban treat the media. Bo is fine.

 

As far as Jason Peter, he is a defensive tackle who smashed his head for a living, had trouble with drugs, then wrote a memoir about it, and now some are surprised he has lower than average intelligence and is an attention whore?? Sounds about right to me.

 

No disrespect taken In the Deed the Glory. I have coached, but only at the middle school level - it was like herding cats, but it is almost the family business, my brother has coached high school and college soccer, track and field, football and even basketball from New Mexico to New England and my nephew is an accomplished HS b-ball coach back east.

 

I have had many different coaches throughout my youth, ranging from a NY State Hall of Fame basketball coach to a dick of a freshman football coach who thought it was appropriate to make me kneel down in front of the whole team and have him kick me in the facemask to get me to put my head into blocks to playing on Frank Solich's last team at Southeast. I appreciate the great coaches out there (like Frank) and know how hard the job is and you are right about Saban and Stoops, but reporters are doing a job too and no matter how stupid their questions are, deserve some respect (Frank has gotten pretty good at the fake smile at the stupid question.)

 

Us Husker fanatics are dying for any info we can get and since practices are closed to the public (unlike NFL pre-season) the reporters are the only ones who can supply our fix. To pretend that the public doesn't deserve information on how practice is going, that is a tact that many coaches like to take, but who is paying their multi-million dollar salaries?

 

This will be my once a year whine, so no worries, you won't hear about this from me again.

[bshirt]

I'm still looking for an alternative explanation for why superior teams lose to inferior teams, or at least greatly struggle with them, if "wanted it more" is a non-starter. If this concept doesn't exist, how does a team with a losing record, having a crap year, beat a team going to their conference's championship game?

Because sometimes teams just play badly? There are a million different variables that affect the outcome of a football game.

 

Exactly.

 

Such as because footballs take unpredictable bounces.....duh. Turnovers, luck with the refs, injuries, match up problems....it goes on forever. That's why it's not that unusual.

[knapplc]

Right. But "just play badly" is the What. We're talking about the Why. In the case of 2010 Texas, we were flat. We were the better team and we botched it. The why of that botched game is what we're discussing.

 

Games are lost for a myriad of reasons. I'm simply saying that one of those reasons is tied to something mental. Again, we can use whatever term is palatable to define that mental thing, but the bottom line is, that mental thing has cropped up for this team throughout Bo's tenure. Saying this, and saying it needs to be fixed, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

[zoogs]

tschu, I think you and knapplc are pretty much getting at the same concern. I would agree with you that it wasn't that we half-assed it. Instead, the team (coaches - players - everybody) was wound up too tight that day and it affected them (that psychological component knapplc was talking about). That being wound up too tight mentality, is, I think, what's been behind the volatility of the team lately.

 

The us against the world mentality fuels some great efforts but sometimes you get all pent up and can't just let loose and play when you need to. I think to an extent we've been buried too much in that mentality in recent years, and maybe it's something that the team is able to embrace more as the culture sets in over time, or maybe it's a case where a slightly different approach is needed in order to keep a better beat on the team, week-to-week.

[Count 'Bility]

This may be the dumbest argument in the history of message boards. Isnt there some sort of hall for things like this?

[knapplc]

Argument? I don't think we're arguing. I'm not arguing. Just discussing.

 

Boredom, anticipation for the season just around the corner and some visible signs of flaws in the program breed these kinds of conversations.

 

I mean... what else are we going to talk about? I think we're all open to suggestions.