You play like you practice.

[junior4949]

I think it's more complicated than tuition and in state talent, it's a lot of different things rolled into one. But there's no denying Nebraska does lack talent purely from a numbers stand point, when you live in a state with less than 2 million people you're not going to have as many talented athletes as states with populations 4, 5, or 10 times as large. Kids in Nebraska just seem to be smaller and less developed for whatever reason, probably back to the numbers thing again, but that's a major thing I've noticed watching football in Lincoln, Northeastern and South western/central Nebraska. We get a couple of good prospects a year here but when you live in Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Florida you have several excellent prospects to choose from every year and a plethora of good ones.

 

That's been the case for decades. Nebraska has never been a recruiting hotbed. The original point was comparing back in 97' and the amount of Nebraska kids playing versus today. Nebraska's population compared to those you listed as a percentage hasn't changed much if any in the past 15 years. The little talent we do have in-state aren't walking on at UNL like they did 15 years ago. If you get down to it, it typically comes back to cost. Why pay to play when one can go to a smaller school and get paid to play?

[ZRod]

Well I just did a quick glance at the rosters from 97 and today and you're right there were more kids from Nebraska, but it's also a bigger roster. I still think it's a little more complicated than tuition although that is a good point I hadn't thought of before. I think the walkon program its self has suffered with the decline of the program and is starting to get it's legs under it again.

[Glendower]

Why can't mental mistakes be corrected in practice? Why are people talking about "mental mistakes" as though they're mutually exclusive with the sort of mistakes you correct in practice? That's ridiculous.

[Caine Mutiny]

You mean those same Miami and Florida State players that just got done thrashing the us in the bowl game? There was a long stretch in there where we got dominated by those teams where the margin of defeat really wasn't even close. Or, are you cherry picking here and only including the stretch from 93'-97'?

Yes I am cherry picking, and specifically there, and thats why I did. Because? in those earlier years, we didnt have a great defense, we never had the defense to allow our the physical side of our offense to lean on M's, FSU defense.. It was always 3 and punt, for our offense, when we played Miami or FSU... Which meant there was not alot of time for Miami's or FSU's defense to feel the total weight of Nebraska's offense.. Because The physical side of Nebraska's offense never changed much from the early 80s to the mid 90s. The biggest thing that changed was the defense.. Because it flipped the whole thing on its side.... Instead of our defense getting wore out, It was their defense that had to stand in there, and to take it. (the physical side of Nebraska's offense)

 

Today? N's defense can always hang in there, for a few drives. But yet? To me, it just looks like Nebraska's D wears down. This is the area, why I think our offense fails, because its does not inflict or lacks the ability to inflict fatigue, or bruiseings to the opposing defense. Last week It did however wear out Northwestern's defense. This will not always be the case for Nebraska's offense....Because how many teams do we face, are as little as Northwestern?..

[DrunkOffPunch]

I think the play like you practice thing is a little overrated. You can't create a game atmosphere in practice. Simply said when it's game time adrenaline and instincts take over. With that said the penalties and fumbles are a complete lack of concentration and while they can be fixed in practices, the fact is they may not be a problem in practices so how are they supposed to fix this? More intense practices may help, or might not.

[Caine Mutiny]

that term is not over-rated.... The mistakes they had last week were mostly mental. But? alot of fumbles that happened previously were by Taylor Martinez. And in Martinez's defense. There would be no way you could have a real physical practice with him...... Lose him, and who steps up to the plate after him? There is no one behind him that is as good. And thats part of the problem with this offense.. Tim Beck has got to get more people involved.by haveing some type of power run game.

[DrunkOffPunch]

that term is not over-rated.... The mistakes they had last week were mostly mental. But? alot of fumbles that happened previously were by Taylor Martinez. And in Martinez's defense. There would be no way you could have a real physical practice with him...... Lose him, and who steps up to the plate after him? There is no one behind him that is as good. And thats part of the problem with this offense.. Tim Beck has got to get more people involved.by haveing some type of power run game.

I agree with the statement you made about Tim Beck. We have a lot of threats on offense and they aren't used as often as they should be, but the term you play like you practice is overrated. Most colleges (I assume UNL to be one of them) don't tackle to the ground when they scrimmage to prevent injuries. That means the offensive players don't receive the contact they do during a game and the defensive players don't get offensive players that try to break tackles.

[Caine Mutiny]

that term is not over-rated.... The mistakes they had last week were mostly mental. But? alot of fumbles that happened previously were by Taylor Martinez. And in Martinez's defense. There would be no way you could have a real physical practice with him...... Lose him, and who steps up to the plate after him? There is no one behind him that is as good. And thats part of the problem with this offense.. Tim Beck has got to get more people involved.by haveing some type of power run game.

I agree with the statement you made about Tim Beck. We have a lot of threats on offense and they aren't used as often as they should be, but the term you play like you practice is overrated. Most colleges (I assume UNL to be one of them) don't tackle to the ground when they scrimmage to prevent injuries. That means the offensive players don't receive the contact they do during a game and the defensive players don't get offensive players that try to break tackles.

Thats exactly the entire point, And in my mind why we look soft on both sides of the ball.

[NUance]

Thats exactly the entire point, And in my mind why we look soft on both sides of the ball.

Are you saying we should practice full contact, full speed all the time? To toughen ourselves up?

[Caine Mutiny]

Thats exactly the entire point, And in my mind why we look soft on both sides of the ball.

Are you saying we should practice full contact, full speed all the time? To toughen ourselves up?

NO, not at all, You could never practice full speed with full contact all week.... Your goal is to keep both sides tempered.(offense and defense) Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be the best time.. then taper off as the game draws near.. Teams that do this, dont feel the little dings that happen during the game, because their bodies are more used to it... You could never do it full time, because you would burn them out before games...

[The Dude]

I remember Jason Peter saying that back in the good ol' days they'd set aside about 10-15 minutes at the end of practice for 1s vs 1s, full speed.

[Caine Mutiny]

Do you remember when Bill Callahan, and Nebraska played USC in Lincoln? That team (Neb) was perhaps the softest team that ever played . It showed too. USC ran through our line,(D line) and it looked like we were this years Colorado team....... Later on it was discovered that Bill's practices were never physical, because he removed that aspect of the game from practice. Dave Remington asked Bill why he did this..... I think he said, he didnt want to risk losing players in practice. He compared it to a professional team's roster. (This came from a guy that elliminated the walk on program) And thats why Nebraska was so physical during Osbornes years. Because they could be, because the walk ons were always there...

[billdozer15]

First, let me start by saying great win agianst Mich. I thought we were going to get dump trucked and might have if shoelaces arm didn't go dead. But the sloppyness continues. We more than doubled penalties and yards of the other team. We had 104 yds in penalties that easily cost us 10 pts. Add on another two turnovers and your looking at at least another 7. Bo cost us 15 yds himself. How does Bo ever expect to get this team to the next level if he can't even avoid making stupid mistakes? The mistakes made last night if made against a top opponent would have flipped that game into a blowout in the wrong direction.

 

I'm about ready to delete the graveyard in the signature and replace it with Bo Pelinis sloppiest games and list turnovers and penalty yards with the final scores of those games. Unfortunately I don't think the mods will allow for a sig that long.

[BigRedBuster]

I'm not concerned about penalties in thus game. Many of them were total bs especially some pi penalties.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

First, let me start by saying great win agianst Mich. I thought we were going to get dump trucked and might have if shoelaces arm didn't go dead. But the sloppyness continues. We more than doubled penalties and yards of the other team. We had 104 yds in penalties that easily cost us 10 pts. Add on another two turnovers and your looking at at least another 7. Bo cost us 15 yds himself. How does Bo ever expect to get this team to the next level if he can't even avoid making stupid mistakes? The mistakes made last night if made against a top opponent would have flipped that game into a blowout in the wrong direction.

 

I'm about ready to delete the graveyard in the signature and replace it with Bo Pelinis sloppiest games and list turnovers and penalty yards with the final scores of those games. Unfortunately I don't think the mods will allow for a sig that long.

 

You've got to be kidding me with the penalties and the turnovers complaint.

 

There were 8 penalties called on us...and I'll run down the legitimacy of them right now:

 

1) Chop Block--15 yards--questionable at best

2) Targeting a defenseless receiver--15 yards--questionable at best; Michigan's WR doesn't put his head down, PJ hits him square in the shoulder. Like I was saying while I was at the game, the WRs head was there after PJ jumped to tackle, what more could he have done? But I suppose that's just poor discipline.

 

3) Defensive holding--15 yards--about the only good call made by that crew.

4) There's another 15 yarder in their that I can't remember, but was probably legitimate.

5) Targeting a defenseless receiver--15 yards--VERY questionable at best. Mitchell leads with his shoulder, and hits the receiver in the SHOULDER. So unless you played football with your helmet on your shoulder, that wasn't targeting.

 

6) Unsportsmanlike--15 yards--Again, only the product of an unbelievably bad targeting call, which was the second in the game. I think the refs had sand in their vulvas, "wha, wha, Bo Pelini yelled at me! WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

 

7) Illegal procedure--0 yards--Oops.

8) Defensive Pass Interference--15 yards--Another awful call. He didn't at all interfere with the receiver's ability to catch the ball. He touched his arm, and that was it...

 

So really, I agree with the chop block, defensive holding, and the illegal procedure...3 penalties, 30 yards.

 

And now the turnovers:

 

1) Taylor fumbled the ball after getting crunched into by a 300 pound linemen, let me know if you could hold onto the football while that happens.

2) Taylor threw the ball to a receiver who has open, and the LB made a great play to tip the ball. If you think that INT was on Taylor or even the coaching staff, then you are mistaken.

 

There's a difference between bad turnovers (aka Northwestern) and acceptable turnovers. Both of these are acceptable. Weren't sloppy at all.

 

But I suppose some people aren't happy unless we have 0 turnovers or 0 penalties every game of the year. Anything else, and we're undisciplined.