Stuck in the middle

[husker_99]

The multiple blowout losses is what Bo really needs to stop otherwise i don't think even winning 9 games every year will save him from that. He has shown we don't need to have multiple blowout losses. If he did that this year atleast i'd be happy with it even if we went 9-3.

We finish the season at 9-3, we might have problems (where's the bowl game in your equation ) 3 conference losses next year would be unacceptable in my opinion.

I can live with the fact taking baby steps to correct his mistakes. Atleast just fix 1 or 2 issues. We should be loaded this year and everyone has experience. Yes i do think 9-3 would be the worst to expect. anything lower and we got problems.

[The Dude]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

[skersfan]

I am not sure about loaded. The Oline seems to be a concern. I know we have some experience, but loaded there for me is a stretch. Normally your offense is only as good as the Oline lets it be.

[Excel]

Well yea I think I see where you're coming from and agree with you there. An 11-1 or 10-2 regular season and second place West finish without a blowout loss would be acceptable I guess. Anything less than that and....I don't know. But the West being what it is there is no good reason for NU to ever finish below second barring catastrophic injuries.

Like this year

I believe the NU/WI game is going to be the decision maker. With it being at Camp Randall, its a little more in your guys' favor, but you guys have a lot of question marks in multiple positions. Right now, its hard to say who is going to finish where. When conference play starts, we all should have a better idea. With the talent Iowa lost, they are easily the biggest concern in our division.

 

I agree in thinking that it will come down to Nebraska-Wisconsin or even to those last three weeks in which we get a round robin of Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin games. I don't know what's going on with you guys outside of your skill position players but returning Amer and giving Armstrong the time you did last year should put you in a solid place offensively.

 

What might hurt us is our defense and all the losses on that side. Last year I feel like our biggest weakness was the young secondary but all of those kids are coming back and will be more experienced. The losses on our front seven will hurt though. Six were seniors and are leaving but four of them are being replaced by rising Seniors who have a decent amount of experience so we should be ok (until 2015 at least) and should only have to really worry about replacing one DE, one LB and seeing who snags our SS spot away from Tanner McEvoy who should be returning to QB. A lot has been said, and should be said, about our losing Borland but he will be replaced by SR Marcus Trotter who I expect to do extremely well at the position and anchor the defense much like Borland did. Trotter started our Iowa game last year in place of an injured Borland and did very well: 9 tackles, 1.5 TFL and a fumble recovery.

 

Add to all of that the fact that Andersen is a defensive guy. In 2009 Utah State had the 118th worst defense in the NCAA, they allowed 34 ppg and 455.1 ypg. When Andersen left in 2012 Utah State had the 15th best defense when ranked by ypg (322.7) and had the #8 total defense in ppg at 15.5. He did the same thing as DC at Utah when he brought the Utes from a #66 defense to #18. Dude has a mind for defense and we have plenty of time to work things out. That LSU game should test us early but the rest of the schedule is relatively light work until November. What should play in to Nebraska's favor is that while yes, UW-NU is at Randall this year, it is also in November so that means it is not a night game and that should make it easier.

 

I still wouldn't completely rule Iowa out of the West. They're losing half their Defense and a chunk of their OL but return their skill position guys and have a favorable schedule, especially with home games against the Badgers and Huskers.

 

I want Wisconsin to win the West. I will be unhappy but I'll live with Nebraska winning. I'll puke if Iowa or god forbid Minnesota wins it.

[Mavric]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

[The Dude]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

[True2tRA]

Undefeated in moral victories.

[Excel]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

 

Tell me about it. In 2012 we were 19 points away from an undefeated regular season (four losses by a FG) and 25 points away from a completely undefeated season but we went 8-6...caught zero breaks. Same deal in 2010...ten points away from an undefeated regular season.

[HuskerNationNick]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

It was a statement more-so saying how close we are to great things, if we didn't step in our own way, but obviously you have to take things a different direction. Sway one thing positive into a negative. Until the next post I guess....

[It'sNotAFakeID]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

 

If we're not accepting moral victories, we shouldn't accept "moral defeats", either. Take it for what it is, we went 9-4 last year, losing by 20 to UCLA, 13 to Michigan State, 11 to Minnesota, and 21 to Iowa. In comparison to what we could've done, with what we had returning, it wasn't the best. We won our bowl game with our mostly younger roster, which is a positive sign. We haven't fallen over the edge, and we have a somewhat cushy schedule next year.

[husker_99]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

 

we have a somewhat cushy schedule next year.

last year's is weaker than this year's.

[Count 'Bility]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

That's football today. A play here. A play there swings a game. A win's a win. A loss is a loss.

[The Dude]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

 

If we're not accepting moral victories, we shouldn't accept "moral defeats", either. Take it for what it is, we went 9-4 last year, losing by 20 to UCLA, 13 to Michigan State, 11 to Minnesota, and 21 to Iowa. In comparison to what we could've done, with what we had returning, it wasn't the best. We won our bowl game with our mostly younger roster, which is a positive sign. We haven't fallen over the edge, and we have a somewhat cushy schedule next year.

That's kind of my point. If we're going to play that game, though, you have to look at the other side of the coin.

 

Playing that game, it's an unfortunately truth we were much, much closer to 4-8 than 12-0.

[The Dude]

We were 13 freaking points away from beating the team who won the Rose Bowl over a very talented Stanford team WITH having 5 turnovers.

We were also about 13 points away from being 4-8 last year.

Auburn was 16 points and a missed FG from having a 7-5 regular season. Stanford was 17 points away from 7-5. South Carolina was 12 points from 7-5.

 

A lot of teams were several points from a handful more losses.

Which kind of demonstrates the absurdity of such an argument. I just found it funny, we're so close because we're 13 points away from . . . one more victory, ignoring the fact we're 13 points away from 4 more losses.

It was a statement more-so saying how close we are to great things, if we didn't step in our own way, but obviously you have to take things a different direction. Sway one thing positive into a negative. Until the next post I guess....

That's one way of looking at it. Then there's the objective approach . . .

[It'sNotAFakeID]

That's kind of my point. If we're going to play that game, though, you have to look at the other side of the coin.

 

Playing that game, it's an unfortunately truth we were much, much closer to 4-8 than 12-0.

 

That's why I don't think any of us should play that game, it leads to too much disjointed thought. If you look at how close we were to winning more games, you have to take a look at those opponents we lost to and why we lost to them, which acknowledges the fact that we aren't as good as we claim in the original statement ("we were so close"). If you look at how close we were to losing more games, you have to look at our opponents and why we beat them, which acknowledges the fact that we're better than our claim in the original statement ("we're not even close").

 

So, we were 9-4 last season with a bowl win over Georgia. Compared to what other teams did that year, it wasn't the best accomplishment in the land. Compared to what other teams have done over the past 6 seasons, a few 10 win seasons and a few 9 win seasons with 3 bowl wins also isn't the best accomplishment in the land.