Pick Six Previews: Critical look at Pelini, and even a HuskerBoard reference

[DefensiveLineU]

Big Ten West Preview, harsh (but accurate) look at the program:

 

"On the surface it may look like just another typical 4 loss Bo Pelini team, but at its core, 2013 was the most unsettling year since the dark days of the Callahan era."

 

**Also a HuskerBoard reference in the preview

 

http://picksixpreviews.com/2014-big-ten-west-division-preview.html

[TheSker]

So a "preview" that's really about bringing up the almost year old "news" of the audio. It's also not a news flash that recruiting needed to improve, and hopefully has.

[Scratchtown]

So a "preview" that's really about bringing up the almost year old "news" of the audio. It's also not a news flash that recruiting needed to improve, and hopefully has.

Just win baby

[knapplc]

The HuskerBoard reference wouldn't be because the OP wrote this himself, would it?

[DefensiveLineU]

The HuskerBoard reference wouldn't be because the OP wrote this himself, would it?

Classic Knapp. Any actual opinion on the piece?

[knapplc]

It's well-written.

 

Picking this division is pretty crazy venture. Any of your 1-5 have a chance at winning the West. Minny & NW have an outside shot, while Iowa & Wiscy probably have the inside track considering their schedule, although if Wiscy gets beaten up by LSU they could have a rough go. I'd probably have put Iowa at #1, Wiscy at #2 & Nebraska at #3 right now. About the only conference games I'm near-certain are wins right now are Illinois, Purdue & Rutgers - and honestly, I'm not all that confident in any of those games, either.

[True2tRA]

It's well-written.

 

Picking this division is pretty crazy venture. Any of your 1-5 have a chance at winning the West. Minny & NW have an outside shot, while Iowa & Wiscy probably have the inside track considering their schedule, although if Wiscy gets beaten up by LSU they could have a rough go. I'd probably have put Iowa at #1, Wiscy at #2 & Nebraska at #3 right now. About the only conference games I'm near-certain are wins right now are Illinois, Purdue & Rutgers - and honestly, I'm not all that confident in any of those games, either.

How do you feel about Fresno St.? Lol.

[jsneb83]

The HuskerBoard reference wouldn't be because the OP wrote this himself, would it?

So that's why he added the "accurate" part

[Scratchtown]

It's well-written.

 

Picking this division is pretty crazy venture. Any of your 1-5 have a chance at winning the West. Minny & NW have an outside shot, while Iowa & Wiscy probably have the inside track considering their schedule, although if Wiscy gets beaten up by LSU they could have a rough go. I'd probably have put Iowa at #1, Wiscy at #2 & Nebraska at #3 right now. About the only conference games I'm near-certain are wins right now are Illinois, Purdue & Rutgers - and honestly, I'm not all that confident in any of those games, either.

Knapp, may I ask why you aren't too confident about those games? I feel this is the best group of "athletes" Pelini has had while here as a whole. But, maybe I'm refusing to put down the kool aid because it just tastes so damn good.

[Dr. Strangelove]

 

It's well-written.

 

Picking this division is pretty crazy venture. Any of your 1-5 have a chance at winning the West. Minny & NW have an outside shot, while Iowa & Wiscy probably have the inside track considering their schedule, although if Wiscy gets beaten up by LSU they could have a rough go. I'd probably have put Iowa at #1, Wiscy at #2 & Nebraska at #3 right now. About the only conference games I'm near-certain are wins right now are Illinois, Purdue & Rutgers - and honestly, I'm not all that confident in any of those games, either.

Knapp, may I ask why you aren't too confident about those games? I feel this is the best group of "athletes" Pelini has had while here as a whole. But, maybe I'm refusing to put down the kool aid because it just tastes so damn good.

 

Probably has to do with our seemingly un-fixable turnover problems that enable us to lose almost any game if the other team is competent.

 

Also, we have better athletes and trim the playbook every offseason... I feel the same way as Knapp, I'm finding it much more difficult than usual to get excited for the season. Because of the schedules of our competition, winning the division will be difficult and we're likely to go 15 years without a conference championship.

[knapplc]

 

 

It's well-written.

 

Picking this division is pretty crazy venture. Any of your 1-5 have a chance at winning the West. Minny & NW have an outside shot, while Iowa & Wiscy probably have the inside track considering their schedule, although if Wiscy gets beaten up by LSU they could have a rough go. I'd probably have put Iowa at #1, Wiscy at #2 & Nebraska at #3 right now. About the only conference games I'm near-certain are wins right now are Illinois, Purdue & Rutgers - and honestly, I'm not all that confident in any of those games, either.

Knapp, may I ask why you aren't too confident about those games? I feel this is the best group of "athletes" Pelini has had while here as a whole. But, maybe I'm refusing to put down the kool aid because it just tastes so damn good.

 

Probably has to do with our seemingly un-fixable turnover problems that enable us to lose almost any game if the other team is competent.

 

Also, we have better athletes and trim the playbook every offseason... I feel the same way as Knapp, I'm finding it much more difficult than usual to get excited for the season. Because of the schedules of our competition, winning the division will be difficult and we're likely to go 15 years without a conference championship.

 

 

Turnovers, odd philosophies & mental errors, basically.

 

If the team had shown consistently over the past few years that they were able to execute a game plan for 60 minutes, with mess-ups the exception, I'd be a lot more confident. But that's not the case. The philosophy seems to be to spend the first quarter doing basic stuff, finding out what the opponent is trying to do, and reacting to that at halftime. Tons of times we've seen halftime adjustments work brilliantly, and we've come back to win. Several times we're so deep into screw-up mode (turnovers, mental mistakes) that we can't dig ourselves out of the hole we dug.

 

I think we have the athletes to compete very well in this division, and quite possibly win the conference. But athletic ability alone (or lack thereof) is not what's been holding this team back.

 

So playing in Madison, against a coach we know can rebuild & reload, against that O Line and their running backs? Gonna be a hell of a tough game, and they haven't shown us they're ready to overcome that hurdle.

 

Northwestern? Two of those three games were last-second scores to win, and the third they beat us consistently on one basic play that we never could cover. Plus, our own mental errors lost that game.

 

Iowa? They played us tough the last three years, and we clearly weren't ready to bring the level of fight to them that they brought into Memorial Stadium last year.

 

Minnesota? We should never, ever, ever lose to Minnesota, but the roundly trounced us last year.

 

 

Sparty, at East Lansing where we stole a game two years ago, with their defense, will be a hell of a win if we can pull it off - just like it was two years ago. But two years ago we had Super Rex, a three-year starter at QB with Usain Bolt speed, and it still took us a controversial call late in the 4th quarter to pull that out. This year we have a defense that may be better than two years ago, but they're awfully young, and have a lot of proving to do.

 

Hell, I'm not even confident we can beat Miami, and they don't have a quarterback and aren't expected to make much noise at all in the ACC this year.

 

I guess my confidence went out the window with that 38-point barrage UCLA threw at us last year. Wins at Michigan, Penn State and against Georgia were nice, but tempered with losses to Minnesota & Iowa, they're tough to put into context.

[Scratchtown]

fair enough