What Do First Games Tell Us Anyways?

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Hello?! Can anyone hear me?! Oh, hello! I'm glad you've survived the falling of the sky. If you're reading this, you have surely seen the unfortunate end of today's game between BYU and Nebraska. Yes, a Hail Mary, a Hail Mary not much different than the Hail Mary that saw Nebraska defeat Northwestern in 2013 did some of the very same Huskers in today against BYU. A last-second desperation heave, chucked from the roughly the same yard-line to the same corner of the end zone by a second string quarterback was caught by a WR who came across the field, ending Nebraska's 29-game opening-day win streak.

 

All things considered, Vegas would have probably put the game as a pick'em if it were played on a neutral field; at best, given the line at kickoff, Nebraska would've been a 3 1/2 point favorite--the Vegas equivalent of a 50-50 game. In all honesty, BYU should have been the favored team, but Vegas is in the money making business and it's easy to take advantage of the overconfidence of fans. BYU brought continuity and experience in both team and coaching staff into this game; they not a single freshman, and only have 4 on their roster. Bronco Mendenhall has coached at BYU since 2005, Robert Anae, their OC, for just as long. Nick Howell, the DC, is the new guy, but even he has a couple of years of DC experience for BYU. Their schemes are well installed, their players are great matches for their system. Nebraska, on the other hand, started 3 freshman and put a total of 7 on the field. Nobody on the coaching staff has ever coached at Nebraska. Their schemes are not installed, their players are not matches to their schemes. Yet it was a 1 in a 1000 kind of play that was needed for the well-experienced team to win.

 

The game was, at times, not pretty and very unnerving. The entire 2nd quarter was a quarter filled with many numerous mental mistakes and defensive breakdowns and BYU rightly took advantage of them. Riley, the coaching staff, and the players will be the first to tell you that quarters like that are unacceptable and that they have work to do to immediately improve in those deficient areas. But, we have a least a little assurance that a total team effort will be made to adjust and improve. We saw what adjustments Riley made both offensively and defensively and how they positively affected the outcome of the game. If they can show the willingness and ability to make adjustments in-game, why shouldn't we believe their willingness and ability to make adjustments and improvements week-to-week?

 

Really, though, how much stock should we place in this first game of an era? How much do first games of seasons matter in the grand scheme? Nebraska beat Florida Atlantic 55-7 to start last year, but that dominance didn't extend to the rest of the year or even the following week. Texas A&M beat #9 South Carolina 52-28 to open last season before struggling to even make a bowl game. Alabama beat West Virginia 33-23 and then made the playoffs. All in all, the results of opening games--especially when they're tests--don't mean as much as how the team looked during those contests, and you would be crazy to say that this team never looked impressive during today's game. The tackling was solid throughout, Tommy started off on fire, and completed numerous tough passes. His accuracy, overall, was much better than previous years. The adjustments made to start the second half shut down the BYU offense with the exception of that unfortunate play.

 

That's a pretty good performance for a team who is highly inexperienced in both the lineup and in the coaching staff (at least when it comes to experience at Nebraska). It'll be more important for the team to show incremental improvement as the season marches on. The experience of the coaching staff gives me confidence that that will happen.

 

0-1 sucks, and the way it happened sucks. But there's no reason to push the panic button on the Mike Riley era. There should be good things in store for this program, and I'm excited to see what the future has in store.

 

 

 

[ladyhawke]

Ahhh...the voice of reason. Thank you.

[Husker NoNo]

I agree with 90% of your post, and I actually feel better about the team coming out of this loss than I did watching the mess of a spring game. That said, I was hoping for improvement across the board. I like where the passing game is going, but O-line and running game remain weak. I like where the LBs are headed, but the secondary remains a problem. I can see some improvements, but soooo much needs to be done. Get to work boys!

[huskerenner]

Most of our problems are coachable. Kicking is not,and we failed miserably on key field goals.Close games will be very iffy,if we don't find an answer to the kicking game.

[Kernal]

Most of our problems are coachable. Kicking is not,and we failed miserably on key field goals.Close games will be very iffy,if we don't find an answer to the kicking game.

 

The kicking was very disappointing. That's one thing we learned for the first game. Hopefully Brown gets his head right.