2019 Pundit Predictions

[Head Coach Scott Frost]

When the gophers beat Wisconsin Hornibrook threw two picks and also fumbled.  Minnesota got better as the season went along, I'm not convinced they're fully ahead of Wisconsin.  

[Husker in WI]

I'm not convinced anyone is ahead of anyone else in the West, other than Illinois being the bottom feeder and I don't buy Northwestern. I won't be shocked whoever wins it. Wisconsin would be a little less surprising than Minnesota, but it's a crap shoot at this point. Also wouldn't be surprised if Wisconsin's QB turns it over 3 times in a game or two again, they're going to have some growing pains there.

[Guy Chamberlin]

I'm terrifically excited but inclined to tap the brakes until I see if our defense has seriously upped its game. 

[NoLongerN]

I can see 3-4 teams finishing ahead of us with 4-5 teams having a chance to win the West.  Since Minny has an easy schedule ... count me as another of the stupid ones who could see them finishing ahead of us.  To me ... that isn't really a stupid pick ... when you consider the balance of possibilities for the West.  

Now, after the fact of last year ... can we now say that all the fans that said we would go 8-4 or better were "stupid"?  Does "stupid is as stupid does" apply here?  Asking for a friend.  I'm asking the question to just make the point that the word choice of "stupid" doesn't seem really beneficial to a board based full of opinions before a season.  You can look at each list and find a bottleneck of teams that have a shot at winning the West all with the same record.  

For me, I'm just hopeful we get to be one of those at the top with an 8-4 or 9-3 record instead of my projection of 7-5.

[DevoHusker]

17 hours ago, Husker in WI said:

I'm not convinced anyone is ahead of anyone else in the West, other than Illinois being the bottom feeder and I don't buy Northwestern. I won't be shocked whoever wins it. Wisconsin would be a little less surprising than Minnesota, but it's a crap shoot at this point. Also wouldn't be surprised if Wisconsin's QB turns it over 3 times in a game or two again, they're going to have some growing pains there.

 

I have a central Wisconsin native co-worker...he landed a job here after the military and is still a big fan and very knowledgeable about Badger football...he catches a lot of sh*t at work.

He is saying they will definitely be down this year and has predicted 7-5 ish

[knapplc]

28 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

 

I have a central Wisconsin native co-worker...he landed a job here after the military and is still a big fan and very knowledgeable about Badger football...he catches a lot of sh*t at work.

He is saying they will definitely be down this year and has predicted 7-5 ish

 

That's interesting. I think Jonathon Taylor is going to win them a lot of games. Is their O Line supposed to be down this year, or their LB corps down? That's the only reason I can think why they wouldn't be at or near the top of the West.

[Husker in WI]

4 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

That's interesting. I think Jonathon Taylor is going to win them a lot of games. Is their O Line supposed to be down this year, or their LB corps down? That's the only reason I can think why they wouldn't be at or near the top of the West.

 

It's uncertainty at QB, an OLine that lost a bunch of starters, but mostly the defensive regression from last year without a lot of clear replacements. 7-5 is a little on the low end from the people I know, but 7-5 to 9-3 seems to be the range they're expecting. The o-line will still be good, so that's not a huge worry overall. Their receivers are so inconsistent I'm not even sure QB is that big of a deal unless Mertz is an absolute stud.

 

Overall the questions are on D though. D-line depth is bad - the starting line of Bryson Williams (thanks Diaco), Loudermilk, and Rand is really really good. Nobody knows what the guys behind them are yet though, and you've got to have some depth in the B1G.

 

LB is also a little thinner than usual, they're not just rolling draft picks out there anymore. The media guys love one OLB (Baun), but IMO he's not a difference maker and they had no pass rush last year. Hard to see where it's going to come from this year. They do have a freshman ILB that is going to be a stud in Chenal, and Orr is proven as well. But there's no one like TJ Watt, Jack Cichy, Tj Edwards, Ryan Connelly, etc - not that they can't develop a few LBs, just rare that they don't know who will make an impact at LB going into the season.

 

Secondary should be fine, they played a lot of young guys last year so they got some good experience. I'd be a little worried about safety if I were them (and some of them are), although they love Nelson and I think D'Cota Dixon is more replaceable than outsiders would guess. He was a team leader, but I think a little overrated as a player.

[knapplc]

14 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

 

It's uncertainty at QB, an OLine that lost a bunch of starters, but mostly the defensive regression from last year without a lot of clear replacements. 7-5 is a little on the low end from the people I know, but 7-5 to 9-3 seems to be the range they're expecting. The o-line will still be good, so that's not a huge worry overall. Their receivers are so inconsistent I'm not even sure QB is that big of a deal unless Mertz is an absolute stud.

 

Overall the questions are on D though. D-line depth is bad - the starting line of Bryson Williams (thanks Diaco), Loudermilk, and Rand is really really good. Nobody knows what the guys behind them are yet though, and you've got to have some depth in the B1G.

 

LB is also a little thinner than usual, they're not just rolling draft picks out there anymore. The media guys love one OLB (Baun), but IMO he's not a difference maker and they had no pass rush last year. Hard to see where it's going to come from this year. They do have a freshman ILB that is going to be a stud in Chenal, and Orr is proven as well. But there's no one like TJ Watt, Jack Cichy, Tj Edwards, Ryan Connelly, etc - not that they can't develop a few LBs, just rare that they don't know who will make an impact at LB going into the season.

 

Secondary should be fine, they played a lot of young guys last year so they got some good experience. I'd be a little worried about safety if I were them (and some of them are), although they love Nelson and I think D'Cota Dixon is more replaceable than outsiders would guess. He was a team leader, but I think a little overrated as a player.

 

OK, so good rundown there. Thanks for that.

 

Does that look very dissimilar to Nebraska this year?  I don't really think so. Like Wiscy, we have more questions than answers up and down the roster. Like Wiscy, we have a dynamic player on Offense (2AM / Taylor) and questions on the O Line.

 

The big difference I see between the two teams is the consistency of the Wiscy program compared to ours. Frost may have a dynamic touch, but he's a year into establishing his system and guys are still learning.

[Undone]

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

The big difference I see between the two teams is the consistency of the Wiscy program compared to ours. Frost may have a dynamic touch, but he's a year into establishing his system and guys are still learning.

 

Exactly. But for so many fans, the 2017 UCF season has this 'good as gold' transitive property to year two for us. Not for everyone, but for many. The overall quality of opponents in the B1G seems to not be taken into consideration.

[Landlord]

Just now, Undone said:

 

Exactly. But for so many fans, the 2017 UCF season has this 'good as gold' transitive property to year two for us. Not for everyone, but for many. The overall quality of opponents in the B1G seems to not be taken into consideration.

 

 

The quality of opponents and the quality of our roster are relatively proportionately higher compared to UCF opponents and UCF's roster. 

 

Regardless I don't see us going undefeated and I don't think anyone sees us going undefeated. And while knapp is right about a big difference between us and Wiscy being their consistency, we still routinely out-recruit them; we just haven't had the staff and culture to utilize our talent effectively and they have. Their margin for error to stay where they've been is much smaller than ours imo.

[brophog]

4 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

Exactly. But for so many fans, the 2017 UCF season has this 'good as gold' transitive property to year two for us. Not for everyone, but for many.

 

If you don’t like the comparison with UCF, ignore it. It’s admittedly on the very high side for a year 2 jump, and going undefeated against any schedule is improbable. But, teams universally do improve a great deal between Year 1 and 2. That really shouldn’t even be up for debate at this point.

 

Nebraska is in a unique position because so many factors are favorable. It’s going to be a high win improvement simply because it won’t take much actual improvement to offset the fact the win total should have been much higher last year, given the performance level. That’s why Nebraska’s such a safe pick to add a minimum 3 or 4 wins. 

 

 

[knapplc]

59 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

Exactly. But for so many fans, the 2017 UCF season has this 'good as gold' transitive property to year two for us. Not for everyone, but for many. The overall quality of opponents in the B1G seems to not be taken into consideration.

 

True. And I think moreso than the fans, the pundits are falling prey to looking back at 2017 as a barometer for 2019 Nebraska. They see better athletes, better resources, and whether consciously or not, the ones predicting us winning the West or better are basing their prediction off of that.

 

Frankly, I'm going to be happy with better defensive play, questions answered about who replaces Stan & Ziggy, and a bowl game. 8-4 regular season would be nice, but the ball isn't round and bounces funny sometimes.

 

EDIT - having this conversation in two places right now. Here's a good response about pundits and being high on Nebraska.

 

 

[Undone]

37 minutes ago, brophog said:

It’s going to be a high win improvement simply because it won’t take much actual improvement to offset the fact the win total should have been much higher last year, given the performance level. That’s why Nebraska’s such a safe pick to add a minimum 3 or 4 wins. 

 

Oh, definitely a safe pick to add 3-4 wins. There's no debate there. 

55 minutes ago, Landlord said:

we still routinely out-recruit them; we just haven't had the staff and culture to utilize our talent effectively and they have.

 

For sure. Not sure if you read that Hail Varsity article from this week with some snippets of an interview with Osborne but the strength improvements combining with culture are indisputably heading in the right direction already. 

 

There are so many things to love about what we have going for us right now that it's hard to pick just one thing to focus on but what I love so much is that we finally have a great quarterback again. We had some "good" quarterbacks under Bo and one under Callahan but we finally have one that is excellent and there is just so much to build around with a guy like Martinez. I can't wait to watch him play in 30 day's time.

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, Undone said:

There are so many things to love about what we have going for us right now that it's hard to pick just one thing to focus on but what I love so much is that we finally have a great quarterback again. We had some "good" quarterbacks under Bo and one under Callahan but we finally have one that is excellent and there is just so much to build around with a guy like Martinez. I can't wait to watch him play in 30 day's time.

 

Adrian Martinez seems like the best qualities of Tommy Armstrong and Taylor Martinez, but overall bigger and more accurate. He's potentially a scary addition to the West, and I'm excited about his potential. It's hard not to get a little too excited over his potential.

[Moiraine]

The year 2 jump at UCF gets mentioned a lot but it’s not the only factor.

 

Even if we only had last season to go off, people would be expecting a big improvement in our record this year. It was obvious to anyone watching that from game 1 to game 12 we had huge improvement.