** 2018 Opponent Previews: Wisconsin (Game 6) **

[brophog]

 If one or the other struggles, I expect a change would be made. Frost doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'll sit back and try to pound a square peg into a round hole (Riley.)

That's always tricky. Pulling a QB is not like pulling any other player in this or any other sport. There's some degree of perceived permanency in the move and that's made moreso when the backup is good enough to start in his own right. Deciding between what's just a bad day and what was the wrong choice in starter is not straightforward. 

It's why I don't agree with the popular idea that one QB starts the opener and another starts later on. Frost will more likely, imo, give the starter every opportunity to succeed and that includes the errors a young starter will inevitably make.

 

[BigRedBuster]

That's always tricky. Pulling a QB is not like pulling any other player in this or any other sport. There's some degree of perceived permanency in the move and that's made moreso when the backup is good enough to start in his own right. Deciding between what's just a bad day and what was the wrong choice in starter is not straightforward. 

It's why I don't agree with the popular idea that one QB starts the opener and another starts later on. Frost will more likely, imo, give the starter every opportunity to succeed and that includes the errors a young starter will inevitably make.

I agree with this.

Too often fans clammer for the second stringer to be put in when the game is on the line "to get him experience" or split time to see who is better.

That's not the real world with a QB.  Once one is picked, he will be given every opportunity to succeed and improve where needed.  If he totally falls flat and doesn't improve...THEN a change could be made.

 

[badgers007]

For Wisconsin fans it’s gotta be pretty sad to think the last 3 years have been some of the better years they have had historically and they played fairly close games with some of the worst husker teams ever. If that is our toughest competition in the West look out with a rising husker program 

Why would any Wisconsin fan be sad about that?  Consecutive Top-10 finishes, 34-7 (22-4) record, three NY6 wins, and 10 NFL Draft picks.  Seems pretty OK and only going up.

 

[Mierin]

Why would any Wisconsin fan be sad about that?  Consecutive Top-10 finishes, 34-7 (22-4) record, three NY6 wins, and 10 NFL Draft picks.  Seems pretty OK and only going up.

When your team has won national championships it’s hard to understand how fans of teams who haven’t feel about consolation prizes.

Just kidding.

I understand how you should feel. We won our conference championship almost every year leading up to the national championships. And I was sad about it because we didn’t win the national championship those years.

Less sad that I am about the Huskers sucking, though.

 

[Dansker]

That's always tricky. Pulling a QB is not like pulling any other player in this or any other sport. There's some degree of perceived permanency in the move and that's made moreso when the backup is good enough to start in his own right. Deciding between what's just a bad day and what was the wrong choice in starter is not straightforward. 

It's why I don't agree with the popular idea that one QB starts the opener and another starts later on. Frost will more likely, imo, give the starter every opportunity to succeed and that includes the errors a young starter will inevitably make.

Square peg round hole and you get Armstrong in a pass heavy offense and a Tanner Lee throwing pick sixes when you've got 2 highly touted "Calibraska" quarterbacks riding the bench. Just saying. Barring injury, maybe Gebbia keeps the job. Maybe not.

His size and durability is a concern to me. I'm not 100% sure he'll make it through conference play unscathed. I would have liked to see him bulk up a little bit more. Perhaps people expect another McKenzie Milton type of player in Gebbia who also wasn't a big guy however, this is the B1G not the AAC.

 

[Dansker]

I agree with this.

Too often fans clammer for the second stringer to be put in when the game is on the line "to get him experience" or split time to see who is better.

That's not the real world with a QB.  Once one is picked, he will be given every opportunity to succeed and improve where needed.  If he totally falls flat and doesn't improve...THEN a change could be made.

It won Nick Saban a national championship. Then again there's a reason why he's paid the big bucks and we're not 

 

[brophog]

Square peg round hole and you get Armstrong in a pass heavy offense and a Tanner Lee throwing pick sixes when you've got 2 highly touted "Calibraska" quarterbacks riding the bench. Just saying. Barring injury, maybe Gebbia keeps the job. Maybe not.

I'm not sure either of these fit in the context of pulling a starter. Starting with Lee, we have to consider Riley is functionally fired in game 3. It's a dead year, pulling the redshirt on Gebbia is stupid. Coaches repeatedly stated Lee was well ahead of him. That's easy to believe, it was an overly complicated system making it hard for a backup to come in and there exists major question marks as to the quality of reps for any backup in Riley's practices. There is an argument to be made, though, given how poor Lee played. I'm just not sure we have much, if any, evidence that POB could be an improvement.

Armstrong is a different subject, entirely. He was just in the wrong system. I'd make the argument, and have, that Riley should have been aggressive from the start and sought a QB that fit his needs. Even a JUCO, if necessary. That decision set his entire offense back years, and played into the Lee situation. Transfers should have happened year 1, by year 3 someone should have been prepped and ready to go. I, however, don't see where pulling Armstrong ever comes into play. Pull him for whom? They made their bed with him as QB, he was the best option on the roster.

 

[Dansker]

I'm not sure either of these fit in the context of pulling a starter. Starting with Lee, we have to consider Riley is functionally fired in game 3. It's a dead year, pulling the redshirt on Gebbia is stupid. Coaches repeatedly stated Lee was well ahead of him. That's easy to believe, it was an overly complicated system making it hard for a backup to come in and there exists major question marks as to the quality of reps for any backup in Riley's practices. There is an argument to be made, though, given how poor Lee played. I'm just not sure we have much, if any, evidence that POB could be an improvement.

Armstrong is a different subject, entirely. He was just in the wrong system. I'd make the argument, and have, that Riley should have been aggressive from the start and sought a QB that fit his needs. Even a JUCO, if necessary. That decision set his entire offense back years, and played into the Lee situation. Transfers should have happened year 1, by year 3 someone should have been prepped and ready to go. I, however, don't see where pulling Armstrong ever comes into play. Pull him for whom? They made their bed with him as QB, he was the best option on the roster.

Lol, I'm sorry but your entire post alludes to a defense of Mike Riley...  :dunno  If Gebbia doesn't work out, I don't think it's going to take Scott Frost 5-7 or 6-6 his first season to figure that out. Personally, I'm pulling for Gebbia. He reminds me a little bit of Joe Ganz who also showed leadership on the field and was a film junkie. 

I am hoping that translates to on field success for Gebbia but sometimes things don't work out. There's no way to know but to try. All I'm saying is Frost is not going to stick to his guns if the **** hits the fan. We're not rebuilding but rebranding. Certain guys he recruits are probably going to fit his system better than a Riley recruit. It happens with a new coach anywhere you go.

Bo Pelini proved that by getting guys like Taylor Martinez, Lavonte David, Dejon Gomes, Larry Asante, Eric Hagg, etc. He had to get guys that fit his system. There were Callahan players left over that just didn't fit or pan out in Pelini's system. The same can be said for Callahan where Solich players didn't work out in the WCO. This year, we're going to see a lot of new faces on both sides of the ball and special teams.

I think HCSF knows his program can't literally stomach another .500 year or worse.

 

[Undone]

Back to the original topic of the thread. It's pretty exciting to think about how we'll match up against Wisconsin once Frost's 'Chip Kelly' offense is firing on all cylinders. 

Probably the thing I've been fixated on more than anything else about Husker football is whether or not Frost and Chinander are going to be able to tweak their defensive system to match up against the Wisconsins, Michigans, and Penn States of our conference. Because beating Wisconsin is the next step for our program. If we don't beat Wisconsin in any given season where Wisconsin benefits from a weak cross-conference schedule (like they do yet again this year), we almost certainly won't be winning our division. 

We have to have a defense built to stop Wisconsin's run game. I just don't see that happening this season unless a c$%ktail of great blitz packages and incredible run support from our secondary happens. 

But down the road, I definitely see our offense being dynamic enough to give them the same fits Ohio State regularly gives them, if not to an even larger degree with our speed on offense matching up against their physical strength on defense.

 

[Undone]

Ha. c-o-c-k-t-a-i-l got filtered. Makes sense.

This filter doesn't know d-i-c-k about c-o-c-k-t-a-i-l-s.

 

[NUinID]

Was watching the BTN bus tour last night at Wisconsin.  Last year DiNardo and Griffith were absolutely drooling over Wisconsin and the talent upgrades at WR and loving on the O-line and on Johnathan Taylor.  This year it is a little more tempered they do think their offense is going to be very good, but I think they are in wait and see mode on the defense.  They are replacing 7 starters.  

Just the feeling I got from watching it.  

 

[cheekygeek]

As a point of (perhaps irrelevant) reference, it may be worth remembering that Tom Osborne did not defeat nemesis Oklahoma until Year 6. In my book, Wisconsin is our 2018 Oklahoma. They will probably always stand between the Cornhuskers and any hope of the Big 10 Championship game. But, hopefully, soon we can flip the table on them and it can be said that defeating the Cornhuskers will always stand between Wisky and the Big 10 Championship Game.

 

[Undone]

It's definitely a point that gets referenced both on this forum and in the greater landscape of Husker Nation really often.

I think Wisconsin is to our current program what Oklahoma was to Osborne's program, if we had to pick "our current Oklahoma." The fortunate difference, in my opinion, is that this Wisconsin team is a proportionately weaker opponent. It'll take less to beat this flavor of Wisconsin team; it's a smaller hurdle.

They're a very good team but have constantly benefited from weaker scheduling and are not quite as good as where they wind up being ranked 2/3 of the way through the past few seasons, in my opinion.

 

[Caliborn72]

[No message]

 

[MichiganDad3]

That's always tricky. Pulling a QB is not like pulling any other player in this or any other sport. There's some degree of perceived permanency in the move and that's made moreso when the backup is good enough to start in his own right. Deciding between what's just a bad day and what was the wrong choice in starter is not straightforward. 

It's why I don't agree with the popular idea that one QB starts the opener and another starts later on. Frost will more likely, imo, give the starter every opportunity to succeed and that includes the errors a young starter will inevitably make.

I remember a game in January of 1995 when a QB was yanked, then put back in late in the game. It worked out pretty well. Frost may also rotate these young guys some just so he can have them watch some plays.