biased?

I am not saying that Coz is the answer, but i do believe that there has to be stability in the coaching ranks.

Look at the seniors on this team. Most played for Bohl, Pelini, and now Coz. 3 DC in 5 years does not make a great defense. Would Pelini have done a better job? Who knows. If Callahan would have kept Bo on as DC, he would have been "Off Like A Prom Dress" with the first chance he had at a HC job.

 
95huskers said:
i would rather fire him and look at the big picture here. players arent going to look at him and say wow he has been here along time i wanna play there when our d is giving up 500+ yds to ku they want a coach with fire and intensity to hype them up and highlight their athletic abilities for nfl scouts. a gimpy octo is better than a healthy ruud. sry to say but you seem to disagree... watch the game and key on him and you will see what i am talking about. players do like stability and to be on the highlight reels
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A gimpy Octavian is better than a healthy ruud? please give me some of what your smoking. Besides, if we played a gimpy steve-o he'd likely further injure himself and ruud would have to come in anyway right?

 
I think they are the next step. But with the preasure to win and show improvement the staff is sticking with what it knows. Youth at any level normally spells problems, and because of the fan base attitude they are protecting their butts with who starts.

Again, none that you list is or was considered a top athlete at thier position. The programs that you list are starting freshman, but they are 5 star rated players.

I agree we need to move forward, but it is limited by our recruiting, we are not getting the level of athlete that this program or staff needs. Some of that is because of our wins and losses. Some is because of the media and some of it because of the area and weather. Some do not come here because other programs give them verbal committments to play immediately.

The kids the coachs take at this point are what they can get. We are not comparative at this time to many top programs. Kids could really care less about jumbo trons or crowd noise, history or tradition. They want to learn to play at the next level, be on a winning program, play early and have a shot at the NC game. Currently we cover the first requirement.

Our problems are and have been talent based. Firing the defensive side of the house, changing to a new scehme will only hurt the players we have due to change, and will turn new playesr away because not seeing an established pattern.

I still say we need to give this staff another two years to see if they can turn the corner. I still think they can. But injuries have had a major affect on this defense this year. Most are banged up now. Hard to say where they would have been if some of the top ones were not hurt early.

 
I agree however all 5* players dont pan out and 3* players turn into studs. There not bad players for sure.

We may turn the corner yes, we may not, who knows. i just dont like the bend dont break mentality. maybe that changes with players we shall see

I just look up LSU depth chart #1 defense not one DE that plays weighs over 255 not one LB that plays weighs over 233

speed and athleticism is the great equalizer and we need to go back in that direction TO and McBride went there and then the sawed off butt kisser that should never have been coach Frank Solich took us backwards hopefully we can get there again

 
5 star athles normally turn out to be better. Exceptions both ways.

But look at the last 7 or 8 National Champions. Every single one has been in the top 5 of recruiting for the 3 or 4 years prior to winning. The only exception would be Ohio State.

But always in the top ten.

Talent allows you to make changes to scheme. I would like to see a more aggressive defense to. But you play with what you have. It hink we are doing that.

 
95huskers said:
Its humerous to me that there are several good football knowledge posts here and none of them are gettin attention..... the only ones are those of bashing and or non football facts...... here is my 2 cents! THERE ARE TO MANY BIASED FANS HERE! not looking deep into what the nu program or the game of college football is all about. people here think that its ok to be average and look at average players as good. I AM PERSONALLY SICK (puke) of the "average is ok" mentality.... when are people going to become more than fans and see what is really going on here.... NO TEAM, AND I MEAN NO TEAM, in the d1 ranks has a chance to win a title with coz as d- coordinator. as previously stated by such players as kohl vederal and burrows ruud would not and should not play a down if mcbride or pelini were here but coz sees him as "fundamentally correct'' but doesnt see the playmaking ablity of youngsters. WHY do you as a fan think this is ok? WHY do you as a fan not look at the big picture and see what is going on here? Solich started all this crap because he couldnt recruit or call a damn play on offense.... we all knew what the next play was going to be in his measly few years at nebraska? Look at daily... what a joke he is comparable to such players as ruud shanle and grixby... accept different sides of the ball... we need a change! D-CO out new D-CO in. time to start looking at the big picture husker nation!
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Uh, not to put too fine a point on it 95, but there is a another team of 18 to 23 year olds, out there, playing to win. Only difference is if they lose, they get shipped home in a coffin. Get some perspective dude.

It's a GAME.

 
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This is an interesting topic to me, mainly because I have been pretty down on the defense. One thing that was pointed out to me is that with Callahan & Cosgrove first came in we had a pretty good defense already and nowhere near the players we needed on offense to run the WCO. So most of the focus has been on recruiting on the offensive side of the ball. Now that we have equal talent on both sides of the ball; hopefully, we'll put focus on the D and see where that gets us.

However, in all the years Coz was DC at Wisconsin they had what, one top 10 defense?

And you HAVE to have a good defense to win a championship.

 
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Joe Dailey, Curt Dukes, David Horne, Frankie London etc. All those guys were going to be the next big thing at Nebraska. Each one of them was going to set the world on fire and no one could understand why they weren't getting to play because the guys in front of them (such as Scott Frost) were clearly terrible players. It was our bad luck that the stupidest guy in the state also happened to be the coach. I thought after we changed the entire coaching staff we could maybe get two or three guys in who know how to coach football, but I guess we're just cursed to have an entire state full of football geniuses and a coaching staff with no brains. :hmmm

No one's telling anyone to be happy with where the program is now. While I'd say NU is slightly above average right now, I'd be disappointed if this was where NU stayed for the next ten years or so. However, several of the posters on this board realize that NU is on a journey right now. 2 or 3 years ago we were BAD. Since then we've progressed to slightly better than average. Anyone who expected NU to magically go from 7-7, 5-6 to 13-0 is out of his mind. Would I like to go 13-0? Absolutely, but I understand that's not a realistic possibility for 95% of the teams out there in any given year and I see a program improving each year.

And frankly, firing Cosgrove wouldn't get us any closer to a perfect record. If we fired coaches every 3 or 4 years then most of us wouldn't even know who Charlie McBride (or Tom Osborne) is. And for the record, Elmassian decides who plays in the secondary, not Cosgrove, Culbert played a whole lot last week, and Ruud was the Big XII defensive player of the week. So honestly, what's eveyone complaining about?

 
Everything skers says is true. We don't have the talent.

But after 3 recruiting classes, why isn't it there? It is better, to be sure. However, part of the reason this staff was hired was because of their recruiting prowess. Solich didn't recruit well, but did you know Solich's average class was higher than this staff's is? These guys are supposed to be great recruiters. Next year, the only people left on the team that Solich recruited will be the redshirt seniors. If the rest aren't up to par, then it's the staff's fault. Heck, most of the players this year are theirs. Why does NU still lack talent if this is such a great staff?

I'm not looking for "instant gratification". it's been three years, and that is far from instant. But from what this staff was supposed to bring to the table, I don't believe asking for an improvement every year is asking too much. As for this year? I will wait until the season is over to make that judgement. I suspect this team is better than last year's, at least overall. The offense, statistically, is better. The defense...not so much.

 
Indiana,

I think the main reason we are not where all are wanting to be is the injury situation. Bowman, Dillard, Flu, all out for the year, Grix having he broken wrist to start, Octavian still limited, Q and Rudd still hobbled has an affect. With those 3 being gone can work two ways. Either you throw the new kids to the wolves and take your lumps and hope for instant growth, or you keep the older more experienced players on the field and hope for the best. With the disatisfaction with the defensive side it is safer to go with the more experienced I think, or what I think they are thinking.

If you look at Rivals for the last 10 years you will see that Nebraska has never really been a recruiting hot bed. Even after the 97 National Championship we were hurting according to the recruiting gurus.

We are still no where near the top and have not been since BC took over. We have one decent class compared to the other top 15 programs. The ones that are winning are averaging being in the top 5 for two or three years before the NC run. That being said, we are doing better, but I am afraid we will never return to the level that some new fans think we should be. Things have changed due to Show me the Money attitude, our own lack of poputation and the less than stellar weather/party conditions.

We need to establish a continutiy in coaching. If we start changing every year we will follow in the footsteps of Alabama. I really do not want to see that.

Recruiting and a tenured coaching staff is what wins. These guys are getting there.

There are exceptions in SC, Ohio State and Oklahoma with new coaches. But population and desireable locations over come those shortfalls that Nebraska does not have the luxury of. We were getting the National players with Osborne, Frank never saw the necessity to do it. That is where the wheels really came off. Hard to get it started quickly. Keep the faith I think right now is the only answer. I certainly do not want to see any coaches fired yet.

 
Getting smaller is not the answer. Comparing Wistrom and company from the 90s to this age of football is ludicrous. The game has changed so much with size and speed. The O-Line is very big now and you cannot send a 260 pound DT to match up against a center that is 280 and two guards weighing at an excess or close to 300 pounds. Its the simple law of physics.

I have said this on here before that getting rid of the defensive coaches is not the answer. They now have some stability since there was a new DC for a few years in a row. If I was a recruit and saw that the Asst. coaches were being fired on a consistent basis, I might look away.

This defense has shown flashes of greatness. It would be different if they gave up 500+ yards every single game, but that is not the case. They are inconsistent this year and I believe they will be as the year goes on and next year.

There is a difference between being satisfied with mediocore teams, and being patient and optimistic about what is happening at NU.

GOOOOOOOOOOOO BBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGG RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!

 
I think that had something to do with it for sure. But the attitude about college football around the country also changed with ESPN starting to show highlights of highschool kids and how much money could be made by playing pro football. Don't waste a second in preparing. The media perception that the option was a dead offense and it did not prepare you for the NFL. Alot of things changed at about the same time. Scholarship limits, Big 12 accademic requirements being higher than the Big 8. All in all those things changed the way things were done. To have an above board program as I think we have, it made recruiting a lot harder and more of a year around job. Pederson understood that.

I love Coach Osborne, but I truly feel he would be having problems with today's athlete and the ability to recruit them. I do think he would have changed the offense too. A very smart man, who I think did not want to fight the battle any longer and saw where things were headed. Unfortunately for Joe Pa and Coach Bowden they did not see the change coming.

To be a National power you have to recruit nationally if you are not Texas, Florida or Southern California. Those are the three hot beds and making inroads to them is a continous battle. I think our current staff understands that and works on it continously.

 
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