BTN: Early Look at the 2015 Huskers

[Mavric]

1. Adapt to the new staff. After seven seasons, surly Bo Pelini and his angry angst are out in Lincoln. Nebraska raised some eyebrows by tabbing Oregon State’s Mike Riley to take over. Riley enjoyed modest success in Corvallis, Ore., working within a program that lacked the requisite bells and whistles to win consistently on a high level. His new gig has all of that—and then some. Riley brings a staff familiar with his style, which should help smooth the transition. But the players will have a learning curve, adapting to new demands, personalities and schemes. Everyone needs to get up to speed quickly.

2. Sift through the running backs. Ameer Abdullah and his wondrous talents are gone. He put together his third straight 1,000-yard rushing season in 2014, a first in the history of the Nebraska program. He finished his career with 4,588 career rushing yards, trailing only Mike Rozier’s school record of 4,780 career rushing yards. But the staff has some nice options in Imani Cross, Terrell Newby, Adam Taylor and Mikale Wilbon.

3. Torque the offensive line. The unit lost three starters on the interior in guards Mike Moudy and Jake Cotton and center Mark Pelini. The new staff can build around stud left tackle Alex Lewis, along with towering (6-8) right tackle Zach Sterup. The development here is especially critical when you consider the Huskers are looking for a feature back with Ameer Abdullah gone and No. 1 wideout with Kenny Bell departed.

Riley video in the link

 

[DaveH]

Gonna be an interesting year. Exciting because honeymoon's are always exciting

 

[Hunter94]

all we lost on the OL was experience......Moudy, Cotton and Pelini were just "there".......it will take time to build new chemistry here......it's my biggest concern, absent an Abdullah.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

I can't imagine our offensive line not being better.

I can't imagine our offensive scheme being a difficult transistion. With a better coach, it should be a relief.

Either Armstrong will get better in his third season, or Stanton will come in and play better than Armstrong.

We don't have Ameer Abdullah. We have multiple backs in competition for carries. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Westerkamp and Pierson-El are about as exciting as wide-receviers come, and we appear deep in rangy, competent receivers to back them up.

The chemistry that is so important was Bo Pelini's weakest link. Bo's teams were emotionally fragile. I expect the new chemistry to work almost instantly, and get better from there.

I don't have a gut feeling on the defense, but most college football experts appeared baffled by Nebraska's unwillingness to change schemes as needed and stop doing what wasn't working. Assuming any DC would quickly correct that, I see no reason not to expect improvement on the D, too, with or without Randy Gregory.

 

[MichiganDad3]

all we lost on the OL was experience......Moudy, Cotton and Pelini were just "there".......it will take time to build new chemistry here......it's my biggest concern, absent an Abdullah.

Was Pelini even there? You could argue that he was the worst center in the history of Nebraska.

 

[Minnesota_husker]

I can't imagine our offensive line not being better.

I can't imagine our offensive scheme being a difficult transistion. With a better coach, it should be a relief.

Either Armstrong will get better in his third season, or Stanton will come in and play better than Armstrong.

We don't have Ameer Abdullah. We have multiple backs in competition for carries. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Westerkamp and Pierson-El are about as exciting as wide-receviers come, and we appear deep in rangy, competent receivers to back them up.

The chemistry that is so important was Bo Pelini's weakest link. Bo's teams were emotionally fragile. I expect the new chemistry to work almost instantly, and get better from there.

I don't have a gut feeling on the defense, but most college football experts appeared baffled by Nebraska's unwillingness to change schemes as needed and stop doing what wasn't working. Assuming any DC would quickly correct that, I see no reason not to expect improvement on the D, too, with or without Randy Gregory.

Losing a guy like Ameer is a bad thing no matter how you try and spin it... The question is "How bad/much of a loss will it be"

 

[Hedley Lamarr]

I can't imagine our offensive line not being better.

I can't imagine our offensive scheme being a difficult transistion. With a better coach, it should be a relief.

Either Armstrong will get better in his third season, or Stanton will come in and play better than Armstrong.

We don't have Ameer Abdullah. We have multiple backs in competition for carries. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Westerkamp and Pierson-El are about as exciting as wide-receviers come, and we appear deep in rangy, competent receivers to back them up.

The chemistry that is so important was Bo Pelini's weakest link. Bo's teams were emotionally fragile. I expect the new chemistry to work almost instantly, and get better from there.

I don't have a gut feeling on the defense, but most college football experts appeared baffled by Nebraska's unwillingness to change schemes as needed and stop doing what wasn't working. Assuming any DC would quickly correct that, I see no reason not to expect improvement on the D, too, with or without Randy Gregory.

Losing a guy like Ameer is a bad thing no matter how you try and spin it... The question is "How bad/much of a loss will it be"

Unless the young bucks end up surpassing his production

 

[Redux]

I can't imagine our offensive line not being better.

I can't imagine our offensive scheme being a difficult transistion. With a better coach, it should be a relief.

Either Armstrong will get better in his third season, or Stanton will come in and play better than Armstrong.

We don't have Ameer Abdullah. We have multiple backs in competition for carries. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Westerkamp and Pierson-El are about as exciting as wide-receviers come, and we appear deep in rangy, competent receivers to back them up.

The chemistry that is so important was Bo Pelini's weakest link. Bo's teams were emotionally fragile. I expect the new chemistry to work almost instantly, and get better from there.

I don't have a gut feeling on the defense, but most college football experts appeared baffled by Nebraska's unwillingness to change schemes as needed and stop doing what wasn't working. Assuming any DC would quickly correct that, I see no reason not to expect improvement on the D, too, with or without Randy Gregory.

Pretty much nails it outta the park here.

 

[Redux]

The Running Back stable is talented but took a pretty huge hit losing Abdullah. Still irks me we couldn't find a way to get him a couple hundred more yards on the year. Sorting it our and utilizing the talent in their strongest situations are supposed to be Coach Riley's bread and butter so really I'm pretty pumped to see what he does there.

Receiving we are still loaded. Losing Kenny sucks no matter what you personally think of the dude. But with Westestache, DPE, and Jamal Turner (hopefully healthy all season) we should be just fine. We also have guys nipping at their heels for playing time so the competition will be fierce.

A lot of these guys have been around each other for quite a while so the chemistry aspect is still there, they just need to find a way to click with the new staff. Smoking BYU out of the gate would accomplish that.

Defensively I have no clue what to expect. There is talent all over and you HAVE to think Coach Riley is going to implement a much more simplistic scheme and approach which should equal a much more consistent and relaxed Blackshirt squad.

Turnovers. Really, we can't get much worse so I would just have to assume this area improves by default

Special Teams I hope stay the course kind of. We had some good things going and I expect our FG unit to be a little better as well.

Overall we should expect at least 9 wins. We don't play Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State and get Wiscy, Spary and Iowa at home. The early games against BYU and Miami are kind of mysteries at this point anyway and I'm more concerned with getting to Indy again. Still though, smacking down the Cougars in the opener and laying the wood to Miami in their home stadium would be great house warming gifts for the new staff. I'm ready to see where we go from here.

 

[alwayshusking]

I don't see talent all over on defense. LB and DE are hurting for talent and depth. New scheme will help our defense against the run, which will help some.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

I can't imagine our offensive line not being better.

I can't imagine our offensive scheme being a difficult transistion. With a better coach, it should be a relief.

Either Armstrong will get better in his third season, or Stanton will come in and play better than Armstrong.

We don't have Ameer Abdullah. We have multiple backs in competition for carries. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Westerkamp and Pierson-El are about as exciting as wide-receviers come, and we appear deep in rangy, competent receivers to back them up.

The chemistry that is so important was Bo Pelini's weakest link. Bo's teams were emotionally fragile. I expect the new chemistry to work almost instantly, and get better from there.

I don't have a gut feeling on the defense, but most college football experts appeared baffled by Nebraska's unwillingness to change schemes as needed and stop doing what wasn't working. Assuming any DC would quickly correct that, I see no reason not to expect improvement on the D, too, with or without Randy Gregory.

Losing a guy like Ameer is a bad thing no matter how you try and spin it... The question is "How bad/much of a loss will it be"

Not trying to spin it really. That's why I used the words "not necessarily."

But I don't think losing Ameer should be an excuse for expecting less from the Husker offense. A combination of RBs will surely get the 1,500 yards he got on his own. One or two might break out of the pack, as a young Ameer Abdullah did back when people weren't sure we could get over the loss of Rex Burkhead, or that Abdullah deserved the chance over Braylon Heard or Aaron Green.

Question is whether any of these guys can single handedly will a win, which Ameer managed to do a time or two.

 

[Cougar74]

No doubt. I hope the qb work their tail off at play action. That we're it's at! Under center or pistol taking the steps, mesh, slide of hand, the sell, the rollout throwing or faking. Above all consistency.

IMO were going to like the qb new look.

 

[Cougar74]

No doubt. I hope the qb work their tail off at play action. That we're it's at! Under center or pistol taking the steps, mesh, slide of hand, the sell, the rollout throwing or faking. Above all consistency.

IMO were going to like the qb new look.

 

[lo country]

If Riley can't get an OL and DL put together, it won't matter how good we are at QB, RB, WR etc.... We need to find a way to become dominant in the trenches again. Something we haven't seen since 2009. Without SUH that year, really unsure if we would have been as dominant as we appeared.

With the talk of getting the most out of your guys, putting guys in places to succeed and putting round pegs in round holes I expect to see a lot of improvement on both sides of the ball as well as in development. I don't expect to see a guys best play is in his first season. Yes, that's a knock on Bo. I think guys improved in spite of the former staff in some instances.

I also expect us to be competetive in every game. The staff has the experience and knowledge to adjust on the fly. Bo and Co showed a complete inability to do that. I also don't think Riley will put TA in the pocket and go air Brady unless there is some serious improvement in the off season. I also expect him to use the TE and FB.

On paper we have the talent on both sides. I like Leroy coming back. Had he been hear this year, IMO, Cooper would not have stayed a starter all year. We have CJax back, experienced DB's, Rose back, a bazillion LB recruits and a solid DL minus Gregory. TA with tons of experience. 2 experienced RB's, Stache, DPE, JT etc..... Lastly, with the OL, addition by subtraction. They flat stunk last year. I can only imagine AA behind a better line. Consistent play calling should also help the OL.

 

[strigori]

I don't see talent all over on defense. LB and DE are hurting for talent and depth. New scheme will help our defense against the run, which will help some.

Those are thin spots to be sure. But the starting DTs are very good. And the secondary should be good as well. If we can get some production from some of the young DEs and LBs we will be fine. With a more player friendly scheme, this should be do able. It seems to be everywhere else in college football. I don't think the defense as a whole is going to be the strongest point on the team, but it should be serviceable, at least the level we have had the last couple years at any rate.