I think the Husker Offense outscores the Buffs. That is why we will win.
Question for the Buffs on the board: What is your impression of Hawkins? Is he golden (no pun intended) or does he have his fair share of critics? I am not impressed with him at all. And starting his Freshman son at QB smells a little, but I don't know the inside story.
:cheers
On the first statement, the Husker offense is definitely better than the Colorado offense, but even with the injuries we have (which are significant) the Colorado defense is definitely better than the Nebraska defense. I guess then it comes down to which better unit outperforms the worse unit by a greater margin, or perhaps which inferior unit performs less poorly than the superior unit, right? Wait, did I just confuse the bejesus out of myself? I'm pretty sure I did. Nevermind.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of Hawkins. I love the balance in our offense, and our defense has been absolutely solid for the past 2 seasons despite the fact that we've only had 5, maybe 7, defensive starters during that time that were Big XII quality. His personality melds perfectly with Boulder, and he understands the fan base well (he's not expecting Alabama level fanaticism from CU alums, and he's comfortable with that). From a PR standpoint, I can't imagine how he could be any better (even that "IT'S THE BIG 12!!!" tirade he went on last year seems to have made him more endearing in the public eye).
The big thing with Hawkins though is that he understands the big picture. I realize you'll all scoff at this, but when he came to Boulder he set his sights on winning a NC, and he's actually taking all the right steps to accomplish that (cleaning up Barnett's messes and updating our facilities are jobs 1 and 2 in this process, obviously). Just for an example, after we beat Oklahoma this year, he was driving a crew of excellent recruits (including Jon Major, who committed a couple of weeks later) around CU's campus no more than half an hour after the game ended, making sure to take all the sensationalism and positive momentum from the win and use it to create the most powerful pitch possible for these kids. After the 2001 Nebraska game, by comparison, Gary Barnett seemed to say to himself "well... that was fun. Okay, I'm gonna go recruit this white receiver that runs a 4.89 40 now."
We've had some frustrating losses in recent weeks, so you're starting to see a bit of unrest popping up from the CU faithful, but certainly nothing more than you'd see with any other program in the country under the same circumstances (and certainly a lot less than you'd see at places like Arkansas and Florida). The general consensus though is that Hawkins undoubtedly has this program moving in the right direction, and as long as he keeps that up (keeps recruiting well, keeps improving the product on the field, keeps updating facilities, keeps maintaining a good public face on the program) most people seem content to give him a free pass for the time being (though it's not really free, if it's really based on that many contingencies). That said, if it's 2009 and we're still sitting at a .500 record or thereabouts, you'll likely start hearing people calling for his head.
Personally, I think we'll be a 10 win team by 2009, but who knows what'll end up happening?