Comments from Idiotic Husker Writer . . .

HuskerinSunDiego said:
In reading various stories, I came across the following idiotic insights from a Nebraska writer:

Derek Johnson, HuskerMax (Yes, it's a minor league publication, but a publication). Here are his stupid remarks:

1. "Nebraska's short-and-efficient practices manifested itself in the Huskers calm-and-cool look, as it was on display in many a college opener this weekend. The on-field product looked a bit lackadaisical (if Nebraska had played Wisconsin this week, they'd have lost), but Pelini usually ramped up the physicality in practice mid-season."

Comment: We'd have lost to a Whisky team that passed for 50 yards? Really? What a doltz.

2. "Ameer Abdullah looks fresher than I expected. I'm not backing off of my prediction that he will miss time this year and he should have had exactly zero carries in the second half, instead of the five he had."

Comment: This moron is proud of the fact that he believes that Ameer will get injured? What a complete moron. Wow, Ameer had an entire "five" carries in the second half. Yeah, that is what you call overworking a guy.

3. "Is 50% passing quarterback the most we can expect from a Nebraska/Tim Beck quarterback? At this point in his career, Armstong shouldn't be booming the ball five yards over open receivers. But if he can improve his accuracy, he's got his running style done pat, and the size necessary to punish defenders."

Comment: This numbskull can't even appreciate the fact that Tommy turned in a great game. Screw the stats. The eye test is what counts. Sabermetrics be damned. Yeah, Tommy missed a few receivers, but not by much. For the most part, his throws were hard and crisp. To be frank in the 27 years since I first started school at UNL (No, I'm not still in school!), I have never seen a QB at NU with a better arm. Also, his leadership was great If this blowhard writer was around when Tommie Frazier was here, he'd be complaining that Frazier's passes don't have any zip on them.
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1. Completely irrelevant since we didn't play Wisconsin this week (and I disagree with the premise that we would lose).

2. He doesn't seem like he's proud of the idea that Ameer might get hurt. Just that he's concerned about his workload. Frankly, I agree somewhat. I'm not going to predict that he gets hurt, but I don't think he should have played at all in the second half and more of his carries should have been given to other runners. He didn't need 21 carries for us to win against FAU. Save those hits for later in the season and get some more work to Newby and especially Cross.

3. Tommy turned in a good game. But the 50% completion rate is a bit concerning, especially against a lesser foe like FAU. He throws a gorgeous deep ball, but his accuracy on short throws is well off at times. He seems to have progressed quite a bit since last year, but there were at least 2 passes that probably should have been intercepted by FAU. If Bell doesn't make a great one handed catch and Westerkamp doesn't have that behind the back magic catch... then his percentage is 44%. (Maybe there were some drops, but I don't recall them) Again, he had a good game, but he wasn't flawless either.

 
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The Dude said:
Not too worked up about the 50% completion percentage. Is there room for Armstrong to improve? Of course there is, but at this point I'll take 15 for 29 over 15 for 25 + 4 sacks. If he took those sacks and ended up with a better completion percentage, could we honestly say he had a better game?
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Or 15 for 25 +2 INT's? Throw away or in the dirt, just don't throw picks.

 
If we have the offense of 2012 mixed with a defense like 2009 or '10, which is what this opener resembled (against similar caliber opponents), then we'll be OK.

 
Armstrong looked great running the ball, but looked mediocre throwing the ball. He had some great, beautiful passes but far too many overthrows to wide open receivers.

But I said it a few months ago, that's perfectly fine if he avoids turnovers. And yesterday he did. It'd be great to see his percentage improve but as long as turnovers don't happen I'm pretty happy with him as QB.

 
I'll take 50% completion from a dropback passing game that tries the deep ball often and where the QB throws the ball away to avoid sacks.

This isn't a dink and dunk game where we pass to replace the run and need high completion rate in order to replicate the run game.

 
I was impressed with this effort as a first game, especially the part with no Husker turnovers.

Westerkamp's behind the back catch came courtesy of an interception attempt that was whiffed by the FAU defender.

However, Armstrong threw some good balls yesterday.

Solid win, no complaints by me.

 
zoogies said:
This isn't a dink and dunk game where we pass to replace the run and need high completion rate in order to replicate the run game.
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This is really the key point. You need a high completion percentage when you aren't churning out 4, 5, 6 (or 11 in Ameer's case) yards per carry. But we get incredible production from our running game and therefore don't need to complete an extremely high percentage (which is what comes from working a dink and dunk offense). The passing game, for us, appears so far to be a vertical game, a way to stretch the field, keep the safeties back, make the linebackers honest, and allow some space for our incredible trio of RB's to go to work.

At the same time, I would like to see more polish from Armstrong in the short throwing game. He missed Abdullah once in the flat when he had one guy (10 yards away) between him and the endzone. Also missed Bell on an out-route in the 2nd (I believe this was on the possession where we went 3 straight passes around the FAU 27), as well as should have thrown at least one pick (one time, he just didn't see a LB drifting back and threw it right into the LB on a crossing route to Moore). Regardless, the deep ball perfection really makes up for it, and if he can begin to polish that short throwing game, he could mature into a special player, especially with his attitude (his words in the post-game presser were great).

 
I was one of the people who came into this season being very nervous about the prospect of TA being far and away the best QB we have, but after yesterday I'm not nearly as nervous. He does need some work on hitting his check-down guys, but for the most part, even when he did miss, he missed in a direction where the defense didn't have a chance to come up with it. Granted, not every pass he threw was that way (if Milstead had better hands that likely would've been an interception instead of a miracle catch by Westerkamp, for example) but no QB makes the right read 100% of the time. The most important thing is, he throws a beautiful deep ball, and our receivers are plenty capable of getting open deep. Combine that with our running game, which should be good enough that we won't have to spend a lot of time on a dink-and-dunk passing game, and our offense is extremely dangerous. I don't have any doubts that Armstrong can get the job done, and then some.

 
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IMO yesterday was the most nearly complete game the skers have played over the course of the last couple. Then again the booze was flowing pretty well.

 
I was impressed by our effort yesterday..It looked like we were already in 2nd or 3rd game "crispness"? Usually, teams improve the most between the 1st and 2nd games.

As for the Husker Max? article (whatever Husker Max is), It's probably human Husker Nature to try to downplay the team while they're doing well..It's the only way us old folks survived Sooner Magic all those years ago when we had our hopes so rediculously high all season long, only to end each season with two straight losses...

We don't want the fellas getting big heads reading only puff pieces.

 
The effort certainly was there, no doubt about.

I would have liked to have seen Ameer get less touches.

50% completion rate against this level ood competition isn't good. And to compare Tommy to Tommie is grasping at straws. Tommie only threw the ball about 15 times a game, not the 30 that Tommy did. That, and there were more than one passes that should have been picked. Against a better defense, that just isn't going to cut it.

 
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