Dark Clouds and Silver Linings

[Ric Flair]

Today's result is a disappointment. A double digit loss in a big-time divisional matchup flat-out sucks. We were once again not ready to play in a big game. We once again saw the collection of turnovers, inexplicable mental errors and lack of discipline that have plagued this team during the Pelini era. If in Year 6 of his tenure we're still seeing he same problems that we're so accustomed to, a good case can be made that we simply need to move on with a new coaching staff. Armstrong is performing the impossible task of making Martinez look like he took good care of the ball.

However, I saw some things today that I really liked. Despite the stupid mistakes, the team continued to play hard. They never gave up and kept trying. Abdullah ran strong and hard. Our receivers made some big plays. The defense struggled at times and excelled at others, but overall gave a great effort. The offense put them in some terrible spots and rather than giving up they did their best to step up. The amount of youth and lack of experience we have on the field makes some of the mistakes more understandable and tolerable. When you combine that with the amount of talent we see to be developing, it looks like we should see some improvement in the next year or two.

So kudos to the team for a good effort. Lots of frustrating mistakes today, but some promising signs too.

 

[chamrocck]

There were some good individual efforts today. Gregory and Abdullah stand out. To me the team is not playing to full potential. The offense is still too inconsistent. And the defense...think about if we didn't have Gregory causing all the pressure and disruption out there...this defense would be in serious trouble. Today they were put in a bunch of bad field position but I still see bad angles, bad tackling, and the inability to run through the play. They are improving but I'm not seeing that mental and physical toughness that ultimately will be needed to bring us back to a championship level.

 

[robsker]

It was neat that a national sportscaster called Gregory the "best pass rusher" in the nation. Burch can get open and he looked good. The DL interior was pretty solid. AA looked good. Imani Cross was impressive (good speed for a large body builder type). I thought that the defense in general was pretty good. So those are the silver linings...

 

[HUSKER FREAK]

You take away even two or three of those TO's we win. No doubt in my mind. We saw a lot of good things on D and on offense especially rushing the ball. Mental mistakes are hard to overcome and seem to snowball on this team once it gets started. TA missed a easy TD pass to Burtch on a third down when he tried forcing it to I think Kenny. He was wide open and I mean no one with in 20 or 30 yards of him, but he is still a young QB and will make some mistakes. I think a lot of people also forget about how banged up our team is especially on the Oline. We did really well considering all of the injuries. Bell just doesn't seem to be 100%, but when TA threw to a spot and Bell got passed his defender and was able to run underneath the ball was plain awesome. That was a NFL caliber play by Kenny. Burtch is also way better than people give him credit for. He ran some really good routes yesterday. Jake Long needs to practice catching the damn ball. He has had a few costly drops and yesterday was another big one. All in all I think we are looking good for the future and the rest of this season. We have came a long way from the beginning of the season.

 

[Redux]

It was just a cold shock when we fumbled the second time. I though "Oh crap, its gonna be ISU 09 all over again". I cant dault the coaches for it though. I mean yes they need to prepare and teach and all but yikes, alotnof it was on the players. The officials were pretty loose with alot of Spartys ball placement and kept their drives alive.

Positive? Randy freaking Gregory. Ammer freaking Abdullah. 400 yards on a team that was allowing half that. 28 points on a team that allowed 9 in last like 3 games. The tenacity of the team as it held together and never quit. The crowd was also really loud all day and nobory bailed early.

 

[jsneb83]

There were some good individual efforts today. Gregory and Abdullah stand out. To me the team is not playing to full potential. The offense is still too inconsistent. And the defense...think about if we didn't have Gregory causing all the pressure and disruption out there...this defense would be in serious trouble. Today they were put in a bunch of bad field position but I still see bad angles, bad tackling, and the inability to run through the play. They are improving but I'm not seeing that mental and physical toughness that ultimately will be needed to bring us back to a championship level.

Don't you think that some of the bad angles and missed tackles was because they were on field for almost 40 minutes.

 

[NUinID]

There were some good individual efforts today. Gregory and Abdullah stand out. To me the team is not playing to full potential. The offense is still too inconsistent. And the defense...think about if we didn't have Gregory causing all the pressure and disruption out there...this defense would be in serious trouble. Today they were put in a bunch of bad field position but I still see bad angles, bad tackling, and the inability to run through the play. They are improving but I'm not seeing that mental and physical toughness that ultimately will be needed to bring us back to a championship level.

Don't you think that some of the bad angles and missed tackles was because they were on field for almost 40 minutes.

I do, they were getting tired. The D played well and was put in a lot of bad spots.

At one point they showed a shot of NU front before the snap. It was 4 freshmen and 2 sophs in the shot.

The d is looking up for the future.

 

[True2tRA]

The offensive line surprisingly handled them pretty well. That was what I thought would be a real weakness. Ameer shut Desmond Howard's stupid a$$ up pretty quickly. The defense played really well for being put in such horrible situations all game long. That Cook kid just had his best game. The guy was in the money every time he needed to be. Tough loss, but there were some positives.