Dylan Raiola

Guy Chamberlin said:
Technically that 10-4 season in 2009 was tied for Bo's best. That record did not improve when he got his spread guys and got rid of Watson and Gilmore. I don't think pass-happy Tom Osborne thwarted the Huskers by keeping Watson, who ran more than he passed, even with Joe Ganz. It's more that neither pocket passer Zac Lee or dual threat Cody Green was very good at QB, an unfortunate one year blip between Ganz and Taylor Martinez. Bigger question is why the defense quickly went off a cliff.
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I think losing Carl (the yin to Bo’s yang) and Marvin Sanders really hurt the D a ton. I still think Marvin was a phenomenal DB coach.
 
Lorewarn said:
Bo's best two seasons were with Watson and Gilmore, so maybe he'd do worse and have been fired sooner?
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Well, the 2009 and 2010 had the #1 and #9 ranked defenses in points/per game. Oh and #75 in points scored per game for offense in 2009. 39th in 2010. Offense wasn’t really the solution those years (though not terrible in 2010)

In 2009 en route to losing 4 games on the season, 3 of those losses were when the defense allowed 16 points or less.

In 2010 en route to losing 4 games, 3 of those losses were to teams who scored 20 points or less. The other loss was giving up 23 points to an Oklahoma team that averaged 37 that year.

The offense was the problem.
 
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Archy1221 said:
Well, the 2009 and 2010 had the #1 and #9 ranked defenses in points/per game. Oh and #75 in points scored per game for offense in 2009. 39th in 2010. Offense wasn’t really the solution those years (though not terrible in 2010)

In 2009 en route to losing 4 games on the season, 3 of those losses were when the defense allowed 16 points or less.

In 2010 en route to losing 4 games, 3 of those losses were to teams who scored 20 points or less. The other loss was giving up 23 points to an Oklahoma team that averaged 37 that year.

The offense was the problem.
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I don't really disagree, but also don't think it's that simple (my simplistic take was in response to a simplistic take, mostly tongue in cheek).

To his credit, Bo had a vision with Watson of a spread zone read offense with WCO passing concepts, but decided it would be smarter to approach it incrementally, so they cooked up a long term vision of a 2-3 year transition.

Retaining Watson (and Gilmore I guess?) was a massive benefit of continuity when Bo came in, and a huge reason for winning 9 games in year one with a savvy tested Ganz leading a well oiled WCO install the offensive roster was familiar with, while the defense took its lumps adapting to Bo & Carl's new scheme.

2009 comes around, and gone are the veteran glue pieces in Ganz/Swift/Petersen/Lucky/Castille. Despite the revelation of a suddenly elite defensive unit, and a hot start offensively, there was simply no in-season solution to Zac Lee throwing with a torn elbow all year, Cody Green being totally in over his head, and our receiving corps having slippery cinder block hands. Fans can argue they should have burned Taylor's redshirt, but they didn't know what they had in him yet, and so they shut the offense down, intentionally and by design, knowing the Iowa approach was the best option with a once in a lifetime defense.

2010 was the year it was all going to come together and the long term offensive strategy was finally going to crystalize and pay off. Which it did, after shocking rumblings that this freshman California kid might actually win the fall camp QB battle turning into a revelation of a new elite, explosive power spread led by september heisman candidate Taylor Martinez, along with Roy and Rex all averaging about 10 yards per carry. We were lethal and dominating on both sides of the ball and the offense was giving everyone fits... until Taylor got hurt, and when your whole offensive identity revolves around a generational talent doing his thing, well we all know how that turned out. Kudos to Rex Burkhead being one of the best backup QBs we've had in modern memory.

Did Tim Beck do any better from 2011-2014? Depends on what you mean by better. There's legitimate ways to look at it and say, "Not really." Would someone else have? Maybe, but I think any scheme or coach tied to Taylor Martinez was always going to be feast or famine.




Archy1221 said:
In 2009 en route to losing 4 games on the season, 3 of those losses were when the defense allowed 16 points or less.

In 2010 en route to losing 4 games, 3 of those losses were to teams who scored 20 points or less. The other loss was giving up 23 points to an Oklahoma team that averaged 37 that year.
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Switching gears, this part is really interesting to me as an off-topic sidenote, especially with the conclusion of the offense being the problem.

Why don't people say the same thing about Callahan/Cosgrove? Cosgrove is a near universal scapegoat in the minds of Nebraska fans, with people often pondering how it would have gone differently if Billy C would have stopped being too loyal and fired his buddy, but my question is when?

In 2005 en route to losing 4 games on the season, our defense was 25th in points allowed, we led the nation in sacks, and the defense was a tragic fumble after a game winning interception away from also getting us a top 15 win. The offense was ranked 67th in points per game.

In 2006 en route to losing 5 games, our defense was once again 25th in points allowed, and held #4 USC to 28 points despite the most vanilla offensive gameplan ever divised, held #5 Texas to 22 points despite a final minute fumble that gave then the winning field goal, held #8 Oklahoma to 21 points despite 5 turnovers, and held #10 Auburn to 17 points while our offense sputtered each time against top competition.

Was the offense the problem? Just interesting how the myths and narratives can differ depending on who/when we're talking about.
 
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