I said, it is what I expec this year. Too many new people, to little time to train, what I feel are unqualified coaches, depending on too many that really have not seen the field, depending on a single running back, and a quarterback, who most feel is terrible (I am not included in that group).
Wisconsin will be every bit as tough, Michigan state has been on the rise for the last few years, would imagine it will continue, we beat a Penn State team that was in shambles, should be much better this year, kids bounce back no question. Ohio State will be ready for Nebraska this year, not likley the Qb goes down again. Northwestern better be different, Iowa at home is a tough nut to crack for most going there. UCLA is an unknown, but they have a lot of talent, can they make it work is the real question. Arkansas state is a very good team, with a great coach and I think they still have a chance of their transfer running back playing. Michigan who all counted out last year, came on did what Pelini was supposed to do. He won games that mattered.
We lose to UCLA, scrape by Southern Miss or Arky and we will have kids with out a past looking in the mirror wondering. This is not he cake walk some seem to think it is. And we normally find a way to play down to the competition.
I really have no facts or statistics to back up my thoughts, just a very bad feeling about this year.
And as stated last year, Wisconsin showed us what we had, quite obvious, we were in for a tough run through what most predicted as an easy Big Ten. Every team improves as time goes by or at least they are supposed to. Nebraska is not alone in this happening.
My expectations are low this year, not enough improvement in the Oline or Dline to see a CC team. With some luck we could be a good team, but it can go just as easily the other way this year. And as to winning 9 games a year, that was a major deal when you only played 11, but now we play 13, makes a big difference.
Still hope you guys are right, but there really isn't any proof either way.
As others have pointed out you got a lot of wrong info here..
but to the point that we don't have enough on the lines to be a CC team -
we were 1 game away from the CCG last year - one game playing the toughest schedule in the conference. We had to play At Penn State, At Wisconsin and against Ohio State. We won 2 of 3. Michigan State got to play Indiana at home and Michigan got to play both Purdue and Illinois one at home and one away.
We scrambled a bit on the D-Line last year to replace Crick and due to that our DL is actually deeper this year than last - not to mention we get a couple redshirt freshmen into the mix that weren't available last year in Williams and Peat that should add a bit more depth in the middle.
Offensively our line is also deeper and more experianced this year against the BIG type of defense with the possible exception of center.
On Defense we lost no rotational linemen out of 10 (I don't count Crick who was missing most of the real season anyways)
We return Ankrah, Martin, Carter, Meredith, Williams, Rome, Guy, Moore, Steinkuhler and Randle from the rotation (10 of 10 rotational linemen)
We add Todd Peat jr. and Kevin Williams who redshirted last season.
So last year we had 10 rotational defensive linemen, this year we return all 10 and could have 11 or 12 and possibly more available depending on some of the sophmores.
on the offensive side
We lost Hardrick, Jones and Caputo (3 of 11 rotational linemen)
and bring back Sirles, Rodriguez, Choi, Pensick, Long, Qvale, Thompson and Moore (8 of 11 rotational linemen)
and add Klachko, Long, Moudy, Givens, Reeves and Sterup who all redshirted last season and we'll see how Mark Pelini does at center.
Last year we had 11 linemen in the rotation, we may have as many as 13 or 14 this season.
Are we young in some of our depth? yes. But we're still far deeper on both lines and possibly more talented overall than we were last season on both sides and there was actually a lot of improvement as the year went along on the offensive line last year as our new staff members started taking over and I expect big improvement on the defensive side as well with our new d-line coach.
