Here's a completely new explanation for why 2017 sucked so bad that has never been brought up in this forum before - lack of accountability

I know it's been talked about a lot already but it's something I think about every time I read about strength training and/or accountability under the new coaches.

I think a combination of factors that I've read about various places (mostly here) may have made things especially bad.

a) Strength training coaches not being allowed by the football coaches to punish players for slacking off, showing up late, not showing up. - No punishment. E.g. starting players had no chance of having playing time taken away.

b) Riley's attitude that the players should know good decisions when they see them. This might be a good tactic for some people, but not all, and we're talking about 18-22 year olds. I know how immature I was at that age, even though I was an adult.

c) Using time off from workouts as a reward - what were they thinking? For one thing, time off from workouts shouldn't be seen as reward. It's part of how the players reach what their goals should be. It should be seen as a reward getting to be at Nebraska and working out to become a better player.

d) Not rotating players. This was the case on the OL but maybe some other places too (not sure on that). If you're a starter, and you're not looking over your shoulder, and you have no fear of ever losing your starting job once you gain it, I don't care how dedicated to the team you are. It's going to be harder to be motivated to be the best you can be. Competition is a great motivator.

All of those combined are a good recipe for crappy results. I think those things, way more than front squat vs. back squat (although it's still interesting to talk about) are very important.

 
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theknife said:
Anyone leaving regardless of reason: transfer, graduation, no longer playing football, etc.
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With any reason possible, I'm going over.  I will caveat that this includes the time from now until fall ball starts.  I think as Frost builds the foundation, things will get harder.  Too drastic, too quick and it causes a lot of problems....Frost is calculated and smart about what needs to be done.

 
The 4-8 team last year, was a 4-8 team by the way they played. I think they had the players to be better than what they showed, but the head coach was the worst hire in the last 60+ yrs. Bill Jennings is now off the hook, as the worst coach in that time period imo.  :lol:

GBR!!!

 
Enhance said:
That's because it's a slippery slope to go down. People like to argue 'the team was better than 4-8 and here's why' while often ignoring the team was also pretty close to being 2-10. We can't have one without acknowledging the other.

I know it's hard to stomach but they were a bad team last year - they were a 4-8 team. They weren't good and they know it, even if their recruiting rankings and raw potential suggested things should've been otherwise.
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This is exactly what i think when i realize that we were 4-8 last year - is that we were so close to 2-10 (or 3-11), with a decent schedule.

Can you imagine the record with THIS year's schedule if things were allowed to continue down the same path?

 
this topic and the fact that Riley is the poster boy for lack of accountability, is the reason he was, and will always be a loser- maybe a nice guy, but like Callahan and Jennings before him a loser.

But most of us knew that when he was hired. It was all there for everyone to see: his win-loss record, his body language, his choices of assistant coaches, etc etc

Frost, on the other hand..... the first thing that comes to mind, and this did when I saw his PC when he accepted the UCF job, is winner. At the time, I was thinking, how on earth did UCF get a guy like Frost and we ended up with a retread like Riley?

 
theknife said:
Anyone leaving regardless of reason: transfer, graduation, no longer playing football, etc.
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Possibly squares trying to fit into triangular holes.   No fault on the player but maybe a player without a position?

Ben Miles is the first player that comes to mind.

 
OH HSKR FAN said:
Possibly squares trying to fit into triangular holes.   No fault on the player but maybe a player without a position?

Ben Miles is the first player that comes to mind.
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I wouldn't blame him if he left but there aren't very many teams that use fullbacks.

 
RedSavage said:
Weird, I recall lots of people recently arguing we weren't better than 4-8.
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Of course Frost is going to say that.  He wants to pump them up.  That team, especially on defense sucked.  It was aided by very, very bad coaching.  

You guys need to learn not to get sucked up by offseason PR.  It's the main reason you get sucked in and find yourself on the ledge by Week 6.  

 
BlitzFirst said:
It's not about that.  We have the top recruiting class for the past 5-6 years in the B1G West.  We SHOULD be better than 4-8 every year.

Frost isn't looking at PR or pumping anyone up.  He's looking at the talent on the team and realizing he has a lot to work with and that we should have performed better.  It's all coaching and preparation to be honest.  It's not that we didn't have good players.

I know of at least 3-4 freshman/sophomores last year that SHOULD have played and didn't...especially along the OL.  Mike Riley didn't put us in the position to win with the best players in my opinion....so, our record indicates a coaching shortfall but it DOES NOT equal a talent shortfall.
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Agree with everything, except the freshman always better then the starters thing that Nebraska fans hold so dearly to their hearts. 

 
Here's the most baffling part: Riley continues to be employed.  How?  Why did Oregon State hire him back?  He has such an incredible, abysmal, pathetic track record of failure.  How does he keep getting hired??  Just boggles my mind.

 
Making Chimichangas said:
Here's the most baffling part: Riley continues to be employed.  How?  Why did Oregon State hire him back?  He has such an incredible, abysmal, pathetic track record of failure.  How does he keep getting hired??  Just boggles my mind.
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One could say at $50k a year they got a deal, i'd question that because I think his mediocrity is infectious, but who knows maybe its just a titular title they gave him and his real job is to massage groin injuries 

 
BlitzFirst said:
I think it's more the fact that we have more roster talent than anything in the big ten West and yet underperformed more than all in the conference.

It's more of what other tms do with less.
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Probably better to say we were definitely a 4 - 8 "program" last year that could have easily been 2 - 10.  To me, "Program" includes coaches as well.  Team seems to get interpreted as just the players.  While the program we definitely bad, the team, with better coaching and development could have been better than that.

 
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