I fear darker days are ahead

Contract extensions aren't necessarily an indication of success or overwhelming support from the administration. They provide a sort of inferred benefit of stability among the coaching staff.

With Riley, I'm fairly certain his contract extension was an Eichorst thing and it makes a lot of sense. Riley was his hire and his dude. Eichorst knew his job security was dependent upon Riley's success, and that a lot of people were expecting big things in year three. The optics for Eichorst would've been a lot worse if he hadn't done the extension.

Imagine making a controversial hire for Nebraska's football program, while simultaneously not being an overly likable/popular athletic director, and then not extending that coach's contract. It would indirectly say "hey, fire me, please."

 
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krc1995 said:
although Eickhorst and Riley only received one year extensions that made their contracts good through 2020. 
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Maybe this is our problem - Riley got paid for this year (and 2018-2019), and so his spirit lingers with the program. I think we paid him off early, but he still got paid for this year in a sense. Only half joking, I'm pretty much out of rational explanations.

 
I only speak truth after 34 years of following this program.  It is realism, not optimism or pessimism.  This is a results business.  Now that we are finally compensating like a top flight program, we should expect a reasonable return on this investment.  

Demonstrable annual progress is the name of the game (fewer mistakes, improved competitiveness, and ultimately more wins).  

 
I'm willing to wait 5 years before joining the fire him crowd, so another 2 years of losing to go along with these 3.  I don't think Frost is our only chance for success.   I am of the opinion that we could be successful in the Big 10 with a coach that played a more Big 10 style of football.  This Florida Fast hasn't worked that well yet.  Next time around if there is one, we would be better off signing an assistant coach off one of the more successful Big 10 teams than trying to make a splash hire.

 
Scarlet said:
I agree.  I watched the Iowa game again and we're not getting beat physically at the line like we were in the Riley days or Frost's first year..   

That's the first step to improvement.  Clean up the mental errors in both the Iowa and NW games and nobody here is calling for Frost's head.  This game is such a fine line. Now that the physical disparities have been addressed I'm hopeful we're getting closer to the next step.  
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We won 15 games and held 10 teams to under 100 yards rushing in Rileys' first two seasons.  Glad you see us as being more physical on defense because I'm not seeing it and it's sure not translating over to the stats column where just last week we gave up 285 yards rushing to Illini.  TO illinois!!!  I will suggest my eyes told me there was high effort vs Iowa so that's good to see.

Had Banker not been forced out giving some continuity going into Rileys' third season I suspect the defense would have progressed forwards a great deal that year and not gone backwards like they did under what's his face Iowa boy.  

 
I was encouraged by what I saw against Iowa. We ran a couple series on offense that looked tough to stop with a bunch of young players contributing. 

On defense I felt we could’ve pressured their quarterback into mistakes and changed the whole look of the game.

I feel like they’re figuring out what’s wrong and coming out the other side of the storm.

 
Hayseed said:
I was encouraged by what I saw against Iowa. We ran a couple series on offense that looked tough to stop with a bunch of young players contributing. 

On defense I felt we could’ve pressured their quarterback into mistakes and changed the whole look of the game.

I feel like they’re figuring out what’s wrong and coming out the other side of the storm.
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Yes, that QB was not good and struggled without pressure. Add some pressure and now we’re on to something. 

 
LaunchCode said:
We won 15 games and held 10 teams to under 100 yards rushing in Rileys' first two seasons.  Glad you see us as being more physical on defense because I'm not seeing it and it's sure not translating over to the stats column where just last week we gave up 285 yards rushing to Illini.  TO illinois!!!  I will suggest my eyes told me there was high effort vs Iowa so that's good to see.

Had Banker not been forced out giving some continuity going into Rileys' third season I suspect the defense would have progressed forwards a great deal that year and not gone backwards like they did under what's his face Iowa boy.  
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Banker?  You mean the Mark Banker who said Iowa's practices must be a bloodbath after the curb stomping their lines gave us in 2016?  Whose defense gave up 264 yards rushing to Iowa while our offense rushed for 90 that year?  That Mark Banker?

In 2017 we gave up 313 yds on the ground to Iowa and we rushed for 67. This year we held Iowa to 129 yds on the ground and rushed for 143.  

Beyond the stats go back and watch the games.  Iowa is basically the same scheme and culture, a physical run the ball downhill team, so they're a good for comparison year to year.  If you can't see that the physicality disparity has closed then I don't know what to tell you. You can't look at overall stats from years where we played non power 5 schools to this year.  That's silly.  Watch the film of the past games especially against a hard-nosed team like Iowa.  I'll give you, Illinois this year was a turd,.if that winds up being the norm then, yeah, we suck.

Now as far as execution goes.... that's another argument. 

 
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We were so close to getting the W against NW and Iowa.  Had opportunities to put them away.  Which tells me they don't know how to do that yet.  But still it's encouraging and fixable.

Against Illinois - no comment. 

So I really don't see the darker days ahead.  Maybe a lot more rain until the sun shines again.  Who knows when that will happen, but it will.

 
admo said:
We were so close to getting the W against NW and Iowa.  Had opportunities to put them away.  Which tells me they don't know how to do that yet.  But still it's encouraging and fixable.

Against Illinois - no comment. 

So I really don't see the darker days ahead.  Maybe a lot more rain until the sun shines again.  Who knows when that will happen, but it will.
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Agreed.  I could tell against Illinois because the clips they showed of guys warming up they looked like deer in head lights.  I've seen that look before losses while coaching plenty of times.  We are competing pretty well for the most part.  Just have to get over the bonehead plays that keep costing the team big time.

 
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