1) Hasn't
everyone already criticized the recruiting of the staff? Hasn't the staff made changes to improve recruiting over the last 2-3 years?
2) Isn't this the same as #1? Anyway, he's already admitted to failures in recruiting.
3) They looked lost huh? I see a team that is put in position more often than not to make the play but fail to do so, often because they fail to properly tackle or are too slow. I'd agree they didn't have any answers, because they did what they were told to do, but they weren't lost. They were too slow. Is it coincidence Raymond said we needed better athletes to keep up with the speed of the SEC? And guess what the first thing other teams did against us the next year was? Take advantage of our lack of speed to the sides.
4) Once again, I do not believe they were "lost". Obviously, there were some communication issues in a game or two, but I think the defense communicated pretty well. Watch the CCG film, again. We were in position, we just sucked. Now where
I do agree is that you need to put players out there that have a chance to run with guys running 4.4s or close to that. That would be playing our youth - in which Bo admitted he shouldn't of redshirted some people and that he kept some of the better athletes on the bench so they could figure out the D completely. I think Bo learned this the hard way, and is making changes accordingly - even telling plenty of recruits that they need them NOW.
5) Refer back to #4. However, if the other players cannot trust them to do their jobs, then we see overcompensation happen and that is when we get hit with a CCG like loss or OSU.
6) I'd say that we adjusted pretty well last year, seeing as we shut down most offenses so we could come back and win the game....
7) Or, instead of changing
your entire defensive philosophy that got you to the point of being head coach at Nebraska you fix the source - which is
recruiting. You are correct, it is his job to get those players here, and he hadn't. I had been more than vocal about our recruiting up until the last couple years. Bo has taken his lumps regarding his attitude, his recruiting, amongst other things. If you seriously expect Bo Pelini, of all people, to blame his players and not himself, you don't know very much about the guy. He isn't going to throw his "family" under the bus. He'll take his lumps because he isn't a 18-22 year old kid.
EDIT - Not to say Bo is the greatest coach of all time, but he is learning on the job, and I'd say more than a few people saw what was coming because of those failures in recruiting. Hell, even on this board people were questioning the DL openly. Recruiting is Bo's fault, but he has addressed it. I'd be more concerned if next year or the year after that we had serious issues on defense, because that would be after he supposedly "figured out" recruiting.