McKewon: Talent isn't Nebraska's issue, it's focus, edge and savvy

zoogs

zoogs

Assistant Coach
http://www.omaha.com/huskers/mckewon-talent-isn-t-nebraska-s-issue-it-s-focus/article_fcbbabd0-2fdc-5b9e-b82c-15fc3e63a9bb.html

DRIVING THROUGH THE CIVILIZED WILDERNESS OF SOUTH FLORIDA I am reminded that, when you neglect a patch of ground in these parts, nature reclaims it with swift ferocity. You can just feel the encroachment of ancient creation green, lush, teeming as it waits for its moment to overwhelm every carefully planned road, hotel, strip mall, beach bar and billboard.

The past always wants back in. Its a relentless hound, as much in pursuit of the future as the present.

Welcome to Nebraska, Mike Riley. The real Nebraska. The whole caravansary the poking, the prodding, the attention, the pressure, the hope, the anger, the reporters prying open the doors to every injury and suspension. All the stage fright, late fight and not-quite-seen in a 36-33 overtime loss to Miami has been seen and lived before. Football is football, thats true, but Nebraska football is a civilized wilderness, ancient culture in search of land to reclaim.
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Fantastic writing from Sam.

Respectfully disagree about the talent level of this team. The bottom hasn't fallen out (well -- as long as Armstrong stays healthy) -- but it is not that great. It's got solid areas and seriously vulnerable areas (for example, the LB ranks were bolstered significantly by some last minute recruiting; 3 scholarship LBs otherwise) and is befitting of a team that is going to have to fight in order to claim an uninspiring B1G West.

How fast can we restock? Well, that's up to how well these coaches can recruit. And how many JUCO DEs they can find. It doesn't have to take very long, but prepare to see a lot of young/new players playing in the near future.

 
Good article.

One thing I found interesting from the piece though, was that when McKewon said talent is not an issue and proceeded to list the players that make him think so, is it strange that he only talked about offensive players? I think it is. When half your article focus's on defensive struggles, and the teams struggles are largely defensively, I would think you wouldn't suddenly delve into a rant about how talented we are offensively. I think that's important because I think we are lacking some talent, depth and experience defensively.

 
Yeah, McKewon is counting stars with our RBs, although maybe he's right. Meh. A solid 5-star college RB can be a far cry from Ameer, as we should know very well. He makes an interesting assertion about the OL:

The line has young talent that coaches are choosing not to play.
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...yeah. I don't know about that. Maybe, and if so, I guess they should play 'em.

Our WRs are a pretty nice group. Obviously they are better than they were in 2004, if that's the frame of reference. Better than Swift/Peterson/Nunn/Purify? I don't know. They're good, and maybe they have an extra edge if DPE gets back. Are they one of the top receiving corps to write home about, in this year's CFB landscape? I don't know about that. Any Top 40ish team will have some bright spots on their roster and comparatively, the WRs are probably one of ours.

Not to sell them too short. I'm very happy with our WR corps.

 
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Pass defense and penalties need to be fixed fast, after S Miss and Illinois there aren't very many games you can pencil in as wins

 
Sam wasn't very high on the talent on our roster during fall camp. Now it's not a problem. Whatever it takes to churn out a column I guess.

 
alwayshusking said:
Sam wasn't very high on the talent on our roster during fall camp. Now it's not a problem. Whatever it takes to churn out a column I guess.
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Ha! So true...I will say this though...if I was a sports writer I would do whatever I could to make my job easier. If that meant kissing up to the coach, do it, if that means changing my tune, do it.

 
alwayshusking said:
Sam wasn't very high on the talent on our roster during fall camp. Now it's not a problem. Whatever it takes to churn out a column I guess.
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Your right I started that thread. Our talent would be 6-6 in the SEC West or PAC 12 south. He can't have it both ways. Skill player wise we are behind Miami and I have always said that. Getting them to play as a team is always the problem.

We are not behind talent wise in the big 10 west and really only behind OSU and MSU in the east. All is not lost. I understand being pissed, but get a grip.

 
NUinID said:
alwayshusking said:
Sam wasn't very high on the talent on our roster during fall camp. Now it's not a problem. Whatever it takes to churn out a column I guess.
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Your right I started that thread. Our talent would be 6-6 in the SEC West or PAC 12 south. He can't have it both ways. Skill player wise we are behind Miami and I have always said that. Getting them to play as a team is always the problem.

We are not behind talent wise in the big 10 west and really only behind OSU and MSU in the east. All is not lost. I understand being pissed, but get a grip.
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You can say we either have enough talent or don't have enough talent depending on what our goals are.

Yes, we do have enough talent to win the B1G West.

No, we don't have enough talent to compete for a NC.

 
I think when most people try to say we are short on talent, they point to two spots - DE and LB. We are average at best at DE. We are thin at LB but on "talent" and athletic ability, I would take Bando-MRI-Young against any set of LBs on our schedule and most in the country. They've been slowed by injuries but they've still been playing so they're not that far off. We could always use more talent but it's mainly DE where we are lacking. That hurts but it's also only 2 out of 22 spots so I think it's a little over-blown to try to claim we are that short on talent because of one (two) positions on the field.

Here's what I don't get about the argument with Miami supposedly having so much more talent than we do: They lost significantly more high-impact (NFL drafted) guys than we did off last year's team. We lost three impact players but very little else. If they're that much more talented than us this year, they were at least that much and probably more talented than us last year. So how were we able to win that game in dominating fashion while looking all but inept for much of the game this year?

 
Nebraska doesn’t have junk talent. Enough of that. That’s the past, too — the old recruiting lament. Hey, 9-3 talent isn’t junk, it’s 9-3 with a shot at better if you play it right. Waiting several years to “restock” is a risible argument and Riley, to his credit, wants no part of it. Nebraska had enough talent to beat BYU and Miami. And it has more talent than any team not named Michigan State left on its regular-season schedule. And even that talent gap isn’t as wide as you might think.
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I think this is right, or at least pretty close. Again, we have a spot or two that are lacking. But overall I don't think we're nearly as bad off as some are trying to make it out to be. We struggled against McNeese State last year but other than that only Miami's garbage TD in the last seconds kept every other win from being at least three scores. Three of our losses were by a combined 12 points and we had the ball with a chance to win in each of them.

We had one "bad" win and on (really) bad loss. But other than that we were dominating in our wins and very competitive in our losses. We haven't dropped off that far in one year.

 
Mavric said:
Nebraska doesn’t have junk talent. Enough of that. That’s the past, too — the old recruiting lament. Hey, 9-3 talent isn’t junk, it’s 9-3 with a shot at better if you play it right. Waiting several years to “restock” is a risible argument and Riley, to his credit, wants no part of it. Nebraska had enough talent to beat BYU and Miami. And it has more talent than any team not named Michigan State left on its regular-season schedule. And even that talent gap isn’t as wide as you might think.
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I think this is right, or at least pretty close. Again, we have a spot or two that are lacking. But overall I don't think we're nearly as bad off as some are trying to make it out to be. We struggled against McNeese State last year but other than that only Miami's garbage TD in the last seconds kept every other win from being at least three scores. Three of our losses were by a combined 12 points and we had the ball with a chance to win in each of them.

We had one "bad" win and on (really) bad loss. But other than that we were dominating in our wins and very competitive in our losses. We haven't dropped off that far in one year.
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I would definitely agree with this. While we could use more talent in spots (and who couldn't? it's kind of a silly lament), we have the guys to win. We seem to be lacking mentally, something that was a hallmark of the Pelini Era. Is this current malaise a holdover from Bo, is it something this staff puts in/is reinforcing, or is it a random series of unconnected issues that combine to make this team lack fire?

Whatever it is, it's this staff's job to break the team out of it. If they don't, we're in for a few more years of this.

 
knapplc said:
Mavric said:
Nebraska doesn’t have junk talent. Enough of that. That’s the past, too — the old recruiting lament. Hey, 9-3 talent isn’t junk, it’s 9-3 with a shot at better if you play it right. Waiting several years to “restock” is a risible argument and Riley, to his credit, wants no part of it. Nebraska had enough talent to beat BYU and Miami. And it has more talent than any team not named Michigan State left on its regular-season schedule. And even that talent gap isn’t as wide as you might think.
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I think this is right, or at least pretty close. Again, we have a spot or two that are lacking. But overall I don't think we're nearly as bad off as some are trying to make it out to be. We struggled against McNeese State last year but other than that only Miami's garbage TD in the last seconds kept every other win from being at least three scores. Three of our losses were by a combined 12 points and we had the ball with a chance to win in each of them.

We had one "bad" win and on (really) bad loss. But other than that we were dominating in our wins and very competitive in our losses. We haven't dropped off that far in one year.
Click to expand...
I would definitely agree with this. While we could use more talent in spots (and who couldn't? it's kind of a silly lament), we have the guys to win. We seem to be lacking mentally, something that was a hallmark of the Pelini Era. Is this current malaise a holdover from Bo, is it something this staff puts in/is reinforcing, or is it a random series of unconnected issues that combine to make this team lack fire?

Whatever it is, it's this staff's job to break the team out of it. If they don't, we're in for a few more years of this.
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A lot of it is psychological for sure. Where I was watching the game, there was a general feeling of "Here we go again..." after the end of the first quarter. The players may have felt the same way.

 
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Dr. Strangelove said:
A lot of it is psychological for sure. Where I was watching the game, there was a general feeling of "Here we go again..." after the end of the first quarter. The players may have felt the same way.
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Oh, definitely. You, me, everyone here, everywhere. "We've seen this before."

Would like not to see that anymore.

 
Miami, apparently, had the bodies to reload.

We have DE play that is downright scary for a P5 team. Dismissing this as "2 of 22" is a bit much. That's a key position.

Our starting LBs are one of the top units in the country -- that's an interesting claim. Or by most, do you mean "north of 50th in the nation?" How many of our units are Top 25 in the country? We might have a few. If there are a lot, I'd say there's some overrating going on. But overrating our own talent is something we are prone to do as fans.

We have talent level, bright and low spots, that befit a team that will finish anywhere from Top 20 to well outside the Top 25 depending on how, let's say, last second Hail Marys go. On the bright side, the rest of our division is not demonstrably better. Neither are they demonstrably worse.

 
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