That Talent Question Again

I think a lot of the improvement we are seeing is guys becoming really comfortable as to what they're being asked. Sometimes it's just that simple. Everyone knows what they have to do on every play, and they aren't thinking anymore.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Yeah, I know this team is growing and getting better week by week, but in hindsight it bugs me that we were looking for a moral victory against Wisconsin just a few weeks ago, when that team is currently unranked and clearly beatable. 

The 180 degree change in perspective from last season. 
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It’s that eye test. A couple years ago when the Riley team got off to that good start, people who are fans of other teams would come up to me and say “Looks like you guys are on the way back”. I would shrug and say it didn’t really seem that way. I watched the games. I knew what we really were. Now this year after Wisconsin or NW (can’t remember which) a buddy who is an OSU fan comes up to me talking crap about what a dumpster fire we are. Of course he hadn’t seen any of our games. My response was basically not really, I think we are gonna be ok. I felt BETTER about the teams direction then I did about that same Riley team with the opposite record. I knew that team was sort of a fraud. I know this team is better then they look to the uneducated(ie Ohio St fans). 

Anyway that guy is the one who gave me 21.5  last week. He paid me this morning

 
jaws said:
I don't think most OSU fans are enjoying the wins this year and there is a good chance that OSU gets soundly beat by Michigan. 

I was just trying to provide some context from the OSU side of things and I figured most would take it differently than I intended. I am not looking for anyone on here to like OSU or say good things about them. 
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I would agree with the statement of apathy in OSU fans this year.  There was very little crowd involvement at the shoe Saturday.  They were more interested in playing volleyball with a beachball early in the fourth with a one score lead. 

When NU took at lead at half, most just shrugged and Urban had to plead for noise on defense late in the game. 

No idea what will happen at the end of the year,  but definitely felt like transition to me too.

 
I think this coaching staff has shown the ability to coach up players.  Perhaps not as fast as we'd have liked, but if you look at Lamar Jackson, Bootle, the Davis gang, and others...they aren't all conference players, but they are playing at a much improved level from the first of the year.  Same for the offensive line.  It has been hard for me to hold back criticism of Chinander because of how bad the defense looked for the first several games.  And they still have troubles, but I thought in general, the D had some shining moments against OSU that just weren't there earlier in the year.

If one sees the coaching staff has the ability to coach up players, and the process brings in more talent over the next few years, then I think the future looks very bright.  I've been pretty vocal about giving Scott all 7 years if needed, and still hold to that.  It's just now, I'm feeling like it won't take that long.  

On a fun side note, I watched the Husker/OSU game in Phoenix at a Husker bar/grill.  There were some OSU fans there as well (well behaved group), but when they started in with their "O-H" >>> "I-O" echo cheer, I started shouting "WHO?" after the  "O-H" part.  Wish others would have joined in.  So much fun being at the watch sites down there.

 
I'm not buying.  If you can get a kid to freeze their butt off in Ann Arbor Michigan or lure them with the thrills of Columbus Ohio, you can draw them to Lincoln, Nebraska. All you need to do is win. Callahan, and Pelini all brought top tier talent to Lincoln, proving it can be done. It's a given that it didn't get to Osborne levels, but nobody had ten years to build, which Frost will get and then some.

 
HuskerMoon said:
I'm not buying.  If you can get a kid to freeze their butt off in Ann Arbor Michigan or lure them with the thrills of Columbus Ohio, you can draw them to Lincoln, Nebraska. All you need to do is win. Callahan, and Pelini all brought top tier talent to Lincoln, proving it can be done. It's a given that it didn't get to Osborne levels, but nobody had ten years to build, which Frost will get and then some.
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Neither callahan or pelini recruited like a top ten team. Sure they had players like suh and david but to say they recruited top tier talent just isn't true.

 
If you mean complete teams, I can agree. They were awfully close though and had units that were as good as any in the country. 2009 Defense and 2011 Offense for example. Those coaches did not have the advantages Frost will. Mark my words, he'll reel them in. In state, regionally, nationwide.  If he puts out one over achieving league title contender (and he will) the recruits will come.

 
Dan_F_31 said:
I think none (edit: very few) of us REALLY know how to evaluate talent level. At least I can't say that I can definitively tell if our guys are much less talented or not. And bad play (mental mistakes, poor positioning and technique) makes a talented player look very average. So when they are playing badly it is easy to say we have no talent, as was the chorus for the first half of the season. But really it just has taken a little more time in the system for that talent to begin to show up (see Lamar Jackson for example).

What I do know is that they may have the same speed and athleticism as Ohio St or Michigan at spots but not across the board.  What I do know is that I can spot superior talent like JK Dobbins. That guy just had a whole other level of athleticism and vision on his runs.  

I'm also not a huge recruiting nut, I follow it but don't know how the ratings work, etc. But going on class ratings Nebraska being 4th in the Big Ten and separating from the mid-tier teams but still not quite to the Ohio St/Mich/Penn St. level is a good sign.
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I think you are mixing up the terms athletic and talented.  We have some guys who are atletic yes but that doesn't mean they are talented football players.  The mental mistakes, poor positioning and technique make them not talented.  When you have a team full of top athletes that can hide the deficiencies in poor positioning and technique because their raw athleticism can make up for it.  When our guys take bag angles it makes it worse because they don't have the athleticism to make up for it.

 
HuskerMoon said:
If you mean complete teams, I can agree. They were awfully close though and had units that were as good as any in the country. 2009 Defense and 2011 Offense for example. Those coaches did not have the advantages Frost will. Mark my words, he'll reel them in. In state, regionally, nationwide.  If he puts out one over achieving league title contender (and he will) the recruits will come.
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I’m willing to bet Ohio State has more guys on their defense this year on their 2-deep that are 4/5 stars than that 2009 or 2011 Nebraska had on its entire team.

 
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DrunkOffPunch said:
I’m willing to bet Ohio State has more guys on their defense this year on their 2-deep that are 4/5 stars than that 2009 or 2011 Nebraska had on its entire team.
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That's what sets apart those "good" Nebraska teams from the teams that are consistently in the top ten, quality depth. 

 
HuskerMoon said:
I'm not buying.  If you can get a kid to freeze their butt off in Ann Arbor Michigan or lure them with the thrills of Columbus Ohio, you can draw them to Lincoln, Nebraska. All you need to do is win. Callahan, and Pelini all brought top tier talent to Lincoln, proving it can be done. It's a given that it didn't get to Osborne levels, but nobody had ten years to build, which Frost will get and then some.
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Wrong kind of location

 
HuskerMoon said:
I'm not buying.  If you can get a kid to freeze their butt off in Ann Arbor Michigan or lure them with the thrills of Columbus Ohio, you can draw them to Lincoln, Nebraska. All you need to do is win. Callahan, and Pelini all brought top tier talent to Lincoln, proving it can be done. It's a given that it didn't get to Osborne levels, but nobody had ten years to build, which Frost will get and then some.
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The problem is Ohio and Michigan already have top tier kids in their state that don't need to be lured to Ann Arbor or Columbus because they already want to go there. We have kids that already want to be Huskers in this state, and the talent pool was better this year, but Ohio and Michigan will always have a deeper pool of talent to draw from within their state. Population is a big factor.

 
Nebfanatic said:
The problem is Ohio and Michigan already have top tier kids in their state that don't need to be lured to Ann Arbor or Columbus because they already want to go there. We have kids that already want to be Huskers in this state, and the talent pool was better this year, but Ohio and Michigan will always have a deeper pool of talent to draw from within their state. Population is a big factor.
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Here's something interesting.

Ohio has 15 commits for 2019.  So far, only 3 are from Ohio.  1 from Michigan

Michigan has 24 commits for 2019.  3 from Michigan.  6 from Ohio

 
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