The Denver Post, Don't Be Nebraska CU Buffs

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HuskerInLostWages

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https://www.denverpost.com/2021/04/12/karl-dorrell-cu-buffs-nebraska-cornhuskers-football-running-game/

"Nebraska lost what made it Nebraska, what made it great, when the Big Red decided to be Ohio State Lite. (Nor does it help that the Huskers haven’t taken defense seriously — or as seriously as they should — since Lavonte David and Randy Gregory went pro. Or that everybody in the Big Ten now has state-of-the-art weight rooms and silly money to burn.)"

Quite an interesting take that I don't disagree with.

 
The Big Red Descent really began 17 years earlier, when former Cornhuskers AD Steve Pederson handed Frank Solich his walking papers and branded the option offense a dinosaur. The sentiment was that the Cornhuskers should get with the times, be multiple, and produce NFL-draftable quarterbacks.  (Quote from article)
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I wonder where we'd be if we stuck with the option all these years?  Better off, or worse off?   Hmmm...  

 
NUance said:
I wonder where we'd be if we stuck with the option all these years?  Better off, or worse off?   Hmmm...  
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Who knows, could we still keep up with our former road graders up front, would we still be bringing in top tier Rb's thanks to all the touches they'd get?  I read the article more as to saying everything depends on pounding the ball down their throats more so than saying keep the option myself.  What we have currently is a spittering offense that is not very efficient and one play it's on, the next, well it's a one step forward, 2 steps back with either a penalty, loss of yards and 3rd down qb run up the middle no matter what.

 
I mean this is it in a nutshell....

"Yes, national championship teams need a Trevor Lawrence, a Justin Fields or a Mac Jones to crash football’s Final Four. You need national-championship-level field generals, NFL-caliber quarterbacks. 

But the fastest, surest way to raise the floor is the same now as it was when Bill McCartney figured it out four decades ago: Run the ball, play defense, force turnovers, good things happen."

Nebraska wasn't just happy winning 6-8 games and making Bowls. Nebraska was trying to hold on to their national title level status. Being happy winning 6-8 games would be cause for a straight jacket. Hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure Nebraska and Colorado could find moderate success running the ball and playing sound defense - but that ceiling is Wisconsin. Nebraska was chasing something far greater than Wisconsin. 

 
NUance said:
I wonder where we'd be if we stuck with the option all these years?  Better off, or worse off?   Hmmm...  
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I'm guessing not a lot different.  Frank (and his aging assistants) weren't keeping up.  Unless we transitioned to Turner Gill (and probably even at that) we were going to move away from the traditional Nebraska option at some point.  I don't know of any college still running it.  So at some point we were bringing in a different system.

That being said, the zone read is basically the modern option.  So we're still using a lot of the same concepts.  It just looks different.

 
Nebraska didn't lose what made them Nebraska by going Ohio State lite. That is just a stupid lazy take. Nebraska lost what made them Nebraska long before that and it had nothing to do with the B1G conference or trying to be tOSU lite.

As far as a good running game, sound defense, forcing turnovers, etc......well, duh.

It sure is easy to take pot shots on a program that is struggling. I know, we've been able to do it seemingly forever with CU  :lol: . If this peon wanted to rub salt in the wound, he should just focus on the 2001 debacle in Boulder as being our program's turning point. That is the exact day Nebraska quit being Nebraska.

 
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Army, Navy and the Air Force still run the flex-bone/triple option.  Georgia Tech was running it recently as well.  I still feel in the end superior athletes (both mentally and physically) and coaching is what ultimately wins football games no matter what type of scheme you're trying to run.

 
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