What we learned today...

[TYMYSHOE]

What I learned from today's game?

Well, after we narrowly avoided the worst upset of Pelini's career, my father pointed me towards a similar game. In 1994, the 'skers opened up against a very weak team, you guessed it, Wyoming. After a huge scare Nebraska pulled away late to win it 42 - 32. After the game, most fans figured it would be a long season once Nebraska would have to face any real competition but, as you probably all know, they ended up winning the national championship.

Long story short. This is the first game of the season. This team will evolve incredibly and we how the next games will go. Let's try not to overreact too much...

 

[JetSetBoostio]

I also learned that we should move Bell to Safety. That tackle he made on punt team was text book.

 

[gobiggergoredder]

Who knows, Wyoming could end up being the best team in the MWC. Even with the "bad" D we still had the game in hand until those 2 quick TD drives. Seems like in the 4th we got a little too lackadaisical and it bit us in the a$$. Not saying the defense was doing good before then, but the DBs took a shot at both balls that were caught for TDs.

A lot of things went right for Wyoming, and they played with a lot of energy. The world isn't ending yet, but this team is on a short leash.

So you're saying we may have just beat the champs of the Idaho Potato Bowl.....Nice

Best team in MWC is better than Boise State, who is a pretty good team. We had this game in hand, and then Wyoming had 2 very quick drives that resulted in 2 tds. The 4th Quarter of the game needs to be better, but I'm not proclaiming the season being over after the first game because we allowed a lot of yards on defense.

Do I recognize we need a whole sh#t ton of improvement? Absolutely, but it was the first game played by a lot of people on defense. They can get better and I believe they will get better.

Boise is getting roached by Washington right now............

 

[chamrocck]

Newby played great. Kid got some big runs when WY knew it was coming.

Liked watching Cross tonight too. Why in the world did we not give it to him on the 4th down call as he was getting 3 yards every time he just looked at WY.

Their QB Smith was the best player on the field tonight. Reminded me of Jake Locker, only better.

Some nice plays by Bell and Q.

Ameer had the one big run but gets too often bottled up.

Really disappointed with the defense. It is unfathomable that we are still playing like the crap we have all seen before. The amount of time we give the QB to throw and the inability to get the QB on the ground may be the worst in college football. I watch a lot of college football and no one else allows the QB so much time. Maybe our D line is still this bad?

The secondary still trying to bump tackle people and not wrap them up. Why are these guys still playing?

The number of big plays we give up on defense is downright pathetic. We need new defensive coaching. It's not working.

Rush the punter and don't let him sit back there to let his team get down field coverage as it neutralized our punt return game and takes away Bell.

Give the offense some credit tonight but if we don't fix the defense I don't see how we will not lose 5 games.

 

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

Who knows, Wyoming could end up being the best team in the MWC. Even with the "bad" D we still had the game in hand until those 2 quick TD drives. Seems like in the 4th we got a little too lackadaisical and it bit us in the a$$. Not saying the defense was doing good before then, but the DBs took a shot at both balls that were caught for TDs.

A lot of things went right for Wyoming, and they played with a lot of energy. The world isn't ending yet, but this team is on a short leash.

So you're saying we may have just beat the champs of the Idaho Potato Bowl.....Nice

Best team in MWC is better than Boise State, who is a pretty good team. We had this game in hand, and then Wyoming had 2 very quick drives that resulted in 2 tds. The 4th Quarter of the game needs to be better, but I'm not proclaiming the season being over after the first game because we allowed a lot of yards on defense.

Do I recognize we need a whole sh#t ton of improvement? Absolutely, but it was the first game played by a lot of people on defense. They can get better and I believe they will get better.

Boise is getting roached by Washington right now............

OT but I'm glad we played Washington when we did. They look real good tonight.

 

[suigeneris]

I think all of you "sunshine pumpers" need to pump the brakes a little. A lot of people drunk intemperately from Kool-Aid pitcher this summer and that flow has been cut off. Ever been around a recovering heroin addict? Go easy on 'em. It's jarring.

 

[LumberJackSker]

I wish I shared you confidence, I know this defense will improve but after having only one game so far to compare to last years d and how bad they played I just cant say with confidence this years defense will be better than last year. but hey this defense has now where to go but up

I have confidence in them because I've seen them with my own two eyes give our offense some pretty serious problems. Inconsistency, emotions, and second guessing yourself is part of youth and inexperience. It will only improve with experience. This defense could be a lot worse. They were 1-8 on 3rd down conversions, for instance.

Also, I'm fairly positive we lose that game handily last year if they come out with that exact same game plan (at the same time in the year.) That game epitomized what UCLA, Wisconsin, Ohio State did to us.

no where to go but up, i'm sure there will be adjustments made a will have a better showing next week but how much better i'm not sure if we hold S. Miss to 500 yards I still wont be impressed, i'm not sure you can fix 600 yards by the time Nebraska plays ucla, I don't want to seem like a total downer I still believe this defense could be playing some good football by the time we play Michigan

 

[Treand3]

Wyo schemed the way I feel Ucla will, except they have better athletes. Better clean that crap up.

 

[DrunkOffPunch]

I know a lot of this has already been covered but...

1) SJB has reached the potential we all saw from the Ohio State game we saw a couple years back.

2) Very deep at RB and WR. Should be a fun season.

3) Very poor refs this game.. Missed holding calls, the 'roughing the passer' call, and the PI called on Gerry inflated Wyo's yards and extended drives that shouldn't have been there.

4) When it's 90+ degrees at kickoff with humidity your defense doesn't play to their full potential especially against a hurry up offense. See South Carolina, aTm, etc.

5) A lot of younger players with little to no playing time in the FBS. I don't see why people expected them to step in and turn things around day one. Experience is a big factor in football especially when...

6) The difference between the #1 team in the nation and the #50 team in the nation isn't that big. This isn't the 80's, everybody has athletes. NDSU and Eastern Washington both beat BCS AQ teams. That was a big deal 10 years ago. The first week alone 6 FCS schools beat FBS.

7) Disappointed in Mitchell and Green on defense. They seemed a step behind on alot of plays.

8) Defense is faster and more athletic.

602 yards is a lot. But i credit much of that to reason #4. It'll get better. Let's look forward instead of festering on a game that was a 4th down conversion and a bad pass away from possible being a 24 point win.

Edit: I credit the 602 yards to reason #3 also. Forgot to stick it in.

 

[Hayseed]

Our secondary played too far off receivers, that can be fixed pretty easily with more experience and confidence. I thought from the talk that we had the kind of d-backfield we had with Gomes, Hagg, Dennard, and gang....maybe we do. They had some good breakups. Our D-line is young, it was really hot and humid, they seemed to give a lot of effort for the conditions and the limited stunting. I'm not impressed with what I saw from our D coaches, but there were times when the D was fired up and looked good. Are we missing linebackers......aren't there supposed to be some on the field tackling runners? Except for the one long run, Abdullah didn't look as good as I thought he would. On the other hand Cross and Newby looked great. I'd still like to see a game plan where the I-backs are used better....they get in the flow and are not pulled in and out for no apparent reason. I saw a comment that it's over without Martinez....I was thinking he still struggles to keep the offense flowing while the opposing QB looks like Peyton Manning. I think another QB might reduce the drama and get the ball into the hands of our many skilled players more consistently instead of every down seeming like a crap shoot.... Too bad we didn't get to see any of them. The O-line ,while kind of crappy at the beginning, played much more consistently than I remember seeing in a while and the pass protection was pretty good the entire game. They seemed to gel as the game progressed and did some fine run blocking in the second half. Enunwa had a great game...other receivers could've been used more. Cross is a monster and Newby don't run like no newbie. The kickers look mighty fine. The cheerleaders need to kick higher but their pompom shaking was very enthusiastic.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Before I get into our team, let me say a couple things about the other two factors (Wyoming and the refs). Wyoming will probably be the 5th or 6th best team we will play this year. Brett Smith is a heck of a quarterback and he will make a lot of teams look silly this year. The refs were unbelievably bad--UNBELIEVABLY BAD. The side judge would throw a flag to call an offsides (WHAT?). There was holding all night; when the result of the play is a 30 yard pass and there is holding, you have to call holding. You just have to do it. When forward progress is stopped, you have to blow the play dead--that lead to Taylor's fumble.

Results wise (which you can argue is all that matters) it wasn't a good performance by our defense. But I think it's okay to not look at the results in determining where this defense is and trying to guess where this defense will be as the season moves forward. We are an incredibly young defense, and if this is our worst performance of the year, then we'll look back at this and be okay with it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that last season we didn't even have to make the quarterback scramble in the pocket--he could pretty much just sit in the pocket and dissect our coverage. Coverage seemed to be pretty tight and SJB had himself a pretty good game. We were there on just about every pass. It definitely looked like the defensive line got a solid push forward on just about every snap in the second half. From here, the defense can go two ways: they can lose confidence that they can't do this, or they can take this and work their asses off next week and get ready for Southern Miss. The ability is there, the experience is not, and we got a bunch of experience tonight.

Offensively we did a lot of good things. Quincy is once again an incredible WR. Our offensive did a good job protecting Taylor. Our running attack produced 2 100 yard rushers (Abdullah and Cross) and Newby looked explosive running the ball.

We will face teams with better athletes, but we will also be facing them as a team with more experience. The only team that will run a bunch of motion against us will probably be UCLA, and we will still be a little green at that point. But I'm confident that we will be able to better reel in what happened tonight to make sure that it doesn't happen against UCLA. We may give up 500 yards, but that will probably be the max.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

BTW, I didn't see much in the way of "youthful" mistakes. What I saw was a defensive scheme get exploited by a good (but nonetheless Wyoming) quarterback. This reault was not because of youth.

That's what I'm thinking, too. I think we had the athletes on the field, but that we weren't putting ourselves in the right places at the right times. The play calling was a little wonky at points in the game. It was really good during that stretch from the 6:00 in the 2nd quarter to about the 6-7:00 mark in the 3rd quarter.

 

[HuskersNC949597]

What I learned from today's game?

Well, after we narrowly avoided the worst upset of Pelini's career, my father pointed me towards a similar game. In 1994, the 'skers opened up against a very weak team, you guessed it, Wyoming. After a huge scare Nebraska pulled away late to win it 42 - 32. After the game, most fans figured it would be a long season once Nebraska would have to face any real competition but, as you probably all know, they ended up winning the national championship.

Long story short. This is the first game of the season. This team will evolve incredibly and we how the next games will go. Let's try not to overreact too much...

That was, like, the 4th game of that season. But that's beside the point. Bo's bend but don't break style is going to give up yardage. Youth and inexperience will compound that for much of the year, it's certainly not a recipe for instant gratification.

 

[HuskerFowler]

I f'ing hate when we don't play our game and we try to do just enough to get by. Need to come out with the mindset of burying inferior openers instead of getting cute. Beck had no game plan other than try stupid sh#t. When you go into the game with the attitude "where going to do enough offensively to get by" or be " vanilla" this sh#t happens and the mentality trickles down to the players.

It looked worse then it really was. Coaches took foot off gas, players did too. Good learning experience. Saw some potential on D with individuals. I think well be ok, but idk. We need a 55-0 win next week.

Saw Bo look at JP before we punted for the last time " do you think we can stop em"

I thought we were gonna lose for sure.

 

[Treand3]

I f'ing hate when we don't play our game and we try to do just enough to get by. Need to come out with the mindset of burying inferior openers instead of getting cute. Beck had no game plan other than try stupid sh#t. When you go into the game with the attitude "where going to do enough offensively to get by" or be " vanilla" this sh#t happens and the mentality trickles down to the players.

It looked worse then it really was. Coaches took foot off gas, players did too. Good learning experience. Saw some potential on D with individuals. I think well be ok, but idk. We need a 55-0 win next week.

Saw Bo look at JP before we punted for the last time " do you think we can stop em"

I thought we were gonna lose for sure.

I hope you're right. Bruin fans are already chalking this one up as a win.