Corner depth
- Thread starter inWV
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Whispers that Ceyair is a little banged up - hopefully just soft tissue stuff that Rhule mentions. Hopefully nothing that lingers.
We have so many options at Corner. Buford and Hartzog can both slide over and play on an island if needed.
Jones and Charles should be ready to roll if needed. The Conn kid was pretty productive at SIU.
Hartzog can’t play on an island. Did you watch last year? He is a definite Nickle slot guy.
Play but how well? Hartzog displayed flashes as a freshman but has disappointed since. Moved to safety where he is too small. We are not overflowing with talent at that position.
I am not sure you can say Nebraska is not overflowing with talent. Those players are all athletic and most are long. Lack of experience does not mean lack of talent.
Emmett Johnson sitting on the bench last year while Oregons 5th string rb with below average talent took his snaps is one reason I have a hard time trusting Rhule and Co to start the best players.
I have zero doubt Hartzog will start while more talented and physically gifted players waste away on the bench.
Benning and Donovan Jones should be starting in the secondary this year But Hartzog and Singleton have single digits so we have to ride and die with their below average talent.
I have zero doubt Hartzog will start while more talented and physically gifted players waste away on the bench.
Benning and Donovan Jones should be starting in the secondary this year But Hartzog and Singleton have single digits so we have to ride and die with their below average talent.
So you are bitching about EJ's playing time on two threads, not just one. Maybe more, I haven't checked. EJ is now the lead back in an offense that has in part been crafted to match what he does well. That was not the offense we were running in 2023 (mutated form of TO's option offense by necessity) and most of 2024 (downhill conservative offense). And yet EJ's use increased in both years, in part because it had to and in part because he was developing as a player. You know, stuff coaches are concerned with.
Hartzog is playing nickel safety this season, a position more suited to his skills. Benning and Jones will play quite a bit for second year guys. Then we will have them for up to three more years. I take that as quality depth being built and the coaching staff achieving a key objective, rather than bitching that they aren't playing Caleb enough before a ball has even been snapped.
The players vote on the single digit numbers. The coaches don't decide.
I'm using Johnson as an example of the best players sitting on the bench to appease NIL. Rhule hasn't shown he has the balls to bench a big NIL or single digit player.
Also we need Erig Hagg, and Dejon Gomes types of bodies playing nickel. A 5'8 175 lb corner is a mismatch against every TE in the B10. Hartzog will be targeted and abused.
There is no evidence to support EJ being the best RB at the beginning of 2023. He was fourth on the depth chart. He was a RS freshman who didn't play the prior year. Injuries to Ervin and Rahmir, plus Grant being a bit thick in the head gave him an opening that he absolutely took advantage of. You're just post-hoc engineering his emergence to support your idea that he was best all along and Rhule was an idiot for not playing him.
Javin Wright will be covering TEs. Rhule has mentioned this more than once. Mazzucca was getting some fat NIL dough and he was benched. Gomes listed measurables show he is 3 inches taller and 5 pounds heavier than Hartzog.
Your post is spot on. Gotta love the armchair experts that look back on previous years and say dumb ****.
The coaches don't care who is getting paid NIL money. They care about W's.
I had the post history to back this statement on EJ, you can ask @Indy Husker. I'm one of the few people who gave unfiltered practice updates since Rhule was hired. I have family with close connections to the program right now.
We lost our best TE to Texas A&M, our best deep threat wr to Oklahoma State because we refused to sit Neyor and Fidone.
These are not my words. These are from people who watched practices the past three years.
I'm guessing you weren't on rivals the past 2 years? My info was spot on last spring and summer.
I don’t care about your claims of proximity to the program. Family with close connections? As far as losing best players, I think Bork played enough to get the film to get a bag from Alabama. Holgerson and Rhule could have matched, but Lindenmeyer was taking reps late in the season and Holgerson likes his game. Fidone was already thinking NFL at that same time. As far as Lloyd goes, it’s a shame he wasn’t good enough to take more reps away from Neyor, cause that dude had hands of stone.
If I’m coaching, I probably keep Bork. But I’m not, and I don’t get hung up on it.
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A lot of this is fueled by the no nothings in the Husker football media. The coaches don't "trust" this guy and that guy. It ain't like we've got Jalen Ramsey and Sauce Gardner and then it drops all the way off to a guy who might start at Wesleyan. JFC. It's football. Donovan got pressed into duty at the bowl game and played about as well as anyone back there did all year.
Doesn't change the fact Rhule refuses to sit average talent with big NIL contracts or single digits.
Yeah, but that's just one point of view. And people don't see the whole picture. Could have others watching practice with a different opinion. Hell, sit in the parents section at a Skutt game. Any sport.
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NIL - Mazzuca. Did he keep Jeff Sims (#7) playing all season long? I seem to remember a guy named Haarberg and then a guy named Purdy. I think what you mean is that he refuses to sit the people you think he should sit and he refuses to play more the people you think he should play more.
My theory is related to the bell curve. Best players on the right. Worst on the left. Everyone else in the middle.
Considering P4 players. We have a lot of guys in the middle somewhere. Packed close together. There really isn't a lot of separation, at least in the past. I think we've had some dudes riding the bench who would be just as good as a starter if they got the chance. Neither is getting drafted so that's gotta be true unless all of the backups really suck.
In 2023, I thought both Rahmir and Gabe looked good running in Satt’s offense and then they went down. Dowdell played well enough last year to get UK to show up with some dough. EJ and increasingly looking like Nelson and Mozee are the kind of backs Holgerson can do a lot of things with. They say the Nelson kid is a hard runner and it looks like we will find out.
Hartzog, Neyor, Fidone, Dowdell, and Singleton all had more talent behind them on the bench in 2024.
I place the blame on Rhule for allowing this to happen.
Going forward, at least when it comes to offense, Holgerson is a stickler for prep. If your **** isnt in one sock on the practice field, don’t expect to play on Saturday. For all of the people who think they know who should be playing over someone else, it is the little things that separate the players whose abilities aren’t very far apart at all. Take Neyor vs Lloyd. Neyor could get open on more plays (probably most of the time in comparison). He had butter hands on key throws, but if Lloyd was out there, he would have been covered and not available to throw to.
Nelson would be the first RB at Nebraska since Corey Ross in 2005 to redshirt and then develop into a good RB. Not saying it can't happen for EJ and Nelson, but the odds are not in their favor.
Given that various younger guys did play at these positions, there is video to grade their performance in practice and games. The coaches examined the video and came to a conclusion different from you.
Your blame and 20 bucks will get you a ticket to the Houston Christian game on seat geek.
Single digit sample size - 2 years
2023- Sims benched, Singleton season ending injury, the rest played.
2024 - Tommi eventually pulled because of plantar fasciitis, we know how you feel about Malcom and Deshon. The reason single-digit players play is that they are the hardest working and most hardnosed players on the team, as voted by the players, not the coaches.
The thing with a guy like Lloyd and even Malachi Coleman is that it’s a shame that Lloyd didn’t get more targets and Coleman didn’t work to max out his allotted game opportunities to play in his redshirt year. That room wasn’t as deep as we thought it was early in the season and there were reps for the taking. If Lloyd is as good as you think, he would have taken them. And a kid who is as fast as he is could always find a home in a Dana Holgorsen offense. Lindenmeyer and EJ impressed. What was up with Lloyd?
These are the opinions of people who watch a lot of practices, not my own. This is coming from multiple NU players from the late 70s who know a hell of a lot more about football than you or I.
FYI they are very happy Satterfield is no longer our OC. They like Holgerson, but we still lack a stud at RB. Having average RBs will cost us games this November.
I trust Butler. He’s one of the few coaches on the staff that has a job for what he knows and not because he’s someone Rhule feels “comfortable with” aka yes-man. We are getting less and less yes-men and more knowledge on the staff and that’s a great thing,
EJ is the worst coach on the staff. Who knows what we get @ RB. What we know is he has yet to land a transitional recruit and the kid to factor. Nelson’s his closest and that was some what luck but def not traditional. EJ seems like a good guy, he’s just not a good recruiter nor skilled enough to coach this level.
EJ should have been fired when the best we could do was bring in Oregon's 5th string RB in the 2023 offseason. The fact we had 20 carries per game up for grabs and the best we could bring in was Dowdell????
Rhule takes an NFL approach to the RB position and refuses to pay them. We need to be paying top dollar for this position if we expect to win at NU. It has been a decade since NU had a stud RB, and people wonder why we didn't make a bowl game for a decade....
Riley, Frost, and now even Rhule keep throwing massive resources at the WR position while glossing over RB position. Funny how all three coaches couldn't win a game in November.
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Oh heavens, please don’t put Hartzog at Corner. Buford really either. Gimme Webber or Prescott at 3rd string CB.
I wish you’d shut you pie hole you really are a trike rider stop the me me me!
Comments like this is exactly why I stopped sharing practice reports.
Did Emmitt develop all by himself? Or did he do most of his developing under the guy who Frost hired whose name I forgot. Luck on Nelson? If by luck you mean Barthel had already identified and was recruiting him at his previous school. We usually salivate over assistance that bring promising players along with them. But then again, some of us may have pooh-poohed Nelson because of his relationship with Barthel not in spite of it. Barthel sucks and he’s dragging some scrub running back along with him.
What did all your connections say about Mazzcua losing playing time last year?
Also do you ride a trike because of an injury or are you really old?
I think Dana was wondering why Neyor was playing as much as he was. He made some vague references to that ilk although he didn't name names or positions. Neyor didn't block or couldn't block. That's a pretty big deal. If I recall, Dana didn't really care if Neyor was at the bowl game or not. He'd had enough.
The coach that got Emmitt here whose name you forgot was Ron Brown. Been with the program for a while. May trying looking him up. And Emmitt was clearly are best back in 23, if EJ was so bright, why’d it take half of 24 for to remember that?
Verdict still out on nelson. Hopefully he’s good. And yes I stand by what I said about luck. and I stand by what I say about him sucking as a coach and a recruiter. 100%
I see your butt hurt about it. Hope he proves me wrong. But guys like you are usually more nasty about former coaches when they do finally get canned than I am. hence you don’t remember Applewhite but i would bet at one time you were happy to have Applewhite. It’s not personal. EJ just in over is head. And like I said, he seems like a super nice guy. Maybe he’ll have a Husker podcast or radio show after it doesn’t work out
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