Prepared myself all week for this
- Thread starter wannabee8
- Start date
Good post. That’s all I’ve been hoping for this year is a bowl game. I may go to it if I can.
Yeah, disappointing, but not totally surprising. No step forward in this game, but not a huge step back either, considering the competition. 3-2 is better than 0-5, we're making slow progress overall.
I thought we had a chance. What I learned is that is a team full of elite talent that had wonderful play calling and execution. They play like that and they’ll be damn near impossible to beat. They wanted the spotlight, our boys don’t know what to do with the spotlight
I felt like 8-4 was the ceiling before the season started. After the South Alabama and Colorado game, I felt 5 or 6 wins. Then after Illinois, maybe 8 again. However, the South Alabama game was a bad sign of things to come this season, and I feel like last night, more than ever, confirms that. I felt like something was just "off" about this whole thing after Colorado, and feel that even more after last night.
I think 99 percent of us knew OSU was really good and would probably win pretty handily. However, this team looked so ill-prepared and lifeless, yet again. OSU made their point in the first half. Yes, the talent disparity and youth are a large part of the equation. However that was game 5. There are no notable improvements on this team. That's a coaching issue. If they don't beat NW next week, they don't win another game this season.
The worst part about past night? Shitting their pants again on National TV, hosting Gameday, huge recruiting weekend, the day after the facilities announcement, Herbie and Fowler only being able to say how nice the fans were and how "full" the stadium still was. They couldn't find anything nice to say about the play. No, it wasn't Husker hating, either.
Recruiting doesn't appear to be going so well this year right now. Do we see some de-committs after last night? Which next 3-Star commitment is going to illicit another circle jerk around here? The overall lack of talent and lack of player development around here, which is the chicken and which is the egg? BTW, did anyone see 21 celebrate a pass breakup when the game was well in hand?
If this team can't find its way to a bowl game, the consequences of missing back-to-back bowls during this type of rebuild, could be the final death punch. I felt like if Frost couldn't fix this, nobody could. My logical brain doesn't believe in curses, but the mustard seed inside of me does. 20 years is an awful long time for a "Blue Blood" to evolve from elite, good, cute to awful. It was fun while it lasted.
I hoped for a little closer, but we saw South Alabama play us tough. We have some good you skill players, but we are not close to the top 6-10 teams in this country.
If we don’t beat Northwestern we lose out? A bit dramatic don’t you think? I predict we go 0-2 with Wisconsin and Iowa, but we win 3 outta 5 of all other games. We get to 6 wins and make the Walmart bowl. That’s progress people.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. While the rest of the schedule isn't Ohio St, the rest of it is harder than Illinois.
Yes, 6 wins and a bowl is measurable progress, and crucial to taking the next step forward.
Illinois showed you what happens when you turn the ball over 4 times early against a bad team, you have to play your butt off to just get a win and stay in the game.
OSU showed you what happens when you turn the ball over 3 times early against a very good team, you get blown out of the water.
If Nebraska can get these turnovers under control, they have a chance to win any of the games remaining on their schedule.
My expectations are always the same. Put together a team that has some sort of discipline and plays hard. If you can do that at Nebraska, you're pretty much guaranteed 8 or 9 wins. I've never seen a college football team take as many plays off as we do. Heck I don't even know if my flag football team takes that many plays off. If you watch college football games across the country, it looks like there are a ton of teams that are playing faster and playing with more effort than our guys.
Just my opinion, but I don’t think effort was an issue last night. I think we were just outmatched in every facet of the game.
You are going to need to see a team get off the mat that just got embarrassed on National TV, completely dominated, showed nada, especially where it counts (Amart).
The rest of the season is a big ?. Nobody will be intimidated by us, and no game left on the schedule is an automatic W. Sucks.
3 interceptions one while driving for a TD was a killer. One of those while a guy was laying on his BACK. Geez. It doesn't get much worse than that. We're lucky they didn't hang 80 on us. I figured our defense was going to give up points but I hoped we could get some turnovers and make some big plays to try to keep it close. Instead we got the opposite.
I've listened to multiple former players who watched practice this past spring and fall who BEFORE the season were very tempered in their expectations for this team. They all said that making a bowl game would be a good season for this team this year. Most didn't go in to details but I suspect the offensive line was their main concern along with our linebackers. IMO, we've recruited some guys who are going to be very good O linemen, but it's going to take a couple of years to get them there.
When Amart threw a dart over the RBs head for a (potential) big screen play early and when he overthrew Wandale I thought...here we go again!
21-0 ballgame and the D quits. Rinse/Repeat. Seen this show over and over and over and it doesn't ever end well.
Maybe we drop down to compete against ND and SD? I think we dominate there again. Similar recruiting geography.
And where are the OLBs? What about the DL when the Davis twins graduate? ****, Neal and Green looked more like D1 talent than those guys, who have been getting whipped for 4 years.
Show me a 2-deep that breeds fear into the Conference, and I'll expect something good to happen.
We've got some good kids coming up and they won't have been through 3 different D coordinators in 3 years. IMO, we're getting more athletic at most positions and it will eventually show up. This was a total rebuild and it was foolish of me to hope it would happen in 2 years. Our D line has made tremendous strides. IMO, we're recruiting well there. OSU has been recruiting top 10 classes for years and they're better coached now that Urban and his cronies are gone. They're going I'm afraid to be the new Bama and their head coach is very young.
OSU vs Nebraska recruiting class rankings since 2014.
2019 - 14
2018 - 2
2017 - 2
2016 - 4
2015 - 7
2014 - 4
2019 - 18
2018 - 23
2017 - 23
2016 - 26
2015 - 30
2014 - 35
2019 - 14
2018 - 2
2017 - 2
2016 - 4
2015 - 7
2014 - 4
2019 - 18
2018 - 23
2017 - 23
2016 - 26
2015 - 30
2014 - 35
And the only reason they were ranked 14 this past year is that they took so few kids (Meyer debacle didn't help either). In addition, Day IMO is a much better game day coach than Meyer and he improved his defensive staff.
I'd love to know what their thoughts are, nearly half-way through the season. I understand this is a rebuilding process, but as a whole, I've not seen any improvement as a team this season. Most concerning, they seem to mentally fragile. I'm curious whom the team views as their leader. Also, last year, HCSF hinted at a few guys that had not bought in. I wonder how many actually fall into that category right now.
One of the main reasons it was this bad was the picks. If we hit Robinson in stride he walks in the endzone and were down 14 to 7. It really snowballed from there. Don't think we would have won but the boys may have had more confidence had we got on the board early. I think people are underestimating the fact that in order for us to score we must score touchdowns, since kicking field goals is an unlikely scenario with are kicker being out. It changes how you call a game and puts added pressure on the O.
Meh. Not mentally fragile. A fragile team doesn't come back and win that game last week. You take away a couple of players for OSU and that game last night would have been close. Fields and that DE were game changers. There was no shame in getting housed by that team with B!G officials letting their O line tackle our D line. We got NO calls whatsoever and they could have called holding on them on every stinking play.
I've been saying since last spring that the O line, especially center, worried me. I've posted multiple times that IF your center struggles your whole O line struggles. Just a minute, I have to ice my shoulder from patting myself on the back. Farmer was a difference maker on our O line. He was great at making the right line calls and more than held his own in his play. We also lost a senior guard while not an All American was better than starting a soph walk on at that spot. OUR OFFENSE was the reason it was such a blow out last night. They gave the ball away too much and didn't sustain drives. With the talent and coaching they have, OSU was going to score points. We HAD to try to keep pace.