Cowherd Giving NU love...

[Redux]

On his show today. Talking about the coaches poll and was talking about how it's predominantly traditional powers in the top 10. So he said he went back and looked at the '87, '97, and '07 preseason coaches polls.

He said they were virtually the same except that Notre Dame and Nebraska were absent in this years poll compared to the past polls. Then for the 2nd time in a week or so he starts in on Tanner Lee.

"I have Nebraska winning 9 games. Nebraska has a quarterback nobody has heard of named Tanner Lee, who will end up being the best college football player no one is talking about in preseason. Nebraska is going to be pretty good this year, they have a transfer quarterback named Tanner Lee who is SPECIAL. (his emphasis) He is a playmaker at quarterback. Mike Riley is a great quarterback coach."

I've never heard Cowherd mention Nebraska more than once ever in a single year for college football. He's brought them up TWICE in 2 weeks. High praise from a guy who normally is ripping NU for its geographical location in regard to recruiting.May be a better year than most people expect!

If we lose to Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State; I'm not sure how we're having a better year than most people expect. Aren't those the only ranked teams we play preseason?

You realize that most national prognosticators have been picking NU to win 6 games....

I do realize this. However, I also realize that two years ago we only won 6 games. Yet, we also defeated not only a ranked team but also a team that made the playoffs. Winning 9 games a season means very little to me at all if we lose to every ranked team we play. While I may be in the minority, the 15' season seemed more successful than the 16' season.

We played more quality ball in '15 during a losing tranisition year than we did in year 2 during a winning year. Agreed.
But let's at least see what we have before assuming we lose to every quality opponent we have.

 

[junior4949]

I'm not assuming really anything. I was referencing the bolded part in the original post about this year being better than most expect. The national pundits have us winning 6 or 7 games this year. I'm saying this (6 or 7 wins) is better if we beat one of the big dogs than winning 9 games and losing to each and every ranked opponent we play.

 

[Ratt Mhule]

Will Jim Harbaugh be on the hot seat if Michigan finishes in the top 10 for the third year in a row, but gets third in the East again?

They're paying him like eight million times more than we're paying Riley, and he came in with way, way higher expectations.

Riley's seat will always be safe if one of three things is true.

1. We are exhibiting positive momentum or an upward trajectory.

2. We are winning our division and have enough positive circumstances, either from bowl wins or good games against elite competition, to give people optimism.

3. We are winning championships of any kind.

Right now, #1 is true. If we win 10 games this season, #1 will still be true, and Riley will continue to buy himself more time.

If he keeps losing to OSU you can your a$$ his seat will be hot

That's not true. Losing to a perennial top 10 maybe top 5 team should not warrant being put on the hot seat especially if it's the only game you are losing.

Riley won't be here long enough for this to be a thing anyway. He will retire long before losing to OSU every year is enough to put him on the hot seat. It would have to be like 10 years and I don't see Riley coaching that long anyway.

Im talking about Harbaugh, not Riley

 

[Ratt Mhule]

anyone that thinks Riley is getting fired for going 10-3 is a complete and total bozo.

"10-3 with losses to OSU Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat is scorching hot"

Yeah, lets fire a head coach that goes 10-3 with road wins @ Oregon @ Penn State and @ Minnesota.

Some of you need to put down the crack pipe and join the rest of us in reality.

I never said fired but the pressure to win the west and beat our biggest competition which again he will be 0-6 against will be much greater. Diaco was hired to turn the defense around now, not next year or the year after. Riley has said as much.
But like I said above I think we beat both teams this year and win the west.

 

[Enhance]

The problem with Iowa is they somehow get better at the end of the year. We tend to play some of our worst ball in game 12. I wish we could play Iowa week 2, we may win 50 straight to be honest.

That's one of the reasons I sometimes wish Nebraska had a tougher schedule out of the gate, particularly early in conference play. It feels like Nebraska has had a familiar trajectory the last several years - start the season on a high note, hit some bumps in October/November and then sort of teeter totter out. Nebraska hasn't swept November since 2012. I wonder if a top heavy schedule would provide greater focus in the off season and fall camp.

 

[junior4949]

anyone that thinks Riley is getting fired for going 10-3 is a complete and total bozo.

"10-3 with losses to OSU Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat is scorching hot"

Yeah, lets fire a head coach that goes 10-3 with road wins @ Oregon @ Penn State and @ Minnesota.

Some of you need to put down the crack pipe and join the rest of us in reality.

I never said fired but the pressure to win the west and beat our biggest competition which again he will be 0-6 against will be much greater. Diaco was hired to turn the defense around now, not next year or the year after. Riley has said as much.
But like I said above I think we beat both teams this year and win the west.

In your honest opinion, do you believe this year to be similar more to 08' or 09' defensively speaking? Bo was pretty much hired to turn the defense around now as well. It wasn't until about a quarter into the second year that the defense was hitting on all eight. Diaco may be a genius, but I expect to see some defensive growing pains.

 

[Saunders]

anyone that thinks Riley is getting fired for going 10-3 is a complete and total bozo.

"10-3 with losses to OSU Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat is scorching hot"

Yeah, lets fire a head coach that goes 10-3 with road wins @ Oregon @ Penn State and @ Minnesota.

Some of you need to put down the crack pipe and join the rest of us in reality.

I never said fired but the pressure to win the west and beat our biggest competition which again he will be 0-6 against will be much greater. Diaco was hired to turn the defense around now, not next year or the year after. Riley has said as much.
But like I said above I think we beat both teams this year and win the west.

In your honest opinion, do you believe this year to be similar more to 08' or 09' defensively speaking? Bo was pretty much hired to turn the defense around now as well. It wasn't until about a quarter into the second year that the defense was hitting on all eight. Diaco may be a genius, but I expect to see some defensive growing pains.

I think the D started getting it around the end of 2008. But remember, they played a bunch of ridiculous offenses that year too.

That said, I think Diaco can get the D going by the second half of the season.

 

[The Dude]

The problem with Iowa is they somehow get better at the end of the year. We tend to play some of our worst ball in game 12. I wish we could play Iowa week 2, we may win 50 straight to be honest.

That's a good point, Mr. Redux.

My theory is it has something to do with the fact that they seem to always have a great offensive line.

 

[Redux]

Nebraska in 2008 played Texas Tech, Mizzou and Oklahoma who all had stupid good offenses. Also year 1 of a totally different staff. I think this transition SHOULD be a much smoother one.

 

[junior4949]

anyone that thinks Riley is getting fired for going 10-3 is a complete and total bozo.

"10-3 with losses to OSU Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat is scorching hot"

Yeah, lets fire a head coach that goes 10-3 with road wins @ Oregon @ Penn State and @ Minnesota.

Some of you need to put down the crack pipe and join the rest of us in reality.

I never said fired but the pressure to win the west and beat our biggest competition which again he will be 0-6 against will be much greater. Diaco was hired to turn the defense around now, not next year or the year after. Riley has said as much.
But like I said above I think we beat both teams this year and win the west.

In your honest opinion, do you believe this year to be similar more to 08' or 09' defensively speaking? Bo was pretty much hired to turn the defense around now as well. It wasn't until about a quarter into the second year that the defense was hitting on all eight. Diaco may be a genius, but I expect to see some defensive growing pains.

I think the D started getting it around the end of 2008. But remember, they played a bunch of ridiculous offenses that year too.

That said, I think Diaco can get the D going by the second half of the season.

Getting it going is one thing. I was looking at it from the perspective of absolutely dominating. We didn't see this from the 09' defense until about a quarter of the way through the 09' season. I think Diaco can and will achieve this type of defense, but I don't think it happens this year. What I mostly hope to see this year from the defense is a serviceable defense to compliment Lee and the offense. I have my fingers crossed that Lee is our version of Russell Wilson.

 

[Scratchtown]

Somehow they typically play way above their talent level.

They've copied the historic Nebraska model in a lot of ways - rely on good defense and offensive lines. They have a really good system that plays to their talent strengths. The biggest difference is Wisconsin has never come close to consistently hauling in the offensive playmakers Nebraska used to be able to.

This has to be due to their academic entrance numbers. like Stanford, I've always thought that smarter athletes play sounder football. I have no way of justifying that though.

 

[VectorVictor]

2-10 with wins over Iowa and Wisconsin, or 10-3 with losses to them?

Neither. 10-3 with losses to OSU, Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat will be scorching. 0-6 against Wiscy and Iowa is not okay.

Not even a little bit.

Wanna bet. Eichorst brought Riley in to win. Going 0-6 against our biggest competition in the west that happen to be very average teams will get boosters riled up. My guess would be Eichorst is out if we don't win the west and go 0-2 against Wiscy and Iowa.

Man you got to ever over this. Wisconsin is not an average team they have proven this over and over for the past 10-15 years. You may not like that, but they are a good football team.

Iowa is cyclical team. They will pop up and have a couple of great season's and then go back to winning 6-7 games a year for 3-4 seasons. Again it may hurt your ego a little but Iowa is a well coached team that doesn't make a lot of mistakes. They usually are talent challanged. Frankly I don't see that 9-10 win season out of Iowa this year. There defense should be decent, but offensively other than the RB returning they are short on skill players.

I don't like losing to Iowa or Wisconsin anymore than the next Nebraska fan, but I realize that they are programs to not look down apon as some average inferior teams.

Wisconsin always plays tough and in conference play they are even better. A night game at Camp Randall is about as tough as it gets in college football. Somehow they typically play way above their talent level.

At home. They've given up some head scratchers on the road..though they did play well on the road last season.

 

[Enhance]

Somehow they typically play way above their talent level.

They've copied the historic Nebraska model in a lot of ways - rely on good defense and offensive lines. They have a really good system that plays to their talent strengths. The biggest difference is Wisconsin has never come close to consistently hauling in the offensive playmakers Nebraska used to be able to.

This has to be due to their academic entrance numbers. like Stanford, I've always thought that smarter athletes play sounder football. I have no way of justifying that though.

I think there's definitely a balance there. Smarts can get outplayed by natural talent and vice versa. I think it's very circumstantial.

As we all know, though, natural abilities and talent play a fairly critical role. Many of the current powerhouses in division one football are not Ivy League or even overly difficult schools to get into. A lot of them are state schools. There's a reason Northwestern, Yale, Harvard and Duke (among others) typically don't turn out great football teams.

 

[Hayseed]

On his show today. Talking about the coaches poll and was talking about how it's predominantly traditional powers in the top 10. So he said he went back and looked at the '87, '97, and '07 preseason coaches polls.

He said they were virtually the same except that Notre Dame and Nebraska were absent in this years poll compared to the past polls. Then for the 2nd time in a week or so he starts in on Tanner Lee.

"I have Nebraska winning 9 games. Nebraska has a quarterback nobody has heard of named Tanner Lee, who will end up being the best college football player no one is talking about in preseason. Nebraska is going to be pretty good this year, they have a transfer quarterback named Tanner Lee who is SPECIAL. (his emphasis) He is a playmaker at quarterback. Mike Riley is a great quarterback coach."

I've never heard Cowherd mention Nebraska more than once ever in a single year for college football. He's brought them up TWICE in 2 weeks. High praise from a guy who normally is ripping NU for its geographical location in regard to recruiting.

May be a better year than most people expect!

There are more variables than just that ,obviously, but I will not be surprised if we end up better than 9 wins. Cowherd could be onto something. (Don't say, "I think he's on something.")

 

[Huskerlambs]

2-10 with wins over Iowa and Wisconsin, or 10-3 with losses to them?

Neither. 10-3 with losses to OSU, Wisconsin and Iowa and Riley's seat will be scorching. 0-6 against Wiscy and Iowa is not okay.

There is such a weird disconnect between the national media and some Husker fans. They say we're going to go 6-6, and you'd be unhappy with 10-3? Who is correct?