Trev is in over his head

Dr. Strangelove said:
I agree. Trev is a good AD, and is certainly much better than Bill Moos.

That being said, he hired a coach with the strategy that they would try and take players that aren't very talented or rated very highly and "develop" them into a good football product. It's a dangerous strategy - if it doesn't work, years of bad football players pile up and it becomes all that much more difficult to correct.

That being said, the reality of Nebraska is that they probably can't recruit enough talent no matter who they hire and they have no choice but to go the route of "development". Trev knows the recruiting limitations of Nebraska and the caliber of player they can realistically recruit. This is coming from probably the most negative poster in the recruiting forums who regularly complains about the quality of players Nebraska is bringing into the program. It just isn't good enough.
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The bold is and has always been our issue since Osborne retired.  His reputation alone brought in many top notch recruits but we haven't had a coach come near his level since.  If Rhule can somehow get this turned around by year 3, then I think we will see a higher level recruit and portal transfer that will allow us to become a playoff contender by year 5 (hopefully).  But it is a hard crawl to get there with the new Big 10 competition.  OSU, Michigan, USC, PSU - 4 blue bloods, plus Wiscy, UCLA, Washington, Oregon - not to mention teams like Minni and the Ditch Chickens who have beaten us regularly over the past 10 years.  It will be a climb to become a playoff contender.  

 
CyHawk said:
I really hope that the next coach will be better.
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You didn't take the trouble to type that out did you.  There's a copy/paste template somewhere around here for that that's been here for oh 15 or more years I think.  "Looks like we're about to turn the corner," as well. 

 
gorp512 said:
Texas, Illinois. UCF under Frost 
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I think it's time we finally admit that Frost didn't "turn around" UCF. They posted seasons of 10 wins, 12 wins, and 9 wins before he got there. There was the one absolute blunder year that had tons of internal strife, and then he just brought them back to where they were before under O'Leary. They didn't have years of sustained mediocrity. They had a solid program that just so happened to have one lone shockingly bad year. 

 
brontosaurus said:
I think it's time we finally admit that Frost didn't "turn around" UCF. They posted seasons of 10 wins, 12 wins, and 9 wins before he got there. There was the one absolute blunder year that had tons of internal strife, and then he just brought them back to where they were before under O'Leary. They didn't have years of sustained mediocrity. They had a solid program that just so happened to have one lone shockingly bad year. 
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They had a pretty high talent level, but 0-12 is 0-12 and it's hard to do. We can admit Frost did a great job at UCF (even if it there's more context than "they were 0-12!") without needing to claim he did a good job here.

 
TGHusker said:
The bold is and has always been our issue since Osborne retired.  His reputation alone brought in many top notch recruits 
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Kinda. Still, Tom inherited a national championship program that got on TV a lot, back when that actually meant something. He kept winning, which helps bring in winners. Also, we used to prioritize the OL more than we do now. But Tom had several built-in advantages that are long gone now. 

It's hard to believe in hindsight, but Bill Callahan had a reputation for recruiting. Mike Riley did too, and Corvallis was considered a tough sell to recruits. NFL pros and fellow coaches sent their kids to be coached by Riley at Nebraska. Scott Frost was the hottest coach in college football in 2017 and between his OC resume at Oregon and splashy turnaround of UCF, you could legitimately tell recruits that exciting things were going to be happening at Nebraska. Truth is, our recruiting classes have generally been better ranked than the teams on the field. Player development is definitely a thing, but that doesn't mean fluffing up a cast of two stars. We have no more disadvantage in recruiting than several schools that have been out playing us. 

There are probably a lot of culprits, but I'm starting to wonder of the Husker's multi-coach tradition of running dual threat quarterbacks in a college-specific offense curtails the interest of some recruits with NFL aspirations.  

 
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Dr. Strangelove said:
I agree. Trev is a good AD, and is certainly much better than Bill Moos.

That being said, he hired a coach with the strategy that they would try and take players that aren't very talented or rated very highly and "develop" them into a good football product. It's a dangerous strategy - if it doesn't work, years of bad football players pile up and it becomes all that much more difficult to correct.

That being said, the reality of Nebraska is that they probably can't recruit enough talent no matter who they hire and they have no choice but to go the route of "development". Trev knows the recruiting limitations of Nebraska and the caliber of player they can realistically recruit. This is coming from probably the most negative poster in the recruiting forums who regularly complains about the quality of players Nebraska is bringing into the program. It just isn't good enough.
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You’ve nailed it on the talent point. It’s not good enough. A development approach can get us to Iowa’s level if done right. I don’t think that’s acceptable. Our program was one of the few blue bloods in the sport. Accepting mediocrity is a slap in the face to decades of earned success. 

We were told we had one of the best NIL set-ups in the country - that it would be a real game-changer for us. Either we negligently aren’t using it to its full capability (if much at all) or we were lied to. I tend to think it’s the former given we can find $300-700m for stadium upgrades and $150m for new training facilities.

 
Husker in WI said:
They had a pretty high talent level, but 0-12 is 0-12 and it's hard to do. We can admit Frost did a great job at UCF (even if it there's more context than "they were 0-12!") without needing to claim he did a good job here.
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Yea, he did a really great job. Has anyone heard from him since he left? 

 
corncraze said:
You’ve nailed it on the talent point. It’s not good enough. A development approach can get us to Iowa’s level if done right. I don’t think that’s acceptable. Our program was one of the few blue bloods in the sport. Accepting mediocrity is a slap in the face to decades of earned success. 

We were told we had one of the best NIL set-ups in the country - that it would be a real game-changer for us. Either we negligently aren’t using it to its full capability (if much at all) or we were lied to. I tend to think it’s the former given we can find $300-700m for stadium upgrades and $150m for new training facilities.
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Well getting to Iowa's level at this point should be the goal, for now. I think that's fair enough to say that we need to get there first anyways before we can start worrying about becoming great again.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
There are probably a lot of culprits, but I'm starting to wonder of the Husker's multi-coach tradition of running dual threat quarterbacks in a college-specific offense curtails the interest of some recruits with NFL aspirations.  
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Really good post overall but I wanted to comment on this specific part because, IMO, I think right now is probably one of the best times to be a dual-threat quarterback because of the actual or perceived success of several current NFL quarterbacks considered "dual-threat" (or, at the very least, more mobile and non-traditional pocket passers). Guys like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Patrick Mahomes, and Daniel Jones. Now, Jones and Fields aren't guys you'd willingly pick to lead your franchise if you could pick from several other NFL QBs, but they're still starters in the NFL.

So, I think in a vacuum, running a dual-threat QB in a college-specific offense isn't necessarily curtailing much. There are a lot of programs around the country that have done this and produced all-conference QB's or even an NFL QB... teams which, on paper, have less recruited talent than Nebraska. I think the bigger problem is Nebraska can't sustain success and can't develop a QB. If I'm a good high school QB, I would have a very hard time choosing Nebraska over frankly 40-50 other programs that have at least shown me something interesting the last near decade.

 
Enhance said:
Really good post overall but I wanted to comment on this specific part because, IMO, I think right now is probably one of the best times to be a dual-threat quarterback because of the actual or perceived success of several current NFL quarterbacks considered "dual-threat" (or, at the very least, more mobile and non-traditional pocket passers). Guys like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Patrick Mahomes, and Daniel Jones. Now, Jones and Fields aren't guys you'd willingly pick to lead your franchise if you could pick from several other NFL QBs, but they're still starters in the NFL.

So, I think in a vacuum, running a dual-threat QB in a college-specific offense isn't necessarily curtailing much. There are a lot of programs around the country that have done this and produced all-conference QB's or even an NFL QB... teams which, on paper, have less recruited talent than Nebraska. I think the bigger problem is Nebraska can't sustain success and can't develop a QB. If I'm a good high school QB, I would have a very hard time choosing Nebraska over frankly 40-50 other programs that have at least shown me something interesting the last near decade.
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Adding on to this about dual threat. Anthony Richardson just got drafted 4th after a single pretty meh passing season just because his physical tool set was so good. 

 
Enhance said:
Really good post overall but I wanted to comment on this specific part because, IMO, I think right now is probably one of the best times to be a dual-threat quarterback because of the actual or perceived success of several current NFL quarterbacks considered "dual-threat" (or, at the very least, more mobile and non-traditional pocket passers). Guys like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Patrick Mahomes, and Daniel Jones. Now, Jones and Fields aren't guys you'd willingly pick to lead your franchise if you could pick from several other NFL QBs, but they're still starters in the NFL.

So, I think in a vacuum, running a dual-threat QB in a college-specific offense isn't necessarily curtailing much. There are a lot of programs around the country that have done this and produced all-conference QB's or even an NFL QB... teams which, on paper, have less recruited talent than Nebraska. I think the bigger problem is Nebraska can't sustain success and can't develop a QB. If I'm a good high school QB, I would have a very hard time choosing Nebraska over frankly 40-50 other programs that have at least shown me something interesting the last near decade.
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I think the problem is our willingness to let running quarterbacks start for us, when they probably wouldn't start for other college teams. We call them dual threats because they are passers, but they are never good enough passers to play in the NFL and can be liabilities against good college defenses, too. 

A lot of great quarterbacks are mobile quarterbacks, but not what we call dual threats. The guys you listed all work well and often in the traditional pocket, but have the green light to run as needed. They tend to run less as their career goes on. If you're an offensive lineman with NFL ambitions, scouts will need to see you protecting traditional deep drop QBs. 

 
We are not hiring the right guys for this job.  I have watched KU and KSU over the last few seasons.  There is better talent, and better overall play right now on both of those teams.  Sure KU is battlling lack of defense, but we would take there offense or many of there offensive players on our roster.  KSU has always had better QB play for the most part in the last 20 years.  Better skill players overall during the last 20 years.  Point is Kleiman and Leipold are program builders and player developers.  I am sure we thought we were getting that with Rhule, but nothing yet has shown me he is the same coach who got Temple and Baylor going.  I think the $40 mill he received from Carolina has maybe him less hungry and more fat and happy.  Were an easy payday, simple.

 
Nebhawk said:
We are not hiring the right guys for this job.  I have watched KU and KSU over the last few seasons.  There is better talent, and better overall play right now on both of those teams.  Sure KU is battlling lack of defense, but we would take there offense or many of there offensive players on our roster.  KSU has always had better QB play for the most part in the last 20 years.  Better skill players overall during the last 20 years.  Point is Kleiman and Leipold are program builders and player developers.  I am sure we thought we were getting that with Rhule, but nothing yet has shown me he is the same coach who got Temple and Baylor going.  I think the $40 mill he received from Carolina has maybe him less hungry and more fat and happy.  Were an easy payday, simple.
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We're a lot closer to where Kansas was than K State, and it was ugly during Leipold's first year there. Its a little early to be calling it on Rhule.

 
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