Triaging the QB room

Mavric said:
But the Minnesota game was atrocious.  Two of the INTs would have been bad from average high school quarterbacks.  Those are the kind of things that make you (me) wonder if he's ever going to get past that.  If you've played that much football and are still making mistakes like that, I don't think that bodes well.
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So just my opinion, but I think the staff should make one or both of these adjustments:

1. Try running some high percentage stuff as much as possible to the outside, whether it's tosses to the RB, WR screens (do we even have this play?), swing passes...something. Drastically limit the amount of dropback passes on 1st & 2nd down (which honestly we probably already did in the Colorado game).

2. Maybe this isn't much different than #1, but just accept that his only real strength is as a battering ram. Just run the hell out of the guy to try to put yourself into 3rd & short as much as possible. 3rd & long will be a "cover your eyes" nightmare when you ask him to drop back and scan multiple routes in 11 man personnel.

 
Scarlet said:
First if you're coming with a hair on fire emotional take post it in another thread.  Let's talk football.  What do you do if you're Rhule?  The overwhelming problem with this team at this point is obviously the QB room.  Can it be fixed?  

Casey Thompson has sailed so that's out.

Sims obviously has a lot of talent but unfortunately that's more than offset by his ball security issues.  He's basically Andrian Martinez but even more a liability especially in the shotgun.  

The problem is his backups aren't it either. There's a reason they're not starting at a P5 school somewhere.  Haarberg was wildly inaccurate on his attempts today.  He had a receiver open over the middle on one throw and sailed it a good ten feet over the receiver's head.  He made Sims look accurate by comparison.  Chubba hasn't shown much either from limited play.  The coaches are pros and as much as everyone wants to rage on them at this point there's a reason they saw Sims as the number one coming out of camp.  His ceiling as far as talent is high.  I think the coaches thought they could coach the mistakes out him when they brought him in from G. Tech.  Maybe they were a little over confident in the QB whisperering skills.  

All that said can you continue on with Sims anymore? 

Do you go under center with Sims and pair down the play book?  He'd still be a liability but at least the shotgun drops would be out?  Or do you stay the course?  I'm thinking Rhule's stuck now and will do the later.

Do you go with Haarberg?  Chubba?  My guess is that'll be about as successful as the McCaffrey experience of a few years back. 

What a s#!tty situation to be in.  Sometimes there is no good option, no pun intended.  
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rhule dropped the ball by bringing sims in to begin with.  there were better options available. also pissed that we didn't just keep logan smothers and casey thompson.  we would be 1-1 or 2-0 with smothers at qb right now.  he can run too, is a better passer than sims and wouldn't turn the ball over once every quarter and a half.  w/o the turnovers we would've been leading colorado in the third quarter and would've beaten minn.

also not a fan of his choice for oc.

sims can develop into a solid qb if we're only going to throw 15 or so times a game because i believe at some point he can play smarter football, but he'll never have a high ceiling because he isn't naturally accurate and can't see the field.  we can't recruit well enough to ever become anything more than a perennial 6-9 win team with that style of football in this day and age. at the moment i would love for that to happen, but we have no potential to be a contender if we're trying to run a power running game without being able to recruit the personnel required to be dominate with that style.  need to take a page out of chris petersen's book and have a really good roster every 3 or so years. solid and competitive for  a couple years then have a veteran squad with depth and a polished qb every  3 or 4 years.  i know it's the age of the portal, but that's where sims came from.

even if sims never turned the ball over it takes the top off of our potential as a team.

maybe rhule believes that sims can get us 6-8 wins a year for couple years while he builds a roster and finds a qb.  that's my hope.

 
White Flash said:
even if sims never turned the ball over it takes the top off of our potential as a team.
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Yeah but if he had zero turnovers in these first two games we're probably 1-1, beating a Minnesota team that has outcoached us more often than not in the last few years. And then we're probably making a bowl game, something we haven't done in six years.

I'm not sure how Husker fans can really expect it to be reasonable that we'd jump from being a 4-8 dumpster fire to a team that wins 9-10 games and plays for the B1G championship in a single offseason or even two seasons. First step is to at least make a bowl game and not have a losing season.

I'd also add that I'm very confident that Smothers wasn't even as good as Sims. Thompson though? Yeah, it would have been great to have had him for this season.

 
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Decked said:
We are stuck this year. There isn’t one good QB on this roster. Sims will be gone next year and potentially satterfield. 
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i'll hope that sims can cut down the t/os or we find a guy because it's what we have right now.  that said, this year doesn't look good and i have to agree that we start over on offense next year.  i hope i'm wrong and things get turned around, but if i had to put money on it i agree with you.

 
Undone said:
Yeah but if he had zero turnovers in these first two games we're probably 1-1, beating a Minnesota team that has outcoached us more often than not in the last few years. And then we're probably making a bowl game, something we haven't done in six years.

I'm not sure how Husker fans can really expect it to be reasonable that we'd jump from being a 4-8 dumpster fire to a team that wins 9-10 games and plays for the B1G championship in a single offseason or even two seasons. First steps is to at least make a bowl game and not have a losing season.

I'd also add that I'm very confident that Smothers wasn't even as good as Sims. Thompson though? Yeah, it would have been great to have had him for this season.
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just saying smothers probably doesn't turn the ball over the way sims does.  the athletic edge that sims has is completely negated by the number t/os.  smother isn't chopped liver as an athlete and just using him as an example.  agree that keeping thompson would've been the right move.  we coulda won 8 game this year with thompson.  we've played undisciplined football for quite some time.  i will say hats off to the blackshirts.  if we don't turn the ball over so much against colorado, the blackshirts don't get worn out in the second half.

 
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This feels like the Adrian Martinez/Scott Frost situation except Jeff Simms has about a 1/3 of the talent of Martinez.  The four years of Martinez was kind of maddening to watch, but you could at least kind of see why Frost liked him.  Hopefully, Simms is gone after one season and not two.  I think of this season as a lost season already, so I'd rather see what the other QBs on the roster and so they can develop even if they may just be backups next year for another transfer. 

 
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“Satterfield said the onus is on the staff to help solve the issue. Referring to Sims' dropped shotgun snaps against Colorado, he said: ‘We have to work during the week with more crowd noise. I have to do a better job of making sure we're utilizing certain snap counts with the motions we use. I've got to be smart with the play type, especially with the motions we're using, especially down in the student section where it got really loud. All of that comes into play. ... It's all of us, it's not just Jeff."     

I don’t know about any of you, but that does not sound like accountability to me. Blaming the snap counts and noise and basically everything else but Sims.

If the ball hits him square in the hands that’s on the quarterback no one else. 
I guess it’s encouraging that he is thinking of ways to put Sims in a better position to be successful, but I don’t believe any of it makes a difference with this qb. 

 
Scofrosghost said:
“Satterfield said the onus is on the staff to help solve the issue. Referring to Sims' dropped shotgun snaps against Colorado, he said: ‘We have to work during the week with more crowd noise. I have to do a better job of making sure we're utilizing certain snap counts with the motions we use. I've got to be smart with the play type, especially with the motions we're using, especially down in the student section where it got really loud. All of that comes into play. ... It's all of us, it's not just Jeff."     

I don’t know about any of you, but that does not sound like accountability to me. Blaming the snap counts and noise and basically everything else but Sims.

If the ball hits him square in the hands that’s on the quarterback no one else. 
I guess it’s encouraging that he is thinking of ways to put Sims in a better position to be successful, but I don’t believe any of it makes a difference with this qb. 
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So, you don’t want a coach that takes the blame when things go wrong. 

 
Scofrosghost said:
“Satterfield said the onus is on the staff to help solve the issue. Referring to Sims' dropped shotgun snaps against Colorado, he said: ‘We have to work during the week with more crowd noise. I have to do a better job of making sure we're utilizing certain snap counts with the motions we use. I've got to be smart with the play type, especially with the motions we're using, especially down in the student section where it got really loud. All of that comes into play. ... It's all of us, it's not just Jeff."     

I don’t know about any of you, but that does not sound like accountability to me. Blaming the snap counts and noise and basically everything else but Sims.

If the ball hits him square in the hands that’s on the quarterback no one else. 
I guess it’s encouraging that he is thinking of ways to put Sims in a better position to be successful, but I don’t believe any of it makes a difference with this qb. 
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Honestly, what do you want him to say?  Really ask yourself....What could he say that you think is acceptable?

 
gobiggergoredder said:
Honestly, what do you want him to say?  Really ask yourself....What could he say that you think is acceptable?
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Honestly I don’t know. But it appears as though if he wasn’t injured there would be no doubt that they would be going with Sims this weekend. I don’t know about you  but this is starting to remind me of the “Aw shucks, I think he played really well, things just didn’t go our way” tone we got w Frost and Martinez. 

 
Scofrosghost said:
Honestly I don’t know. But it appears as though if he wasn’t injured there would be no doubt that they would be going with Sims this weekend. I don’t know about you  but this is starting to remind me of the “Aw shucks, I think he played really well, things just didn’t go our way” tone we got w Frost and Martinez. 
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You didn't really answer the question.  I don't count "I don't know".  However, you indicated that he was not being held accountable based upon one sentence from the OC about crowd noise.

We have no idea what's going through Sims head.  I certainly hope he's not satisfied with his performance.  We also have no idea what has been said to him by the staff.  Any leader is not going to get up in public and call out a subordinate.  That doesn't in work in real life or a football program.  

I personally like the way Rhule has handled it.  He has said multiple times something like "You can't do that and expect to win" or "We need to fix that".  We'd all like to know the "how?", but it's not realistic.  

I get that after two games you're starting to compare to previous seasons/coaches, but there are differences.  The last 3 QBs started 4 years (excluding Thompson).  I'd argue that all 3 stayed the same or even got worse over their career.  We are not there yet.  At this point, I'd be surprised if Sims is the guy next year, but who knows.  It's still way too early.

 
Scofrosghost said:
I don’t know about any of you, but that does not sound like accountability to me.
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Wat?

Scofrosghost said:
“Satterfield said the onus is on the staff to help solve the issue. Referring to Sims' dropped shotgun snaps against Colorado, he said: ‘We have to work during the week with more crowd noise. I have to do a better job of making sure we're utilizing certain snap counts with the motions we use. I've got to be smart with the play type, especially with the motions we're using, especially down in the student section where it got really loud. All of that comes into play. ... It's all of us, it's not just Jeff."     
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