What did we learn? La Tech version

Yeah, because the Michigan game is basically an automatic loss, you can't decipher too much about Rhule's preference for QB1 with who starts that game.

But you will be able to in week 6 against Illinois.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
If anything, they roll HH back out for Michigan, and he looks like crap, so it’s easier to bring back Sims when he’s fully healthy. 
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I'll just say this, 'Husk: I don't think Rhule really cares what fans think of his decisions 5/12 of the way through his first season on an 8 year contract with $66M in guaranteed money.

So again, I think we know a lot more with who starts against Illinois.

 
Undone said:
I'll just say this, 'Husk: I don't think Rhule really cares what fans think of his decisions 5/12 of the way through his first season on an 8 year contract with $66M in guaranteed money.

So again, I think we know a lot more with who starts against Illinois.
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It’s not only the fans, but his players. If HH plays somewhat clean with zero or just one turnover against Michigan, but NU still loses, I could see Rhule staying with Haarberg. Sims has shown to be a good leader and teammate, but those teammates can’t handle it if he continues to have turnovers which kill the team’s chances at winning. If Haarberg is limiting his mistakes, I think he still starts. 

 
teachercd said:
Yep!

After Saturday, it is 7 super winnable games.  
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I wouldn’t be too surprised we trip up against Illinois on a Friday night after a physical game against Michigan. While Illinois looks its worst since Lovie, I can see NU going out s#!tting the bed and giving the game away in the end.

 
Toe said:
If Sims wasn't healthy enough, Purdy would've went in for that one snap after HH lost his helmet.
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Rhule said after the game that Sims went in for that one play because Purdy was signaling in plays on that drive. After the weather delay, it was Purdy who came in to play the final 7 minutes after the game. I assume Haarberg didn’t go back in because he was too sore and beat up, and he couldn’t get loose after the delay. He was standing on the sideline looking worse for wear. If Sims were able to play any significant snaps, he would have come in those last 7 minutes. 

 
Savage Husker said:
I wouldn’t be too surprised we trip up against Illinois on a Friday night after a physical game against Michigan. While Illinois looks its worst since Lovie, I can see NU going out s#!tting the bed and giving the game away in the end.
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The games after Michigan are winnable, it doesn’t mean that NU will win all of them, or even a majority of them. It just means that the remaining teams on the schedule aren’t very good. But, NU isn’t very good either. 

 
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Undone said:
Another positive for me (albeit a small thing) was calling up the jet sweep for Kemp on the TD. Loved the call and the execution on that one. That play is a keeper, and not just inside the red zone.
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Unless he would have gotten tackles for no gain.  Then it would have been "too cute."

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Let me get this right, when Haarberg passes for under 50% and barely 100 yards, it’s because of some throw aways and drops, not because he’s inaccurate passer? Wow, I’m sure some NU QB’s in the past would have liked that excuse making.

Haarberg has come in and done well running the ball against the 2 worst teams on NU’s schedule. I think he has earned the starting job for the time being. It still doesn’t make him a good QB.
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I'm not trying to be an apologist for HH.  But I do think some of the bad completion percentage from yesterday was because we took more deep shots.

For the year, he's been pretty good from 0 to 10 yards downfield (13/19), OK from 10-20 (4/8) but pretty poor over 20 (2/12).  Against LT, he was 5/8 under 10 yards, 2/4 from 10-20 but only 1/6 downfield.  7/12 on the shorter throws isn't great but not terrible either.  But throwing that many deep balls with little success is going to kill your completion percentage. 

By comparison, Sims has been very good on short throws (13/13 under 10 yards) but not very good from 10-20 (6/17) and also has little success over 20 (1/3).  Curious why we've taken that many more deep shots the last two games.  Could be HH is more willing to push the ball down the field, could be Sims is too cautious, could be differences in opponents, could be a lot of things.  But we probably need to take at least a couple of deep shots here and there.  Otherwise the safeties can start to creep up and corners can play tighter.

 
Toe said:
If Sims wasn't healthy enough, Purdy would've went in for that one snap after HH lost his helmet.
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I think Rhule said after the game that Purdy is one of the guys signaling in plays.  So, since it was only going to be one play, they ran Sims in there instead.

I thought it looked like Sims still had a little limp on the sidelines after his one play.  Maybe it was nothing but Millen commented on it as well.

 
The Michigan game doesn't have anything to do with what we should realistically try to do the rest of the season. We need to do what we can expect to succeed at. That's not heaving the ball into coverage and getting zero yards on downs. Ball control and blind squirrel hoping to find a nut is probably the best we can do against great teams and gives us reps for the other games we can hope to win.

 
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