Iowa Game What did we learn?

Iowa Recap and Season Wrap-Up. I had a good sit back and think moment. I was fully prepared to go 2-10 knowing Rhule and what he does...so maybe 5-7 is not the end of the world. Just the way it happened made it feel worse than it really was....what NEEDs to change? Just being healthy will look like a different team talent wise. 



 
Packerhuskerfan said:
The odds were probably decent we lose in OT as usual, but to not even make it to OT when we our defense finally got a pick with 30 seconds left is a pretty impressive feat.
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I didn't seen any point where it looked like Nebraska deserved to win the game, although they did a decent job of pulling together to keep it close. 

But going by the odds, as you do here, I'd say the odds are that Nebraska should win at least 25% of these grind-it-out one score freak show games, and anything less than that is a punishment from God. Watching the same game unfold across three coaching staffs supports my Angry God theory.

Nebraska's run from 1962 - 2001 was pretty amazing. I guess this is the other side of that, although I'm not sure what God gets out of it. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I didn't seen any point where it looked like Nebraska deserved to win the game, although they did a decent job of pulling together to keep it close. 

But going by the odds, as you do here, I'd say the odds are that Nebraska should win at least 25% of these grind-it-out one score freak show games, and anything less than that is a punishment from God. Watching the same game unfold across three coaching staffs supports my Angry God theory.

Nebraska's run from 1962 - 2001 was pretty amazing. I guess this is the other side of that, although I'm not sure what God gets out of it. 
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I think it’s apparent. God reads Huskerboard and gets a kick out of all the hot takes and butthurt.

 
gossamorharpy said:
To be fair, I don’t think there’s many teams we played this year that would voluntarily switch “talent” with us and prefer to have our roster on gameday.  Offensively, this was one of the least talented, if not the least, I’ve witnessed for Nebraska in my life. 09 Zac lee would’ve looked like a savior compared to this year 
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Probably all true. And while I can think of excuses for this down year (despite one game improvement) it's still weird to think how much better it would feel to be a Northwestern fan right now. They are in a transitional year after 1-11 season and program wide scandal, and they lost to Nebraska. But they end the season 7-5 and are going to a bowl. Hard to say they're more talented if they lost to Nebraska. Still.....

One clue. Northwestern lead the NCAA with 30 turnovers last year. This year they got it down to 9. Maybe ball security is a talent, maybe it's something that can be coached, but I'm betting it wins games all by itself. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Probably all true. And while I can think of excuses for this down year (despite one game improvement) it's still weird to think how much better it would feel to be a Northwestern fan right now. They are in a transitional year after 1-11 season and program wide scandal, and they lost to Nebraska. But they end the season 7-5 and are going to a bowl. Hard to say they're more talented if they lost to Nebraska. Still.....

One clue. Northwestern lead the NCAA with 30 turnovers last year. This year they got it down to 9. Maybe ball security is a talent, maybe it's something that can be coached, but I'm betting it wins games all by itself. 
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If we can pull a Northwestern in the TO department and reduce ours by 10-15 next year, this is a completely different team and feeling around the progrum.

Typically I would say it can be coached but at some point it falls on the player.  Witnessing this past year makes me question that belief when I constantly see Sims drop snaps, fumble with horrendous ball security mechanics, and throwing blatant picks to other team- coaching can only change so much when its the player on the field.  

 
gossamorharpy said:
If we can pull a Northwestern in the TO department and reduce ours by 10-15 next year, this is a completely different team and feeling around the progrum.

Typically I would say it can be coached but at some point it falls on the player.  Witnessing this past year makes me question that belief when I constantly see Sims drop snaps, fumble with horrendous ball security mechanics, and throwing blatant picks to other team- coaching can only change so much when its the player on the field.  
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The table was set for a feel good ending here. Sims turns out to be a total bust, Haarberg's three game winning streak turns into a mirage, but the guy we all wrote off, Chubba Purdy, is handed the job for 2.25 games, and looks to be the better combined runner and passer we'd been looking for. He needs to win one of the last three games to give the season a different narrative, and by God all three games turn out to be totally winnable in the fourth quarter.

Is it possible that all three Nebraska QBs find their own way to make back-breaking turnovers? Yes. 

This just supports my Angry God theory. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
The table was set for a feel good ending here. Sims turns out to be a total bust, Haarberg's three game winning streak turns into a mirage, but the guy we all wrote off, Chubba Purdy, is handed the job for 2.25 games, and looks to be the better combined runner and passer we'd been looking for. He needs to win one of the last three games to give the season a different narrative, and by God all three games turn out to be totally winnable in the fourth quarter.

Is it possible that all three Nebraska QBs find their own way to make back-breaking turnovers? Yes. 

This just supports my Angry God theory. 
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lol- my guess is we see a slight change in the coaching staff.  Wouldnt shock me at all if rhule brings in a guy to focus on QBs & TEs.  Something tells me he can work out a way for raiola to work with TEs on blocking drills and have mcguire lean in on WR/TE for route running.  

I'm sure there's a better way to structure this but I have hope that Weger's spot from last year could be repurposed in a way that adds another coach to help develop the QBs without deteriorating the coaching focus to other groups.  

 
Turnovers are typically the result of inexperience and poor fundamentals. Talent naturally plays a role, too, but I don't necessarily think that's the bigger issue. I think the turnovers are just a microcosm of overall problems that have been plaguing the program for awhile. It's going to take fixing a lot of little things before we start to see improvements in areas like turnovers.

 
Enhance said:
Turnovers are typically the result of inexperience and poor fundamentals. Talent naturally plays a role, too, but I don't necessarily think that's the bigger issue. I think the turnovers are just a microcosm of overall problems that have been plaguing the program for awhile. It's going to take fixing a lot of little things before we start to see improvements in areas like turnovers.
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True.  I think it'll also help when our QB isn't everything in this offense.  Outside of trey palmer last year, I think you'd have to go back to ameer's last season when 95% of the offense and its success wasn't on the shoulders of the QB.  No matter who the QB was for us this year, it seemed like they had to do way more than what they were capable of for us to win.

 
gossamorharpy said:
True.  I think it'll also help when our QB isn't everything in this offense.  Outside of trey palmer last year, I think you'd have to go back to ameer's last season when 95% of the offense and its success wasn't on the shoulders of the QB.  No matter who the QB was for us this year, it seemed like they had to do way more than what they were capable of for us to win.
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Yeah absolutely. It's kind of like having a one or two man life raft - it's tough to stay afloat when you have 9 or 10 people in the water trying to get on it with you.

The injuries they sustained this year are a real challenge that I think shouldn't be under-valued, but, it's also pretty clear there's a lot of growing up that needs to happen (growing up i.e. improvement) along the offense. It really all starts up front and at the QB position. I mean the #1 job of any offensive staff each year is to identify, develop and prepare QB1 and I can't think of a more cataclysmic failure that I've personally seen at that position. We're probably looking at a 7-8 win team with a quarterback that could've at least been a B average.

 
gossamorharpy said:
True.  I think it'll also help when our QB isn't everything in this offense.  Outside of trey palmer last year, I think you'd have to go back to ameer's last season when 95% of the offense and its success wasn't on the shoulders of the QB.  No matter who the QB was for us this year, it seemed like they had to do way more than what they were capable of for us to win.
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It may have been more than they were capable of, but it wasn't asking too much. We may not have loved Satterfield's play calling, but it wasn't a demanding scheme. Sightly better execution fewer unforced turnovers would have made a difference. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I didn't seen any point where it looked like Nebraska deserved to win the game, although they did a decent job of pulling together to keep it close. 

But going by the odds, as you do here, I'd say the odds are that Nebraska should win at least 25% of these grind-it-out one score freak show games, and anything less than that is a punishment from God. Watching the same game unfold across three coaching staffs supports my Angry God theory.

Nebraska's run from 1962 - 2001 was pretty amazing. I guess this is the other side of that, although I'm not sure what God gets out of it. 
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Who's the third staff? Riley? He had some excruciating losses but also had a comparable amount of grit-it-out one score wins as well. Pelini was remarkably good in one-score games, so much so that a superstitious person would think we're just regressing to the mean in a painful way.

 
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This is the first half.  I believe they had one completion farther than 5 yards past the LOS...and that wasn't very far past.  most were behind the LOS.  Their longer plays were guys missing tackles.  Which...wasn't very many.


 
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