Responsibility vs Blame

grandpasknee

grandpasknee

New member
There is no doubt the coaching staff made some bad decisions today.  Big picture stuff is the responsibility of the head coach and his chosen assistants, and they didn't live up to that responsibility today at crucial times.

There is no doubt the players made some bad decisions today.  They weren't able to fulfill their responsibilities when it mattered most.

I get a little sick of threads popping up "Who takes the blame for this" or "Who is to blame, the players or the coaches."  Why does there have to be any blame, in .a college football game.  Why are we so quick to be judgmental and demand blame be assigned?  It is such a negative and needless approach.  "Well, that didn't go the way I wanted, I have to blame someone!!!"

We've got a long way to go, on both the player / talent area and the coaching area.  After years of mediocre players (every team had some good players, but if you watch the top teams, their have high quality players at almost every position, not four or five positions) and mediocre coaching, I think we've lulled ourselves into the belief that we are just one excellent coach or a couple of five stars away from 'being back'.  As a fan, it is my responsibility to recognize that, cheer for the team and coaches and be patient as they grow into their responsibilities.

 
I don't disagree, but there is no excuse for 0-6. We have blown several games. Things are repeating too often to be attributed to bad luck. This staff needs to correct these mistakes. There has been some progress. ST is better, and there are fewer boneheaded penalties, but we are a long way from a clean game that would live up to TO's standards.

 
If you want to get to the heart of our problems the applicable distinction at this point isn't between players vs. coaches.  It has little to do with talent or coaching ability.  We have enough of both.

 
Can we just take this time to try to figure out what your username means? Grandpa's knee? Tell us more, please.

But anyway, this program that used to be the greatest in the country at one point is now a dumpster fire. There is absolutely no way you can do mental gymnastics around that fact. Will Scott Frost save it? Maybe. Definitely not "For sure, yes he will!" Maybe he will, maybe he won't - we'll see. 

But it's an unbelievable dumpster fire right now. 

 
It's been a dumpster fire since Callahan.  That's 14 years at this point.  We'll see if Frost gets them back where he wants to, but frankly if he doesn't, the Huskers aren't going back to the top ever.  With the overreaction and lack of patience people have here, my money's on never. 

There's a lot to be said about consistency when you're talking about building a team from school kids.  Every week I see more and more clicking.  The losses suck, of course, for them most of all but at least the team looks like they want to actually try and play football and to get better.  They don't look like they just want to go through the motions every play and get home asap.  They have an almost comical ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory but that isn't new.  They've done that for years in big games. They get all jittery, make mistakes and then throw in the towel.  The throw in the towel part is really what made it unbearable to watch for me, and thankfully that's a lot better.

People calling for heads and looking for anyone they can to place blame, well, that's what got Nebraska here in the first place.  That and having AD's and President's stupid enough to listen.  It's down to the last hope here, IMO.  The university's tried the "throw money" approach, we ended up with Callahan.  They tried the "lets just fix the defense approach" we ended up with a few good years under Pelini and then attrition, they tried the "lets get someone with a similar public temperament to TO" and we ended up with Riley.  This team was awful last year and had a lot of attrition.  People predicting 9 wins or even 6+ wins were obviously nuts.  It's time for a new approach: The sit back, support the team and let the coach sort it out on his own approach.  If it doesn't work out, we're down to the "make it 1997 again through science or magic" and begging TO not to retire approach.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Undone said:
Can we just take this time to try to figure out what your username means? Grandpa's knee? Tell us more, please.

 But anyway, this program that used to be the greatest in the country at one point is now a dumpster fire. There is absolutely no way you can do mental gymnastics around that fact. Will Scott Frost save it? Maybe. Definitely not "For sure, yes he will!" Maybe he will, maybe he won't - we'll see. 

But it's an unbelievable dumpster fire right now. 
Click to expand...
Been following Husker football since I was a little kid sitting on my grandpa's knee on his porch, listening on the radio.  I remember him being thrilled we were having winning seasons again.  I'm old.

 
methodical said:
It's been a dumpster fire since Callahan.  That's 14 years at this point.  We'll see if Frost gets them back where he wants to, but frankly if he doesn't, the Huskers aren't going back to the top ever.  With the overreaction and lack of patience people have here, my money's on never. 

There's a lot to be said about consistency when you're talking about building a team from school kids.  Every week I see more and more clicking.  The losses suck, of course, for them most of all but at least the team looks like they want to actually try and play football and to get better.  They don't look like they just want to go through the motions every play and get home asap.  They have an almost comical ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory but that isn't new.  They've done that for years in big games. They get all jittery, make mistakes and then throw in the towel.  The throw in the towel part is really what made it unbearable to watch for me, and thankfully that's a lot better.

People calling for heads and looking for anyone they can to place blame, well, that's what got Nebraska here in the first place.  That and having AD's and President's stupid enough to listen.  It's down to the last hope here, IMO.  The university's tried the "throw money" approach, we ended up with Callahan.  They tried the "lets just fix the defense approach" we ended up with a few good years under Pelini and then attrition, they tried the "lets get someone with a similar public temperament to TO" and we ended up with Riley.  This team was awful last year and had a lot of attrition.  People predicting 9 wins or even 6+ wins were obviously nuts.  It's time for a new approach: The sit back, support the team and let the coach sort it out on his own approach.  If it doesn't work out, we're down to the "make it 1997 again through science or magic" and begging TO not to retire approach.
Click to expand...
I agree,  let the coaches do what they do and leave them alone.  They make mistakes and the players make mistakes.  We need consistency in a program for Nebraska to be successful.  We have a proven coach that has had success and needs time to correct all the problems from prevous coaches.  Remember the team is made up of players that were signed by other coaches, the bright spots are players that have bought into the system.  I see many more players leaving and a new group with better skills coming in.  Be Patient  we are going to get a lot better!!!!!!

 
Here's a fun linguistic fact:

Languages that are much more highly tensed (towards the past/present/future) impact the way that people that speak them think, and result in much more focus on individual blame and guilt. In English we'd say something like a specific player is to blame for a specific defensive breakdown, even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers for example would tend to say that that the defensive breakdown happened on its own.

Not only that but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims.

So if you're wondering why there MUST be blame assigned to specific agents and actors just know it's because you're conditioned by your language to need to think such things.

 
Landlord said:
Here's a fun linguistic fact:

Languages that are much more highly tensed (towards the past/present/future) impact the way that people that speak them think, and result in much more focus on individual blame and guilt. In English we'd say something like a specific player is to blame for a specific defensive breakdown, even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers for example would tend to say that that the defensive breakdown happened on its own.

Not only that but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims.

So if you're wondering why there MUST be blame assigned to specific agents and actors just know it's because you're conditioned by your language to need to think such things.
Click to expand...


I both appreciated, and rolled my eyes at this post.... +1 !!!!!

 
grandpasknee said:
There is no doubt the coaching staff made some bad decisions today.  Big picture stuff is the responsibility of the head coach and his chosen assistants, and they didn't live up to that responsibility today at crucial times.

There is no doubt the players made some bad decisions today.  They weren't able to fulfill their responsibilities when it mattered most.

I get a little sick of threads popping up "Who takes the blame for this" or "Who is to blame, the players or the coaches."  Why does there have to be any blame, in .a college football game.  Why are we so quick to be judgmental and demand blame be assigned?  It is such a negative and needless approach.  "Well, that didn't go the way I wanted, I have to blame someone!!!"

We've got a long way to go, on both the player / talent area and the coaching area.  After years of mediocre players (every team had some good players, but if you watch the top teams, their have high quality players at almost every position, not four or five positions) and mediocre coaching, I think we've lulled ourselves into the belief that we are just one excellent coach or a couple of five stars away from 'being back'.  As a fan, it is my responsibility to recognize that, cheer for the team and coaches and be patient as they grow into their responsibilities.
Click to expand...


Amen.

Admittedly, I was (before the season started) one of the posters who thought, talent wise, Nebraska was much better than they are.  While I won't apologize for that, I do painfully acknowledge that the Huskers are no where near where they need to be.

Simply stated, this 0-6 start is the culmination of Nebraska's previous 10+ years downward slide into mediocrity and worse.  And that cannot be fixed in one off-season.  Nebraska has the right guy as HC.  Frost just needs time, and several recruiting classes before we start seeing the results.  And honestly, I am seeing improvement each week even though the wins aren't there.  This team is getting incrementally better.

 
Back
Top