SIGNED OT Givens Mordi Price*

[Nexus]

so you don't know what he's doing wrong or what happened with the tenopir situation, yet you apparently buy in to the idea that he's destroying our offense.

I should say I don't feel comfortable regurgitating other people's takes wholesale on what he is doing wrong here. But they are a lot more supported than assumption. We probably have Milt to thank for the wheels not coming off on the OL this year, though. Barney was the guy who came in here spouting off in news articles about how OL just need to be fiery and aggressive, screw technique and all those things the old staff foolishly emphasized.......never mind that Callahan as an OL guy and Barney is embarrassingly not close to a contest. That told me Barney didn't have a clue, and I don't think he's really gotten much of one in 3 years. I agree that this year, the results have been passable to decent. But Barney is still Barney.

I will also agree that a lot of the sacks we saw against OU were on Taylor pure and simple. Anyway, I just realized this is the Givens Mordi Price thread. Sorry for taking it off in another direction.

It's interesting to note that even though Callahan gets praised for his knowledge of OL, no player from Nebraska ever made All-Big 12 1st team honors during his tenure. Carl Nicks & Matt Slauson were the only Nebraska OL players from the Callahan era to earn 2nd team conference honors. Nicks earned it while Callahan was still the coach. Slauson earned it when Pelini was the coach.

Ricky Henry became the first Nebraska OL player to earn All-Big 12 1st team honors since Toniu Fonoti (2000 & 2001). He was part of Pelini's first recruiting class. Furthermore, he was recruited and coached by Cotton.

 

[Danny Bateman]

so you don't know what he's doing wrong or what happened with the tenopir situation, yet you apparently buy in to the idea that he's destroying our offense.

I should say I don't feel comfortable regurgitating other people's takes wholesale on what he is doing wrong here. But they are a lot more supported than assumption. We probably have Milt to thank for the wheels not coming off on the OL this year, though. Barney was the guy who came in here spouting off in news articles about how OL just need to be fiery and aggressive, screw technique and all those things the old staff foolishly emphasized.......never mind that Callahan as an OL guy and Barney is embarrassingly not close to a contest. That told me Barney didn't have a clue, and I don't think he's really gotten much of one in 3 years. I agree that this year, the results have been passable to decent. But Barney is still Barney.

I will also agree that a lot of the sacks we saw against OU were on Taylor pure and simple. Anyway, I just realized this is the Givens Mordi Price thread. Sorry for taking it off in another direction.

Nah, it's cool zoogies. Hopefully Givens doesn't come on here, or he'll see he got threadjacked and his thread is now another Barney discussion thread. Hopefully, he sees all the complementary stuff we had to say about him beforehand .

Anyway, in regards to your first paragraph... I'm in total agreement. I ALMOST brought it up in one of my earlier posts, but I just wanted to make a few main points about Barney and thought it might've been rambling... I had no idea it'd turn into a total BC beatdown. What I mean is... I almost brought up the fact Barney preached intensity and fire as opposed to technique. I remember reading an article about how the lineman loved this, and in the beginning Barney preaching getting the job done by any means necessary was fine, as opposed to bogging the guys down with worrying about technique. The problem is, that eventually caught up to us and bit us in the @ss. Now, our linemen don't understand good technique and consistently cost the team with penalties, which shows a lack of discipline. So we've got undisciplined, streaky linemen who love to pull the old Jekyll and Hyde act when it comes to taking games over or completely embarrassing our offense. Great. Just what we were shooting for. :sarcasm

 

[dylan]

Callahan as an OL guy and Barney is embarrassingly not close to a contest.

and yet, callahan never had a line at NU as good as the one cotton (or was it secret coach milt? :laughpound ) put out there this year.

 

[bbeerma2]

Some people forget we are playing worldbeaters at DL often and are still not allowing a tremendous amount of sacks. Taylor also needs to learn to throw it away. Many of the DL we see will be starting on Sundays in the near future.

 

[Danimal]

The line hasn't gotten much help in the games we struggled. When the "skill players" aren't providing a balanced attack and playcalling is too predictable the line is at a considerable disadvantage.

 

[kchusker_chris]

it is pretty obvious that prior to our top two quarterbacks getting hurt, we had a pretty good offense this year.

This is frequently used to defend Watson as well. But remember, prior to our two QB's getting hurt we played through our cupcake non-conference schedule. We had played the #69,NR,#84,NR,#106,#7,#90 ranked defenses. We lost one of those when our offense flat out didn't execute. Guess which game it was? The other 6, you'd expect us to win even if the offense was just downright bad. The 1st quarter of the MU game was definatley MU's worst defensive performance on the season...then we went stagnant on offense after they adjusted. What followed that game was the #88,#99,#51,#82,#58 defenses. I don't have to tell you which 2 games we lost there. It's easy to figure out...it was against the best 2 defenses in the stretch.

We played some BAD BAD defenses this year. I don't know how that compares to years past...but our conference wins came against 106,90,42,88,99,82. That's pretty bad. A few of those would be comparable to Consgroves 2007 defense.

Blame the season on our QB's getting hurt, but IMO we would have finished in a VERY similar position w/ them. We could have scored at least once more against A&M and won that game, I agree. But, we still lose to Texas/OU. Taylor wasn't that hobbled against OU, and the loss certainly wasn't because of he wasn't 100%.

I don't know - regarless we need a change.

Oh...and This Givens kid looks solid - give him a few years. MAJOR upside w/ this one.

 

[Danny Bateman]

it is pretty obvious that prior to our top two quarterbacks getting hurt, we had a pretty good offense this year.

This is frequently used to defend Watson as well. But remember, prior to our two QB's getting hurt we played through our cupcake non-conference schedule. We had played the #69,NR,#84,NR,#106,#7,#90 ranked defenses. We lost one of those when our offense flat out didn't execute. Guess which game it was? The other 6, you'd expect us to win even if the offense was just downright bad. The 1st quarter of the MU game was definatley MU's worst defensive performance on the season...then we went stagnant on offense after they adjusted. What followed that game was the #88,#99,#51,#82,#58 defenses. I don't have to tell you which 2 games we lost there. It's easy to figure out...it was against the best 2 defenses in the stretch.

We played some BAD BAD defenses this year. I don't know how that compares to years past...but our conference wins came against 106,90,42,88,99,82. That's pretty bad. A few of those would be comparable to Consgroves 2007 defense.

Blame the season on our QB's getting hurt, but IMO we would have finished in a VERY similar position w/ them. We could have scored at least once more against A&M and won that game, I agree. But, we still lose to Texas/OU. Taylor wasn't that hobbled against OU, and the loss certainly wasn't because of he wasn't 100%.

I don't know - regarless we need a change.

Oh...and This Givens kid looks solid - give him a few years. MAJOR upside w/ this one.

Agree about Price... Gotta love smart, developing lineman. He's only 16 and he's 270!

And, I agree about the change needed. If I can sum up our offense in two sentences:

Regardless of what argument you want to make to defend it, our offense has taken on the personality of one that absolutely craps itself any time it plays a good defense. It also likes to play Jekyll and Hyde when facing decent (not bad, not good) defenses, so it's always 50/50 who'll show up there.

In my mind, a coaching change would be the best way to fix this.

 

[dylan]

no argument here that we played some poor defenses, and i have zero interest in defending watson. i will point out though that it's ridiculous to ignore the effect that QB injuries had. taylor is a decent passer, but clearly the best part of his game was his explosiveness. once that was taken away he wasn't the same. he was no longer able to exploit holes and he couldn't escape pressure the way he was used to (which is part of the reason he took such horrible sacks, he was used to being able to speed out of pressure). having a healthy taylor likely would have been all the difference in the two games we lost by 3 points. obviously texas just plain shut taylor down in that loss, but not many teams have that kind of talent on defense.

losing lee on top of that lost us the steady guy we could count on to manage games and be a decent passer, leaving us with a hobbled taylor or green. neither were great options. could watson have done better? no doubt, but let's not pretend that quarterback injuries didn't make a difference.

in any case, we've strayed pretty far off topic here and that is largley my fault.

 

[EZ-E]

Way too much is being made of Tenipor's visit this off-season. It is like when Bo and Saban met up to callaborate before the bowl season. Not too much should be made of it. Just met to learn a bit and pick each other's brains.

We missed out on two OL recruiting classes. So there is a reason that we lacked quite a bit of depth.

My only knock on Cotton is the pass protection this year was not at all what I expected. Although we had two inexperienced LT's. Other than that we had a line that was good at run blocking and a lot of times we pull two guys and I love it.

 

[kchusker_chris]

Way too much is being made of Tenipor's visit this off-season. It is like when Bo and Saban met up to callaborate before the bowl season. Not too much should be made of it. Just met to learn a bit and pick each other's brains.

We missed out on two OL recruiting classes. So there is a reason that we lacked quite a bit of depth.

My only knock on Cotton is the pass protection this year was not at all what I expected. Although we had two inexperienced LT's. Other than that we had a line that was good at run blocking and a lot of times we pull two guys and I love it.

I'm a little dissapointed in Yoshi's development. Like Green at QB, I wonder how much of their lack of development lands on the coaching. I though for sure Yoshi was going to clog a huge lane in pass blocking - but we didn't see him much this year. Disapointing. Surely not all on Cotton, but makes me wonder.

 

[Danny Bateman]

Way too much is being made of Tenipor's visit this off-season. It is like when Bo and Saban met up to callaborate before the bowl season. Not too much should be made of it. Just met to learn a bit and pick each other's brains.

We missed out on two OL recruiting classes. So there is a reason that we lacked quite a bit of depth.

My only knock on Cotton is the pass protection this year was not at all what I expected. Although we had two inexperienced LT's. Other than that we had a line that was good at run blocking and a lot of times we pull two guys and I love it.

I'm a little dissapointed in Yoshi's development. Like Green at QB, I wonder how much of their lack of development lands on the coaching. I though for sure Yoshi was going to clog a huge lane in pass blocking - but we didn't see him much this year. Disapointing. Surely not all on Cotton, but makes me wonder.

Keep in mind that Yoshi busted his hand in the preseason. I was really disappointed to hear that when the news came out, since the battle for LT was one of the competitions I was personally most interested in. Too dang bad... definitely put him in a bind to start his career.

While that may have been cause to cede the starting job to Sirles early, one would think he would've found his way on the field eventually... A lot sooner than he did. Again, too bad he couldn't have seen more PT this year.

 

[MinnwiscowaSker]

Does anyone think we will offer Givens a grayshirt, based purely on his age and the fact that he could benefit from being a little older, stronger? I know typically players with three stars don't get grayshirted, obviously other schools would offer a full-ride right away. Again, based only on his age.

Then again he's smart enough to earn his degree pretty quickly it sounds like, so maybe a grayshirt wouldn't make sense. Thoughts?

 

[iruletheskool]

Does anyone think we will offer Givens a grayshirt, based purely on his age and the fact that he could benefit from being a little older, stronger? I know typically players with three stars don't get grayshirted, obviously other schools would offer a full-ride right away. Again, based only on his age.

Then again he's smart enough to earn his degree pretty quickly it sounds like, so maybe a grayshirt wouldn't make sense. Thoughts?

i don't really know, but I would guess not. He already has some good weight and seems mature for his age.

 

[gratefullred]

I think it would work out well for NU. As for Mordi-Price, not so much.

 

[NUance]

I'm told that three-star offensive lineman Givens Price of Houston has a great chance to turn out to be the surprise of the class, and perhaps one of the nation's biggest surprises. LINK

Sip has an interesting little blub about Givens in yesterday's Journal Star. Can't wait to see it come true.