What did we learn? (Game 6 - Wisconsin)

Yet we insisted on moving one of our starting corners to safety in the off-season and stubbornly refused to move him back after losing our best corner to injury.  Despite having plenty of options at safety.

Former Husker secondary coach George Darlington had some choice words to me at halftime about how poor NU's corners were tackling. That has been a real problem at times, and you fear for the worst next week when Ohio State puts those guys in space.

The Wisconsin staff also told the BTN TV crew in their pregame meetings the game plan going in was to go after NU's corners and make them tackle.
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HOL

 
Its not personal,  but I do think that Riley needs gone.

1.  The players are the ones that are enduring this win or lose.  They are the ones with pressure to perform up to standards.

2.  Lame Duck coaching.  Its not good for either side right now.  It won't help Riley and won't help the players

3.  Were not improving.  We played harder last night, but out of desperation not to get killed at home.

4.  Ohio St will decide what happens.  IF they completely bomb us, I am talking 55-14 or something like that.  Its time then to pull the plug

5.  For Riley and his own diginity.  I am pretty sure that Anderson is done at Oregon ST.  I think Riley could go back and take over once again, ride out the sunset and retire with some grace left.

 
BigRedN said:
Oh, we won the off-season big time!

We had MR, who in this year was to really have his scheme and plan in place.

We attracted some great recruits and made such inroads into California that we are now called "Calibraska."

We got a top notch defensive coordinator, Bob Diaco, who was the best when he was at ND for his years.  His 3-4 system would correct our issues.

We had another Top 20 recruiting class while Wisky was 35.

We now had a transfer QB, heck, he will probably be a Heisman candidate.

My favorite, is the belief on our own board about how we would be 9-3 or better.  Heck, if everything really fell into place, we might go 10-2.

Above are some of the RED KOOL-AID comments I can recall.  Hey, with the above as "true" ... we definitely won the off-season (no delusion at all).  :-(
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Is this talent related over coaching?  Diaco really did have Notre Dame at a higher level.  Or is it a talent related issue because if you have talent it doesn't matter what you do, your just better?  This is why I question our talent level overall.  Its all coaching related.  Good coaches recruit for what they need.

 
The Dude said:
I can say with certainty that Coach Cotton wanted him and Bo said no.
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And Wisconsin is taking a D lineman out of Lincoln this year I think his name is Williams... absolutely unacceptable not keeping the talent in Nebraska. The kid doesn;t even have a Nebraska offer.

On a side note, Eichorst really phucked us here.  He made a hire that he though was going to outsmart everybody. Mike Riley had zero conference championships in twenty plus years at OSU.  Ran a pass heavy offense, and on an annual basis lost to FCS team, all while being a career .500 coach...  What the Phuk was Eichorst thinking? that dude will never be an AD at any place worth a damn. I am glad Pearlman is gone too. 

I don't know if anybody noticed but there has been a prodigious effort to disassociate Nebraska with just being a football school. The FOX commercial with  football players running through the cornfield was forcefully taken off air because our AD thought it painted Nebraska as as state with nothing but corn. Who cares! Nebraska is an agriculture state, we are proud of that. That farmer, blue collar mentality used to mirror the way our team played. All the recruiting videos are showing Lincoln as some metropolis... Once again Lincoln is nice, but kid should come to play football at Nebraska because we are winning titles, and sending dudes into the league.

Riley cannot be gone soon enough. I am over this bullsh&t. I am over the fake hype. 

 
My studied observations after last night...

Lee is not a great QB at this time no matter how hard the B10 Network commentators hype him.  He's inconsistent, routinely throws the ball behind receivers and doesn't seem to have much mobility.  With a decent set of receivers, he could be good but I don't see it happening.

Aside from Big O, there is no running game.  Once he's tired, forget it.  He is a downhill runner which is fine but Nebraska needs a slasher to keep defenses from stacking the box.  I haven't seen it so far.

The Husker receivers...can't get separation, can't hang on to the ball and don't block we'll.  They are all small and don't have a lot of blazing speed.  A reliable possession receiver would help this group out but no one has stepped up.

O-line is inconsistent.  One play they will look great while on the next play they fall all over themselves.  Seem surprised whenever anyone throws a blitz at them.  Need to work on foot speed.  Actually seem to be improving at pass blocking but they wear down fast.  Need more muscle.

D-line just seems not to have the power or weight to stop a good run game.  The 3-4 doesn't provide any opportunity to get consistent pressure on the QB.  Arm tackling when they get tired.  Good teams wear them down fast.

The linebackers...this unit has gotten run over all year.  Can't cover...can't tackle.  Force the CB's to come up and make plays they should be making.  Once ball carriers reach the second level they run through these guys like Swiss Cheese.  Gotta get more athleticism here.

DBs are also kinda small and slow.  They get burned fairly often and blow coverages at an alarming rate but, generally speaking, they have been fairly decent considering all they have to do.

The punter is pretty good.

My advice, and remember...this is coming from an ISU graduate...Replace Riley with someone who knows power football and bring in a coaching staff with a proven record of building O and D lines cuz it all starts here

Stop recruiting "stars" and start recruiting talent and developing it.

Fill any administrative and coaching positions with people tied to the winning years that can bring some pride and winning tradition back to the team.

Bring back the fullback...and the triple option

Go back to the Big 12.

By the way, I am available if you need an interim head coach.

 
The Dude said:
I've learned that Oz has made a strong case for being RB1, even when Bryant returns. 
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Let's be real: it doesn't matter in the slightest who the starting RB is, here. Our ground game consists of lining up tight and running it inside, and that's basically it. Somehow, we've ended up in a bizarre parallel world where outside runs do not exist for the Huskers.

 
Nebhawk said:
Is this talent related over coaching?  Diaco really did have Notre Dame at a higher level.  Or is it a talent related issue because if you have talent it doesn't matter what you do, your just better?  This is why I question our talent level overall.  Its all coaching related.  Good coaches recruit for what they need.
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Because I'm lazy, I won't go look it up again, but if you go do the research for the four recruiting classes before Diaco got to ND you will something like a Top 2, 5, 11 and 18 or ranked class.  In the post where I mentioned this, my point was that Diaco did well ... WITH GREAT RECRUITING CLASSES TO WORK WITH.  He very well might be a good coach, my point when I used the ND class rankings was to state that he had good players to use and work his system.  Thus, the real question would be what would he do with :bigredn:  classes that rank between 20-33 talent wise and switching to the 3-4 would he have the horses to mix and match to do what he wants.

I said what I said to you here to not debate (I don't believe you are debating either) but to fill in some of the info that shaped my view.  
 

 
I haven't been one to rail on Diaco because I don't think he can truly turn this defense around in one year. This was a full-blown system change and it not only takes time on the field but also recruiting the proper type of athletes to run this type of defense. 

He likely won't get the chance to run the defense with the proper personnel (Riley fired) but whatever big program that gets him next will probably be better off in the long run. 

 
Toe said:
Let's be real: it doesn't matter in the slightest who the starting RB is, here. Our ground game consists of lining up tight and running it inside, and that's basically it. Somehow, we've ended up in a bizarre parallel world where outside runs do not exist for the Huskers.
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So that must explain why our D still cannot stop outside runs, because they have never seen them before in practice! 

 
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I like the conistency of this board.  Evrry game a discussion thread and a what did we learn thread, sort of like an AAR.

Damn I get all warm and fuzzy about it.  Like mommas pancakes on Sunday.  Carry on.

 
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