What did we Learn? (The NIU Huskies Edition)

grandpasknee said:
I had the chance to talk to Tommy Frazier a few months after the Fiesta Bowl win against Florida.  I said that my favorite part was when "we were whipping the so bad on defense that their coach just had a lost, dumbfounded look on his face."  I immediately corrected myself saying "Well, not we, I meant the Husker Defense".  He said "No, you're right.  The fans are every bit as much a part of the team as the QB, the offensive line and the coaching staff".  

I'l go with his thought on this personally.
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Fully agree.  We are all so invested in this, spend hours of our lives, and in some cases way too much money (CU tickets!).  It is petty and silly to call out people for using we and our.  Yes we know we're not playing, get over yourself and have a good time. 

 
After so many years of losing leads and games I'm trying to learn that being ahead in the game is where we're going to stay and winning is going to be the renewed expectation.  At the game last night there were groans and "oh no here we go again" just about every time NIU made a play offence or defence.  

But that score.   And no TDs by them.   Hey!  

 
The offense, starting with Martinez, needs to be more consistent.   They've shown flashes of what they're capable of and the ceiling is high.  You had all offseason to work out the kinks.  It's time to grow up.

The defense can hold their own when they play hard and they showed last night they can play hard for a full game. 

I'm resigned to the fact there's not much we can do about the kicking game until we get our kicker back.

It was nice to see the 2nd team offense not only play, but actually drive and put it in the endzone.

It was nice to see the 2nd team defense not only play, but keep the other team out of the endzone.

Overall the game was a step in the right direction.  I suspect we'll clobber Illinois.  This team needs all the confidence it can get when Ohio State comes to town.

 
Undone said:
Pretty unusual chain of events late in the first half:

-they quick kick on 4th down

-we get stopped in our end zone for a safety

-decent punt by us on the safety kick

-stop them for a 3 & out

-they quick kick again

-two minute drill with less than a minute and deep end zone strike for Noa's first touchdown
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Massively key series of events for us. If we let them score after that safety they gain a lot of momentum going in to halftime and get the ball to start 2nd half. Also kind of funny that the pooch punt worked out really well for them both times.

 
Didn't get to watch a lot of the game so I'll have to watch a replay. What I did see is that the o line had a lot of work to do.

I agree AM is still not back to the level we saw last year, but I think you see more and more of it each week. He's obviously working through things mentally and a lot of athletes go through that. 

People saying he needs benched for a series or game are crazy. Coaches and analysts across the country agree AM has the ability to be great. He's having some struggles this year, but it doesn't mean he won't get there. Benching or replacing a player struggling mentally is more likely to break them than fix anything. There is a reason that coaches will come back to the exact same play after a QB throws a pick. You have to stick with and instill confidence in your QB. He'll get back to himself he just has to keep working. 

Also, if you want AM benched, what did you think the four years that Tommy played? I love Tommy, but AM's struggles this year were good games for Tommy.  It's honestly not close. 

 
r06ue1 said:
A win is always good, especially when it is a blowout, but the fact is this was against Northern Illinois, a team whose only win this season was over Illinois State and was blown out by Utah last week.
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The score of the Utah game was 35-17, so we blew NIU out even more than they did. Utah is also ranked #11, so if that means we're performing better than the #11 team in the country, I'm OK with that! :koolaid2:

 
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Landlord said:
The quality of kicking tonight wasn't an issue. The issue was that somehow we forgot or didn't try or were unable to block the rush. That's got nothing to do with the kicker unless Armstrong is somehow taking a notable amount of time longer to go through the kicking motion, which didn't seem like the case to my amateur eyes at least.

I don't want AM to sit, but I don't give a s#!t about the stats - I agree he is still off. He doesn't look right, or the same. Almost every throw he does a double clutch, he's got happy feet, when he runs he doesn't seem particularly decisive, etc. He's second guessing himself quite a lot, but he's still got an immense amount of talent to put up good numbers against a poor team.

I'm enjoying the win plenty. Had a great time tonight and felt so much better to have a typical game against a creampuff. Loved it.

Even then, we didn't look particularly good. Truthfully that might be one of the least impressive 32 point scoring differential performance I've ever seen, if that makes sense. Defense played great, honestly no real complaints there of any kind, and man they have been an optimistic bright spot. That late 4th and goal was awesome. But the offense gave up a needless safety, we had THREE kicks blocked which is just unfathomable, so on and so forth.

But, we made some good progress, we played clean with only one penalty which is wildly optimistic, and I very much enjoyed the win.

Oh, also, this is the first September game in 3 years and 4 days where we've had the second string in.
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The kicker looked like his kicks were low and he had a slight hesitation.  I would definitely blame him for the last block. 

 
What we learned.....

o line is bad....very much possible they will be directly responsible for multiple losses this year, even with Rimington at center.

Lack of depth on the D is going to hurt us, especially db’s

special teams is a big ? Especially at kicker

play calling makes a person scratch their head

qb play is off, very off at times.  Getting Vederal reps would not be a bad thing, just in case he is needed.

kool aid drinking fan base is seeking anything positive to hang their hats on, but this W was ugly

 
I learned that in a blowout win we still left many points out there on the field. Field goal, potentially TD but the ball goes through a TE hands off the blocked punt, extra point blocked. However, with all these miscues we still found a way to stay composed, focused, and blow them out. This was refreshing. 

The O-line needs to get better but they had no penalties and gave up zero sacks. 

The D-line is as advertised. The entire defense has made some serious strides and is looking really good. 

The team has improved every week so far this season. As long as that keeps happening we will continue to get better and win games.

Barrett Pickering needs to come back by OSU. We can't leave easy points off the board in the kicking game. 

 
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