Ok, get any team, the first year of a coach, you have major attrition, even a coach of the year, now,add in two more coaches and their systems, add even more attrition, no brainer.Rittenberg isn't basing his quote on potential at the end of this year, he's looking at where it was at the end of last year compared to years past. We have a lot of young potential on this team but a big reason it's so much young potential is that there isn't much substance shown from the older players still here and we are relying on multiple transfers to be serious contributors if not outright starters on both sides of the ball.
I'm looking at what the 2014 team looked like to an outsider before the 2014 season compared to what the 2019 team looks like to one before this season. But lets see what your criticisms are:
1. Way to completely ignore Ameer there. We currently have Washington who looks good but has legal troubles and Mills who also looks good but did all his damage somewhere else. No other back on the roster has more than 80 yards or even a dozen touches to their name. Cross as the 3rd back was coming off a season where he averaged 5.3 ypc and scored 10 touchdowns. To someone looking at more than just potential- Ameer, Newby and Cross pre 2014 looks better than Washington Mills and whoever the 3rd back is pre 2019.
2. He didn't live up to the hype but again pre 2014 Carter and Sam Cotton looked like a better tandem than Stoll and Radafal does - Frosts offense is Way better for TE's than Beck or Langsdorf's was. Once 2019 is over this position will look WAY better than it's looked in a decade, but it hasn't been seen yet.
3. JD is yes, who else ya got? Warner with his 17 catches for 95 yards? Williams with his 12 catches for 122 yards? Ya got a transfer from Cal and a bunch of hopes and dreams who we hope turn into a great WR corps.
2014 has Westercamp, Bell and Enunwa proven commodities and the backups, Turner and Moore each with more production than every WR we have on the roster combined other than those 4 I named.
4. If you are seriously questioning if Pickering and Armstrong looked better than Brown and Foltz I will start questioning if you even know what a football looks like.
Pickering has a career average under 80% Brown was a 3 star kicker who played for one of the best highschools in the country and won multiple kicking awards.
Armstrong actually looked good last year but he was a backup for a reason and only has 24 punts on his record. Foltz already had a full season of 70 kicks and a 41.6 ypk average and was deadly accurate.
Again we're looking at what the roster looks like Pre 2019 to what it looked like Pre 2014 as 2014 was Pelini's worst looking roster.
Going into 2014 we had at least one game changing talent on each side of the ball in and had the hope for 2-3 more mostly from guys on the roster taking that next step.
Going into 2019 we have ONE and we are hoping for 4-5 more mostly coming from transfers and guys with very little to no previous production ie. guys like Jurgens, Honas and a #3 WR.
Add in, Nebraska was still a well known brand during Callahan,minus some attrition with Bo coming in, but not nearly as much, just go back and look.
So, first year, this idiot is only being capt obvious after a coaching change,while ignoring everything else, which he also did.
He's what one would call a tool in its finest essence.