I'll try
Nebraska's 2013 scholarship class:
Josh Banderas 4 stars - injured, may be back this week
Cethan Carter 3 stars - light bulb slowly coming on
Maliek Collins 3 stars - jewel of the class to date
Tre'vell Dixon 3 stars - probably still flipping his commitment somewhere
Matt Finnin 3 stars - MIA
Nathan Gerry 3 stars - much maligned, solid player
Kevin Gladney 3 stars - who?
Randy Gregory 4 stars - Dallas Cowboys, no longer on team
Zach Hannon 3 stars - who?
Greg Hart 3 stars - who?
Dwayne Johnson 3 stars - making bad movies in Hollywood
Boaz Joseph 3 stars - wasn't this a 1970's singer?
David Knevel 3 stars - Evel's son? MIA
Chongo Kondolo 3 stars - active this year
Courtney Love 3 stars - killed Kurt Cobain, amirite?
Drake Martinez 3 stars - suiting up against Nebraska later this year
Kevin Maurice 3 stars - had a great game this year, now is injured
Gabriel Miller 2 stars - who?
Dimarya Mixon 3 stars - who?
A.J. Natter 3 stars - who?
Marcus Newby 4 stars - light bulb came on this year
Terrell Newby 4 stars - another solid player
Johnny Stanton 3 stars - no longer on team, check Twitter
Ernest Suttles 3 stars - fighting in a bar somewhere, probably
Adam Taylor 4 stars - buried on the depth chart, no contribution so far.
So there's something for you to consider. Nebraska has lots of talent, but an objective evaluation of the roster (and this is just one year's example) shows a combination of recruiting whiffs and bad luck. Even with this disadvantage:
- we've been in every game
- we've lost games with almost every bad break imaginable
- all teams have injuries, but our injury list this year is the worst in recent memory
- last year we all felt the culture surrounding the team was poisoned, and this is still being flipped
- Like Callahan and Pelini before him, success will likely grow as the new systems become familiar
- Gerry Dinardo on the radio after the Southern Miss game (paraphrase) "The defensive scheme is sound, players have to make plays"
There's countless other ways I can go about preaching positivity, but in all fairness, we've seen a substantial amount of things to be concerned about. Still, in a larger sense, what do we really know yet? Shouldn't we have a better handle on how things will play out in 1.5 years? I feel like we need to be patient, and let Riley and co. do their thing. If they fail, we move on. If they succeed, it'll be a sweet reward for all Nebraska Fans.