Riley seems very optimistic
- Thread starter Pennsyhusker
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The difference in the 2015 season and the 2016 season record was as TO said in his interview- we were unlucky at the end of games in 2015 and we won those same situations in 2016. Still lost to or got completely blown out by the better teams we played. I want to be optimistic but we haven't made as much progress as it might look ( and then only because the bar was set so low in 2015). Getting blown out is a better indicator of where we are at than squeaking by lessor teams. Talk is cheap and Riley was "optimistic" about running the ball this year about this time last year.
I think the QB play can completely change games though, especially for running the ball.
If our QB consistently hits open receievers and sometimes covered receivers, the defense will back off from stacking the box, which will improve our chances of gaining yards on the ground.
That can be as simple as increasing the passing completion % from 54-59% up to 60-65%. Especially if they can keep from dropping below the 60% bar in every game. Hell, could you imagine what would happen if our QB averaged 68% for the season?
TA ran the ball very well and was only so-so in the passing game. He had some great games passing, but mostly not.
One way to look at it is that his running ability trumped his passing, therefore defenses knew they could stack the box more often than not and play one-on-one coverage and be successful.
Starting next year, if our QBs can complete 60%+, the defenses (even the good ones) will be less likely to stack the box, thus opening up the running game.
Better QB play in the passing game makes me more optimistic for sure.
If our QB consistently hits open receievers and sometimes covered receivers, the defense will back off from stacking the box, which will improve our chances of gaining yards on the ground.
That can be as simple as increasing the passing completion % from 54-59% up to 60-65%. Especially if they can keep from dropping below the 60% bar in every game. Hell, could you imagine what would happen if our QB averaged 68% for the season?
TA ran the ball very well and was only so-so in the passing game. He had some great games passing, but mostly not.
One way to look at it is that his running ability trumped his passing, therefore defenses knew they could stack the box more often than not and play one-on-one coverage and be successful.
Starting next year, if our QBs can complete 60%+, the defenses (even the good ones) will be less likely to stack the box, thus opening up the running game.
Better QB play in the passing game makes me more optimistic for sure.
Just remember it is players not plays that determine the outcome of a game.
I don't think Riley really blows smoke. This staff is pretty honest with the fans and media, even to a fault. I believe they did think we would run the ball effectively this year and we were until the injuries set in on the OL. Our OL was basically two injured guys and three walk-ons (one of whom was also injured). This is why we can't have recruiting whiffs and an unbalanced depth chart. Depth is essential in college football. So when Riley says he likes our QB's and lines moving forward, I believe him and I look forward to seeing what they can do.
We played Iowa with a QB at 30% (according to Fyfe). Ohio State is in the playoff (has playoff talent and we don't). Look around college football. Good teams get blown out every weekend depending on injuries (TA went out in the 1st half against OSU), turnovers, goofy big plays, matchup problems etc.. The blowouts were concerning, but I don't think that was something that will be very common for us under Riley.
QB has always been THE position. Just look at the Spartans for evidence of how the QB play impacts Ws and Ls.
Riley will be done in two years. He will win 6y or 7 games next year and maybe the year after. He tells you what you want to hear and our fan base believes it. A good coach would of won 11 games this year. We won 9 but didn't dominate in those wins over a bunch of nobodys. Just goes to show it is a game coaches play.
I'm looking forward to your analysis after the end of next season.
Wisconsin clearly benefited from QB play in 2016. Northwestern's improvement at times this season came at QB.
I respectfully disagree with everything that you said...Most problems we incurred this year was because of the injuries and lack of depth on the OL...We were playing injured walkons....
I started to reply to blackhusker but then thought better of it... nothing you say will change his already made up mind. Not worth responding to these kinds of posts...
He's just another one of Bo's boyfriends.
Pretty much agree with all of this. Also remember, last year we also lost to bad teams (Purdue anybody?) but this year beat all the teams we were supposed to beat.
That, my friends, is progress, no matter how you look at it. Please don't think I am satisfied with that, we need to continue to improve each year, but I don't want to hear from some that we haven't shown any improvement, because we have.
If we get the oline to a place that we have good players starting games even with injuries - the offense will improve. If we can't get there for 2017 - we might need 3 QBs to get through the season - because they are going to get rag dolled back there against quality defenses.
I think the defense will be similar to 2016 - replacing Gerry and Bando are the 2 big needs - if they get quality play in both spots the D should be fairly solid. (replacing Kelu is big too - but I think we have CBs on campus that can step in right now).
I think the defense will be similar to 2016 - replacing Gerry and Bando are the 2 big needs - if they get quality play in both spots the D should be fairly solid. (replacing Kelu is big too - but I think we have CBs on campus that can step in right now).
Good team? 9-3 --- beat quality opponenr
Northwestern (6-6) solid team? Minnesota (8-4, beat NO ONE of significance) good team? Coulda,shoulda, woulda - the facts are we beat no good teams, period.
My only disagreement I have with you is Iowa – that is a team we should not have been beaten (let alone demolished) by. I understand the oddsmakers had them beating us by 3 at their house, but besides the Michigan game, they did not have a very impressive season. That is the moment all the goodwill Riley had built up with me evaporated. Absolutely no excuse for it whatsoever.
I am not a Bo lover – I wanted to see him gone a season before they cut him loose – but damn it is getting old coming up on two decades of coaches building up a little hope, only to get kicked in the balls on national TV. Riley could very well break the mold – unfortunately his two year stats suggest more of the same.
Why does the fact that Armstrong was playing with a torn hammy and Fyfe played with a broken wrist not factor into the Iowa loss at all for some people.
Hobbled? Hobbled is a twisted ankle not a torn hammy.
If A QB had a separated throwing shoulder, and could only run Zone read , the result would have been the same. When you take away half of what a QB can do, and in this case, the better half. Bad things will happen.
Denver Broncos had one of the top defenses in the league but when The great P Manning was injured and ineffective they lost games and were often ineffective.
I am not defending the play of the defense in that game it was horrible. But a healthy QB and the game is different.
Frankly, having a QB who can make the right reads and doesn't resort to tossing the ball 40 yards down field every time he sees a receiver with a step on the defender when said QB rarely hits said receiver will be worth at least a touchdown or two per game. Defensive staff at OSU and Iowa had to be laughing their arses off every time they goaded TA into that throw. I bet they were probably taking shots each time TA threw that pass - kind of like watching the old Bob Newhart show and taking a shot each time they said Bob for us old timers. And our defense maybe plays with a little more passion because they know that it isn't going to just be the same insanity time after time.
Thanks for responding civilly....
A good team beats quality opponents-- I don't think Iowa beating a Nebraska team (with their QB mess) makes them a good team. I hope you are right, I'm not confident they are going to be substationally better next year- but I hope I'm wrong.
I can't argue against that... The Iowa game was a disaster... At the same time, Iowa was trending up while we were trending down... Beat Michigan, destroyed Illinois (or was it Indiana? 28-0, I believe), the 2 games before ours. I think the Iowa we saw was a team that finally was showing what they expected to show from the start of the season. But we didn't show up for that game defensively, which was disappointing, to say the least.
I get tired of people acting like beating all of the teams we were supposed to beat is no big deal. If it's no big deal, then how come we haven't done it since 1997? Yes,.that's right-this was the first year since 1997 that we beat all of the teams we were favored against. And how many times have we seen teams pull off an upset or two but then stumble against a team they should beat? Would people have been happy if we had beaten, say Wisconsin but lost to somebody like Maryland? Yes, we need to beat some of the better teams but it's not like beating all of the teams you should beat is a foregone conclusion and should be assumed, because it isn't that easy.
Yes, we have improved from the 6-7 season in Rileys first year.
But we have yet to improve from the Bo Pelini era. We went from worse than that to back in the same boat.... 9 wins against cupcakes.... horrible blowout losses.
So...we should just go 6-7 every other year, that way we are not favored by odds-makers in many games the next season. Just get blown out and eek out wins against the Purdont's and Illinois teams of the world, and then you'll be favored in less games and win those and BAM first time since 1997 we won every game we were favored in!!!
To me there's a big difference in winning games you are "favored in" by oddsmakers and games we should be expecting to win at a place like Nebraska. Iowa is a perfect example of a game we should absolutely win, at the very least not get blown out.
Don't call me a hater, earlier in the year we were 7-0 and I said it was a great first step because beating teams you should beat is step 1 in becoming a great program again. No blowouts is another. We took steps forward then backward this season.
So you say beating teams you should beat is a great first step, and then you turn around and make fun of us doing it this year as nothing of significance. So which is it? If it's step 1 in becoming a great program again, then we took step 1 this year, a step we haven't taken in almost 20 years. And I don't know what you mean about being favored in less games-sure if you are only favored in a few games and you win them all, that isn't saying much, but we were favored in 9 and won them all.
Quit pretending you don't know what I mean.
The reason we weren't favored in more games is because we were not a very good team.
You are using "odds makers" as your measuring stick. Sorry of I can't celebrate the fact that odds-makers had us losing to Iowa, thus preserving your little "record stat". Why did odds makers have us losing to 7-4 Iowa in the first place? Because we aren't very good, but we should expect to beat Iowa teams like this every year.
Therefore, I agree with you in saying it's great to beat teams you "should" beat. I DISAGREE with you on what the criteria is of teams we should beat. The fact that we weren't favored against a team like Iowa should not be something that helps us in the argument. If so, we should just have losing seasons every other year, get blownout once or twice, barely squeeze by teams like Purdue, and odds-makers won't favor us as much therefore we can celebrate "Beat every team we were supposed to!!" as you currently are. Do you understand what I'm saying, or do I have to dumb it down some more?
Our schedule sucked this year as well. Oregon didn't pan out and I'm glad we won the 9 games we did instead of 8 or 7, but we had a weak schedule.
Don't try to compare 1997 Nebraska to today's Nebraska.
The reason why we weren't favored against Iowa is because the game was on the road. It wasn't because we weren't perceived as being very good. We would have been favored against them at home and probably even at a neutral site. Flip the script around completely where Iowa was 9-2 playing a 7-4 Nebraska team in Lincoln that had just beaten an undefeated Michigan team two weeks before and we would be favored too. And I will repeat once again, saying winning all of the games you are favored in isn't impressive if that's only 5 or 6 games. But it was 9. Do I have to dumb that down some more for you to understand? Don't use hypotheticals where we aren't favored in as many games-use this year's results where we were favored in 9 games and won them all. Also, I was not comparing this team to the 1997 team-it's a comparison to the other 18 teams in between that didn't accomplish what this team did this year.
We were favored over 9 out of 12 teams... and won them all. And according to you, that makes us not a very good team. I believe it is fair to say we would never have been favored against either #2 ranked Ohio State at their place at night, nor #7ish Wisconsin at their place at night, leaving just one team that you are making a stink about: Iowa. Bad loss. Can't put lipstick on this pig.
What am I missing here?
Yeah, I'll have to dumb it down some more.
I don't think it is a big deal that we broke that particular streak you speak of this season. The reason is because it was incredibly easy to do so.
Minnesota 8-4, Northwestern 6-6, Illinois 3-9, Purdue 3-9, Indiana 6-6, Maryland 6-6, Fresno State 1-11, Wyoming 8-5, Oregon 4-8. The best two wins on that schedule are Minnesota and Wyoming. Am I glad we won those games? Yes. Do I think it's important to win the games you should? Yes. Do I use "games you are favored to win" as the measuring stick of whether or not you should win a game? No. Why not?
Because frickin IOWA, that's why. Your lame excuse for why we weren't favored against Iowa proves my point, if you are willing to listen. Since we lost both games to our actual real opponents up to that point, Wisconsin and Ohio State, and got blown out of the water (2nd worst loss in school history) by Ohio State, squeeked by some terrible teams, we weren't favored against 7-4 Iowa. But even if we weren't favored, I still believe that is one of those "GAMES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO WIN." We are supposed to beat 7-4 Iowa, regardless of what the gambling people say. We didn't.
So according to your logic, it is a good thing that we lost to Wisky (a team we should be on the same level of) and got blown out so bad another week, and it's good we looked bad even in winning against bad teams so that we weren't favored against 7-4 Iowa, that way we could lose to them and still hold on to breaking this streak you mentioned! horray! So why don't we do this every year? Just make sure you aren't favored against real teams, so we can say "we won the games we were favored in!!! Yay!!!"
That's why I'm not going to celebrate the streak you mentioned. It's meaningless! It's an empty accomplishment! (You are confusing this with me saying the 9 wins we had aren't worth anything. The wins against those teams, in itself, are good.)
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Nothing at all.
I'm saying the "first time since 97!" thing is empty, because of Iowa. Iowa was a game we were supposed to win, regardless of what the gamblers said. Am I wrong? Were you not expecting to win that game? Seriously? If not you better watch who you say is and is not a true fan.
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