I know I will get slammed here but I don't care. The football program has turned the corner toward irrelevance. It has to be said. Hiring a coach like Riley was done more to turn the program toward mediocrity rather than a top 10 or top 20 program. All the excuses of changing the culture blur the fact of one of the weakest hires at a historically great school. Now, one year later, please explain how this team is better than it was from November 2014. And please don't say we have a nice coach.
Turning the corner
- Thread starter jackdwelsh
- Start date
0 blowout losses this year. 0 Melvin Gordon's shattering records on NU this season. 0 sideline meltdowns. Defense improved greatly throughout the season. Wide Receiver play is greatly improved. Recruiting is very well organized (Although admittedly its not bearing fruit...yet, but I have faith it will.) I honestly felt by the end of the Iowa game that we are a good QB away from being a pretty good team, depth issues and all. You look at the negative, but I'm actually more excited by the possibilities next year than I have been in a few years.
Who recruited the mess we are in the last 4 years.
Not saying Riley was the best choice nor was I in favor for it but Riley staff needs to recuit their own players especially a QB that makes better decisions.
Not saying Riley was the best choice nor was I in favor for it but Riley staff needs to recuit their own players especially a QB that makes better decisions.
We are a QB away from being a pretty damned good team at the end of the season. You give me a guy that makes good decisions and we would have beaten TWO undefeated TOP TEN teams to end the year. That's pretty good progress from the sh## show we started the year as. Lets see what we can do with a QB capable of making good decisions before we make long term judgements.
People will grumble and complain but believe this is how the majority think. That is why the stadium was rocking with excitement yesterday. This is why I love Husker football.
I wonder what BP's record would have been this year if he wasn't fired. So far we traded a 70% + win coaching staff for a 41ish% win coaching staff. We will have to wait and see if the change yields any real improvement on the field. So far I'm not sold on MR or his staff. Bring on the new recruits!
Welcome back from your 14 year nap, Rip. Lots of things changed over those years, some good, some bad. The latter category includes Husker football. If that is too much for you to handle, I'd suggest pulling those covers over your head and set the alarm for about 2025. Other than the crazy folks who still root for NU, the rest of the world doesn't think about us anymore and haven't for a decade or more.
Please, Bo Pelini and Bill Callahan drove us to irrelevance. Riley may or may not be able to fix it, but he didn't drive us here.
we can argue about the Riley hire
but Pelini had to go ... he literally has issues that are pathologic .. regardless of wins no way could he remain the face of the program
Ummm, Purdue WAS a blowout loss that Nebraska made look a bit more respectable. Regardless, Purdue blew the wheels off of Nebraska..
What do you think, fellas, can this team win 8, 9 games next year? Will the coaches learn enough from what happened this year and improve to a point where they can win another 3-4 games?
No it has been Pederson and Eichorst one man search committee that has made us irrelevant.
Blame Osborne all you want too but at the time Peelini seemed to be the logical choice after he coached us in the Alamo bowl and he helped win a National title for LSU.
We are litterly a good QB away....right now thats the main problem. I thought our DBs, LBs and DLine has improved lately. Our WRs, our Oline and even our RBs have improved, even or kicker and punter has improved...its our QB, Tommy is still Tommy. If we had better decision maker there or improved some, wed be setting better now then we are.
I blame Coach Osborne for anointing Frank Solich the new head coach while the AD was out of town. We should have had a national search at that time and kept Byrne.
In my opinion, the future of Nebraska Football is on the rise.
This year we lost 7 games by a TOTAL of 31 points, only ONE double digit loss, by 10 to Purdue on the road, with our backup QB, starting his first game, throwing 4 picks.
From 2006 to 2014 we had 24 double digit losses, all by 12 or more, 13 of these by 20 or more, and an embarrassing 8 losses by 30+!
Let that sink in, we lost 8 single games recently by more points than this entire season of 7 losses.
The entire roster inherited by this staff was recruited by a staff of inexperienced coaches who were lead by a head couch who did not place recruiting as a priority and openly despised all things Nebraska outside of the locker room.
Being kind, our QBs are below average. Maybe Tommy could excel at another position. Push O'Brien this Winter / Spring, bring in a Juco or Graduate transfer at QB to provide competition and backup.
People complain about Riley's past mediocre performance. Oregon St. isn't exactly a premiere PAC 12 destination for recruits. Could be Riley & staff did as good as could be expected given the talent they were able to acquire. He did have success in Canada, winning two Grey Cups. In the NFL, he was saddled with the "biggest bust in NFL history", coaching during most the the Ryan Leaf years. He was offered other top college gigs, including Alabama at one point, choosing instead to stay home.
There are many more positives from this season, improvements in Defense over the course of the year, positive Public relations, etc. The #4 ranked team in the Country was 0 for 9 in third down attempts yesterday! In fact, many stats from yesterday favored the Huskers, poor QB play was the Achilles heel once again.
I think it is a bit quick to label the football program as "irrelevant". If you are honest with yourself, there are many things improved on this team since NOV 14.
This year we lost 7 games by a TOTAL of 31 points, only ONE double digit loss, by 10 to Purdue on the road, with our backup QB, starting his first game, throwing 4 picks.
From 2006 to 2014 we had 24 double digit losses, all by 12 or more, 13 of these by 20 or more, and an embarrassing 8 losses by 30+!
Let that sink in, we lost 8 single games recently by more points than this entire season of 7 losses.
The entire roster inherited by this staff was recruited by a staff of inexperienced coaches who were lead by a head couch who did not place recruiting as a priority and openly despised all things Nebraska outside of the locker room.
Being kind, our QBs are below average. Maybe Tommy could excel at another position. Push O'Brien this Winter / Spring, bring in a Juco or Graduate transfer at QB to provide competition and backup.
People complain about Riley's past mediocre performance. Oregon St. isn't exactly a premiere PAC 12 destination for recruits. Could be Riley & staff did as good as could be expected given the talent they were able to acquire. He did have success in Canada, winning two Grey Cups. In the NFL, he was saddled with the "biggest bust in NFL history", coaching during most the the Ryan Leaf years. He was offered other top college gigs, including Alabama at one point, choosing instead to stay home.
There are many more positives from this season, improvements in Defense over the course of the year, positive Public relations, etc. The #4 ranked team in the Country was 0 for 9 in third down attempts yesterday! In fact, many stats from yesterday favored the Huskers, poor QB play was the Achilles heel once again.
I think it is a bit quick to label the football program as "irrelevant". If you are honest with yourself, there are many things improved on this team since NOV 14.
During that time with Staff still remaining intact there is a saying " if it's not broke don't fix it "
I'll disagree with you.
We were the Alabama of that time, the staff only had so many years left. Should have found the best out there.
Only if POB is driving this thing. Another 7 loss year is TA is running this bus. Banker on it.
If you're gonna say idiotic things, at least get the stats right... Riley's win percentage is just over 50%, not 41ish as you state. His record is 98-87 I believe... I'm no math wizard but it seems pretty clear that that is over 50%.
The positives yesterday included a defensive performance that, except for 2 plays, was a near total shut down of Iowa. Our defense, which was our Achilles heel at one time this season, played great yesterday except those two plays. They certainly played well enough to get us the win.
Lots to like on offense... If we have a better decision maker at QB. Hate piling on Tommy, but it is clear that he gift wrapped three of the four ints for Iowa. If we have someone who can make those throws (or not even throw them there) we win the game. We outperformed them offensively by a wide margin.
It remains to be seen if we can improve in the area of turnovers and penalties. If we do, the future looks good to me. Believe it or not, this defense is only gonna get better. Offense will improve with the right personnel.
I respect you disagreeing and know it is an emotional topic. The intrigue back then was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Young punk Graham Spanier comes down, installs his AD, then leaves for Penn St. Osborne wanted that AD job eventually, so had friction with Byrne and on and on. Still, even if you won three MNCs and walk on water in the state, you still work for the AD and putting him on the spot by announcing FS your successor was not right.
Im not sold on the coaching staff either. I think they have done good things with coaching their system, but they aren't very good at managing games. They make some boneheaded decisions. People like to say that Bo won 9 games his first season. Well, its a huge difference when Bo kept the old offensive coordinator and didnt have to reteach everything. MR's biggest mistake was not slowly getting his playbook installed. He could have won ore games had he not wanted TA to stay in the pocket so much. Use some designed plays more often to get TA's feet involved in the game.
I am pretty excited as Nebraska still put up 433 yards on a pretty damn good defense. Our defense also held a pretty good defense to a low offensive output. Iowa had scored 30+ points in 5 straight games (also a school record for them). 97 of those yards were on 2 carries. It sucks losing these games that you konw should have been won, but there are a ton of positives to come from this game. Now hopefully MR and staff can learn to better manage a game.
I am pretty excited as Nebraska still put up 433 yards on a pretty damn good defense. Our defense also held a pretty good defense to a low offensive output. Iowa had scored 30+ points in 5 straight games (also a school record for them). 97 of those yards were on 2 carries. It sucks losing these games that you konw should have been won, but there are a ton of positives to come from this game. Now hopefully MR and staff can learn to better manage a game.
And who's to say Byrne would have made a splash hire that was going to be better then 58-19 the next 6 years Just because he hired Van Horne for baseball.
8.2, actually. But 15 for 48 (3.2 ypc) if you take out his two outlier runs. 16 for 77 (4.8 ypc) if you take out only his longest.
I don't agree with dropping the longest to make a point, but there was a guy doing it to Cross's numbers the last two weeks and making a big deal about how dropping his longest runs affected his ypc more than other ball carriers. So...what's good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess.
Like I said, emotional topic.
Suggest you copy what you wrote above and paste it into about 30 threads containing hundreds, if not thousands of posts blaming Perlman, Eichorst, Riley, Banker, Cavanaugh, Davis, Armstrong, Pelini and others I forgot for our current losing season status.
Im not sold on Riley at all. But.... we have shown improvement throughout the year. I agree with many, if we have a good QB we probably beat Iowa an at min 2-3 other games this year. I will hold 100% judgement until next year. 7 wins should be expected next year.
actually it's Tommy Armstrong. nuff said. I can't believe how many people force themselfs to be blind to the obvious just to put Riley on the blocks, they made improvement almost everywhere but there stuck with Tommy as we have no one better. Man, own up and drop the Riley sucks act, we get it, some of you hate the hire. But he's here now, going no where soon so lets get on with it and move forward.
Sorry, Purdue was pretty much a blowout loss. Final score doesn't indicate how bad we were on both sides of the ball that game.
It's not an act - Riley simply isn't a great coach. You state that some are 'blind to the obvious', but I submit that it is you who is blind to the obvious (i.e., square peg, round hole).
Tommy is not a great pocket passer; he likely never will be. He struggles with short to mid-range passes and has average decision making skills. This is clear, yet too often this year we saw our coaching staff calling plays like they had Joe Montana in the backfield.
A competent coaching staff would have molded the offense to better fit the talent they had. Instead, we have a coaching staff that felt a 50/50 run/pass ratio was best. Does that make sense to anyone?
Rushing attempts for the year: 434
Passing attempts for the year: 439
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Have you thought the reason they didn't let Tommy run more is that there is a huge drop off of talent from him to his backup if he had gotten hurt say in the Miami game out for the season what would our record be then ? We definitely need a better decision maker but this year it was the only one we had
Come on... EVERYONE is well aware of the record. That is NOT the subject of the thread. Get a clue. The original post asked how we are better than Nov. 2014. I answered. None of it is false. People can debate all day long if Purdue was a blowout loss or not, but the final score says NO. Years from now, nobody outside of Husker fans will know or care about anything else but the final score.
Anyways, I'm done in here. The stupidity is ripe in here, and if this year has shown us anything, there are way to many Husker "Fans" chowing down on that fruit. Unfortunate.
Just wait il next year for the blow outs we faced very few good offenses this year next year we play Oregon and OSU - so the blow out thing might feel good for right now but wont last
We are not irrelevant as long as fans do not accept it - unfortunately there are a number of fans who are accepting it - but even those will just stop following the program at some point
I still think we can come back but this administration and Riley need to stop lying to themselves that "All is Well"
SEVEN wins??? That would rank up there will other successful coaches.
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