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Watching the college playoff games

I can't tell you how important this point is and how it cannot be overstated. The fall of Nebraska football is directly related to Bill Callahan and everyone that followed him trying to "modernize" the offense.

The reason Osborne ran the kind of offense he ran for decades was precisely because Nebraska didn't have the talent that the USCs and Florida States had. The style that he ran was specifically designed to make up for a lack of talent and would also fit well for the climate in the Plains.

I seriously cannot and do not understand how this completely goes over so many Husker fans' heads. They want to chase star recruits. They want to get a big-time HC with a winning track record instead of a coach with a track record of developing talent and doing more with less. And I'm sitting here like, "Yeah, none of that is going to work. Not at Nebraska."

The recipe for success was created back in the 1960s and it worked for over 40 years and produced multiple conference and national championships. Then TO retired and everyone, starting with Solich, began to (inexplicably) move away from that recipe.

Yes, the game has changed. Yes, it is a different era. But I can't think of a better example of the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The program wasn't broken when Osborne retired. In fact, it was the opposite of broken. It was the most powerful college football program in the land. Then a bunch of ADs and HCs decided to do their own thing and "fix" it.

So, here are we are today where what needs fixing the most is the fixing itself. But it might be beyond repair.
Hasn't basically every program in every direction of us won something with a resemblance of a forward pass? How did the Chiefs win 2 Super Bowls? Packers? Hell, SDSU in Brookings, SD slings it around. OU? Ok State? Texas tech, not sure if they win but they successfully pass it.
 
Nebraska's success over a 40 year period has to due largely with two HOF coaches who maintained excellent coaching staffs with long tenure. TO himself said he settled on the option in order to compete with OU. Vince Ferragamo and David Humm were not running the option. The sophistication of TO's offense became more involved as the staff became more familiar with it. Also, a team that runs one of the best of any type of offense is in line for the best recruits to run that offense. So TO was able to sprinkle blue chip recruits over the players that staff developed.
Solich was a very good football coach, but wasn't as good as TO, who also wasn't as good as Bob at a comparable time in his tenure. And over the next 15 years or so, the thing unwound.
 
Hasn't basically every program in every direction of us won something with a resemblance of a forward pass? How did the Chiefs win 2 Super Bowls? Packers? Hell, SDSU in Brookings, SD slings it around. OU? Ok State? Texas tech, not sure if they win but they successfully pass it.
I think the coaches prefer a kid who can throw well, but didn't have that this year and tailored the offense to the strengths of the QBs.
 
I can't tell you how important this point is and how it cannot be overstated. The fall of Nebraska football is directly related to Bill Callahan and everyone that followed him trying to "modernize" the offense.

The reason Osborne ran the kind of offense he ran for decades was precisely because Nebraska didn't have the talent that the USCs and Florida States had. The style that he ran was specifically designed to make up for a lack of talent and would also fit well for the climate in the Plains.

I seriously cannot and do not understand how this completely goes over so many Husker fans' heads. They want to chase star recruits. They want to get a big-time HC with a winning track record instead of a coach with a track record of developing talent and doing more with less. And I'm sitting here like, "Yeah, none of that is going to work. Not at Nebraska."

The recipe for success was created back in the 1960s and it worked for over 40 years and produced multiple conference and national championships. Then TO retired and everyone, starting with Solich, began to (inexplicably) move away from that recipe.

Yes, the game has changed. Yes, it is a different era. But I can't think of a better example of the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The program wasn't broken when Osborne retired. In fact, it was the opposite of broken. It was the most powerful college football program in the land. Then a bunch of ADs and HCs decided to do their own thing and "fix" it.

So, here are we are today where what needs fixing the most is the fixing itself. But it might be beyond repair.
No, the downfall for Nebraska Football was giving Frank and a old ass assistant pool the keys to the kingdom. NU and TO should have let Byrne do his job.
 
If can get the best player in Hawaii after 7 losing seasons we can recruit plenty of good players. Would be much easier to win and the recruiting will sell itself.
Getting that guy out of Hawaii was all Donnie Raiola. You want to be a great coach? Get great players.
 
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No, the downfall for Nebraska Football was giving Frank and a old ass assistant pool the keys to the kingdom. NU and TO should have let Byrne do his job.
I think we were doomed to take a step back regardless of what happened with Frank. In hindsight maybe we keep winning 9 but Frank’s recruiting philosophy and organization was not great.
 
per 24/7, there are no 5* recruits from Washington and only six 4* recruits, so i'm not buying that they're full of top-tier recruits. Washington is good because they got the coach right.

In the landscape of NIL/transfer portal, I don't think geography is as important as branding. Look at Oregon, they have hovered at good to great for years because they make intelligent use of branding themselves as the fashionable school with cool uniforms.

If it were all about proximity to recruiting, Texas A&M and Florida wouldn't have looked like shit this year.

I have no delusions of Nebraska going on an Alabama/Georgia type run in my lifetime, though i'd welcome being wrong. That said, there's no reason to not expect success on the same level as Utah; occasionally winning the conference and putting together tough teams that could hang with anyone.
This is very fair and I believe accurate. We’re never going to play for a NC realistically especially with a 12 team playoff. But win the west once or twice a decade and maybe a BIG every 15 to 20 years. Utah is a great example. We’ll never compete with athletes or stud recruits, but a Raiola here and there and you catch lighting maybe you end a top 15.
 
This is very fair and I believe accurate. We’re never going to play for a NC realistically especially with a 12 team playoff. But win the west once or twice a decade and maybe a BIG every 15 to 20 years. Utah is a great example. We’ll never compete with athletes or stud recruits, but a Raiola here and there and you catch lighting maybe you end a top 15.
I agree. Your Hawkeyes will never win a playoff game IF they ever make it in.
 
Hated Lincoln growing up. It's actually a pretty sweet college town now. Downtown and campus are so much better than 30 years ago. Probably one of the better places to send a kid. Decent sized city without some of the big city trouble.
I’m with you. I moved away in 2006. If it was the present Lincoln back then, I would’ve never left.
 
No, the downfall for Nebraska Football was giving Frank and an old ass assistant pool the keys to the kingdom. NU and TO should have let Byrne do his job.
I agree and will stand by that forever.

Barney Cotton was hired as OC…not even 3 years out of a National Title game.
 
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I think we were doomed to take a step back regardless of what happened with Frank. In hindsight maybe we keep winning 9 but Frank’s recruiting philosophy and organization was not great.
Maybe, but you hit the nail on the head. He sucked at recruiting and was not organized whatsoever. Probably not on him, but all of his assistants were getting old as well and it would have been a good time to just clean house with a new coach. Is what it is, but I still think Frank should never been the head man at NU.
 
Maybe, but you hit the nail on the head. He sucked at recruiting and was not organized whatsoever. Probably not on him, but all of his assistants were getting old as well and it would have been a good time to just clean house with a new coach. Is what it is, but I still think Frank should never been the head man at NU.
The highwater marks of TO's career correlated to when he was able to recruit generational QB talent - particularly Gill and Frazier. Solich inherited a generational QB in Crouch and another very talented kid in Newcombe, and had alot of success early in his regime riding those guys, until the poor recruiting caught up to him, including wiffing repeatedly on his top QB recruit targets. Rhule, in his second year, has landed the biggest QB recruiting coup in 30 years. While I have doubts the program can ever resemble the one I grew up watching, I'm cautiously optimistic that Rhules' reputation as a program builder, bolstered by a generational QB talent, will return us to winning ways and a respectable program - even in an era where the landscape has changed dramatically.
 
I think we were doomed to take a step back regardless of what happened with Frank. In hindsight maybe we keep winning 9 but Frank’s recruiting philosophy and organization was not great.
Frank was a good football coach who wasn't a great communicator or recruiter.
 
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No, the downfall for Nebraska Football was giving Frank and a old ass assistant pool the keys to the kingdom. NU and TO should have let Byrne do his job.
Stupid take. The program has been much worse off when TO hasn't been involved.
 
Stupid take. The program has been much worse off when TO hasn't been involved.

Yeah because they’ve had to clean up TO’s messes every time. Kidding…sort of. It may be more chicken and egg than you’re recognizing, though
 
The highwater marks of TO's career correlated to when he was able to recruit generational QB talent - particularly Gill and Frazier. Solich inherited a generational QB in Crouch and another very talented kid in Newcombe, and had alot of success early in his regime riding those guys, until the poor recruiting caught up to him, including wiffing repeatedly on his top QB recruit targets. Rhule, in his second year, has landed the biggest QB recruiting coup in 30 years. While I have doubts the program can ever resemble the one I grew up watching, I'm cautiously optimistic that Rhules' reputation as a program builder, bolstered by a generational QB talent, will return us to winning ways and a respectable program - even in an era where the landscape has changed dramatically.
I think we need to be careful lauding too much credit behind a legacy. There's a lot of potential Nebraska coaches who could have gotten interest from Raiola. Frost was just incompetent enough to screw it up.
 
Yeah because they’ve had to clean up TO’s messes every time. Kidding…sort of. But it may be more chicken and egg than you’re recognizing
Put up the record of the program with TO's involvement vs the record without. Osborne has been involved in practically every good aspect of the program. He essentially is responsible for everything we know and love about the Nebraska football program. And yet dweebs on the internet want to take shots at him every chance they can get. They love to magnify any minor flaw, and people who attack wildly successful people like that are just casting a reflection of their own pathetic lives.
 
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Frost himself did... Until he screwed it up. The Raiola kids themselves talked about being big Husker fans growing up. I would have expected any potential coach to garner interest. I'll give credit for Rhule actually getting him here, but a lot of dominoes fell the right way for that to even happen.
 
QB play and coaching HAS to be there to win a championship. Same thing in general holds true for the NFL. Washington and Michigan both have excellent coaches. Washington obviously has a great QB and Michigan has a good one. If you don't have a great QB you better have a good one and a great defense. It really isn't that hard to figure out what is needed.
 
well your friend and your nebraska buddy are certainly entitled to their opinions, but i'm gonna trust the experts that rank the schools and the fact that hardly any NFL players went to high school in Washington. a 4A Washington school would get absolutely trounced by 6A football from any state.

Washington is a soft state with soft culture, they just don't produce athletes for a violent sport the way other states do.

I read where the Huskers are looking at Idaho LB Xe'Ree Alexander. Better not take him as he comes from that soft culture in that soft state. Played at the same high school as Huard Jr., Kennedy Catholic.

 
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I read where the Huskers are looking at Idaho LB Xe'Ree Alexander. Better not take him as he comes from that soft culture in that soft state. Played at the same high school as Huard Jr., Kennedy Catholic.

Washington culture:
street-capitol-hill-seattle-shutterstock-min.jpg


Idaho culture:


sorry you come from a state of massive pussies
 
I read where the Huskers are looking at Idaho LB Xe'Ree Alexander. Better not take him as he comes from that soft culture in that soft state. Played at the same high school as Huard Jr., Kennedy Catholic.

No - Idaho needs him!!

BTW Wasker I've found the ignore button a very useful feature to use when dealing with idiots.
 
I can't tell you how important this point is and how it cannot be overstated. The fall of Nebraska football is directly related to Bill Callahan and everyone that followed him trying to "modernize" the offense.

The reason Osborne ran the kind of offense he ran for decades was precisely because Nebraska didn't have the talent that the USCs and Florida States had. The style that he ran was specifically designed to make up for a lack of talent and would also fit well for the climate in the Plains.

I seriously cannot and do not understand how this completely goes over so many Husker fans' heads. They want to chase star recruits. They want to get a big-time HC with a winning track record instead of a coach with a track record of developing talent and doing more with less. And I'm sitting here like, "Yeah, none of that is going to work. Not at Nebraska."

The recipe for success was created back in the 1960s and it worked for over 40 years and produced multiple conference and national championships. Then TO retired and everyone, starting with Solich, began to (inexplicably) move away from that recipe.

Yes, the game has changed. Yes, it is a different era. But I can't think of a better example of the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The program wasn't broken when Osborne retired. In fact, it was the opposite of broken. It was the most powerful college football program in the land. Then a bunch of ADs and HCs decided to do their own thing and "fix" it.

So, here are we are today where what needs fixing the most is the fixing itself. But it might be beyond repair.
What TO was unique and NOT limited to power football. He had excellent passing teams and over time changed to what we all loved to watch in the 90's.

The question you have to answer is why hasn't ANYONE, including Nebraska tried and made it work since? I submit that with all the film, it would not be hard to do, TO's playback is there for anyone to see.

I grew up in the TO Era and there were two constants I often recall hearing: 1. He maxed out thr potential of players. Gil Brandt was a GM for the Cowboys and made the statement to the affect that when you draft a Nebraska football player they have generally reached their maximum of development. 2. Tom found kids all over the country while watching film and developed them. This was all well before Hudl. He was a master.

Bottom line in all if this is any coach could have the playback, the facilities, the S&C but still not put it all together without the incredible mind of Tom himself. He will never be replicated.

I was reading an article about one of the academy teams who had to change their triple option attack because the rules changed and do not allow cut blocks. So, the world is just not the same as it was on the field as well.
 
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I'm a Gopher fan. I want a 32 team football playoff...basketball style...no byes, no home field. Give 32 teams a chance to keep their season meaningful.
 
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This is very fair and I believe accurate. We’re never going to play for a NC realistically especially with a 12 team playoff. But win the west once or twice a decade and maybe a BIG every 15 to 20 years. Utah is a great example. We’ll never compete with athletes or stud recruits, but a Raiola here and there and you catch lighting maybe you end a top 15.
You're such a loser
 
I liked that there was an Orgy on the field last night.

Wait, what? "Orji"? With a "j" and and "i"?

Well, that's very different. Never mind.

Anyway, I liked that Michigan used backup QB Alex Orji (6-foot-3, 236 pounds) in at least two series in each of the last four games Michigan played — OSU, Iowa, Alabama and Washington.

In those games, Orji ran 8 times (twice in each game) for 48 yards, or 6 ypc. For the season, he ran 15 times for 86 yards. He threw no passes this year after throwing and completing one last year.

I hope we use Haarberg that way next year and in the future.
 
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