Nebraska...not feeling Frosty anymore

[WM Wolverine]

4 in the last season & 1 game... & counting. ;)

[entropy]

http://prevailandride.blogspot.com/

[entropy]

btw... I will put Lincoln up against any college town in the country. with the new arena and the new bars and hotels in the haymarket, it is incredible..

[entropy]

btw.. it was hot as hell saturday. I was wiped out from tailgating all day and then going to the game.

[Wild Hoss]

Doesn't look like next week will be a whole lot different.

[entropy]

crap

[entropy]

hopefully there is a little bit of wind..

[entropy]

Nebraska has had 2 or more turnovers in each of its last 14 games. Last team that didn't force Nebraska to turnover the ball? Southern Miss in the 2012 season opener.


I wonder how much of that is a result of Beck wanting to run 80+ plays a game.. our defense suffers too

[entropy]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mnVDjX5apOM#t=20"]Nebraska Football Locker Room and Player's Lounge - YouTube[/ame]

[entropy]

First column from the Tunnel Walk of Shame comic guy:


5 Minutes

Ranging from full-blown panic to wait-and-see pacification, everybody’s got an opinion on Saturday night’s near-death experience in the Wyoming game. Excuse me, did I say “game?” I meant “5 minutes.” That’s what we’re reacting to. Not 60 minutes. But 5. Let me explain…

With about 7 minutes left, Taylor Martinez threw his first pick and gave the ball back to the Cowboys. Brett Smith - who was terrific all night - led a two-play drive punctuated by a gorgeous TD pass over our secondary. Then, rinse and repeat. Huskers stall on offense, fumble and give the ball to Smith, who leads another ruthless drive down the throats of the Husker D that he again punctuates with a 47-yard touchdown pass. Finally, the Huskers stall again thanks to some unimaginative play calling, and Wyoming has the ball back with 1 minute remaining to ruin the Big Red’s day. The defense holds. And the state takes a collective, long, eye-rolling sigh. And a shot of whiskey.

At 7:00 left to play, the Huskers led 37-21. With 1:32 left, the lead dwindled to three. 20 seconds of gameplay later, Wyoming had a gun to our head. That is five and a half shitty minutes, followed by one terrifying one. “What if” is a dangerous game to play, but since it’s still too early in the season to know anything, let’s do it. Say Martinez doesn’t throw that pick, and the Husker offense continues to march (that’s not unreasonable - the drive started on our 10 and ended on their 25). Terrell Newby crosses the goal line and the Huskers lead 44-21. I don’t think that’s a huge reach. (We’ll ignore that blocked extra point that resulted in the game being a field goal away from disaster instead of a touchdown). Wyoming would’ve gotten the ball back with five minutes left, down 23. They get conservative, maybe score but probably don’t, and the Huskers either win 44-21 or ride the momentum to one more touchdown and a 51-21 win, giving up about 475 yards of offense.

That’s it. 5 minutes. A dozen plays - half of which didn’t include our defense. Sure, we can’t draw a lot of conclusions from this series of hypotheticals. But here’s one thing I know: had Nebraska won that game 44-21, nobody would be worried at all. At all. “21 points and 475 yards isn’t terrible. They’ve got some real play-makers. For the first game, that was pretty good.” But no. We watched a 5-minute implosion that nearly resulted in disaster and the narrative instantly became, “This defense is doomed! Fire Bo Pelini! Murder John Papuchis!”

And both narratives are flawed. It is September 3rd, and like Jon Snow in the midst of wildlings, we know nothing. We won’t after Southern Miss, either. And if you think we will after UCLA, you’re only partially right. We won’t know everything after Michigan, Michigan State or Iowa. We won’t know because this won’t be the same team in November that it is today. They will develop and transform - positively or negatively - at a rate that will outpace our ability to actually comprehend and analyze their talent level.

So why are we losing our minds over 5 bad minutes? For the same reason we would lose our mind over 5 good ones. We have a need to feel like we know, and we can’t get comfortable with the fact that we never really will.

Look, maybe those 5 minutes were a harbinger of bad things to come. And maybe they were the exception, and not the rule. The point is, you don’t know and I don’t know and, really, Bo Pelini doesn’t know. Urban Meyer wouldn’t know, nor would Nick Saban. And Lou Holtz would probably mistake Lil’ Red for a bounce house and accidentally kill himself.

So instead of pretending, let’s embrace our ignorance and try to just enjoy watching this team strive for a season we all deem “successful.” Let’s watch for good signs and bad signs and point those out without mistaking them for SURE SIGNS OF THINGS TO COME. How about we put away both the hatred and the handjobs all at once and try to just watch the team? Don’t foster the culture of negativity with your plzFireBoPeliniToday twitter handle and don’t create unreasonable expectations with your ImaniCrossIsMySpiritAnimal tumblr (I’ll take some blame for that one). That’s what the media (the shitty parts) sometimes do because they need clicks and eyeballs and ratings. But the fans don’t have to.

Because wherever you sit on the spectrum we all have one thing in common: we want this team to succeed. If you read this blog you love the Big Red as much as I do, which is a lot. I’m not trying to lecture here, but manufacturing storm clouds over Salt Creek & Stadium isn’t going to scare this team into greatness. They’re 18-22-year-old kids who are learning to play football while simultaneously learning to become not-shitty young men. Let’s assume the best until we really see the worst. And realize that “the worst” is not 5 bad minutes from a defense that had only played 50 minutes of football together. It’s also not two bad drives from an offensive coordinator and offensive line that had thus far racked up 375 yards of rushing. Let’s cheer those guys on and hope we motivate them to not let that happen again.

That’s what the Greatest Fans in College Football really do.

It was 5 minutes. Settle down.

We’re 1-0. Act like it.

[Wild Hoss]

Uuuummm...what about the fact Wyoming had 300 yards of offense in the first half, and was winning the game 6 minutes before halftime?

Seriously, this program will remain mediocre until the charlatans and snake-oil salesmen like this are silenced, and pressure for real change is applied.

[Hannibal]

That column reminds me of the apologies that would occasionally pop up early in RichRod's tenure, and then again in September of '09 and '10.

[Wild Hoss]

The Apologistas are out in force today, which is pretty much SOP following another collapse of The Bofense. They are nowhere to be found for the first three days after the most recent debacle, then slowly trickle out mid-week with their red herrings, massaged stats, expectation-lowering inferences, and over-puffering of the opponent’s value.

Yes, teams have bad days...even great ones. But an off day for any defense worthy of the Nebraska name shouldn’t be the 6th-most yards allowed in school history, and definitely not at the hands of a 4-8 MWC team of cowpunchers’ kids that lost to Cal-Poly at home last year.

“Oh, its just simple, correctable errors here and there. This kid attacked the wrong gap, that kid blew a coverage...” What the fuck ever. If "simple, correctable errors" gets 600 yards hung on you by Wyoming, then your scheme has problems that are neither simple nor correctable.

[THE_WIZARD_]

This team is in serious doo doo. Let's not kid ourselves. The defense doesn't need a little fixing. It needs a new engine. The offense still looks a lot like last year...turnovers and penalties. Thank goodness we have a manageable schedule...or this season could be pretty ugly.

[WM Wolverine]

It needs more talent too but as bad as your defense has been the last year plus (like RR's), it was more than a talent issue.