Saturday, October 06, 2007

Nebraska Football Exposed: HuskerNation in Mizery

Missouri's 41-6 blowout of the Cornhuskers exposes the Husker football program like it never has been exposed since 1961. For weeks, we've heard the excuses:
  • Wake Forest is a fine team and are the defending ACC champions. (Who are currently 49th in the Sagarin ratings.)
  • USC is lightyears above everybody else in college football (lost to woeful Stanford at home tonight)
  • Ball State was just a bad game, and hey, the offense looked incredible!
  • Iowa State got a few breaks and only got the yards they did because of a few turnovers and special teams penalties.
And you know what, the Kool-aid drinkers will point out Missouri is a pretty talented football team. Which is also true.

But only the most deluded kool-aid drinker can deny the truth staring HuskerNation dead in the eyes.

The 2007 Nebraska Cornhuskers are simply not a good football team.

One anonymous commenter this week suggested I was secretly working for Kansas State by ranking Nebraska fifth in the Big XII North last week. Can anybody seriously challenge that statement now?

What we saw tonight is proof that a huge fraud has been perpetrated in Lincoln.

This is bigger than Kevin Cosgrove. Yep, the Blackshirts gave up 603 yards to a pretty darn good Tiger offense. But the Husker offense only accounted for 274 yards against a Missouri defense that was 93rd (out of 119 D-1A teams) in total defense, giving up an average of 434 yards. The Huskers couldn't even score an offensive touchdown against a Missouri defense that gives up 25 points a game on average.

There is only one word to describe this: Pediocrity.

A lot is going to be said this next week. It is not going to be pretty. It is going to be ugly. But it is the truth.

6 comments:

American Libertarian said...

Steve Pederson must go!



Here is the contact info for all of the Board of Regents.


http://www.nebraska.edu/board/board_members.shtml


I took 10 minutes and emailed all 8 Regents.



I told them to get on their hands and knees and beg Coach Osborne to come back to the University of Nebraska as AD.


It's the only way to win the trust of Husker Fans back.


Coach Osborne could make the proper decisions for the Football Program.



If Coach Osborne says Callahan gets a few more years to improve so be it.

If Coach Osborne feels letting Callahan go is the best for Husker Football so be it.



But Steve Pederson must go NOW!!!


It's time to take the trash out of the Athletic Department that is stinking it up.

Coach said...

"The 2007 Nebraska Cornhuskers are simply not a good football team."

I'm glad someone has the nuts to say it.

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me? It's time for everybody to actually start saying what they have been thinking for years. Many will say, we need to be good fans. We are. Sitting back and accepting substandards for this football program is not being a good fan.

Steve Pederson must go!
Kevin Cosgrove must go!
Bill Callahan must go!
The west coast of-farce must go!

Why do you hire the guy who LOSES the superbowl?

The solution?

Tom Osborne - Athletic Director

Coaches - Tom Rathman, Turner Gill, and yes...Bo Pelini

Most of the Bill Callahan regime only became Cornhusker Red when the job opening was posted. Kevin Cosgrove was a horrible defensive coordinator in Wisconsin, why should it be any different here?

Anonymous said...

Considering the past 4 years, I can't see why any rational person would expect anything different from this team, coaches, or AD. 'Mediocre Pederson' lied to NU fans almost from day 1 of his employment. Things that I can think of, just off the top of my head. paraphrased, as I am too lazy this morning to search for the actual quotes:

1-I will give Solich a chance.
2-I intend to start the (new head coach) search immediately. There will not be another press conference until I announce a new head coach. November of 2003.
3-I fully intend to give Bo Pelini and Turner Gill a chance at the head coach position.
4- I intend to start searching as soon as the bowl games are over (see point #2).
5- We did not offer the job to Houston Nutt.
6- I would like an NFL guy. (see point #3, they had not had an interview when this comment was made)

I am sure that most AD's have to use 'creative truth' in their position. But most of them are a lot better at it.

Anonymous said...

Here’s the sad truth… most Husker fans have been hood winked by Steve Pederson to believe that the future of the program required we make wholesale changes by throwing out the outdated Husker Tradition and jumping on the “video game era” west toast game that focuses on movement, action, and emotion rather than strategy, strength, and power. The fact of the matter is Steve had no plan whatsoever after he fired Frank Solich. Remember Houston Nutt??! So… after desperately trying to cover his behind he stumbles onto Bill Callahan. And guess what? Bill only knows one thing, the west toast offense. And there you have it… the dismantling of the Husker Tradition came about because the self-serving Steve Pederson had no plan other than to protect his own overpaid rear end. All Husker fans should feel used and abused by now.

Here’s the absurdity of the past four years. Callahan comes in to run the west toast offense with a team recruited to run the option and power run game. Why? Simple, because that’s all Bill knows. How selfish is that!! Poor Joe Dailey and the rest of the crew recruited to run the ball and now forced to learn an overly complicated offense because the highly paid coach doesn’t know how to coach and win with the talent and abilities of the players he inherited. I could maybe see mixing in some west toast offense along the way but to go 100% was STUPID and SELFISH. A kick in the head to the players and fans as Callahan convinced us that we would have to lose now to win long term. Had Billy coached the talent rather than coached the only thing he knew that first year, the Huskers would have ended up no worse than 7-4, rather than 5-6, and continued the bowling tradition.

I guess it takes a PHD like Tom Osborne to be an effective coach and/or athletic director. At least T.O. was smart enough to build his power game program around the strengths of in-state players (i.e.: size, strength, work ethic, desire, and pride) and considered the varying climate conditions. For obvious reasons, a run oriented team has a better chance to be effective in all conditions such as wind, cold, rain, snow, and heat.

Common Sense 101: A coach should be smart and flexible enough to build his core program around the strengths of the in-state recruit. Remember the phrase, “we don’t rebuild, we reload”? Hello!!! There’s a reason they call it the West Toast offense. And there was a reason we were able to maintain a long winning tradition based on the power game. Oh where or where did the old “pancake” stat go.

For now, Pederson will continue to feed his ego and deny he was the dunce that caused the program to gravitate into mediocrity. But the intelligent Nebraska fan knows the truth and will rise up to run the JOKER out of town.

Anonymous said...

I'm not calling for a lynching of the coaches. Replacement yes. AD Peterson Replaced yes. T.O. back as AD, hmm prob. not. Great coach which had a number of fans calling for his head at times. Couldn't win the big one. Remember. Callahan, is not motivating his players to player at the level they are capable of . Cosgrove, haven't seen a defense from him that I cared for yet. I know there is talent on this team. But coaches need to inspire, not run the business.