Good news is, Fickell has righted the ship at Wisconsin. Get Jason Eck from New Mexico this season and rid ourselves of the FFPSS (Frightened Frantic Panic Sideline Show).
Halloween under the lights
- Thread starter kfr1631
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I think this Nebraska Cornhusker team can beat anybody. But I also think they could lose to anybody. You could say that about any team out there these days. It's like the NFL
Yeah after starting 5-0 with our crappy preseason schedule you have to think that losing 7 in a row or only getting one win in the last 7 you have to start seriously questioning if he is the right guy. And changing more assistant coaches isnt the answer anymore.
I dont think we will lose our or only win one more game. I think we probably win our next 3 games and then we go into OSU and Iowa with chance to make it to 9 and 10 wins. But man if we dont.....
Going into the season, there was a lot of handwringing about out DL. They've responded.
IMO, what our final regular season record looks like will depend on the play of our OL.
IMO, what our final regular season record looks like will depend on the play of our OL.
Just want to say I'm not predicting losing out, just found HJ's question interesting and wanted to take it one step further. I would be stunned if the Huskers lost all remaining games after starting 5-0 but seems like anything can and does happen anymore.
Look at it this way. Nebraska is good enough to win all 5. Will they? Probably not. But getting to 8 wins would be progress. Losing all 5 would put Rhule's keister squarely on the hot seat. He's gonna be the person held accountable - and he knows it - you can tell by some of the frustration he's sharing in his pressers.
For all the 'gloom and doom' I've been hearing during this bye week, I can't help but think back to all the vitriol I heard over the Spring and Summer. Back then, I heard that progress in terms of wins and losses would be near-impossible to gauge given our killer schedule. Am I wrong? Am I misremembering?
The team I've watched this fall has been pretty doggone good. If there is one area of concern, based on our last game, its our OL. My fan experience is that OLs tend to get better the longer they play together. If our OL performs well over the next five games, this team is capable of five straight wins.
Will it happen? We'll see starting next Saturday night. But based on what we've seen thus far, five wins are a hell of a lot more likely than five straight losses. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but such talk strikes me as pure gaslighting.
I haven't seen anyone predicting we lose 5 straight. The question was asked, and asked to you directly by HBJ, if we do is Rhule still the guy for the job. People are just answering
Pure gaslighting? C'mon Doc. Historical analytics is a thing.
While most of us acknowledge losing to a Top 3 Oregon team and a Top 5 Indiana team was a high probability back in August, we did not think we would be losing to an Oregon team not in the Top 25 with losses to a first-year coach at Oklahoma State that finished 1-11 last year, and a first-year coach at UCLA that finished 3-9 last season.
Why is it seemingly every coach worth their salt can show progress in Year 1 at programs worse off than Nebraska ever was but excuses are made for why Coach Matt may not get to .500 in Season 4?
Who's zooming who? Take another look and tell me.
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Pardon me, I should've realized what an intriguing question this was worth discussing since 5-7 is still on the table.
I imagine "Can we win another game?" is on the minds of every fan of potential playoff teams with two losses after Week 8.
It may be possible, but I don't expect it to occur. Didn't realize I was gaslighting. Johnny's question just spurred me on to take it to the max and gauge how others view it. Bye week filler pure and simple.
If we lose out and end up 5-7. No way Rhule is retained. Yeah we would need to pay out his contract but you can't keep this guy if we don't win another game this year.
I hate to sound argumentative but we're a little over HALFWAY thru the frickin' season and in playoff contention and you want to opine about what'll happen if we go 0-5?
Goodness gracious, what's going on around here?
I understand people are hungry. We came close to pulling off the upset, but it didn't pan out. Everyone wants to poof have a winning season just like that. Then we should get together and finance the 10 - 20 million $ to match OSU, Oregon and Indiana and maybe throw in an extra 10 mill for a guaranteed spot in the playoffs. No Mon No Fun
That's where we are at these days this is what it has become
That's where we are at these days this is what it has become
What we learned after Rhule's contract negotiations was that he wanted an NIL budget to match the 'big boys.' What happened is that YES - our budget for retaining players and getting some studs off the transfer portal increased. YAY! BUT alas, - everybody else's budget increased too. We're not bad on that front but we're certainly not in the top ten.
What Matt Rhule said a year or so ago in one of his long, sit-down interviews was that he's had to fight a 'Nebraska donor culture' where Big Money said to him 'we don't do it that way at Nebraska.' His response was if you want to return Nebraska to elite status, you're going to have to start.
As teams like Texas and Oregon have shown, a team chock-full of expensive NFL prospects doesn't guarantee you the playoffs, but choosing 'not to play the game' when you're in the B1G or the SEC doesn't give you very much wiggle room.
Our wiggle room here in 2026 is small. Chances of making the playoffs at this point requires us to win five straight, which is unlikely.
But our play this season (to this point at least) has shown me that we've ratcheted our program up to another level. But sustainability, at least until CFB's Wild Wild West starts to settle down in 2030, is going to require more and more big money.
Shouldn't need to spend $50mill to beat a Top 25 Team on very rare occasions.
Oregon is getting less bang for their buck than Nebraska, but let's compare Nebraska's NIL budget to teams that have beaten Oregon this season.
Nebraska $33m
UCLA $28m (with a 1st year coach)
Illinois $21m
Oklahoma St $17m (with a 1st year coach)
Wisconsin ($29m) beat USC $39m) this week with far less.
Iowa ($19m) beats Nebraska's $33m on a regular.
Coach Matt acts like he has to be Rod Tidwell (Show Me The Money!) to compete in the B1G.
The Huskers are 18th in the nation in NIL spending and nowhere near getting a sniff of the Top 25. I'm tired of the excuses.
Money is a huge factor, but I look at teams that beat us regularly like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin (a team that appears to be coming out of their doldrums from the past several years), you could even add Illinois to that group. The common factor for those teams is that they don’t have the NIL budget that we have, and on paper we recruit better than those teams, but they are better on the grass and turf. To me it seems that we have created so many mental traps in our program. It’s crazy but I feel there is something subconscious in our coaches and players and even fan expectations that kick in during critical parts of a game where we miss a block, tackle, catch, shanked field goal, penalty, calling right play on O & D. It’s a twisted thought, but when you fail like that you actually reward those subconscious thoughts of doom. Why else haven’t we beaten a ranked team for ages, losing to Iowa on a regular basis at the last minute? Rhule has to coach the physical aspects of the game and also come up with a prescription for a winning mindset late in the fourth quarter. Sometimes it’s just as simple as embracing a mantra: On the sidelines and in the huddle, players and coaches have to ask each other and themselves:
“Gentlemen, on this next play, do you know what your requirements are to be successful?”
That is called buying into the program, which made us champions several decades ago. That “buying in” doesn’t require money.
“Gentlemen, on this next play, do you know what your requirements are to be successful?”
That is called buying into the program, which made us champions several decades ago. That “buying in” doesn’t require money.
Hunch says after Week 8. How about we all revisit this discussion after Week 12?
NEBRASKA
VS
WASHINGTON
TIME TO KICKOFF
00DAYS
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00HRS
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00SECS
DATE
OCT 31
TIME
7:00 PM
STADIUM
MEMORIAL
LOCATION
LINCOLN
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