7 Days 'til the Spring Game
- Thread starter Uenth
- Start date
It is frustrating, no doubt about it. That's why I made a conscious decision to throw expectations out the window and just get on board for the ride. Seems like the safest course of action these days.
You think it's a mystery why we didn't hold our lead in the USC game and afterwards limped to the the finish line???
Let me ask you this, 99: Would Indiana have won the natty if Mendoza had suffered Raiola's season-ending injury in October?
How about Vandy finishing strong without Diego Pavia?
Sayin with Ohio State? Carson Beck with Miami?
Did I hope for a better ending? You bet. I would have also hoped our back-up QB, Lateef, would have stayed healthy vs. Iowa too. But that's not the way things played out.
Key QB injuries -- and their impact on teams -- are part of the game. I was damn disappointed with how the team finished too--but it's understandable (especially after the Raiola is abandoning ship 'rumor mill' following the UCLA win and his brother's decommitment.
If you're "fed up" with Nebraska after last year's 'hype,' I think that's a 'You' thing, not a 'Husker' thing.
There's my rant.
Maybe, maybe not. But I'll tell you what WOULDN'T have happened, those teams you mentioned wouldn't have been physically dominated and gotten their effing a^^es stomped the way we did.
Stop making excuses. Until proven otherwise on the field, Nebraska is a mediocre team, with mediocre players, and a mediocre coaching staff. We're seemingly doomed to 6-6, or worse, each year with nearly guaranteed losses to any team with a pulse. We can't beat Minnesoata, or Iowa to save our lives, it's highly probable we'll lose to Illinois, and we can utterly forget about beating Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana.
Yeah, it's so lame of me to 'make excuses' for a college team who loses its star QB for the season's stretch run.
Teams at the elite level, would have "maybe, or maybe not" recovered--but Nebraska is a 'mediocre' team and 'doomed' to stay there. It's true we're a program fighting to get to the next level. I saw a lot of weakness in last year's team before the USC 'Blackout' game. We were fighting through them and had USC on the ropes--until DR went down.
But even afterwards, the team rallied and won a tough game out in LA. But we're talking about college kids--paid or not--and when word got out in the locker room that their leader, Dylan Raiola, was likely to leave--when Daddy Raiola played the younger brother decommits card--it made an already tough situation worse. Do I wish we could've handled adversity better? Absolutely. But let's remember, last year's team was The Youngest in the Big Ten. (Oops, sorry, I made another excuse.)
Rhule turned the page on last year with a new QB, a new OL and OL coach, a new DC, DL Coach and Rush Ends Coach. That doesn't sound to me like the 'Same old, same old' that I remember from the Frost years. I've also been impressed with our new transfers and that freshmen RB, Rule.
I want to stay grounded and wait and see how this year's team shapes up. But I'm interested to see what this squad does this fall. I hope you'll stick around for the ride. I hear crow tastes awfully good when served up in the fall.
Agree or disagree with this statement: Raiola wasn't playing well in the weeks leading up to his injury.
I agree with that statement, and I do believe that had he not gotten injured, our record would not have been any better. USC came back primarily because they ran all over us. PSU, Iowa, and Utah absolutely owned the lines of scrimmage and probably would have teed off against an immobile QB.
I appreciate that Rhule is making changes rather than standing pat. But note that Butler and Bradden were both picked by Rhule and had only 1 year in their spots. Some of that falls on them, but some of that falls on the person who picked them. So in a way, he's getting credit for cleaning up his own mess.
I agree with that statement, and I do believe that had he not gotten injured, our record would not have been any better. USC came back primarily because they ran all over us. PSU, Iowa, and Utah absolutely owned the lines of scrimmage and probably would have teed off against an immobile QB.
I appreciate that Rhule is making changes rather than standing pat. But note that Butler and Bradden were both picked by Rhule and had only 1 year in their spots. Some of that falls on them, but some of that falls on the person who picked them. So in a way, he's getting credit for cleaning up his own mess.
It goes beyond that: The hiring of Satterfield as OC, White as DC, and outside of the game against Wisconsin in 2024, our offense with Holgorsen calling the plays has been meh at best.
So while the "cleaning up his own mess" is a valid observation, I think the new coaches he's hired, he's just cleaning up one mess to make another. Gawd I want to be wrong.
I'm just so unbelievably tired of knowing that when Nebraska plays there is a 50-60% chance we're losing--even at home. If we're on the road, there's a 60-75% chance we're losing. And if we're playing a Top 25 team, there's a 90+% likelihood we're losing. Nebraska's utter mediocrity in football has me close to just giving up on them entirely. These last 15+ years of watching Nebraska football has been like trying to run a marathon in bare feet over broken glass.
