Rightous Red and Suh are you guys crazy? As tough as the B1G schedule is we can't possible schedule a team like Miami or Tennesse on our non con schedule. Thats just nuts. We need 3 cream puff for sure wins to start the season, we can't possible schedule a team we might lose too and chance not making a bowl game. Its really tough to get 6 wins in the B1G so we need those 3 wins to start the season.
Or something like that is what we were told by many on here when the Tennessee game was canceled.
Obvious sarcasm aside, one of the toughest things, as a Nebraska fan (for me anyway) is to actually admit just how bad we were as a program. Starting in Bo Pelini's last couple of years, recruiting really began to wane. Bo could evaluate and find excellent players, he just didn't recruit enough of them. In Bo's last 2-3 years we had no serviceable backups at QB, and the drop off in talent from the #1 at OT, DT, DE, and LB to the #2 was like falling off of a cliff.
So Bo, justifiably fired due to his antics, was fired and the most mediocre football coach, a basically career .500 coach was inexplicably hired. Well, under that guy, strength and conditioning became optional and the goal was no longer to win, but to "play well" in defeat.
So take a program like Nebraska that already has a thin roster with a lot of marginal players at some of the #1 spots and all of the #2 and lower, combine that with a lack of S&C, and that produced a downward spiral which culminated in firing of the sprinkles on your ice cream guy.
In comes the Prodigal Son who turned out to be more interested in drinking beer and golfing than he was in coaching football. Under the Prodigal Son, recruiting wasn't "terrible" on paper with classes in the high teens to mid-20's (from what I remember). Under the Prodigal Son, S&C returned, but it turns out the players he recruited were also marginal at best and we had very little to no depth on the roster. This played out as one losing season after another piled up.
Enter Matt Rhule who (as we all recognize now, years after the fact) had to clean and fix the giant mess he inherited. It hasn't been perfect, and Rhule's made mistakes along the way (like hiring Bradden as a DL coach), but he's slowly rebuilt Nebraska. The depth of the roster is better than it has been in decades and while I don't want to speak too soon, it
appears that Rob Aurich was a tremendous hire as DC. (Of course we'll find out later today if Aurich's defense and the players he has is a good fit for the physical toll of this conference.)
All this to say, yes it was bad optics to cancel those games, but maybe, the decisions to cancel those game were the best in hindsight. And I realize I'm a tad hypocritical here as I took my opportunities to make fun of the Huskers for "pussing out" of those games. But after reflection, yeah, maybe it was the right decision, bad optics notwithstanding.
I see what you did there. Love it.
