Sunday Morning Thoughts - Post Oregon
- Thread starter Doc Fumble
- Start date
If we lose 7 on a row. Rhule should be fired right after the Iowa game and find his own ride home. I'm not kidding either. With the talent on this team you should win no less than 8 games at the very least.
I've said this to friends and family last night and today. We were blitzing and pressuring the Oregon QB through 3 quarters and probably would've if he had stayed in through the 4th quarter but once DR was inserted to replace him it was almost like, "Oh, no it's Dylan Raiola. We can't hit him. He's too soft." We just stopped bringing pressure and its mind boggling as to why. We have a good 2 deep roster on defense and even some of the 3rd stringers play to help keep everyone fresh. So fatigue shouldn't be the issue. Not sure why Aurich decided to stop bringing the pressure. He had to know that Dylan folds under pressure. If he doesn't then he's not as good of a coach as I thought.
Honestly I believe there are Two things that have led to this. 1) we no longer have a winning culture and Rhule is struggling to create one and 2) the players don't play with fire and passion. No one is being held accountable. The.great thing about the 90s teams are the players held each other accountable. They weren't going to bust their butts in the weight room if no one else was. They held other accountable and had to answer to their peers if they messed up.
I quite agree with you on all counts. I'm guessing Fumble will be correct in his 8 games before OSU but
things are very weird. I certainly don't expect us to lose out, nor do I expect that we will win out. As I concluded my post, I believe I said that I expect the results to be somewhere in the middle of the two ends, which would be 8 wins. That would be fabulous -- I don't expect that but I went into this season with zero expectations. Worked well until the Indiana and Oregon games because I was starting to drink the Kool-Aid. Back to 0 expectations for me!
Severe went back and charted it and apparently they actually did send some pressure. I watched his Sunday morning show on 1620 and he had to be surprised as he was also complaining about not bringing plus pressure on Dylan. It was just so ineffective that nobody noticed. Not sure if that's not worse. Note that on critical 3rd and 4th downs they didn't which probably was a bigger part of the perception of what was going on.
Wow. I guess that explains it. But what's stranger is why don't you bring pressure on 3rd and 4th and 3? That makes no sense. It was just baffling?
If we can move on mentally form these two losses and Holgerson gets aggressive with his play calling and we play well, we can definitely be 8-2. Right now we need to really beat Washington to be bowl eligible and get that monkey off our back which might be part of why we have been so tight the last 2 weeks.
Opposing coaches now know if you want Nebraska to burn all their times out all you have to do is line up on 4th down like you are going to go for it. Field position and distance be damned. After the Indiana fiasco Coach Matt immediately calls time out to discuss matters with the defense.
Speaking of Indiana, this game management situation (or lack thereof), reminds me of legendary Coach Bobby Knight. In the 1987 Championship game Keith Smart hit a jumper from the baseline at the buzzer to beat Syracuse. Coach Knight had a timeout remaining. Syracuse did not. When asked after the game why he didn't call a time out to set up a play after Indiana got the defensive rebound on a Syracuse miss, he calmly and confidently explained he knew his players were better prepared for that moment than Syracuse was and let the game play out. Keep in mind Syracuse was loaded with NBA talent all over the floor (Coleman, Seikaly, Douglas, Monroe), and Knight did not want Boeheim to get his team together and prepare a defense for the final few seconds. I believe it was Alford that found JC transfer Keith Smart in the corner for the game winner. Say what you want about Bobby, he was an all-time great.
Rhule immediately goes into panic mode when anything goes off script. He has shown himself to be an awful game manager, as evidenced twice again the last two games.
Speaking of Indiana, this game management situation (or lack thereof), reminds me of legendary Coach Bobby Knight. In the 1987 Championship game Keith Smart hit a jumper from the baseline at the buzzer to beat Syracuse. Coach Knight had a timeout remaining. Syracuse did not. When asked after the game why he didn't call a time out to set up a play after Indiana got the defensive rebound on a Syracuse miss, he calmly and confidently explained he knew his players were better prepared for that moment than Syracuse was and let the game play out. Keep in mind Syracuse was loaded with NBA talent all over the floor (Coleman, Seikaly, Douglas, Monroe), and Knight did not want Boeheim to get his team together and prepare a defense for the final few seconds. I believe it was Alford that found JC transfer Keith Smart in the corner for the game winner. Say what you want about Bobby, he was an all-time great.
Rhule immediately goes into panic mode when anything goes off script. He has shown himself to be an awful game manager, as evidenced twice again the last two games.
IS it true Neb rushed the ball once in the 4th qtr? Holgerson went to behavior management classes but is still AIR RAID. Is Rule injured? He only got 3 carries against the Ducks
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This. So much this - as everyone has said. Why did we NOT blitz DR? We know full well what happens when he's under pressure. I just don't get it. I'm not a huge football expert by any means, but even I knew what we needed to do once DR entered the game. It's almost like the coaches decided we'd look mean if we used DR's weaknesses against him. I'm okay with looking mean.
I hope that they use the buy week to come up with some new plays on offense. Or practice more on what they already have. They need to score more points
Did people not expect Riaola to improve year to year?
My biggest criticism when we had him is lack of a QB competition to pressure him to improve. All these diehard NU fans forget our QB competitions fueled our best performances. Even Frost was pressured in 1996 by backups that flopped. People thought when we played ASU that he needed to be pulled. But our backup was literally a no show in previous attempts to spark a competition. Rhule is incapable of seeding individual improvements until he gets over this lack of competition. I can see being conservative developing Rule to avoid breaking him. But 10 carries is being conservative. Three carries is wasting his talent. The dude just makes stuff happen.
My biggest criticism when we had him is lack of a QB competition to pressure him to improve. All these diehard NU fans forget our QB competitions fueled our best performances. Even Frost was pressured in 1996 by backups that flopped. People thought when we played ASU that he needed to be pulled. But our backup was literally a no show in previous attempts to spark a competition. Rhule is incapable of seeding individual improvements until he gets over this lack of competition. I can see being conservative developing Rule to avoid breaking him. But 10 carries is being conservative. Three carries is wasting his talent. The dude just makes stuff happen.
It might be worthwhile to review the S&C. I see a team getting gassed in the 4th quarter with lines melting out front.
The D got worn out 4th quarter - no doubt about it. Some of that is on the D for not getting stops - but the offense did nothing to help. Honestly Oregon didn't rotate their front 4 hardly as all - if we had been able to run the ball at all we would have worn them out.
One more thing I want to mention - the Archie kneel. THAT one play swung momentum back to Oregon as they got a FG and followed that up with a drive to get another FG......if we had put them back on their side of the field and kept playing D as we had all night - Oregon likely enters the 4th quarter with no points.
2 sure way to lose B1G games:
- Unable to rush the ball
- Score under 20 points
Despite that we hung in the last 2 games because our D is playing at a high level. Just need a bit more juice from Special Teams and the Offense.
One more thing I want to mention - the Archie kneel. THAT one play swung momentum back to Oregon as they got a FG and followed that up with a drive to get another FG......if we had put them back on their side of the field and kept playing D as we had all night - Oregon likely enters the 4th quarter with no points.
2 sure way to lose B1G games:
- Unable to rush the ball
- Score under 20 points
Despite that we hung in the last 2 games because our D is playing at a high level. Just need a bit more juice from Special Teams and the Offense.
