Solar

Evan Stewart is of age and is pretty slight and lean. 1 beer could be enough to trip the legal limit. Just need to wait for more facts. If he was out driving plowed and all over the road that's one thing, but if he was pulled over for speeding or some other minor infraction, and secondarily breathalyzed as barely over the limit when he didn't think he was, that would be very different, even though the law doesn't distinguish. Judge and coaches should handle them very differently. If we do get Evan back after his injury heals, I'm not sure Lott will give him the position back.

There is no way we are playing like the 41st best defense right now. We played Nebraska way better than Indiana who is at 10. And has Michigan played anybody with a real offense yet? It's still early in the season, there will be outliers based on competition.

I can't disagree with this, other than to say no defensive scheme is perfect, but there should be other schemes that are more net positive. I was hopeful DL would return from the Seahawks with Mike MacDonald's defensive playbook, but maybe all he really did was stand on the sidelines and watch them practice.

The following freshmen got their first meaningful snaps against Nebraska and contributed significantly towards our win: Tommy Tofi LT went in a left guard in the 4th quarter and immediately we could run to the left inside again. Brandon Smith RB had the best yards per carry of our RBs by a mile, somewhat due to better circumstances, but he clearly has a different running style with much more explosive one step change of direction than Davison and Hill. Devin Jackson Safety who had solid tackles and no coverage breakdowns filling in for Flowers alongside Benjamin. Jalen Lott WR many clutch plays and is immediately the best at getting separation on this team. Likely to be more productive than Stewart has been assuming he can get and stay healthy. He's the next Tez Johnson. Bair is turning into a special teams nightmare on kick coverage for opposing teams. He has struggled to be effective as a WR so far, but hopefully he continues to develop there. Anybody else I missed?

Since PSU my eye test disagrees with your eye test. Maybe it's down to our assumption of how good our competitors offenses are and how many opportunities they are having to score on us. I think USC has a top 5 offense, UCLA has a top 30 offense and Nebraska has a top 40 offense. And there were given an absolute ton of possessions by our non-complimentary offense. My eyes tell me this is defense is as good as the 2019 Avalos defense with a worse scheme. I expect us to be even better by the end of the year.

...but know Mehringer will call it: The quick throw to the slot receiver who is running parallel behind the line of scrimmage looking backwards at the QB the whole time waiting to catch the ball. That cost us 3 yards after the Nebraska Punter kneel-down. What idiot thinks it's a great idea to blind fold their WR behind the line of scrimmage with the ball like that. It probably takes half a second to turn your head and torso round 270 degrees and another half a second to process where the defense is at and another quarter second to begin the process of changing your momentum direction, all the while the defenders have been staring you down moving at 7+ yards per second to intercept you. I realize there are blockers, but there is so much space they are blind blocking for, and often a nickel or OLB is unblocked moving like a heat sealing missile. It's just so stupid, but I'm sure the mad scientist thinks he doing a great job getting the ball to his best players in space, ugh! I've got a name for it now.. "The sitting Duck" play.

If only my prior sarcastic idea of having Terry replace the Duck doing pushups every time Nebraska got a TFL or sack we would have seen waaaaaay more pushups.

It gives me solace that a 24 team playoff will ensure that any team that could possibly win the Natty is not left out despite this madness. Sure some 25-30 ranked teams will be screwed over but they weren't going to win it all.

What evidence do we have to think Smith will be better than Thomas or Raiola? Moore regressed, Thomas regressed, Dylan certainly isn't any consistently better than at Nebraska. Is it the fall speak that he improved so much, just like they said we have 8 OL that can play winning football and that Mehringer is a mad scientist? The odds of Koa Kai turning Smith into an excellent player to lead us to victory when Railo has sucked and Thomas sucked and they still went back to Raiola, is slim to none and Slim left town a while ago.

Can we all at least agree we have 3 major problems that have to be fixed? OC OL Position Coach QB Position Coach All three of those areas are showing regression on mental toughness and execution in the field. We can't blame players who are regressing, that's always on the coaching staff. It's not like Dan Lanning is incapable of motivating people; they just aren't getting the one on one guidance to improve and succeed.

There are a million factors the teams control, but the game start time isn't one of them, which is why I bring it up. It made a big enough difference to affect the outcome of a close game in my opinion.

Why? Because we gave them time and flexibility of play calling to score. Risk Reward was not in our favor. Get out of the half alive.

Dan Lanning taking 3 timeouts on that Nebraska's drive at the end of the first half was ridiculous. I understand he had good reason to believe we would be able to stop them, but what reason did he have to believe we would be able to do anything with the ball with 1 minute left? We had less than 40 yards at that point. Without spotting them that extra time the drive likely would have gone like the final drive of the game did, with he clock restricting the play calling giving our D the advantage. That touchdown call was ridiculous too. The ref called it a touchdown on the field because he didn't see the receiver's backside was on the line, not that his right toe clipped some blades of grass, yet in review it was the right toe that "could not be indisputably rules as not touching the ground" meant they couldn't overturn the call. Really. That a flaw in the logical process of reviews. As someone else mentioned at the time, it felt like that score would be enough for Nebraska to win.

Lailu set #1 straight up and Davison knocked him back. That was cool. Lott's 1st down catch on 4th down is a contender for me. DR went through his progressions, which is commendable for the circumstances, and Lott ran his route on the correct side of the sticks.

I was very adamant that against OSU the extreme temp and humidity were the reason we lost (which I still stand by), so to be fair, I think we lose this game with a 5pm start time. Nebraska played us very tough, but I don't think physiologically you can operate at peak performance at 2am. It's the same reason for pac12 after dark craziness playing at 11pm, but on steroids for Nebraska with such a late time for their body clocks. Yes DR came in and started making key throws , but there were straight ahead plays that weren't working all game that started to working better the later it got. Nebraska didn't wear down like that against Indiana (they just got coverage beat twice by NFL level receiver talent). Still happy we won, but circumstances were definitely in our favor with Nebraska playing in a foreign environment way past their bedtime.

The scheme has it's issues for sure but the players are now executing it at a high level, and seemed extremely prepared for everything Nebraska tried to do. This defense is as good or better than the 2019 defense now. The cornerbacks are likely the best cornerback group in college football (next year it won't even be a question).The LBs are hitting the right gaps more often than not and the DL is starting to dominate consistently. There is still room for improvement as well, which I expect to continue. The Lincoln Riley's of the world will continue to exploit the weaknesses of the scheme, but I think our players are finally talented enough and experienced enough to keep that in check. I don't see any team in the country that could score more than 30 on us, which makes this a championship level defense. The problem is there are about 80 teams that could keep us from scoring more than 30 points right now...

I was think about your article once DR went in. Psychology is a funny thing. DR is nails when winning is personal, and a failure when he takes the rat poison.

And replace him with who? The last guy Koa Kai has been Coaching?

Why are we going for it? Please just play field position Dan. Thank You!

I like our defense and our special teams. They look much better than Indy did against Nebraska so far. It really is a shame how broken our offense is with the bad OL and backup QB situation. The play calling is trying to make things work, but you aren't going to beat Nebraska going side to side, and we can't go vertical with any success. This feels like a Redbox bowl kinda game. Holding my 7-6 score for now.

OSU loses a QB and Michigan finds one the same day. Go figure.

OSU wins the battle, but may lose the war if Sayin is out for 4-6 weeks with a broken collar bone. The backup is not good enough yet to play winning football and their running game is average.

It bring a tear to my eyes see parity the SEC. With them cannibalizing themselves and the 9th league game still to go It'll be interesting to see how the 9-3/8-4 SEC teams are treated this year.

Hmm, will Sayin be healthy by the time the Ducks play Ohio State. "So you're saying there's a chance?"

I'd like see us hire a whole slew of those off-season NFL position clinic coaches for all of the position coaches, but maybe they are unaffordable. I'd like to see us pick up Sagapoleute next year or the Oregon State QB, hopefully we let DR move on. I'd like to keep Hampton and recruit some hillbilly dogs for the linebackers to lock in the defensive culture. We need to pick up Kendal Briles or another similar up and coming OC who has a track record of transforming an offense by tailoring it to the players on their roster.