Live From BugahaWest: Tapping the brakes

Dear Fellow Husker fans,

We sit here two days away from game day.  Am I excited, oh you better believe it.  However with the Gebbia transfer my excitement is muted.  Yes, I think a workable calm towards a realistic look at this thing is needed.  I have faith in the coaches and believe they made the right call at QB.  However, no matter who won the battle the said player would have been taking their first live snap in 2 years and first one in college football.  I am hoping Martinez and Bunch learn and grow this year.  The offense will only go as far as they go.  Also, these guys have to stay healthy.  Along the realms of staying healthy, if the coaching staff pulled a miracle with the o-line, this could be a special year.  No more Swiss cheese blocking will be a nice change. 

On to the running backs for a few things.  As you look at the depth chart, this smells like running back by committee.  I find it interesting that Bell is tops of the list so I am wondering if the coaches want him to win the job as the feature back and have the other 3 be in for special cases.  The reason I say this is through the summer listening to podcasts Bell seemed to disappear behind all the Washington talk.  As it is, all these guys have to get going throughout the year.  The reason I say this is if this will truly be a up-tempo offense, I am thinking 175-200 yards rushing a game is a good goal with 1, maybe 2 backs getting around 800 yards rushing.

Defensively these guys just have to grow.  Honestly on that side of the ball the only way to go is up.  Stats across the board noted that last year the defense was the worse in school history.  Again back to podcast listening, a few hosts have said they are quietly optimistic.  As for myself, I am a realist and so with this revamped 3-4 base they need 2 things to be successful.  First, they need to be able to stop the run with the front 7.  If it gets to 8 in the box too much, things will go sour fast.  Secondly, on the pass rush they need to get pressure with a 4 or 5 man blitz.  If the defenders an get pressure that way, it will make things easier for the DBs.

As for my blogging this year, it will more than likely be the same as last year.  It’ll be observation/opinion posts on Mondays or Tuesday.  Like last year, my viewing will be extremely limited due to the work schedule. I am looking forward to a interesting year and cautiously am looking at a 7 win season, a late December bowl game and we’ll see what happens there.