• You do not need to register if you are not going to pay the yearly fee to post. If you register please click here or log in go to "settings" then "my account" then "User Upgrades" and you can renew.

HuskerMax readers can save 50% on  Omaha Steaks .

Dirk unloads on NU

O

Oracle of Lincoln

Travel Squad
10 Year Member
People fall in love with 17-year-olds who haven’t even committed because the idea of them playing for Nebraska is more enticing than the actual Huskers on campus. And when young guys don’t progress, we don’t call out flaws in the machine — why don’t NU’s top talents ever improve? — we shift attention to the next 17-year-old. Surely he’ll make it.

Nebraskans think their talent is equal to Wisconsin’s and better than Iowa’s. Hogwash. Talent isn’t just 40 speed, vertical jump and who else is recruiting you. Talent is blocking, tackling and lining up properly. At some point, Nebraska must stop measuring “talent” on paper and start finding guys who fit here.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/footba...cle_cb0be3c8-b52e-11e7-859a-6f0b836f473b.html
 
Last edited:

Great read. Hard read.

168E509D-1D03-47C8-B096-8EAA6F036E67.jpeg
 



Some painful truths in there. It's not like we routinely have losing seasons or anything like that, but the disparity between our recent success and that massive palace grows bigger every year. Now that we're really just wannabes, it feels like we should knock off the last few additions and 20,000 seats at least. Quit looking like social climbing new money in an overbuilt McMansion. ;)

This quote, where Dirk talks about "Nebraska" building football teams, seems pretty strange to me, even though lots of us sometimes make the mistake of thinking that's how it works.
"They can’t fix the fact that Nebraska has forgotten how to build football teams. That Nebraska has gotten so full of itself — so spoiled — that it forgot how to earn its place."
Click to expand...
Lots of us including me have sometimes fallen for the notion that success was somehow emblematic of Nebraska as a whole and reflected a special Nebraska "way". But in reality it was just the creation of two exceptional coaches who fairly bizarrely happened to be here in succession.

If the last 19 years has taught us anything it should be that "Nebraska" never knew how to build football teams, isn't particularly good at managing it's program, as a place or people or institution doesn't have a clue how to find exceptional coaches, and may well not have what it takes to keep one it might stumble across. If "Nebraska" had anything special to offer in these ways, the last 19 years would have been different than they've been.

Nebraska has good fans but none of us built that success. The success brought us to it. There might be a little bit of argument that fan patience under Osborne contributed to the success, but only as an enabler, not as a driver.

Much less so, but still somewhat, the same thing is true of the players: They worked hard and had talent and took ownership and agency and showed all sorts of (mostly) healthy behaviors. But they too were attracted by those two coaches and prospered by following systems those two coaches created.

That's not to diminish what the players did, but to shed light on what really makes success - truly exceptional head coaches. Nebraska lucked into two in a row and because the second was a native son he stayed a long time. Other than that, "Nebraska" didn't have a lot to do with it.
 
Last edited:
He's not unloading, he's stating the obvious, no more no less. Pretty undeniable.

Posted similar sentiments as Dirk a month ago...
Wow Big Red FB Reboot to 1950's-1960's or thereabouts:
".......We are starting over in many respects, despite all the trophies, triumphs, national and conference championships, all-americans we see plastered up there on the stadium, the consecutive sellouts that resulted, the world class facilities, the skyboxes and 90,000 seats that might blind us to the truth. The big wins, the routine winning, the crushing lesser opponents is over for the time being.
Dear old NU is in another time and place right now. We have done a reboot....."

https://forum.huskermax.com/index.p...b-reboot-to-1950s-1960s-or-thereabouts.97813/

Time to just....start over....start something new.And we will.

I have a "5 time National champs" sweatshirt. I don't wear it anymore....I'll wear it again when the time is right, when it's timely again, because guess what? Illinois and Minnie can wear them too:

IMG_4591 copy.jpg
 
Last edited:




huskernut said:
Some painful truths in there. It's not like we routinely have losing seasons or anything like that, but the disparity between our recent success and that massive palace grows bigger every year. Now that we're really just wannabes, it feels like we should knock off the last few additions and 20,000 seats at least. Quit looking like social climbing new money in an overbuilt McMansion. ;)

This quote, where Dirk talks about "Nebraska" building football teams, seems pretty strange to me, even though lots of us sometimes make the mistake of thinking that's how it works.

Lots of us including me have sometimes fallen for the notion that success was somehow emblematic of Nebraska as a whole and reflected a special Nebraska "way". But in reality it was just the creation of two exceptional coaches who fairly bizarrely happened to be here in succession.

If the last 19 years has taught us anything it should be that "Nebraska" never knew how to build football teams, isn't particularly good at managing it's program, and as a place or people or institution doesn't have a clue how to find exceptional coaches, and may well not have what it takes to keep one it might stumble across. If "Nebraska" had anything special to offer in these ways, the last 19 years would have been different than they've been.

Nebraska has good fans but none of us built that success. The success brought us to it. There might be a little bit of argument that fan patience under Osborne contributed to the success, but only as an enabler, not as a driver.

Much less so, but still somewhat, the same thing is true of the players: They worked hard and had talent and took ownership and agency and showed all sorts of (mostly) healthy behaviors. But they too were attracted by those two coaches and prospered by following systems those two coaches created.

That's not to diminish what the players did, but to shed light on what really makes success - truly exceptional head coaches. Nebraska lucked into two in a row and because the second was a native son he stayed a long time. Other than that, "Nebraska" didn't have a lot to do with it.
Click to expand...

Not disagreeing but, ouch! That's a little hard to read. I grew up during the Osborne years and yea, I believe there is something special about Nebraska and being a Nebraskan. I think it's one reason we believe in excellence and why we aren't satisfied with what we've gotten from our football team. It makes no sense to get satisfaction from a college football team but that's what we want. It represents who we are on a national stage and many believe it's a symbol of who we are. Tough, strong, relentless, fair, competitive, winners. It sounds and is silly to put that on the coaches and players but I can't really explain why else we put so much emphasis on it.

Sorry. I normally don't put my thoughts out there like this so I'll prepare for the backlash.
 
Last edited:
*Yawn.* Dirk's the answer to a question no one asked. His strength is the ability to Google Wikipedia and present his findings as some great insight. I'm sure he would have predicted the Pearl Harbor attack no later than St. Patrick's Day, 1942.

Nebraska has issues, truly. But, the commitment to excellence remains. There are no easy answers here. But, I have confidence that the Huskers will be successful in the future. I do like the point raised earlier that Nebraska's success "drew us to" Nebraska. Certainly, that's the case with me. But, I'm not going anywhere and I'm surely going to support this university through a drought that lasts 2x as long as this one.
 
RedStones said:
...
Sorry. I normally don't put my thoughts out there like this so I'll prepare for the backlash.
Click to expand...

You'll get no backlash from me. Yours is a very credible post. I wish you'd put your thoughts out there more often, based on this.

I used to more or less agree with you. But over the last 19 years I've become less and less impressed with Nebraska's ability to right itself, which led me to the conclusion I wrote.

I certainly do like the things you list and value them, probably as much as any poster here and more than many, but in my opinion they don't drive the cart. They are in lots of cases positive expressions of Nebraska identity that quite reasonably allied with the success the program was having. They just weren't the source.

That's how I see it, anyway.
 
Sometimes the truth hurts. We as a fan base sometimes IMHO look for the quick fix too often and are stuck in the past. I heard someone the other day say that chip kelly would be a terrible hire since he would not do it the "Nebraska Way". Really? maybe we are too busy trying to duplicate the 90s instead of trying to just build a team? I don't know the answer, but we need to get it figured out soon. I also think that the issues started in the administrative side and boiled over to the field, hopefully Moos can get that crap under control so we can concentrate on the field. I have been following the Huskers since 1964 and remember the old days and what they really were sometimes. I agree with Dirk, there doesn't appear to be the hunger to be better, and it all became about money. We are a victim of our success, and it could become our failure. Anyway, GBR always.
 



Morgan Steele said:
*Yawn.* Dirk's the answer to a question no one asked. His strength is the ability to Google Wikipedia and present his findings as some great insight. I'm sure he would have predicted the Pearl Harbor attack no later than St. Patrick's Day, 1942.

Nebraska has issues, truly. But, the commitment to excellence remains. There are no easy answers here. But, I have confidence that the Huskers will be successful in the future. I do like the point raised earlier that Nebraska's success "drew us to" Nebraska. Certainly, that's the case with me. But, I'm not going anywhere and I'm surely going to support this university through a drought that lasts 2x as long as this one.
Click to expand...

Yep.

I'm a Cubs fan too. So until Nov 3, 2016 I endured one helluva drought.
This Husker drought, while it indeed sucks....
is a piece of cake.

:Huskerflag:
 
Let me give my thoughts on the article:

  1. A lot of bluster with very little content
  2. His thesis is unclear
  3. His conclusions are painfully obvious and pedestrian
  4. And if taken the to the nth degree ... you could argue he is making a case for
    • long term rebuild
    • underlying assumption that coaching stability is needed -and-
    • a return to focusing on signing more Nebraska kids
 

Sorry couldn't get past the part that said 'lipstick on pigskin'. So I stopped reading. (Honestly I wasn't going to read it anyway).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

GET TICKETS


Get 50% off on Omaha Steaks

Back
Top