Teams know how to play AM now...load the box and make him beat you with his arm, which he cant, because he doesnt have good vision. Yes hell get his splash run plays, but inside the redzone that doesnt happen as much. Look at the numbers from 18 until now, its obvious.
-
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 .
Nebraska vs Michigan State Game Thread
- Thread starter Red Reign
- Start date
Frost, however, IS the guy who has gone multiple years without a dedicated, experienced special teams coach while overloading the offensive coaching staff . . . and trotting out a pretty pathetic offense in year four as a result. And now, his inept special teams and poor offense have cost them yet another game they should have won.
The defense is far beyond what any of us expected by now--that side of the ball was never supposed to be a strength of a Frost-coached team (much less THE strength). Chins has overachieved. Frost and his offense and his YOLO approach to special teams are THE causes for failure.
I don't know what Verdu brings to the table at this point. Martinez is a 4th year starter who about an non-clutch as a 4 year starter can be. The line still cant block to save their lives and the offense still doesn't hold up its end of the bargain. If Frost survives (and I'd be fine with him being shown the door at this pont), he needs to revamp the offensive staff, jettison Verdu in favor of a real special teams coach, and have a winning season. Business as usual isn't going to cut it for year 5.
Final Game thoughts.
Nebraska pees one down their leg and turns an almost sure victory into yet another gut-punch loss. Michigan State is the beneficiary of the Nebraska gifts of absolute stupidity and wins 23-20 in OT.
This game was in the bag for Nebraska. They had Michigan State on the ropes. Michigan State had zero first downs in the entire second half of a close game and somehow Nebraska found a way to embarrass themselves once again.
Michigan State scored the last ten points of this game with the help of only one first down in overtime.
I keep saying that this team chokes. They choke. They choke. They choke.
With time getting late in the fourth quarter, Nebraska gets the ball with a chance to run out the clock. NU had been dominant on both sides of the ball the entire second half and yet had only outscored MSU 10-0 in the half. But with MSU not moving the ball at all (remember, zero first downs), NU just needed to protect the ball and turn it over to their defense. Points would be nice, but first downs and drain the clock should suffice. Trust your defense.
Our defense never took the field with a chance to win out.
Instead, Nebraska worked it to a third and four and Scott Frost did what Scott Frost always does when he plays not to lose, he called for the QB draw. Not the absolute worst call . . . cuz remember, our defense is pitching a second half shutout. But, MSU sniffs it out—weren’t they brilliant to know what we were going to do. Fourth and three.
Okay, at least we didn’t fumble and kept the clock running.
Then came the punt.
This punt will go down in Nebraska history with some real hum-dinger stupid plays. The legendary LeKevin Smith fumble. The Joe Ganz overtime lob the ball to a defender standing right in front of him. The Tommy Armstrong, Jr. improvised pass against Illinois to stop the clock. The Adrian Martinez run out of bounds against Iowa to stop the clock so Iowa had just enough time to score.
Back to the punt.
We punt the ball. As the camera swings downfield, it can be seen that EVERY SINGLE DEFENDER ON THE NEBRASKA TEAM is running to the wrong deep man. Every single player. On the right side of the field, the deep man is just standing there. Our entire punt coverage unit is streaking to him. It looks like he has a chance for a return. Only one problem.
The ball wasn’t kicked to him.
There was a guy all by himself on the left side of the field. That is who fielded the punt. From there, a man in a wheelchair could have run it in. What a gift. Here you go MSU, accept these 7 points as a gift from the Husker football team. There was nobody on that side of the field. Nobody. How does that happen?
I have never seen such idiocy in my life.
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong spot.
From there you just knew we were in full choke mode.
We got the ball again with a chance to drive for a game winning FG. I’m sure our kicker wouldn’t have choked that one away. Right?
But we never found out. After yet another kickoff return adventure, we start our drive. We got a little too cute and Omar Manning fumbled an option pitch. Luckily, he fought to get the ball back however, we lost yards and a precious down.
We tried to give it away there, but no such luck for MSU.
The option play was solid all day. But we keep running it with different guys and Manning just dropped the pitch. Maybe not such a good idea to run it with so many different players that aren’t used to that sort of action.
Then on third down, we throw a short 2 yard pass and have to punt. Brilliant play call.
Our defense holds, and we get even one more chance to put our FG kicker on the hot seat. But Martinez, who played a Jekyll and Hyde second half, held the ball too long and takes a sack. We let time run out and we are in overtime.
At least we are done punting.
We get the ball first and face a third and three. 4 down territory? Will we trust our place-kicker? Not to worry, Martinez tries to force a pass to Toure who admittedly did not run a strong route, and MSU is off to the races with an interception—shades of Tommy Armstrong, Jr. in overtime against Miami years ago. Miraculously, we manage to tackle him before he scores—basically with an illegal tackle (about the only smart thing we did in the last 5 minutes of the game).
MSU gets the ball knowing that a FG wins it. First play, their RB breaks about 3 or 4 tackles and goes to the one. Two really good defensive plays later, they kick the chip shot FG for the win. A FG I am not sure we could have made.
Nebraska’s meltdown is complete. I recall the Northwestern loss in Frost’s first year where Frost said, “All we had to do is make ONE play in the final five minutes to win the game. But no one ever did.” This game was eerily similar. Nebraska was determined to lose this game . . . and they did.
You're welcome, Michigan State.
The defense doesn’t deserve this. They played a great game. I wondered the entire game what MSU would do if we took the lead. Getting ahead of running teams is always a good idea.
Too bad our special teams never gave us a chance to find out.
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong place. I’m sure Frost will blame the punter because he “kicked to the wrong place” but seriously, the way he had been shanking kicks all day, why should our players have been so surprised?
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong place. Not just one player. Is no one capable of functioning? Is losing that much fun that we have to be so creative about it?
No way Michigan State comes back if we defend that punt return. They were toast.
The punting won the game for Michigan State. Their punter boomed kicks all game while our main punter was dreadful. We used Cerni for two short field kicks where he did successfully pin MSU deep once—glory hallelujah. But Przystup was one of the best players on Michigan State’s team (his former team) all day long. He almost single-handedly kept them in the game.
Adrian Martinez was his all too often erratic self in the second half. We have seen this before. He came out and was missing guys all over the field—either by not seeing wide open players or seeing them and overthrowing them by a mile. Austin Allen is 6 foot 9, not 16 foot 9. The fumble in the second half was classic Martinez not protecting the ball on third down. He saw the guy coming and then hesitated to throw and had the ball slapped out of his hands. Can’t do that. And he keeps doing it.
Fortunately, our defense held and we got a break when they punted the ball out of the end zone. But . . . in a half that we dominated, the fumble flipped the field.
But we survived that one.
When Martinez wasn’t bad, he was good. He made many good plays, had some solid runs, and generally made good throws and decisions . . . when he was good.
It should have been enough. This loss really isn’t on him. He did enough to win.
The 80 yard touchdown drive to take the lead was beautiful. A great mixture of plays from our play book capped by a nice TD run with great blocks from Brewington and Corcoran. Martinez walked into the end zone.
That should have been enough.
We dominated the #20 team in the country the entire second half. Counting overtime, we played them to a 10-10 standstill in the second half. I repeat, they had ONE first down in overtime. Zero in regulation.
The overwhelming theme for Scott Frost and Adrian Martinez is lots of yards, not so many points. We left points and yards on the field. The kicking team continues to give points away . . . or take points away.
Perhaps some time when we are leading by one point late in the game, our punter can turn around and kick the ball out of our end zone for a safety. That’s something we haven’t done yet. If it happens, remember I called it.
Our running back situation is interesting. Johnson and Morrison gave us just enough. They seem to play hard and get the yards that are there—which isn’t many. Morrison missed a hole in one of his runs but hopefully they will continue to get better as our OL grows up a little.
Our WRs and TEs are making plays. Martinez missed some of them badly in the second half. But again, they are getting better. Good to see Betts getting more and more involved.
We cleaned up our false starts in the second half.
Defensively, a great job by the Blackshirts in shutting down Michigan State’s vaunted running attack. In the second quarter, Michigan State made some adjustments and found some success on 3 or 4 drives. The defense did a great job of holding Michigan State to FGs. Then in the second half, the defense made their adjustments. No first downs. Again, no first downs. That is amazing.
Part of their success was due to our offense. Like the Oklahoma game, our offense did a good job of converting third downs and just keeping the ball away from Michigan State.
But there just seems to be something about the 50 yard line where our drives just always seem to stall out. Of course, our kicking game always putting us in such a hole doesn’t help. When you get to the 50 with your third first down again and again, you just wonder what it would be like to have a special teams that doesn’t stink.
Then when we get passed the 50, the 20 yard line seems to be where we unravel a bit. Usually, we get cute or have a key penalty to stall us out. Tonight, we kicked two chip shot FGs.
Lots of yards. Not so many points.
Time of possession in second half was overwhelming in our favor.
But then EVERY SINGLE PLAYER RAN TO THE WRONG PLACE.
We did everything right. We did every single thing we had to do to win this game. We put ourselves in a position to win. Then we choked.
Okay, we are 2-3 and I don’t know where we go from here. We are capable of beating every single team left on our schedule. Even Ohio State isn’t a slam dunk loss at this point.
But how do you win when players are determined to find ways to lose?
We should be 4-1. This loss hurts differently than the Illinois loss. Illinois was terrible. We played like crap to lose that game.
Michigan State wasn’t terrible. We didn’t play like crap. In fact, we really all but kicked their butts in the second half.
But we were just determined to give the game away. And we did. And who knows, next week we may do the exact same thing. Again and again and again and again . . . We could win every single game. We could lose every single game.
Maybe, we can be leading by 5 with time running out and the other team has the ball deep on their side of the field. We tackle a guy on their 20 with the clock winding down. Not realizing the other team has one last time out, we all run off the field to celebrate. The other team snaps the ball with one second left and sprints 80 yards for the game winning score against a stiff wind. We haven’t done that one yet.
You can’t win when you are determined to lose.
When will we learn?
Certainly not tonight.
The adventure continues next week. Yet another winnable game.
Will we decide to win?
Who knows? I’m too sick to my stomach to think about it right now.
Take care all.
Nebraska pees one down their leg and turns an almost sure victory into yet another gut-punch loss. Michigan State is the beneficiary of the Nebraska gifts of absolute stupidity and wins 23-20 in OT.
This game was in the bag for Nebraska. They had Michigan State on the ropes. Michigan State had zero first downs in the entire second half of a close game and somehow Nebraska found a way to embarrass themselves once again.
Michigan State scored the last ten points of this game with the help of only one first down in overtime.
I keep saying that this team chokes. They choke. They choke. They choke.
With time getting late in the fourth quarter, Nebraska gets the ball with a chance to run out the clock. NU had been dominant on both sides of the ball the entire second half and yet had only outscored MSU 10-0 in the half. But with MSU not moving the ball at all (remember, zero first downs), NU just needed to protect the ball and turn it over to their defense. Points would be nice, but first downs and drain the clock should suffice. Trust your defense.
Our defense never took the field with a chance to win out.
Instead, Nebraska worked it to a third and four and Scott Frost did what Scott Frost always does when he plays not to lose, he called for the QB draw. Not the absolute worst call . . . cuz remember, our defense is pitching a second half shutout. But, MSU sniffs it out—weren’t they brilliant to know what we were going to do. Fourth and three.
Okay, at least we didn’t fumble and kept the clock running.
Then came the punt.
This punt will go down in Nebraska history with some real hum-dinger stupid plays. The legendary LeKevin Smith fumble. The Joe Ganz overtime lob the ball to a defender standing right in front of him. The Tommy Armstrong, Jr. improvised pass against Illinois to stop the clock. The Adrian Martinez run out of bounds against Iowa to stop the clock so Iowa had just enough time to score.
Back to the punt.
We punt the ball. As the camera swings downfield, it can be seen that EVERY SINGLE DEFENDER ON THE NEBRASKA TEAM is running to the wrong deep man. Every single player. On the right side of the field, the deep man is just standing there. Our entire punt coverage unit is streaking to him. It looks like he has a chance for a return. Only one problem.
The ball wasn’t kicked to him.
There was a guy all by himself on the left side of the field. That is who fielded the punt. From there, a man in a wheelchair could have run it in. What a gift. Here you go MSU, accept these 7 points as a gift from the Husker football team. There was nobody on that side of the field. Nobody. How does that happen?
I have never seen such idiocy in my life.
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong spot.
From there you just knew we were in full choke mode.
We got the ball again with a chance to drive for a game winning FG. I’m sure our kicker wouldn’t have choked that one away. Right?
But we never found out. After yet another kickoff return adventure, we start our drive. We got a little too cute and Omar Manning fumbled an option pitch. Luckily, he fought to get the ball back however, we lost yards and a precious down.
We tried to give it away there, but no such luck for MSU.
The option play was solid all day. But we keep running it with different guys and Manning just dropped the pitch. Maybe not such a good idea to run it with so many different players that aren’t used to that sort of action.
Then on third down, we throw a short 2 yard pass and have to punt. Brilliant play call.
Our defense holds, and we get even one more chance to put our FG kicker on the hot seat. But Martinez, who played a Jekyll and Hyde second half, held the ball too long and takes a sack. We let time run out and we are in overtime.
At least we are done punting.
We get the ball first and face a third and three. 4 down territory? Will we trust our place-kicker? Not to worry, Martinez tries to force a pass to Toure who admittedly did not run a strong route, and MSU is off to the races with an interception—shades of Tommy Armstrong, Jr. in overtime against Miami years ago. Miraculously, we manage to tackle him before he scores—basically with an illegal tackle (about the only smart thing we did in the last 5 minutes of the game).
MSU gets the ball knowing that a FG wins it. First play, their RB breaks about 3 or 4 tackles and goes to the one. Two really good defensive plays later, they kick the chip shot FG for the win. A FG I am not sure we could have made.
Nebraska’s meltdown is complete. I recall the Northwestern loss in Frost’s first year where Frost said, “All we had to do is make ONE play in the final five minutes to win the game. But no one ever did.” This game was eerily similar. Nebraska was determined to lose this game . . . and they did.
You're welcome, Michigan State.
The defense doesn’t deserve this. They played a great game. I wondered the entire game what MSU would do if we took the lead. Getting ahead of running teams is always a good idea.
Too bad our special teams never gave us a chance to find out.
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong place. I’m sure Frost will blame the punter because he “kicked to the wrong place” but seriously, the way he had been shanking kicks all day, why should our players have been so surprised?
EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ran to the wrong place. Not just one player. Is no one capable of functioning? Is losing that much fun that we have to be so creative about it?
No way Michigan State comes back if we defend that punt return. They were toast.
The punting won the game for Michigan State. Their punter boomed kicks all game while our main punter was dreadful. We used Cerni for two short field kicks where he did successfully pin MSU deep once—glory hallelujah. But Przystup was one of the best players on Michigan State’s team (his former team) all day long. He almost single-handedly kept them in the game.
Adrian Martinez was his all too often erratic self in the second half. We have seen this before. He came out and was missing guys all over the field—either by not seeing wide open players or seeing them and overthrowing them by a mile. Austin Allen is 6 foot 9, not 16 foot 9. The fumble in the second half was classic Martinez not protecting the ball on third down. He saw the guy coming and then hesitated to throw and had the ball slapped out of his hands. Can’t do that. And he keeps doing it.
Fortunately, our defense held and we got a break when they punted the ball out of the end zone. But . . . in a half that we dominated, the fumble flipped the field.
But we survived that one.
When Martinez wasn’t bad, he was good. He made many good plays, had some solid runs, and generally made good throws and decisions . . . when he was good.
It should have been enough. This loss really isn’t on him. He did enough to win.
The 80 yard touchdown drive to take the lead was beautiful. A great mixture of plays from our play book capped by a nice TD run with great blocks from Brewington and Corcoran. Martinez walked into the end zone.
That should have been enough.
We dominated the #20 team in the country the entire second half. Counting overtime, we played them to a 10-10 standstill in the second half. I repeat, they had ONE first down in overtime. Zero in regulation.
The overwhelming theme for Scott Frost and Adrian Martinez is lots of yards, not so many points. We left points and yards on the field. The kicking team continues to give points away . . . or take points away.
Perhaps some time when we are leading by one point late in the game, our punter can turn around and kick the ball out of our end zone for a safety. That’s something we haven’t done yet. If it happens, remember I called it.
Our running back situation is interesting. Johnson and Morrison gave us just enough. They seem to play hard and get the yards that are there—which isn’t many. Morrison missed a hole in one of his runs but hopefully they will continue to get better as our OL grows up a little.
Our WRs and TEs are making plays. Martinez missed some of them badly in the second half. But again, they are getting better. Good to see Betts getting more and more involved.
We cleaned up our false starts in the second half.
Defensively, a great job by the Blackshirts in shutting down Michigan State’s vaunted running attack. In the second quarter, Michigan State made some adjustments and found some success on 3 or 4 drives. The defense did a great job of holding Michigan State to FGs. Then in the second half, the defense made their adjustments. No first downs. Again, no first downs. That is amazing.
Part of their success was due to our offense. Like the Oklahoma game, our offense did a good job of converting third downs and just keeping the ball away from Michigan State.
But there just seems to be something about the 50 yard line where our drives just always seem to stall out. Of course, our kicking game always putting us in such a hole doesn’t help. When you get to the 50 with your third first down again and again, you just wonder what it would be like to have a special teams that doesn’t stink.
Then when we get passed the 50, the 20 yard line seems to be where we unravel a bit. Usually, we get cute or have a key penalty to stall us out. Tonight, we kicked two chip shot FGs.
Lots of yards. Not so many points.
Time of possession in second half was overwhelming in our favor.
But then EVERY SINGLE PLAYER RAN TO THE WRONG PLACE.
We did everything right. We did every single thing we had to do to win this game. We put ourselves in a position to win. Then we choked.
Okay, we are 2-3 and I don’t know where we go from here. We are capable of beating every single team left on our schedule. Even Ohio State isn’t a slam dunk loss at this point.
But how do you win when players are determined to find ways to lose?
We should be 4-1. This loss hurts differently than the Illinois loss. Illinois was terrible. We played like crap to lose that game.
Michigan State wasn’t terrible. We didn’t play like crap. In fact, we really all but kicked their butts in the second half.
But we were just determined to give the game away. And we did. And who knows, next week we may do the exact same thing. Again and again and again and again . . . We could win every single game. We could lose every single game.
Maybe, we can be leading by 5 with time running out and the other team has the ball deep on their side of the field. We tackle a guy on their 20 with the clock winding down. Not realizing the other team has one last time out, we all run off the field to celebrate. The other team snaps the ball with one second left and sprints 80 yards for the game winning score against a stiff wind. We haven’t done that one yet.
You can’t win when you are determined to lose.
When will we learn?
Certainly not tonight.
The adventure continues next week. Yet another winnable game.
Will we decide to win?
Who knows? I’m too sick to my stomach to think about it right now.
Take care all.
Last edited:
Have you ever tried to complete a pass with a 280 pound D lineman immediately in your face? Why does he immediately have to get outside the tackle box once he receives the snap?
It's almost as if when your line cant block . . . you should stop relying on pocket passing plays and get your dual-threat QB on the move.
AM is what he is, and that is on Frost. He designed everything around AM. Defenses adjusted and every year the O scored less. Look at the stats...they dont lie
I am all for Verduzco being fired and a ST's coach hired in his place.
You will see bad offense next year if AM doesn’t stick around.
If Frost is here next year, I can’t imagine how bad our offense will be.
And I’ve watched us the past 3 years!
Who replicates his Big 10 leading 300+ yards per game?
Heres my prediction. By tomorrow the consensus will be that NU is fine, that MSU is good (they arent), that NU is just about there if they clean a few things up, and that NU still can go bowling. Reality is that NU is what it is, and we see it every single week. Will I hope that NU will turn it around....sure. Do I think it remotely plausible...no. Embrace the suck.
Whats his yds to pts ratio?
Adrian is either HCSF’s Meal ticket for one more year if AM Comes back for his sixth Year or AM Is his pink slip at the end of this year if he does not come back
