After all, wasn’t the gripe about our former defensive woes based along the lines of “all Callahan cared about was stocking the offensive side of the ball.”
So it makes no sense that we cannot currently come up with some playmakers on that side of the ball. I just don’t understand the logic that dictates we must always look backward to find convenient excuses for current ineptitude. How about we start looking around at what’s going on right now? How about we instead start calling into question the guys who’ve been tasked with teaching and preparing these kids for the last 22 months?

I believe it starts at the top, the “buck stops with Bo” or whatever. So it’s on him to start turning his day-to-day attentions to the area of performance that is typically outside of his personal area of expertise (before it turns into a similar symptom of his predecessor’s own demise). If the buck stops with him, I guess the next logical step would be Watson on the offensive side. I’ll admit that I’ve always sort of liked Watson. He just seem like a cool dude that players and recruits alike really warm to. He, along with the offensive staff, put a good product on the field last season. They suffered some attrition from that team, but that can’t possibly be the reason for the colossal step backward they’ve encountered this year. The failure of the WR’s/TE’s/QB’s has been well documented, although I think ALL of our offensive woes are rooted in the O-Line. This is the unit that gives runners the lanes to run through, passers the time to pass comfortably and receivers the time to get open enough to catch those passes. I’ve only been watching football for about 30 years now…but 9 times out of 10, when an offense sucks, it’s usually due to the play of the guys up front. I think the brunt of my own (albeit non-objective) analysis of this situation falls on our offensive line coach, who has a fairly unremarkable track record in that position. But regardless of who’s the most “responsible” for our offensive demise (I’ll leave such judgments to those at the top, all I can do is suppose) it makes no rational sense that Bill Callahan can recruit a bunch of three and four star players, who can be coached up to perform as a dominant unit by Bo Pelini’s coaching staff…when we shouldn’t expect a similar result from Bo Pelini’s coaching staff in regard to the three and four star players Bill Callahan recruited to the offensive positions. I feel in my gut that something is surely lacking in the here and now of the coaching staff…as time passes, it looks to have less and less to do with who Bill Callahan’s recruits were and more and more to do with the guys Bo’s left in charge of the offense (while he, in the meantime, devotes his time and mad scientist genius to the defense.)

Funny how the one penalty we rarely seem to get called for is “holding” (at least on offense…but I digress). My guess is that’s because, to be flagged for holding, you have to actually be engaged in the act of trying to block somebody.

Jury has to be still out on Cody Green, and NU really misses Rex Burkhead. And redshirt freshman Khiry Cooper and juco transfer Brandon Kinnie have been getting some decent playing time.

Lots of very young inexperienced players getting baptized by fire. That’ll pay off down the line. The o-line might be another matter entirely…