Baker Steinkuhler will anchor the 2012 Nebraska defensive line. Will he be better, worse, or the same as he was in 2011?
Big Ten Media Days are coming up soon, next week in fact, and it will be time to get serious in talking about football (unless Joe Paterno overshadows the whole affair at which point it will be time to gut ourselves...).
The kool-aid drinking seems to be in rather short supply this offseason, but that doesn't keep us from hoping for the best, namely, that the second year of Big Ten football yields a better result than the first.
Fan predictions typically run the gamut in terms of guessing what the new season will bring. The cynical Husker fan sees Nebraska losing up to five games (or more if you're really cynical), while the sunshine pumper believes that the Huskers will win the conference and make their way to a BCS bowl.
The Nebraska offense is somewhat set. You can take a pretty good guess at the starters:
Quarterback - Taylor Martinez
Running Back - Rex Burkhead
Receivers - Quincy Enunwa, Kenny Bell, Jamal Turner
Tight Ends - Ben Cotton, Kyler Reed
Offensive Line - Tackles Jeremiah Sirles, Tyler Moore (Andrew Rodriguez); Guards Spencer Long, Seung Hoon Choi, Center Cole Pensick
The defense requires more speculation. Were you to pick starters, it'd probably look something like this:
Defensive Ends - Cameron Meredith (Joe Carter, Jason Ankrah, Eric Martin)
Defensive Tackles - Baker Steinkuhler, Chase Rome (Thad Randle)
Linebackers - Will Compton, Sean Fisher, Zaire Anderson (Trevor Roach)
Cornerbacks - Andrew Green, Mohammed Seisay (Ciante Evans)
Safeties - Daimion Stafford, P.J. Smith
Believing that Nebraska is going to win a lot of games means you believe that one side or the other (offense or defense) is going to perform better than they did last season. Bo Pelini, a proven master of defense is on one side. Tim Beck in only his second year as a full-fledged offensive coordinator is on the other.
So, which is it? Do you have more faith in the offense' ability to outscore our opponents, or the defense' ability to stop them?
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