Comments on: Dienhart: Breaking down the Capital One Bowl

By: Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer

Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:11:38 +0000

I like Nebraska–great fans, stadium, tradition, etc.–but I just look at Nebraska’s offense and ask myself: Who scares me? Taylor Martinez is a big-play guy. But there isn’t anyone else who would worry me if I was a defensive coordinator. Maybe the the young WRs will develop in time.

By: huskerred

huskerred — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:22:31 +0000

Tom it is apparent you have no love for the huskers, the defensive hype as you put it was sportswriters hype. Anybody with any sense knew Neb was going to have a 9-3 or 8-4 season with a young team in a new conference. It was a year for re-building. Does Neb have some issues to correct? Yes; however, Neb is still one of the most winningest programs in the nation, in the last 4 yrs is still one of very few teams to consecutively have 9 wins or more in a season, still has 4 of 8 new head coaches with 9 wins or more in thier first 4 seasons, aruguably the largest fanbase in the nation and lastly by far the longest at home sale out record. At the end of the day the B1G was still a 1-4 conference in the bowl series. Arguably speed is needed throughout the B1G defensively, or did you miss the PSU, OSU and Wisconsin games? As far as Burkehead, he may not be a flashy player, but he is a workhorse that will pound defenses every carry, which is by the way and has always been Neb bread and butter per say.

By: bob jones

bob jones — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:55:13 +0000

Burkhead is quite a bit more than good, Tom. Not blazing speed, but can still run away from people, very shifty with good, quick moves and gets a ton of his yards after contact. He is also a good receiver, plays QB in the wildcat formation and is the consumate team player. We do have a playmaking gamebreaker on the bench in true freshmen Jamal Turner, who got in the doghouse with a bad play or two and then didn’t make the field much in the 2nd half of the year because he wasn’t practicing well, we’re talking about practice. It is awfully hard for a lot of coaches to play young players, especially after a bad play or two, even though they obviously need the playing time to improve. It even took Tom Osborne the 2nd half of the 4th game of the year in 1981 [ the Huskers were 1-2 and losing at halftime] before he would put sophomore Turner Gill on the field. Even remember Dave Rimington complaining that they all knew how good Gill was, but he just needed to get on the field. So it even took T.O. a long time to figure out that it was better to play an outstanding, but inexperienced newcomer, over an experienced but very average upperclassman. And don’t you forget Tom, Rex Burkhead is Superman.

By: husker N Indiana

husker N Indiana — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:57:28 +0000

What kills me is that Nebraska’s womens teams are very dominate so far this year, but all of our mens teams seem to have no ability to win the big games. What gives!!