Latest / Return to Glory - Nebraska / Episode 5.16: Henrich or Jeff -- Northern Illinois Recap

Transcript

Episode 5.16: Henrich or Jeff -- Northern Illinois Recap · Return to Glory - Nebraska

0:00
M durn Glory Podcast unners are Austin Rosen, Coda, Free deg Husker,
0:24
w Over the Northern Illinois Husky's thirty five to eleven Fellas, What's going on?
0:36
Not a whole lot? Just landed, well, not landed, just
0:40
arrived eight minutes after getting back from Montana The Big podcast Country Back from the
0:47
Booties, Go Montera State, Baby, Go Cats Go. You went on
0:54
the run after the car out of game, you know, after the car
0:58
out of game, it was nice. I gotta turn it off. I
1:00
went for a hike and then I watched Washington State Cougar is destroyed, not
1:03
destroy it, but be Wisconsin, and their quarterback was a transfer from incarnate
1:07
word, and I was like, God, damn it. We could have
1:10
had a quarterback that looked this good from a carnate word. I mean,
1:12
you look like a freaking Heisman candidate. After watching the Colorado game, but
1:18
you know, I was on vacation. I went to a comedy show and
1:19
then I went to Glacier. I felt, fine, we just thought you
1:23
might stay up there, just get away from it. Everything I thought of
1:26
it. I completely forgot about deon Colorado until last night. Turn on the
1:30
Colorado State game. They're up by eight with three minutes ago. I was
1:34
like, you know what, I'll watch Deon lose a game. Why not?
1:37
And then it didn't happen, Dak. How you feeling after the game
1:42
on Saturday? Great? I feel pretty good. Which game I'm talking about?
1:49
Oklahoma Tulsa or Nebraska Illinois? Oh you Tulsa. I mean, look
1:53
at look at these winning margins here by the suitors. They're ranked the number
1:57
one. I don't know who made up the status, might been no Cohma
2:00
fans, but I saw the rink number one nation on everything, defense,
2:04
off and special teams. The only thing I saw, no idea where that's
2:08
from. I saw the scheduling thing that showed like it wasn't strength and schedule,
2:14
but it was some metric that Oklahoma was like by far head and shoulders
2:16
above had the easiest three teams they played so far. Hey, conference player
2:23
though, let's go yeah. Conference Plate starts next week, yep, Cincinnati,
2:30
Cincinnati, And they just lost the SECB Actress, so that that's always
2:35
good. But I don't know who's since I lost some terrible team. I
2:40
don't I don't know, all right, Well, I guess it's the time
2:46
we'll get into the game. I'll start off like we do on the recap
2:49
pods with my two minute rant time already, I'm already and we're off.
3:00
So let's all take a big side, big breath Tucker's one and oh at
3:07
home this year, we looked good. Now how good was Northern Illinois?
3:15
We don't know, but we don't care because we gotta win and we played
3:21
football the right way. Now, we can't go too far into the pod
3:24
without talking about Heindrich Harberg and Jeff Simms going forward. What are we gonna
3:30
get to I don't know. We'll save that for later. But all I
3:34
gotta say is a lot of positives from this weekend. The atmosphere, the
3:38
crowd was great, the stadium was filled twenty twenty five minutes in. It
3:44
was much better than I expected. Did not know what we were going to
3:47
get with the start that we've had. That was awesome. Another positive that
3:52
we keep forgetting to mention we are officially over ten thousand downloads as a podcast.
3:57
A shout out for Georgy pod. Dak and I had a very successful
4:01
tailgate pod. No idea what that was going to turn out like? But
4:04
that was a hit, and we've had very strong reviews and a lot of
4:11
positive feedback from our listeners. So this rant is not so much for a
4:15
rant more so just a very positive, feeling good type of Sunday evening.
4:21
And now Austin's back, it needs to step up with all of his hot
4:25
takes now that he's back from vacation, so we will get to hear everything
4:30
that he's been Aaron Rodger in and out in the world, just meditating and
4:34
working all of the answers to Husker football. So I can't wait to hear
4:40
that. Oh and by the way, the Big Ten West still sucks.
4:43
Only two teams covered this week US in Iowa. There's still hope in the
4:47
Big Ten West for the Huskers potentially go to Indianapolis. And that is saying
4:51
a lot of folks, but there's still hope. Wow three Yeah, Manista's
5:00
dog shit. They're not good. No, a K forty seven is not
5:05
good. That was a very good two minutes. I expected it to be,
5:14
you know, a little bit sour, right, I didn't get it.
5:17
Watch the games to it on the radio. It sounded like everything went
5:20
well well well as a very touchy word I think. But bottom line is
5:29
the scoreboards showed us in favor of a very dominating game. I don't know
5:34
that it was as dominating as it looks, but nevertheless, we did get
5:41
a win and it felt good walking down Memorial Stadium for once in a while.
5:48
Well nice, yeah, Like so I was in South Dakota, tail
5:55
end of Montana trying to get reception and the only play I heard in the
5:58
entire first half of the game was the fumble. That was the only That
6:03
was literally the only play I heard until I got to hear most of the
6:06
third quarter and most of the fourth quarters have like the last five minutes.
6:11
But we turn it on, we see the score is seven to zero and
6:16
we just fumbled the ball and that was all I heard, And I was
6:19
like, I don't want to listen to the rest of this game anyways,
6:21
That's fine my mine. How this went here? To start the game,
6:28
we opened the game, we have a great first drive. First of all,
6:30
Heiner Carber comes in as our starting quarterback and got a very big applause,
6:35
huge applause from the crowd when he came in and drove us right down
6:41
the field. Score we go up Morthern Illinois. Their offense looks and continue
6:46
to look like absolute dogshit, and it did. We got him to go
6:49
three and out. Rocky Lombardi did not look like he's played Vision one football,
6:54
and he has for seven years. And yes, confirmed he is older
6:59
than right now, he is older than that. But that's besides the point
7:03
because then after all that happened, we catch a snap, the play looks
7:08
I don't know, broken or something, and Harbord just gets absolutely smothered by
7:12
like six people, fumbles it and then our defense comes out and does what
7:15
our defense has done all year, get a huge stop, and everybody was
7:23
just I'm not gonna say there was a big moment of gasping after that,
7:29
but it was like, well, here we go, like another turnover.
7:32
And on top of that, then our offense just did not We just didn't
7:38
get clicking, we didn't get moving. It just it was now, I
7:43
know the score was thirty five to three before they got their garbage time touchdown,
7:46
but it just it just couldn't get the wheels going off the ground.
7:50
I think we had six or seven possessions in a row that were either punts
7:55
or turnovers three and ounce in there. So it just was a little bit
8:00
of a slow moving early part of that game, Dak, what you think
8:07
early on? I can't leave they sold the volleyball stadium first, after all
8:16
that that's what we got. But but I was, I was pretty impressed
8:22
at Hartberg. Like we said from the beginning, you don't need a quarterback
8:26
to win you games. It helps, but you just need one that won't
8:28
come in and lose the games for you. And he ea didn't eat didn't
8:31
lose it for you though. I thought arm looked pretty good too. But
8:35
yeah, let's just jump right into the quarterback conversation because this is the one
8:39
topic that I mean, we could spend the whole podcast talking about it here,
8:43
and it's gonna be the topic that everybody is talking about here for the
8:48
whole week and it will continue to be talked about into the Big Ten play.
8:52
So, Dak, Harbard played well, right, And you mentioned is
8:58
ability to not lose us a game, and that's exactly what he did that
9:03
game. He did not force anything. The fumble you could probably say was
9:09
not his fault. You couldn't do it, Rocky Levardy was doing and just
9:13
fall down, I guess before even getting touched. He did that like four
9:16
times. That guy sucked, but he did a fairly good job of just
9:22
managing the game. And I actually just saw a clip before we logged we
9:26
logged on. Here was him leading him out of the tunnel and warm ups
9:28
and saying, let's take care of the fucking ball today to the whole offense.
9:33
So he did that job well, and the scoreboard show. Now he
9:39
can't say that without comparing the opponents we played either, because Northern Illinois,
9:45
I think everybody could argue was not caliber of Minnesota and or Colorado, so
9:52
that you have to consider that too. But Harbard did a really good job
9:56
of what he was supposed to do in that game. Austin, what's your
10:01
take from a non watcher viewer perspective? My take? So you asked me
10:11
for my you know, I went to my dark retreat. I think we
10:13
at Heiner Harberg. It started the entire season or two and one, maybe
10:18
three and out. WHOA, that's all I need. He's not a fumbling
10:24
he didn't fumble snaps like I obviously have not gotten a chance to really talk
10:30
about the Colorado game, but that was really bad. I didn't get listened
10:33
to the podcast either. I was asked not to listen to any sports podcasts
10:35
on the car ride back, because we listened to plenty of sports. But
10:41
that was rough. And I don't know if it's just my like a scorned
10:46
lover sort of thing, but I was like, we I think we could
10:50
have beat Minnesota with Heiner Carberg, and I think we could have beat we
10:52
will we beat Northern Alois, and I think we'd have been more competitiveiance Colorado
10:56
beat Minnesota. Yeah, I would say Minnesota, Yeah, Colorado not sure,
11:01
but yeah, Minnesota. I think there's a very strong argument there.
11:05
Here's here's the thing with Heiner, and we haven't still seen enough of him
11:13
yet, but clearly going into this game, and just the way the coaches
11:18
talk, so I shouldn't say clearly it's not obvious, but it seems that
11:22
Jeff Simms is still rules guy as he probably should be brought him in like
11:28
but should he be? Though? Should he be? That's that's that's the
11:31
question. I do think when Simms gets healthy again, if he is healthy
11:35
this week or the next week, I think Sims is probably gonna get another
11:39
chance, all right, I don't I think this is my opinion. I
11:46
think he should I think you should get another opinion. Harberg definitely did not
11:50
lose us the game. I don't We don't know what he would have been
11:54
like though, on the road in two hostile environments, never playing college football,
12:01
and what he showed this week great, that was that was awesome Northern
12:07
Illinois's offense. I think if you, like anybody that watched the game from
12:11
the first like three possessions of Northern Illinois, you watched it and you're like,
12:15
oh, God, like, all we have to do is legit,
12:18
just like not be dumb, and we'll win this game thirty five to eleven.
12:24
And that's what we did. It wasn't like we had to make any
12:26
deep passes down the field. In fact, I don't know if we even
12:30
did make a pass completed longer than, like I guess was twenties. We
12:37
had a screen past late, but that also is not thrown down the field.
12:41
So, like he he didn't have to do much and which is fine,
12:46
that's great. That's what you do to win a game like that.
12:50
So it's hard to compare, I guess, is what I'm saying. And
12:52
I do think though, given the performance at Minnesota, that he probably would
12:56
have gave us a decent shot of not losing us that game. Now here's
13:01
the flip side the argument to this, and this is why I still want
13:03
Jeff Simms. If if you're asking me who I want to go to be
13:07
a starting quarterback, and it's probably an unpopular opinion right now with the Huskers,
13:11
Dak's probably gonna hate me for it too. I want Jeff Sims to
13:13
be a quarterback right now. I still do because he provides the higher upside.
13:20
Now that being said, I am thrilled. I am pumped that we
13:26
have a guy now behind him that has showed us that he can at least
13:31
be serviceable and manage. And because of that, he's now able to push
13:35
Jeff Sims and put a little pressure on him and say, okay, Jeff,
13:39
if you do and you continue to just be this butterfingers quarterback and lead
13:45
the nation in the Whoopsie Daisy rating you, you are not going to play.
13:48
And Heinrich will play. But Jeff Sim's legs and yes, his arm
13:54
provide a lot higher upside than Heinrich does. Now he also provides a lot
13:58
more risk, clearly, And can you lose you football games? That's my
14:05
take right now where I sit, and I think that now this next game,
14:09
I don't know the health status of him, but I think our chances
14:13
of winning more games is better if Jeff Sim starts the rest of the way
14:20
out. I also think our floor is lower with Jemson's with Jeff Sim starting
14:26
our quarterback. So it's the high risk, high reward guy versus the we're
14:31
gonna win. We're gonna beat Northwestern, We're gonna beat law Tech, and
14:35
we're gonna I don't know, I mean maybe win a couple more. I
14:39
don't That's I think it's that debate here with those two dous Sims really provided
14:43
the higher upside though he does with his legs, I think he does,
14:48
and I think he can throw it better decision making I don't think so,
14:52
but I think he has the arm strength and accuracy a lot better than Harvard.
14:56
I don't trust Harvard throwing the ball or further than five seven yards.
15:01
And some people would argue, maybe we don't have to, maybe we don't
15:03
have to to win games. And I'm kind of swallowing my own words here
15:07
because that's what I said last week was we don't need a guy that can
15:11
win this game to be the guy that can't lose this game. So I
15:13
am taking that back a little bit because the offense is not good. It
15:18
was not good. That's not good. The reason I think I'm okay with
15:22
Harberg. I'm fine with that lower ceiling but higher floor, is because our
15:28
defense is good enough that it will take those ceiling games off from our opponents,
15:35
so we might not We shouldn't need that higher ceiling if we're not throwing
15:37
away games, correct, So that's why I would rather have. Again,
15:43
I have not talked to you guys about card I think, get listen to
15:46
your takes. But when the freaking Joel Klatt is being like, you gotta
15:50
put him under center so he can snap the ball and doesn't have a chance
15:54
to fumble, and he just hold hands it off turning back, when the
15:56
announcers are like, you gotta put this guy in a position where he is
16:00
not making any decisions, that guy cannot be starting at quarterback. It was
16:04
so bad, and you're right. Our biggest thing was how elementary the mistakes
16:11
were in the Colorado game, and we did not have those this week.
16:17
So yeah, we laugh about how we couldn't simply catch the ball coming from
16:22
the center, and we couldn't just make a simple handoff. Yeah, like
16:25
if those things can't get fixed at all, then yeah, we have a
16:29
different conversation. But I do believe that in practice those things hopefully aren't happening.
16:36
And yeah, that's the result of the crowd noise and the environment and
16:38
the expectation and the pressure that you have as a Division one quarterback. But
16:45
I don't think in practice like we're doing those things. So that ultimately comes
16:48
down to I guess preparing in a way that you can hopefully doesn't let it
16:52
happen in a game. But that being said, Harvard didn't do any of
16:57
that at home this week. I just have not seen enough from Jeff Simms
17:06
to be like he should be starting. And if we're taking the approach that
17:10
we're trying to build a culture and hold accountability, and you roll Sims out
17:14
there after having six turnovers and six quarters of football, like, I would
17:21
rather lose a game with Heinrich Harberg than almost win a game with Jeff Simms
17:27
running the ball. So well, maybe it's not only Jeff Sims the different
17:33
styles. What'd you say? The two kbs run two complete different styles.
17:38
Harberg runs like a powerful running back. Sims is out there to be quick,
17:42
so I Harburg reminds me of He's not nearly as good, but Colin
17:48
Kleine a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I guess when you say running
17:55
styles, it's definitely the way they run. But as far as what we're
17:59
getting out of them, very similar. They're both run first, game manager
18:04
type quarterbacks. I say game manager kind of oddly because Jeffson's has not managed
18:10
the game well yet, but that is their strength. They're neither one of
18:14
them are pocket passers. They're not guys that are going to throw it for
18:17
forty five times a game. Jeff Sims would serve us better as a wide
18:19
receiver than a quarterback. I'm saying it right now. There's another He can't
18:25
even catch a snap. We had it well, he had Hinder Garberg as
18:30
a receiver. Yeah. The fact I don't yeah, I it was a
18:37
it was a it was a blue Saturday and in Montana watching that game,
18:41
and the fact that we had Casey Thompson and the only other piece we ask
18:45
Casey Thompson and Trey Palmer, and last year we could at least put up
18:48
twenty points and then we watched Yeah, it's fine. I'm not talking about
18:51
Colorado, We're talking about Norther they own and I so the best takeaway after
18:56
this game, and I mean, this guy's this is actually very monumental in
19:00
my mind, it really is. We now have two quarterbacks. This is
19:03
what Harvard proved us. We have two quarterbacks that can run the ball twenty
19:07
times a game. Harbord are in it for twenty one or twenty one attempts
19:11
for ninety eight yards in a touchdown. And you're right, he runs.
19:14
He tries to just like truck everybody while he's out there, which is great.
19:19
That's fine. Jeff Simms is the speedy guy. But we now have
19:22
a two guys that, you know what, we can play both of them.
19:26
We don't have. If we've talked about two quarterbacks systems before on this
19:30
podcast, we have. If you can get both guys to say, all
19:34
right, like these first two drives, Jeff, their years next to their
19:38
Kinrich their years, and they're gonna that's gonna make it hard for defense to
19:44
prepare for. It really will. And then maybe you throw them out there
19:45
together sometime. You can do that as an offensive coordinator and scheming. You
19:52
can't. Now I don't know if we will, but we have two guys
19:55
that aren't they're not they're not even a have average Division one quarterbacks. And
20:02
I mean people are gonna say Heinrich showed that he could do. Yeah,
20:04
he did against Northern Illinois. Northern Illinois is absolute doction. It probably would
20:08
have also won this game three five, two eleven. Yeah, he very
20:11
well could have. We also could have had two or three more turnovers,
20:15
so it's also true. I though, all right, yeah, they could
20:22
have had a touchdown on you know, off of a pick. So I
20:26
guess that's my biggest takeaway is we now Jeff Simms. I think before we
20:32
thought that he was rules guy and there's nobody closer. And even after he
20:37
was so poor in the first two games, we still thought, oh my
20:41
gosh, maybe like rules talking, like it's still Jeffson's job to lose.
20:45
Oh my gosh, how batters the other two guys. Okay, that's not
20:48
the case anymore, And there's now pressure on Simms that, hey, if
20:52
you can't fucking hang on to the ball, then guess what you're not gonna
20:56
play. You're not playing. So there's an added element there that we got
21:00
from this game. Now, whether he's healthier or not for this upcoming week,
21:04
we don't know. But there's now a competition battle there will continue to
21:08
be. And neither one of these guys are like top quarterbacks to where we
21:14
need to worry about, Oh, we can't run this guy ten times a
21:17
game because we're afraid of him getting hired. No, we have two guys
21:18
that if both of them run for twenty plus times, who cares run them?
21:22
That's what we're gonna be good at. That's how we're going to have
21:25
to win games. Like Dak said, we're gonna have to win games fourteen
21:27
to ten like we're not. We're not gonna be Illinois thirty eight to thirty
21:33
five. It's just not gonna happen. So that's my positive take. That's
21:40
it. That's it. I'm done. They should They could do this.
21:45
You should start running plays three quarterbacks, triple options, you could do with
21:49
all three of them, so exactly, that would be wild. All of
21:55
them can kind of throw the ball you have, you would have no idea
21:56
what's coming, Dak. We need you as our ROC. You need to
22:00
beat Marcus Sadderfield's assistant personal assistant giving him all this distakes. I think that
22:07
play would work every time. I was gonna ask what your guys's opinion is
22:11
on Marcus Sadderfield three games in dog shit. I didn't like her South Carolina
22:21
to begin with, but and I don't think many people did. That's not
22:25
an unpopular opinion. I actually heard that potentially Sadderfield got play calling duties removed
22:30
at the end of last year by the head coach, and then they started
22:36
blowing out and then they actually started playing well on offense. Yeah, so
22:41
it's been very just it's just been very basic, I guess, as we've
22:48
expected, but like almost somewhat too complicated for Jeff sim Still, if that
22:56
they haven't been able to haven't been able to drop an offense, that will
22:59
protect this from ourselves, right, Like, I feel like we could be
23:03
a little more creative in the run game to help our past game. And
23:10
yes, but how do you be creative with your run game? I think
23:14
things that we've seen with other teams and just watching football. You can bring
23:18
guys in motion to help block, you can have some more misdirections and creative
23:22
blocking schemes. Right, Well, here's the problem when we try doing that,
23:26
we snap the ball into our quarterbacks at or to the motion guy's ass.
23:30
So I agree. I agree that the turnovers have masked a lot of
23:37
maybe criticism for everything else on the team. As to why we're losing,
23:41
It's easy to point too, Wow, we're losing the turnover battle for to
23:45
one or whatever it is. But I just know when I was watching the
23:49
car out of game, I was like, why are we I just why
23:56
are we not helping our quarterback who is clearly struggling outside out of Why is
24:00
this quarterback plane? And maybe we can my my take about the best defense
24:07
and Big ten worst offense isn't looking too bad now, is it. It's
24:11
it might be moving in the right direction. Your defense kicks ass. I'm
24:15
not gonna lie. It's it's been. The flexibility of it has been so
24:25
positive with what we've been able to do. It just it allows you to
24:27
do so many different things. The blitzing we've got, we've got pressure on
24:32
Lombardi again, and all three quarterbacks we've played, they don't have time back
24:36
there, which is something we haven't done as a defense. And good God,
24:40
so long our defense does look really good and I feel pretty confident going
24:45
into the Big ten now, not Michigan, but a lot of these Big
24:48
ten West schools. Our defense should I mean we should hold them to under
24:52
twenty points. I mean we should every single one of them. Illinois Perdue.
24:56
I don't think we will, but I agree with your two minute things,
24:59
like we could win the Big ten West. Still, it's weird.
25:03
It's so weird if we figure out this quarterback thing even slightly. Like I
25:10
totally agree that we could win the Big ten West, not that we will,
25:12
but the Big ten West is dog shit. It's so bad and it
25:18
is I think our We say that because we can win games in the Big
25:22
ten West like Big ten West as one games before. Now I say that
25:26
because we can't. We can't win close games where we haven't shown to being
25:30
able to do it yet and however long it's been. So that's a really
25:33
big if. But a lot of these games are going to just be slugfests,
25:38
low scoring, seventeen fourteen, maybe it can get twenty. It is
25:44
in Iowa that game at the end of the year, Iowa looks like maybe
25:47
they're probably the favorite right now to win the West. So there's a lot
25:52
of please don't, please, don't. I don't want to see them in
25:55
Big Ten championship for a lot of God, well they would they would you
25:57
say they're your favorite right now? Or Wisconsin? I mean there's three and
26:03
oh yeah, I went proudly, yeah, right right by good margin,
26:07
I'd say they're the favorite right now. I was three and oh, Minnesota's
26:14
two and one, Wisconsin's two and one, everyone else's one and two.
26:17
I think we were all high on Illinois coming into the year, but that
26:19
has looked disastrous here at the beginning. And not only that, it obviously
26:26
combines all of our other conference games. Look at our other two crossover games
26:32
besides Michigan. Michigan State looks very winnable now, even though it's on the
26:37
road. Winnable, maybe winnable, but at least a competitive game. Maryland
26:45
they haven't played anybody really, so it's hard to tell. So again,
26:48
there's a lot of games out here that if we're moving in the right direction
26:49
and don't beat ourselves the quote of the goddamn decade, we will potentially be
26:59
in every single one of these games and in the rest of the year,
27:02
besides maybe Michigan. Speaking of what you say, calling it right now,
27:07
Harburg starts that game, they beat Michigan Michigan State or Michigan Michigan Michigan.
27:14
Yeah, because what is what is Michigan like? He's just saying because Jeff's
27:18
starting. No, No, I'm actually say what is Michigan like to do?
27:22
Best? Run the ball? What Nebraska's best part of their team?
27:29
If if Herbert I'll give you seventeen points in that game, fourteen, I'll
27:34
give you fourteen. Seventeen. You just said you think we're gonna win,
27:41
all right, I'll take fourteen if Herberg starts. That was a disclaimer.
27:48
You know Sim's is gonna start, so he's just covered. He said he
27:51
can say anything. If Herberg starts the rest of the season, we're gonna
27:53
win the Big Ten West. Put it on the books right now. I'm
27:57
not pressing Michigan to begin the year. They do look done more. They
28:03
haven't played anybody either, they haven't had their coach. All. That's right,
28:08
he comes back that game. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah,
28:12
okay, I do want to talk about a couple of things that happened
28:15
in this game that like specific things one and this is more just funny,
28:23
but Also it does kind of explain the whole position of their state of the
28:29
program. To open the game the very first play, we take a goddamn
28:34
time out because we don't have all eleven guys out on our first play of
28:41
the game, not agreement to started, Like Billy Kemp was just not on
28:47
the field. He was on the sideline. So we broke. We broke
28:49
the huddle without eleven guys, and then we called the time out to open
28:52
the game. Like, Billy Kimp, how do you have that not ready?
29:00
You have all week to get ready for your first play and you're not.
29:03
I don't know what that tells you. Because it's supposed to be scripted.
29:07
You would you want to say, well, it speaks to the lack
29:10
of discipline and organization and whatever. I mean, maybe it does. I
29:15
don't know, but you'd like to think we're past some of those things.
29:18
But then that crap happens and you're like, good God, like really,
29:22
it's the first play of the game. Billy Kemp is a single digit Jersey
29:27
guy, but he must be doing a lot of stuff off the field,
29:32
because I don't know, he's just he's like did not existed on the field.
29:38
I don't think he's bright. I don't think he's a very bright kid.
29:41
I'm not I wasn't gonna say that. I don't think he's very bright.
29:45
I think he's athletic. I think he's able to make plays in the
29:49
be able to give him the ball. But he's just not right. What
29:56
else you got hunter first place? That was? That was one thing back.
30:03
At least you can say sit back and say, well, Oscar Mans
30:07
can't get playing too much. I watches hims because if you see the other
30:11
team, nor the annoy fans, they gotta watch Rocky Lombardi all year long.
30:14
So I play that much. It's it was brutal trying to watch their
30:21
offense do anything. And I really hope that's the product of our defense.
30:25
But I mean looking at some of their scores and I just think their offense
30:29
and h just be absolute dobshit. All right. The other men you can't.
30:34
You can't. The other offensive type take here is Thomas FERDONI yeah,
30:45
where he's finding his fit here in this offense. And we've said that we
30:49
think we need to utilize our tight ends more and Austin, you know,
30:52
Austin's mentioned that we need to find a way to use our playmakers more on
30:56
offense. He let our team in receptions this week. He looks still like
31:03
he's one of Harburg's favorite targets, but we can utilize him more. And
31:08
I think we saw a glimpse of the type of guy he could be.
31:11
Now He's not like an elite Iowa tight end that we played against yet,
31:17
but he definitely has shown a little bit to us why he was such a
31:22
highly touted recruit coming out of high school. And yeah, he's battled injuries,
31:26
but I'm excited to see where that development goes and how we can be
31:29
creative and getting him the ball because he does have that his stature and he
31:33
made a great catchlaid against Colorado. Like, I think he's coming around.
31:37
He's just slowly figured now he's place in this office. I think he could
31:42
be our leading receiver as far as reception counts, probably not yards, but
31:45
he should be Jeff simms best friend. Like, you don't have to look
31:51
far. I'm a big target. Get into my hands and then if I
31:56
get three yards, great, If I get twelve yards great, I like,
32:01
I'm gonna guess it's the product of Harvard being the QB two, and
32:06
fidoni Is was not our tight end one. He was our tight end two.
32:09
So I mean, I guess they just got more stats together. I
32:12
don't know, or maybe Harvard's smarter, smarter decision maker, and he's like,
32:15
hey, there's a fault tight end right there. Who I can get
32:19
three yards too? And I read somewhere their roommates. Yeah, that's I
32:23
have no idea if that's true either, but I read it somewhere. I
32:27
came on Twitter. It must be true. On x YEA. I have
32:32
no clue tweeted it. It could have been just big count there. But
32:35
yeah, everything that Dak sees out there is true. It's always true.
32:42
Dak sees it, he believes it. Hey, speaking speaking reporting, I'm
32:45
trying to get my biggest cleansing reporter on the Jared Carson's on the thing.
32:50
If if he's Tom got Casey, Thomas got benched or hurt, he will
32:53
he will not tell me what happens. So we don't know. So Casey
32:58
got he hurt his knee? Oh you did get hurt. Yeah, but
33:01
if that line was once again very poor, Yeah, I saw the same
33:07
thing. Yeah, I heard it wasn't knee injury. Okay, one other
33:14
thing, and I don't think that we have any of this game, but
33:17
we're gonna have a new segment. It's not gonna happen today. We're just
33:21
adding segments left and right, and any of us can join in at this
33:28
point in time. So what the segment is gonna be? And I gotta
33:30
get give a shout out to two of my dad old lars are Larry's are.
33:36
He came up with this idea and I kind of like it. So
33:38
we're gonna do it here as we move forward with the pot So the thought
33:44
behind it and the segments called the Returners to Glory, they are the guys
33:50
behind the reason that we're making the assumption that we do get back to a
33:57
winning program to some extent nine wins, ten wins, maybe a conference title.
34:04
We're making that assumption. But when that happens, because of our fan
34:08
base and how we think, you know what's gonna happen when someone says,
34:12
oh my gosh, how did we get this thing turnaround? They're gonna they're
34:14
gonna praise the last year or two guys. They're gonna praise the quarterback that
34:20
was there the year before. They're gonna praise the coaching staff, the oc
34:23
that was there the year before, when in reality, it kind of starts
34:27
now where we're at, and we've talked about we've hit new rock bottoms year
34:32
after year, and we continue to do so we're probably still right now,
34:36
if you wanted to make a big old graph on it, we'll probably still
34:38
towards the very bottom where we sit right now. However, if this thing
34:45
does work with rule and we start to make a climb, we are slowly
34:50
going to see guys make plays, and they don't have to be miraculous touchdown
34:57
catches and throws. It can be something as simple as making a break on
34:59
the ball and getting a deflection, or you know, getting a strip a
35:04
strip fumble sack and a big point in the game, or maybe just picking
35:07
up a first down by a running back that got hit two yards before the
35:10
line. Again, it can be little things that we can nominate these returners
35:15
to glory for that are ultimately guys making plays to win us a football game.
35:22
That's what it comes down to this game. There's none there's no argument.
35:27
It didn't matter what guys who had out there, we were gonna win
35:30
that football game because or the Illinois was not very good. But moving forward,
35:35
there will be guys that make plays that we can nominate and then consensussly
35:38
agree upon that this guy was a burner to glory on the podcast. I
35:45
like that segment idea. That's a good one. Larry. I'm gonna bring
35:47
my notepad now. I'm gonna start taking notes during the game. They actually
35:52
gonna be writing on nominations as the game's going on. Brian Buccini. Every
35:58
game, every week we should in alda returner of the week or return on
36:04
the podcast? What what is it called? Dak all return the returner to
36:09
glory? There you go? Uh? Did you guys shout out women's volleyball
36:17
on Wednesday? I don't know who we did. You're usually I know we
36:23
beat Stanford right now, we're tied against Kentucky, but it's looking to be
36:28
a strong start. So that's my shot out to volleyball. I know we
36:30
probably didn't get in last week, but here's the question. We got the
36:34
Stanford monkey off our back. Can we get Wisconsin? Wisconsin just lost to
36:37
Florida. Can we beat he was pretty good? Wisconsin lost to Florida.
36:40
Yes, I'm gonna say We're gonna beat them at least once this year.
36:45
They're playing right now, aren't they Nebraska. Yeah yeah, we're up to
36:51
one and it's tied in the fourth set. Dad, give us a quicker
36:58
recap. You got thirty seconds on your picks this week. I'm at two
37:02
and seven performers by me. I might have people come and hut me down
37:07
this week. If you bet it, I'm sorry. Also, one more
37:10
shoutout. I heard the Missouri fans. We're douchebags. Don't do that.
37:15
Missouri fans at fuck up? God damn Missouri fans flock. Also, how
37:22
many times over under three and a half times Colorado fans storm the field this
37:24
year? Okay, yeah, I know they only have four games. All
37:34
right, We'll be back Wednesday previewing the Louisianatack Bulldogs. Don't big Red gb
37:40
R bloomer sooner. I love that burnt orange dude,