Latest / Return to Glory - Nebraska / Episode 5.14: We Need Kirk Cousins -- Northern Illinois Preview
Transcript
- 0:16Returning Lord Podcast. Welcome back another game week. Northern Illinois. Game Week
- 0:22hunters areban Nikki here with the code of free Tank. No Austin, as
- 0:26he's still out in the booties on vacation with no cell reception and we have
- 0:33no quote from him this time, so it'll be just Dak and I previewing
- 0:39a Northern Illinois Husky's talking to Husker football and as always, Dak getting in
- 0:45his money making picks. I'm hot three and two last week? Is that
- 0:53right? Yep? Twelve and eight on the year. That is that is
- 0:58winning as a professional gambler, right, I guess you're you're If he took
- 1:03on my picks, you'd be rich, that would It's It's funny I Austin
- 1:08showed up since the Colorado game. Yeah after it's maybe he's just done.
- 1:17Yeah, I think I think he just quits. He doesn't want to talk
- 1:21about it, just did him in. Well, not a lot has happened
- 1:27news wise since the Colorado game, but there definitely are some key talking points
- 1:34here surrounding the football program, and the start of that is with Rules press
- 1:45conference here on Monday. As we all know, Rule gives press conference on
- 1:51Monday, and then also one later in the week before the game. So
- 1:53Monday Rule had his press conference, and my first thought that I had after
- 2:00the Colorado game was looking at my phone, and I didn't watch it live,
- 2:05but when it was over, I saw that the thing was like twenty
- 2:07eight minutes and twenty seconds long, and I said, what the hell that
- 2:14is long? Like rules press conferences up to now Fross like they're usually fifteen
- 2:22to twenty minutes top. So I'm like, okay, like this thing was
- 2:25long, why so listen through it? A lot of good points. It
- 2:32also seemed to me very ranty. He just seemed he seemed to get off
- 2:39off the trail a little bit sometimes. And I'm not saying he got the
- 2:45rail in a bad way. He said a lot of really good things,
- 2:46and there's a lot of great takeaways I thought from a program building standpoint,
- 2:52but I thought the way he went about it was different, like he just
- 2:58went off on tangents more And maybe I'm just reading into things two more,
- 3:01but I think through two games, maybe Rules feeling he knows, he knows
- 3:07there's a little bit of pressure coming back at him. Maybe is he is
- 3:12there is there something there that is getting to them already as the coach of
- 3:16the Nebraska Cornhuskers when we are only two games in, but there are there's
- 3:23restless, a lot of restless people in the state of Nebraska right now because
- 3:27of another Oh one to start in an I want to start where where we
- 3:30beat ourselves in both of those games. Yeah, I think I think the
- 3:36pressure is he's definitely on the pressure this week. He feels like he has
- 3:38to win this game. And I think, like you said last week,
- 3:45act like this, you're super bowled. If you go on three, it's
- 3:47gonna be all the pressures gonna be on him. Then It's only his first
- 3:52year, but it's gonna be it's gonna hit him. I mean, is
- 3:54that crazy though? To think? I mean, seriously, the guy has
- 3:58coached two games and he's probably naturally already feeling pressure. Like, is that
- 4:06nuts to say, Well, it's shitty you started out like that. Say
- 4:14say he starts out with Rice and we'll know Illinois like this week, first
- 4:18two games he's two and ol probably and he's right and high. It's just
- 4:21shitty you start out with two games like that. Yeah, I'm glad you
- 4:27mentioned that too, because the schedule has not been favorable the last few years.
- 4:31We've opened with the conference opponent the last three years now, I'm not
- 4:35saying they've been dominant conference opponents, but it's a conference game, and right
- 4:42and on the road all three of them, Illinois, then Ireland last year,
- 4:46and then I'm at Minnesota. So we have not had these cupcake games
- 4:51like some of these other teams have had. I mean, look at Michigan
- 4:55schedule the past two years. I mean they play nobody. So there's a
- 5:01whole nother conversation to get into there with scheduling, and yeah, we want
- 5:05to play the Oklahoma's and the Colorados and the Miamis of the world and the
- 5:09Organs, but like at what cost, especially when we're at the state where
- 5:15we are right now. I wonder, Yeah, if these four games were
- 5:20flipped and went in the other order, like we probably could be two and
- 5:26oh right now and nothing would be an issue. But we're not. We're
- 5:30owing to and we're talking about pressure already after he's coached two games. Not
- 5:38saying he's on the hot seat, that's not what we're saying. But there's
- 5:42definitely some backlash year coming from the fans and this game Saturday, as much
- 5:47as we need, we should win the game. It's it is. It
- 5:50is going to be a dog fight. It is. It is not going
- 5:54to be an easy game. It's we'll get to preview in the Huskies here
- 5:59in a second. They came here and beat us in twenty whenever. That
- 6:04was twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and they've had more ten win seasons over
- 6:09the last twenty years than we have. Think about that. So it's gonna
- 6:14be a challenge. It's not gonna be an easy walk in win. This
- 6:19is this is a hot take. I think this might be the most important
- 6:23non Power five Conference game Nebrasa is played in a probably twenty years. Okay,
- 6:30So I like that because when we did our schedule analysis breakdown, I
- 6:35had this game in the Louisiana Tech game very very high on the list of
- 6:41important games because, yeah, you lose these two games, lookout the Minnesota
- 6:46game. That's why I didn't have it very high because if we lost that
- 6:49game, I mean, what's what's the end all beal? Now, Colorado
- 6:56is a little bit different story. We also didn't anticipate Colorado being who they
- 7:00were. I had them low because I had that chopped it as a win
- 7:02in my mind because I didn't think they'd be very good. Now that proves
- 7:06not to be the case. But yeah, you're right, this game is
- 7:10super important this week and maybe the most important game right now for Rule with
- 7:16this impatient fan base that we have. I've listening to other podcast too,
- 7:24and one woman had what's the most important game of the week for like a
- 7:28team whatever, and they said Nebraska versus normally Illinois, Like I had,
- 7:32anybody Nation, this is the most important game. Yeah, I mean,
- 7:38you don't win this game. I mean I don't know. I don't I
- 7:40don't know what if you don't, there's a shot the win list. You
- 7:48play, you play Northwestern, you should, I don't know. I mean
- 7:54there's no should wins anymore. I don't think at this point. It's just
- 7:57finding a way to win a football me. So that was my first point
- 8:01or thought I had with everything this week was Rule came out and had basically
- 8:07had to give this State of the Union speech as to and he said in
- 8:13this interview, this is what you get when you hired. And I don't
- 8:16know what to make of that quote as a whole, but basically he's talking
- 8:20about the process and like we're not going to win games right away, and
- 8:24I think that actually stung some people the wrong way because we do want to
- 8:28win. We're kind of impatient, but at the same time, like the
- 8:33way we've lost, especially the first game, but then kind of getting our
- 8:37asses kicked by Colorado, Like I don't think that was how Nebraska fans anticipated
- 8:43losing because we again beat ourselves in the foot, which that's what rule is
- 8:48supposed to come in and fix. Now, all that being said, I
- 8:52do want to recognize that coaching and running a program, especially in Nebraska,
- 9:00but just in general, it is very, very hard. There are so
- 9:03many things you are balancing with the development of your players, with current players,
- 9:09and now you add this whole Nil and Trent, Like, there's so
- 9:11many things you're balancing at one time. Are you trying to win? Now?
- 9:15Are you? Are you selling the long hall? Like what is going
- 9:18through your head as a coach? And but ultimately, then the flip side
- 9:24of that is you have a job, your coach rule, You're getting paid
- 9:28millions of dollars for a reason. You have to be a problem solver constantly,
- 9:33day in and day out to be a successful head football coach. I
- 9:37think so far he has shown to me that he can problem solve, and
- 9:46what I mean by that is identify the issue, brainstorm your best options,
- 9:50and then choose the best solution. And that could be as little as what
- 9:54to do on a third down and four versus as big as the quarterback.
- 9:58You're choosing for your next two years, and you're going to make mistakes.
- 10:05There's going to be red flags. We talked about those in the last episode,
- 10:09like Das continually put down jeff sins like, right now, that does
- 10:16not look like it's a good decision. But at the same time, it
- 10:18still has been two games. We'll see what he can do with the guy
- 10:22like that moving forward here and especially here this Saturday when we played in Northern
- 10:28Illinois. Yeah, I think at least he comes out in the midst there's
- 10:37problems, and he'll like he points out what they are, Like the pass
- 10:41coaches they win, they say, they say, oh, there's no problem
- 10:43here and stuff like that. At least he points him out. Yeah,
- 10:48he is very straightforward with it all in his press conferences, and that to
- 10:54me, at least, Hell's should tell the fans that he knows what's going
- 10:58on. We just aren't there with fixing it yet. We were so blinded
- 11:03by a lot of frost flaws the first few years with him as coach.
- 11:09And rightfully so, I mean, I think everybody, like we've talked about,
- 11:13he was, he was the savior coming back to Nebraska, right,
- 11:18but I think some of the rules things he's getting scrutinized a little more because
- 11:22we don't want that to happen again. We don't want all of us to
- 11:26fall head over heels for somebody and truly believe in him and then all of
- 11:30a sudden we're three, four or five years down the road and say,
- 11:33well, we were wrong, Like, we don't want to do that.
- 11:35So that's why right now that pressure that we're talking about that's coming up.
- 11:43So I want to ask you this because it's my next talking point here on
- 11:48my list of notes. What do you think is rules identity right now?
- 11:54And when I say identity, you can speak to both sides of the ball,
- 11:58Like what is he trying to establish? Based on what we've heard so
- 12:03far, He's he's trying to establish, which I talked about this last week.
- 12:11He's trying to stablish his own culture. He's trying to get the players
- 12:16to believe in and if they don't want to, he won't play them.
- 12:20They're out of there. So at least he's doing that. I think he's
- 12:24well. He was trying to establish like a running game, I think,
- 12:28like a running quarterback running game, and that hasn't worked at all yet.
- 12:31But and I think that's another reas why he's feeling the pressure. He's like,
- 12:35oh shit, I fucked up on this quarterback. I think that's one
- 12:41of the main pressures he's feeling. Yeah, I want to getting the Jeff
- 12:46since here in a little bit. The identity with the culture part, I
- 12:52think it's spot off. He is doing it his way, what he has
- 12:58known to work at his previous schools and what he believes in. He has
- 13:05spoken a lot about who he's learned from and the different things he's taken from
- 13:11them. One thing I didn't like that is another red flag to me is
- 13:18what he talked about with Jeff Simms not jumping on the football after muffing the
- 13:24snap. And I think it was Ron Brown that came in and told him,
- 13:28we'll coach, we never have him practice jumping on the ball. We
- 13:31tell him to run away from it. And he's like, oh, well
- 13:33that makes sense. That to me, I'm like, oh my gosh,
- 13:35you don't understand that, Like, no, no, shit, he didn't
- 13:37jump on the ball, Like we're not you're you're if you if you're not
- 13:41practicing it, it's not going to happen in the game. The quote that
- 13:45that I grew up on was if it happens one time in a game,
- 13:50it's happened a thousand times in practice like that. That was like, it's
- 13:54not good, it's not good. Hold on, he said, run away
- 13:58from the ball. Yeah, listen to the press conference. Holy yep.
- 14:03He his his comment was he's like I had to listen to like to rule
- 14:09his What his defense was was that it should be so obvious to a quarterback,
- 14:13like when the balls in the ground to jump on it, right,
- 14:16and that's just a natural thing to do. Well, it was the couple
- 14:20of coaches that came to him and say, hey, coach, like like
- 14:24real couldn't understand why he wasn't doing that. The coaches said, well,
- 14:26coach, what do we tell him to do in practice? We tell him
- 14:28when the balls and they're ground to get away from it. And that's from
- 14:31a injury preserving injury standpoint, but yeah, like I was like, okay,
- 14:37that's a red flag, Like he doesn't understand that piece. And then
- 14:41he went into it a feel about injuries and how like you can't do certain
- 14:46things, and I'm like, okay, this is not good. So I'm
- 14:50pointing all this out to say that, like, no, nobody's going to
- 14:54be the perfect football coach that you have in mind, Like you're not gonna
- 14:56get one that fits all of your idea yeld characteristics. But there are definitely
- 15:03some red flags that have come out, not saying that it will not work.
- 15:09But again, we did think Scott Frost was a perfect coach. Everybody
- 15:13everybody did in the beginning. So I just want people to be aware that
- 15:18there are things now that we are noting and identifying that may not be going
- 15:24as we thought. Now. To answer the other piece of the identity question
- 15:28on what rules identity is, I think the culture in the he's the long
- 15:33term build guy, he's holding himself to it. He comments on that a
- 15:35lot, but one thing that was very clear and he set it straightforward this
- 15:43week he said, we want to be a team that runs a ball for
- 15:46two hundred fifty yards a game has a strong defense and a strong specialties.
- 15:50Okay, that style is what we've been talking about on this podcast now for
- 15:54the past few years of how we think the game of football needs. He
- 16:00played, especially in the Big Ten Conference. That is what gives me a
- 16:04little bit of hope. And that is what ultimately you can see when we're
- 16:08trying to play like that's what he wants to build. And now we're not
- 16:11anywhere close to that. We're not close to running the ball for two to
- 16:15fifty yards the game that we're not even in the ballpark. Our defense has
- 16:18gotten better, and our special teams has been bled so far. So but
- 16:22that is what he wants to get to. That's that's his identity that he's
- 16:26speaking to. So I think promising he at least has that, and he
- 16:29said, I'm sticking to this. This is how I know how to win.
- 16:32Frost jumped all over the god to him place because he didn't have a
- 16:36freaking clue what he wanted our identity to be. So I do think there
- 16:41has been that piece. I think some people might question that rule doesn't really
- 16:45know what he's doing from an identity in our offense looks absolutely horrible. So
- 16:51far because we don't know what we're doing. I think we do. I
- 16:55don't think we really know how to do it yet how we're going to get
- 16:57there, But we do know what we want to do is run the ball
- 17:00two hundred fifty times a game. I think so. So he says he
- 17:07wants to run the ball at the time, where where was that first half?
- 17:11Ins car out of it? If you want to do that, I
- 17:17I think we tried to, and I think actually in the second quarter we
- 17:22started getting those six seven eight yard chunk plays with Gabe Irvan. But after
- 17:30we got that role in what happened we got in our way again, just
- 17:33since couldn't catch a snap or yeah, pick. So it the whole point
- 17:41too, I think rules offense and this the jumps right into our next topic
- 17:48of the quarterback, Matt rules offense or Marcus Satterfield Field's Office, whatever you
- 17:56want to call it. We don't need a quarterback that is going right now,
- 18:00right now. We don't need a quarterback that's going to go out and
- 18:03win us games. We don't need the playmaking. How we would be nice
- 18:07to have Shagur Sanders, but we don't even need a guy like that.
- 18:10Right now for what we are trying to build from a culture standpoint, from
- 18:14an identity standpoint, we don't need one of those guys. We just need
- 18:18someone that's not going to lose us the game. And so far, that's
- 18:22what Jeff Simms has done through two games. And yeah, point to blame
- 18:27wherever we want, but that's what happened that we need a Kirk Cousins.
- 18:32That's all we need. We just need a guy out there that's going to
- 18:34be able to hand the ball off and just manage the game. We need
- 18:37a Kirk Cousins. Do you really want to Kirk Cousins, Yeah, we
- 18:41do. That's all we need right now now in the future, do I
- 18:45want Kirk Cousins a quarterback, No, but we would be serviceable right now
- 18:49with what we're trying to do. I think offensively with a guy like Kirk
- 18:52Cousins that can manage a game exactly what he did at Michigan State. Like
- 18:57it's not like he was going out there sling it around the field. Michigan
- 19:00State still ran the ball at time. And so all we need is right
- 19:04now is a Kirk Cousins at quarterback. You know you should have got you
- 19:11should have brought Ratnog over with Marcus Sladderfield. Ha, that's the opposite I
- 19:17think of what we really need. You don't want him. He's terrible,
- 19:21but he's he's he's the like the playmaking, higher risk, high reward.
- 19:30We don't. We don't. We don't need a guy like that on our
- 19:33on to manage this offense. Now, if you can get a higher risk
- 19:38or a low risk, high reward guy, which would basically be a superstar
- 19:42like, then fine, we'll take it. But we're not going to get
- 19:45one of those guys right now because we're as a program. We just need
- 19:48a guy in there that's not going to lose us the game and can just
- 19:52manage everybody and keep everybody in control of the offense. And right now,
- 19:56Jeffson's has not proven to be able to do that. So let's talk about
- 20:00jeff sins Dak. What do we gonna play? Is he going to play?
- 20:07My answer to my thought to that is yes, maybe he's healthy,
- 20:11he's gonna play. That's a rule said correct. That's what he said Monday.
- 20:17He said he got told it was a high ankle sprain maybe or something,
- 20:21but maybe it's not as serious as we thought, I think he's playing.
- 20:26I also think that comment speaks volumes too. Heiner Carberg and pretty I'm
- 20:34sure great guys, but how bad of quarterbacks they are, Like, yeah,
- 20:40if we would have even if Logan the backup situation is yes, I
- 20:48mean that has to speak volumes, and I guess yeah. You can judge
- 20:52rule and the coaching staff for their evaluation maybe of the quarterbacks if you disagree
- 20:56with with keeping Sims in the game, But it just seems so clear to
- 21:03the way that they speak about the situation that it is a very big gap.
- 21:10Now that makes that made me think of Logan Smothers how he left.
- 21:15If he was here, he might not be as bad of a second option
- 21:19compared to the other two. But we do have Jeff Sims, and if
- 21:25he's healthy, he's going to be our quarterback. Do I think some people
- 21:34are gonna play out in their minds like, okay, Jeff Simms, we
- 21:40have them for two years. Are we going to deal with what we just
- 21:44saw for two games for two more years or at least even the rest of
- 21:48this year. So one approach is you say, screw it, effort,
- 21:52let's start Heinrich Carberg against Northern Illinois and Lawtech and try going a different route.
- 22:02That's one option, which I think is a horrible option. The option
- 22:04two is you let Jeff Sins get more experience, get more comfortable with the
- 22:07offense. Basically tell him don't turn the fucking ball over anymore. Now,
- 22:15you can tell someone like that all you want. But if you can't catch
- 22:18a snap, I guess I don't know what what you tell someone. But
- 22:22you can go both those routs. If they go with Harbors, if you
- 22:26go with Harberg and Purty. Here's the problem. If these two teams aren't
- 22:32as good as the rest of the teams on our schedule, we may we
- 22:34may be able to run the ball for six, seven or eight yards to
- 22:37play. Our defense may be able to hold them to ten, ten to
- 22:41fourteen points a game, and we may win twenty seven to seventeen, twenty
- 22:45seven to ten, and seemed like the world's all fit, world is all
- 22:48fixed, And then Michigan comes to town and Heiner carbs our fucking quarterback,
- 22:53and good Ward, we're getting our ass kicked. Now. I'm not saying
- 22:56that can't happen with Jeff Sins, but we need to use these two games
- 23:02for Sims to finally hopefully get a little more comfortable in a little more command
- 23:07of the offense, like we talked about on Sunday, and simplify it more
- 23:15if we have to, because this is our guy for this year. It
- 23:18is, whether people like it or not, he is our quarterback for the
- 23:22rest of this year. So we got to get used to it, and
- 23:26we have to make strides this week and next week before we get into the
- 23:32think of conference play. Well, say you ben Jim and Harbor comes out,
- 23:37he's just terrible. Then you're even in a world or more hurt.
- 23:41Then you're then you're just I don't know what you do. Yeah, no,
- 23:45kid, that's a great point. Like I we don't have much here
- 23:51and I don't know who that falls back off, right, Like I think
- 23:57ultimately it goes back to rule and making Jeff Simms his guy. Like Jeff
- 24:04Sims came into Nebraska and has a deal with Amigos for nil like Amigos of
- 24:14all places, and a couple other things too, Like he got paid the
- 24:18money right away just because he was a starting quarterback at Nebraska. Like as
- 24:22simple as that, you're in here, you go, here's the money.
- 24:26How much does he actually care about his performance, Like he's got the he's
- 24:33got the money, and talk about nil all we want. But we've we've
- 24:37mentioned how the strategy of paying the players to get him here can be very
- 24:41beneficial to get recruits to your university. But at the same time, we're
- 24:47not making them earn a single dollar of that money. They're getting it because
- 24:53they show up. Any others. For any other job, you have to
- 25:00to earn your salary, you have to earn your contract. NFL quarterbacks that
- 25:04get paid millions of dollars and are the highest paying quarterbacks in the country have
- 25:11to earn that money right now. In college football, that's not the case
- 25:15unless you as a school make a decision to say you're not getting paid nil
- 25:18money until you earn it. And part of me is a little bit scared
- 25:23in Nebraska because we do have the money, we do have the resources,
- 25:26we have the overwhelming support that we are getting guys here to come here that
- 25:32aren't here for the right reasons and maybe aren't is motivated to actually perform on
- 25:36the field because they're already getting paid and that's all they want is a college
- 25:38kid. Dak you all you want is money, so you can go get
- 25:41booze, right. Yep. That's so I don't know that that's an interesting
- 25:51debate because, yeah, you want to use that as a pro to get
- 25:55players to come, but you also have to take the stance of they gotta
- 26:00hurt it, and Jeff Simms has not hurt at all, not even half
- 26:04of it. So we'll take the deals away. I don't know, like
- 26:11you said last week or last episode with this transfer portal thing, if you
- 26:17have a decent backup, they're gonna go somewhere else where they can start.
- 26:21So every every program is just screwed it. Backups. Your backup is usually
- 26:25terrible, like like I'm bringing them Oklahoma last year their quarterback got hurt.
- 26:29They lost forty nine zero because they didn't have backup quarterback. So no program
- 26:34really has one. It's because if they're decent enough to start, they'll go
- 26:37somewhere else in the start. Yeah, and it's hard, I mean,
- 26:41even for your top elite programs to have even two guys. Right, So
- 26:48that makes it even more of a problem that these coaches have to deal with,
- 26:52is how do we get a guy in here that maybe isn't gonna be
- 26:56a four or five star, but it's gonna be serviceable enough to and reasonable
- 27:02enough to sit behind a guy that comes in the portal, but he's still
- 27:06good enough to push him to make him earn his job. But at the
- 27:14same time, like, is it good enough to go play at a Southern
- 27:19Mississippi or a Marshall like and they don't want to leave it. It's such
- 27:22a fine line to how to get that depth there, especially at the quarterback
- 27:26position, but hell, even at the running back position, receiver, I
- 27:30mean, every position you're going to be dealing with that depth issue. And
- 27:33right now, unfortunately, the state of the program we're at, like and
- 27:37we're not in a good spot. At least your Alabama's, your Ohio States,
- 27:40You're Georgia as, your Texas As, those schools like they at least
- 27:45have enough of an elite program right now where they currently sit that they can't
- 27:51get in some four star freshmen that aren't expected to play right away because they
- 27:55know that they're a part of a culture that is going to win year after
- 27:57year, So they're okay sitting behind somebody as a four star versus that Nebraska.
- 28:03Like, if you're here and you're not fucking playing like you're leading because
- 28:08we're not winning games, So why the hell would you stay here and try
- 28:12to see if this coach rule has knows, really does know how to turn
- 28:18a program around and win in three years. Like you're not gonna wait around
- 28:21and find out. You're just gonna say if it, and you're gonna go
- 28:23go play at k State like that's that's what's happening in today's environed. So
- 28:33anyways, real quick, let's do this. Make sure we don't forget about
- 28:38it, Dak. We're gonna talk about Northern Illinois here a second, but
- 28:45we gotta let you get your picks in. After your winning week again last
- 28:52week going three and two, professional gambling one on one. Are you ready?
- 28:59I'm ready. I'm gonna throw more out this week. Well you're better
- 29:03because you only got five in less weeks. I'm gonna double it all right,
- 29:08Ready, set go, all right? First off, case eight four
- 29:12and a half. That's the block of the week. They're in kill Missouri.
- 29:17Then we got o U. They're getting killed Tulsa point six and a
- 29:19half. Take them Minnesota going Gophers plus eight against against North Carolina. They're
- 29:26gonna beat North Calina straight up, but take the plus eight, all right.
- 29:30Then we got Mississippi State. They are plus nine and a half.
- 29:33By them up to plus ten. I think they are damn near better in
- 29:37Holls to you. But take damn plus ten all right, South Carolina plus
- 29:41twenty eight, shout rat dog, And that's one reason to take damn all
- 29:45right, Western Michigan Iowa under forty two and a half. I don't think
- 29:49I was in score ten points, So take that. Then we got Tennessee
- 29:53six and a half over FOORDA four to what terrible against beat dog. I
- 29:57don't think they're very good at all. Maybe got Okahoma State seven and happy
- 30:02in South Alabama. I don't know why that's that right, But take that
- 30:06and then one more NFL Blanky's money line. All right, time you got
- 30:11nine, and I think and you threw a little NFL action in there.
- 30:15I love it. Yep. Big game of marrow. Jumping back here to
- 30:21preview Northern Illinois. The Huskies coming to Lincoln again, seeing that they can
- 30:27win once again here as I did back in twenty eighteen. Their quarterback is
- 30:37Rocky Lombardi. And if that name sounds familiar, it's because it's a sixth
- 30:45year in college football. He was a quarterback for Michigan State when they came
- 30:52to Lincoln five or six years ago. So he knows Big Ten football,
- 30:57he knows college football. He's got Aska, he knows Nebraska, he knows
- 31:03Memorial Stadium. So we have that going for us. They return everybody on
- 31:11their offensive line lovely. They do want to run the football more than throw
- 31:19it now. Northern Illinois has beat Boston College in Week one, and after
- 31:26I saw that score, I said, oh shit, this is not gonna
- 31:30be a great game for Nebraska. No proba'ly gonna beat us again. Then
- 31:37last week they play Southern Illinois. I think it was Southern Illinois, maybe
- 31:45Eastern Illinois, I don't know. It was another Illinois school that is not
- 31:48Division one, and they got beat fourteen to ten. So they're one and
- 31:52one coming to Lincoln. Their strength is on the defensive line. They have
- 31:59two returning All Conference players in the MAC on the D line, and coach
- 32:04Rule talked about them as well in its press conference. I think this is
- 32:12gonna be a dog fight. It is. It's not. It's not gonna
- 32:16be a game that we're gonna win forty seven to ten. Like if you
- 32:20have that in your mind, like, get rid of it it. Northern
- 32:22Illinois is not a bottom of the barrel Division one program. That being said,
- 32:32we should be able to physically still control this game and win without it
- 32:42coming down to the wire. I hope we should. They're they're coming in
- 32:45thinking they can win this game. They are dead right, they are.
- 32:51I mean, why wouldn't they play these other teams that come in, like
- 32:53these small schools. They're coming in thinking there's no shot this team. They're
- 32:57coming in thinking they can win. Yep, and they have nothing to lose.
- 33:01When these programs come in just like they did when they beat us last
- 33:05time, and you put together your best game plan, it is it's their
- 33:08super Bowl for a lot of them. It's the biggest stadium they're gonna play
- 33:12in. A lot of these kids their entire lives. They don't care what
- 33:16happens in the outcome if they end up getting killed. So they're coming in
- 33:19with nothing to lose. They're getting paid money to come play here, and
- 33:23here Nebraska is here. We are oh and two, trying to get our
- 33:28first win under our new coach. It's going to be a dog fight and
- 33:36a good football game. I say, good. It might not be the
- 33:38most entertaining one to watch, but it's an important game for this coaching staff
- 33:45and for our program, like you mentioned earlier, and there's a lot of
- 33:49good pieces that Northern Illinois has. The Rocky Lombardi thing scares me. I
- 33:52know, there's a reason he's in a sixty year at Northern Illinois. Like
- 33:58he's not a stellar quarterback, but he also not going to be a freshman,
- 34:01sophomore, junior quarterback coming out of the some belt that looks up at
- 34:07the crowd and goes, holy shit, what is this? Like he's been
- 34:09there before, he knows what Big ten football. He knows that we're gonna
- 34:14try to physically outdo them in all areas of the game. So that to
- 34:19me, I mean that that raised your eyebrows a little bit. I would
- 34:23I I would take Northern Illinois spread. I know I jokingly said money line
- 34:28on Sunday. But it's going to be a close, a closer game than
- 34:31we think. I think the spread right now is eleven and a half I
- 34:36believe is what I've seen it at. So I mean I'm anticipating my score
- 34:39prediction. A it's not going to be high scoring either I'm gonna go.
- 34:45I'm gonna go twenty four fourteen Huskers is rocky older than me? He might
- 34:53be, he might he might be rocky from already age, but also shadow
- 35:01his pants for that name. That's a hell of a name right there.
- 35:05I mean, is that not just the best quarterback name ever? I text
- 35:09you guys's earlier. I think they started three yoh, just for their quarterbacks
- 35:13name. He doesn't have that. He has almost worst satsin sims though,
- 35:22I don't know how many fumbles he has, but passing he almost has worse
- 35:24stats. He through three I think three picks last game in something? You
- 35:32who they play Southern Illinois? Yep, yeah, sorry, he is in
- 35:37his seventh year, Northern Illinois seventh quarterbacks and look at the flow of his
- 35:44hair. Holy cal man, is he twenty five? I couldn't find his
- 35:52age. Yeah, he's probably so. He might be his eighth year.
- 36:00What's codation? Oh, let's got fourteen to brasket? Okay, I mean,
- 36:07hell, I would take thirty one points I think at any in any
- 36:10game this year, given the way our offenses look so far, I'll be
- 36:15I'll be curious to seem not really gonna call it a key, but I'm
- 36:20just intrigued to see if our offense has changed styles at all given what has
- 36:25happened in the first two games. And we'll even called it dysfunctional right now,
- 36:31I there's nothing We're like one hundred and twenty six best offense right now
- 36:37in the country, so clearly there's something wrong with it. But I'll be
- 36:43wondering. I'll be interested to see what we change, like is it going
- 36:45to look simpler, is it going to be less motion? Are we gonna
- 36:49be other center more or are you know, are we since we think we're
- 36:52playing a worst team, are we're gonna come out and try to throw it?
- 36:54If that's the case, another red flag. What I think they might
- 37:01come on trying to sling around at first, if we did that is a
- 37:06red flag. Now I'm okay with taking maybe a shot down the field like
- 37:10deep, but if we start throwing it a lot, red flag, red
- 37:14flag, red flag alert. So we'll see. I don't know. I
- 37:21think I'm pumped for this game. It'll be interesting and Dak and I'll be
- 37:25tailgating together before the game down by the yailgating season. Let's go maybe we
- 37:30should do a pod, A quick pregame pod down there. IM all right,
- 37:36let's do it. We'll be back then Saturday morning Hype pod Go Big
- 37:40Red, remember Sooner. I love that burnt Orange dude,