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The new site is up and running! Look for updates when I have time on all things Nebraska football! Follow me on twitter @shrtsideoption
Email at shortsideoption@hotmail.com
Please have patience while we update the site as I just wanted to get it up and going.
ShortSideOption Blog
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Glad you finally did this. Left that board awhile ago because of Red Reich. Good luck on the blog and hopefully it’s successful
Oh good to know i’m not the only one who has issues with Red Reich.
RR ruins that board
Not sure what I did to make him turn on me but here we are. Just rolling with the punches and keeping it positive.
Damn SSO this even better than I anticipated.
Same. That guy is the worst.
Good to see you back SSO. Glad you decided to do this.
Thanks man, hopefully I don’t disappoint!
Welcome back brother
Took a lot longer than I thought and clunkier than all get out, but here we are!
Stoked you’re official now. Look forward to it all. Thanks for your efforts.
Thanks Dave!
He has risen. I’m looking forward to reading every single word you post on this site
Thanks for the kind words! Unfortunate i’m not welcome at the old stomping grounds but this will be a blessing in disguise.
You’re the man SSO. Best poster on husker max. Thank you for sharing
Glad to finally read something with substance! Welcome back!
Thanks man! Glad to see you here!
Football is now allowed to begin
lol yes it is
I feel all tingly
I had to create a somewhat similar username, as someone else feels like they should be ATX Weatherman. Fucking joke. lol. I’m looking forward to no profanity filter!
Lol my filtering is definitely still in the “non existent” category.
Max Shmax. Left the fluff for the good stuff. A site with bite. Amen brotha
Congrats on the blog! I’m really looking forward to digging in to your content!
Glad to see you back posting SSO. The balance you brought to the other forum is greatly missed by many (myself included).
Appreciate the comment! There’s good and bad everywhere, so I try to just call it like I see it. Have a good weekend!
Good stuff SSO!
so glad to have sso back and able to post. Sure miss that on the other site.
Thanks! I miss posting over there too, but not even being able to see that content anymore has been a bit refreshing.
Ironically, someone on HM posted one of your tweets which led me to your feed which led me here. Lol. Congrats and I look forward to getting my Husker insight here. P.S. RR is a joker of a Nazi. He likes to let people know what he has “heard” when in reality he read it in a tweet or on another board. He was probably a janitor in the USAF.
Ya, not sure why he went sour on me but it is what it is I guess. This site has been pretty fun. Lacking some of the interaction that a message board provides but we will see what the future holds.
Hey sso, discoverer27 called someone a nazi and a joker and a janitor. He also inferred that rr’s knowledge was lacking and that he smells sometimes. I demand that discoverer27 be banned and that we should talk about his constant negativity. Yea I just went there. (How’s that for drama and board interaction?)
Hey sso, discoverer27 called someone a nazi and a joker and a janitor. He also inferred that rr’s knowledge was lacking and that he smells sometimes. I demand that discoverer27 be banned and that we should talk about his constant negativity. Yea I just went there. (How’s that for drama and board interaction?)
Super glad to read your stuff again. One nagging thought I’ve had about Frost’s offense that I’d love your take on.
It seems to me that our offense does great in the first quarter, well in the second quarter and then tanks in the 2nd half. I’m assuming that the D coordinator is making adjustments but it looks like we struggle making adjustments to their adjustments I know Frost has a reputation as an offensive genius, so I could be way off base with my hypothesis.
My thought is Frost (and Kelly) were the first to really exploit/innovate tempo. It caught a lot of defenses flat footed and took them a couple years to figure out how to defend. Now that they’ve figured out ways to slow down the clock Frosts offense isn’t nearly as explosive. Once the D coordinator makes the adjustments at half time, we don’t seem to have a second act to counter it.
Curious to hear your thoughts. Again, super happy to read your stuff again.
What up man? Good to see you over here for a bit. I can tell you that my write up next Thursday is on our second half woes. I think some of it is on S/C, some of it is on depth, some of it is on adjustments, etc. I just think we haven’t used tempo anywhere close to what they did at UCF or even Oregon because we aren’t explosive. Then we put our defense in bad spots and it snowballs on us. Heck, I remember the Iowa game where our defense forced 3 or 4 three and outs in the second half when it was a one score game and we still couldn’t get the win.
That can’t happen when you build around your offense. So i’ll be curious to see if Frost starts running the ball more to take the pressure off the defense.
Like others I found this site after SSO’s tweet was posted on the other site. This is like Christmas! I signed up on the other site so I could ask SSO questions about the Huskers. Looking forward to reading the content on this site!
Appreciate the comment man! Hopefully the content keeps you around for a bit!
Need more gifs around here….and Ric Flair.
I guess I’ll have to settle for excellent breakdowns and discussion until then. Glad you got this up and running. And realllllllly glad I dont have to venture into that shitshow Twitter just to read your stuff lol…
My Ric Flair pic was probably my favorite!
I enjoyed your commentary on the other platform and look forward to your commentary here. Congratulations.
Thank you!
Great content, better previews than I’ve seen elsewhere, by far. BTW, tho I would love to see Scott succeed here, I can’t come up with any convincing reason to believe this year will be better than the last three. Hope I’m wrong.
Seems like we are just recycling the “this year feels different” tweets from 2019 and 2020, doesn’t it? I think we get to a bowl though. Less than that would be pretty bad.
Sure hope you are right, but I am dubious. I will say I expect us to start the season 3-0, and if we don’t, it is going to be very painful for the rest of 2021.
It should be no surprise that I had problems with RR on the other platform like so many others.
I think we’ll be more competitive even if all they do is clean up the penalties and some of the turnovers..7 wins..
heck, go back to that Iowa game I wrote about with the special teams… if they just clean that up we are way better.
That is the thing, can, if and will right.. i believe they will.. like you said before last year with special teams, can’t get worse.. ha
This is awesome! I have been a lurker on the other site since 2000. Read through most of threads over there and even met the owner out at watch party when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton. Basically what you have done for us is trimmed the fat and for that, we thank you!
lol unintentional positives i’ll take as a win. Appreciate the support!
Big fan of yours! I hate huskermax (mostly due to the weak ass commentry from RR), but I tend to spend a lot of time there….. Keep up the good work here.
Thanks man. Didn’t really have an issue with him until I saw the screenshots of what he participated in against me so it’s probably for the best I started something else. Hope you like it!
Thanks for doing this, SSO!
Your new site will certainly be quite valuable to all of us in the months ahead.
Thanks man! Hopefully new site means bowl game!
SSO, I have lurked on Huskerpedia/HM for many years and really enjoyed your contributions. I have mostly spent the past twenty years posting on Rivals and Scout. Kind of lost track of Scout when it merged with 247 and have recently decided to leave Rivals behind. Like all of us I have opinions on a lot of topics but have gotten sick of all the political BS mixed with Husker football on Rivals so giving that site a permanent vacation.
It is ironic that these organized message boards came into existence about the same time Husker football hit the skids. Maybe we need to bring back the old wild and woolly Usenet News Groups to get Husker football back on top. Or perhaps your little “hangout” will do the trick!
I see most of the posters so far seem to be old friends as one would expect. But I will see if I can provide some useful discussion and vice verse.
Like many older fans, I
Old friends may be a bit strong, but definitely is nice to see the amount of people that enjoyed reading my posts whether they were paid members of the other site or not.
Excited to have you hear for the discussion!
Sorry my first post got chopped off! Will try harder!!
I would love to get your thoughts on S&C since Frost arrived. I agree with masses and you. We LOOK better just standing there in pads, BUT, if you go from watching a NU game to a top tier CFB game we don’t move like those teams. It shows up so poorly against Ohio St. but not so much against Wisc/Iowa. Our guys are almost in slow motion when they need to move laterally and that is at every position. The only speed you see on the field is when our guys get to run in a straight line. I can’t imagine our staff doesn’t see this in film or their heads are just buried in the sand. Congrats on the new site.
I don’t want to blow it up too much on a public forum, but it seems pretty simple to me. For example, everyone said how much better we looked against Ohio State first game last year, but we lost by our widest margin since this regime has been here. Our two draft picks this year were told to slim down and get more athletic and flexible as those were the flaws in their game that the NFL saw. Why we keep thinking putting on weight and looking massive is what’s best for us in college football that is no longer played in a phone booth is beyond me.
Now… if we are trending more Wisconsin and Iowa style and north/south running, I can maybe get on board. But the results have been about as expected so far. You can’t train like we do with “Husker Power” and expect to mirror “Oregon Speed”. It literally defies physics. I don’t care how good you are as a coach, physics trumps all.
My thing is also the types of lineman we have recruited. Seems like they are getting guys a little on the lower weight side to bulk them up, but are they losing speed? I want to see how this line and lines going forward turn out.. I agree with the husker power statement, heck when i was rehabbing my full repair job on my knee, Kyle VandenBosch (went to grade school together) came up for rehab after he was drafted and blew his knee. long story short his issue was 4yrs of lifting and his hips were so strong and not flexible his knees took the brunt of pain.. at least the way they explained it, and what your saying makes sense.. i’m probably saying it wrong..
Yep, we are really good at getting big and strong. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when we were trying to spread everyone out and outrun people that it didn’t work. That wasn’t what we were training for the last 9 months.
Hi SSO. One suggestion: is it possible to list these comments with the most recent at the top, so we don’t have to scroll down from oldest to newest? Thanks you for all you do here. And GBR!
That’s a good question. Let me take a look at that.
SSO, I’m reading rumors that we might not see Manning tomorrow. I heard it’s because he’s nicked up. Have you heard anything? He looks like an absolute stud. I really hope he plays this year.
I’ve always said i’ll start trusting him to help us when I actually see it. I’m hoping we see him but not confident at this point.
That is such a bummer. Great game day write up. Hope you are right on the final score!
So glad to see you posting again. You were one of the best parts of that other site and I alway learned so much from you. I’m so glad to see you back and writing again.
Thanks! Hopefully once we get some game film I can do some more of that!
SSO, please tell me there are things that can be fixed. I’ve been ready to replace this current administration since last year, BUT I know we still have an entire year remaining plus me repeating to everyone that “Scott Frost is what his record is” gets old. If you are Frost, what steps/changes do you make after game 1?
I’m trying to rack my brain on that. So for example, AMart couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat passing yesterday… is it encouraging that he just needs to complete easy passes and we look better? Or is it discouraging because that’s been the same song and dance since 2018?
SSO, after spending 28 years in the military, retiring as a Colonel, I don’t think fixing this is within SF’s capability. Leadership begins at the top and I don’t see much evidence that Scott has a high degree of personal discipline. He refers to the men on the team as “kids” and they play like it. If you are old enough to strap on a flak vest and pick up a rifle, then you are not a kid. Also, SF always looks like he hasn’t shaved in a week and just woke up on his friend’s couch after they spent a weekend draining a keg. How can you expect the team to exemplify things like attention to detail and maturity when they don’t see it at the top?
I completely understand that. I am still holding out hope but the last 30+ games say this may not be salvageable.
Martinez doesn’t pop his feet nor does he reset the pocket; both would allow him to pass with his weight going forward. His mechanics go to heck as soon as pressure is anywhere near and he totally relies on his arm/wrist. I’m sure they work on the proper mechanics all the time, but during games his training goes out the window when pressure comes. Given that, I’m not sure why they don’t do half the pass plays as roll outs. He is a decent passer on a designed roll out and he is always is a threat to run, especially if he already has a head start with a roll out. Any thoughts on this? Seems somewhat obvious, but there must be a reason they don’t want to play to what he does best.
You’ll be surprised to know that they actually coach what you are seeing and Verdu states that over 50% of the balls thrown in a game are done so without your feet set. It’s why he doesn’t allow our QBs to go to QB coaches in the offseason. I get the concept, but it ends up being what you are pointing out.
So, against Fordham, maybe play our first-string O&D for the first quarter. Assuming we have some sort of lead after that, I’d like to see EVERYONE on our squad play. BTW, Fordham does have quite a good passing QB.
Fordham hasn’t played since 2019… probably about time to beat them 70-7.
I’ll take Fordham and 63 points!
Not that it will matter to our Fordham game, but they did play some games this spring. Among others, they beat Colgate 40 – 8 on April 3, 2021, and Bucknell 31-17 on April 10.
Ohhhh, were they some of the teams that did a spring schedule instead of last fall? I just went to their 2020 schedule and it said cancelled for all of them.
Did our 4th year HC actually not know what down it was during the last 3 minutes of the game when a QB sneak was called…….on 1st down? They kind of glossed over this & just mentioned it on the broadcast, but even with so many head scratching coaching decisions, I couldn’t believe this one.
lol I do think they thought it was 4th. Even the announcers were confused to be fair, because they had to say “this is actually 4th so this is for the game”. But that was frustrating.
SSO, yesterday afternoon during the radio postmortem, a caller made a comment that I have heard frequently: Frost deserves five years and that doesn’t count the 2020 shortened COVID season. If he indeed “deserves” that kind of patience we could well be stuck watching this same show until at least 2024. I am not a young man and wonder if I will live long enough to see another good Husker team if employment decisions exempt former Husker quarterbacks from accountability. Can you imagine a non-alum being given until 2024 to show improvement over this mess?
Those people are idiots. In a covid year where we worked out and others didn’t, it doesn’t count because it didn’t go well? Come on.
Yeah, I never bought into that argument(last year didn’t count) either. I feel like people used it to fit a narrative they wanted to tell, like they don’t like Alabama so they would try to devalue the championship saying that the championship shouldn’t really count or have an asterisk because of a shortened season, weird circumstances, etc. Or vice versa our bad year should be taken with a grain of salt because it was a weird year.
My personal opinion was…you pretty much still saw the same teams who have been really good recently dominate the season. If tons of people were out and 2nd and 3rd stringers were playing across the country, and you saw like Iowa, NC State, Kansas, and UCLA in the CFP, then I might be like, hmmm yeah this was a weird year I don’t know what to make of this championship. But overall, things basically played out the same, just like a shortened professional calendar IMO. So I didn’t really buy into the fact that last season wasn’t a reflection of the current state of programs. Good programs and coaches found a way to win, bad ones didn’t just like the prior season.
Great write up! Always appreciated your analysis! I’ve got serious concerns going forward, but we will see. This program has to grow up in a hurry now since little to no progress manifested itself on the field the past 3 seasons. There’s a lot to prove with very little excuses left for this staff.
Agree. Buffalo is everything that we’ve struggled with recently. But I feel the reason everyone is optimistic is because we think it’s just us problems and not talent issues. You all of a sudden play clean games and there’s not a problem (theoretically). No idea what to think from here on out but the rest of the schedule scares me.
Talent wise, we should have no problem beating or playing very close games with everyone on our schedule. Ohio State will take extra juice, but that’s what the home crowd is for. 🙂
In recent years, the things that seem to be determining factors for us are turnover differential, kicking game, and not giving up big plays. Those have been killing us since Frost came. I think that if we are more than marginally better in each of those areas, we will win a lot more. And I think each of those items is worth a win or two more. I think we are slightly better in the kicking game, but it’s still early. Here’s to hoping we are better in 2 of the 3!
I think that’s the issue. We’ve consistently lost to teams with less talent than us. Now, teams like Wisconsin and Iowa are starting to recruit as good if not better, and we were struggling with them before when they had “lesser” talent. Scary times ahead.
What is one specific area of improvement you are looking for against Buffalo that, if demonstrated, would give you more hope for the rest of the season?
Sorry man, was out at USC. I was hoping we would be pretty clean and show some offensive identity. I haven’t had a chance to really dive into it, but I do think we looked better in that area. Buffalo and Fordham are a different animals than the Sooners and B1G teams, so how that translates will be interesting.
How does anyone see this playing out with OK? I see only if we can not make our regular self inflicted wounds, we will keep in within 20.. with those issues, looking at a very bad blow out.. Can’t afford turnovers for sure..
I cannot imagine a scenario where we keep it within 30. Frost may just resign by halftime.
lol he won’t resign, but I think we keep it possibly close in the first half.
Just for the hell of it … Huskers get it done! :astonished:
No turnovers for sure. And have to be clean. I do think we may be able to dial some stuff up early though.
I cannot imagine a scenario where we keep it within 30. OK will not let up and seeing as though we barely put up 28 at home against Buffalo… probably something like 56-10 Oklahoma. Frost may just resign at halftime…
I’m guessing we’re going to see a lot of gimmick plays on offense from NU on Saturday. In fact, part of me wonders if Frost isn’t going to dial up a new offensive approach that we haven’t put on tape before. To that point, I’ve been wondering if the little bit of option that we’ve run the first few weeks was designed to give Frost a sense for how the defenses have reacted to it, so that he can react and maybe roll it out more broadly against OU. Or I could just be longing for the old days of Nebraska option football.
Would be nice to get a complete game, heck even a mostly complete game.. even with the dumb flags on bonehead plays, we make those fg’s different ball game.. Defense is legit!!!
I thought our “soft zone”, as the tv announcers called it, was pretty good. We limited big plays and made them work. I don’t know if we have played that defense much (or at all) before, but it might become our bread and butter defense. It looked similar to Iowa’s defense, but SSO could say if that is accurate.
Ya I am taking a longer look at things now… I think we just did a good job bottling things up, and our secondary is our strength. I don’t believe Oklahoma had a very good gameplan personally.
The defense played lights out for sure!
Looked like the first man missed the tackle a little too much. That could be just an athlete vs athlete issue. There was a few interceptions that could of happened. Just missing that elite player that can make a big play on defense. But all in all, cant be made about the defense. Game plan was good, blitzed at the right time. Players are playing hard.
For sure… Chinander is making the most out of what he has. Honestly, we have less “star power” on that side of the ball compared to offense, but there’s no doubt what’s holding this thing together.
I’m wondering if Kalen DeBoer is a name popping up around coaching circles. Has been successful at all levels, from sodak and has big ten experience. Currently doing a pretty good job at Fresno State.
I think he for sure is…. that QB he has is no joke.
I love the efforts you have put in this, thanks for all the great blog posts.
Thanks for the comment, and I appreciate the kind words. It’s a bit janky but I had to throw it together when looking for a new home.
SSO – LONG time reader, and I’d even say a fan! Visited the other site for years just to read what you and N2FL would write. It seems as though now you are doing great here, N2FL doesn’t write as much. So there isn’t much need for me to visit there. So what are the odds of you doing a recruiting update post. Just a quick glimpse into what your thinking/hearing for how our class will turnout. Hell just get N2FL to post over here with you. I can assure you everyone would love that!! Keep up the great work! GBR!!
Not sure if you can see my drafts for my site, but that’s some of the things I plan to do during the bye week while there isn’t a game to preview or recap. I currently have on my radar “what went wrong” series for 2001 colorado and 2012 ucla, then was going to dive into recruiting and the transfer portal for something different. I think Nebraska can do really well in the portal.
I was cautiously optimistic when I first posted here, cautiously optimistic we could win 6 games, that is. Talk about low expectations.
Now I’m pretty sure we are more likely ending the season 3-9. Yet I really think Scotty will keep his job. Cripes, we are just Kansas with a much worse BB team. And even Kansas would can this guy. You do remember Turner Gill?
OK thanks again for 1997, Scott, even though we had a great team to cover up your horrible shot put passing. Of course the only game I saw you play live was that 19-0 offensive explosion down here in Tempe. Maybe the worst effort by an NU QB ever considering we were two time national champions and still had a Pipeline to block for him.
I think we can get to at least 4 but calling any wins is tough to do.
SSO, I have read your posts for quite some time. I really appreciate your thoughts. I was fortunate to be able to as a kid scout potential future Huskers with my dad. Tony Samuel recruited the Houston area back when he was the outside linebackers coach and my dad ran Houstonians for Huskers out of Houston for 25 years. I was able to form friendships with some people very close to the program. Being a Nebraska fan is just in my blood. I actually am a coach myself but am no where near as seasoned yet as it seems like you are. My question is, do you feel that Scott will become less stubborn with time? I think that is his shortcoming. I truly feel like a lot of the problems I see on the field are a result of him being stubborn. I look at the personnel they have in the game for certain play calls and wonder why they don’t have different athletes on the field? Possession receivers running long developing plays, smaller backs running between the tackles, trying to be multiple in the red zone. I cringe at putting a less than 100% QB in the game at Minny. What does that tell the team if you are so big on culture? When I watched the team practice while Osborne was there they repped 1st, 2nd, 3rd team over and over and over again. That’s why Turman did so well at KSU. Do you know what they do in practice now? Their struggles seem to be compounded in the red zone. Just score, don’t be cute in my opinion. They obviously lack confidence in the other QB’s that they recruited to bring in here! They obviously don’t get meaningful reps in practice. So Frost is wrong on both accounts! I know that was a lot, but I would appreciate your feedback if you can share. You can PM me as well. Thanks!
I think in some areas he will always be who he is. I really don’t know what’s up with personnel, when we don’t play people consistently, it’s tough to be consistent. That said, I do think some of the things we are seeing this year are a result of him letting his guard down and knowing we needed to get better. For example, going to Nebraska-Kearney and Coastal Carolina to learn their shotgun triple option.
As far as practice, it’s mostly first string guys getting reps with the 2s getting some sprinkled in as well. But it’s nowhere near a 90s Osborne practice with basically 3rd and 4th stringers running plays at stations exactly the same as the defense.
They seem to be able to move the ball, but I believe I know why they have redzone struggles. We can’t run the ball without Martinez, and when you get in the redzone with the defense more compact all those players that typically have to help in the run or choose to help in the pass are now even closer to the LOS. Those safeties are right there to help against Martinez.
SSO, what’s your take on Frost’s comments in the press conference today?
It’s more of them not having answers IMO. This is his most talented team and we just couldn’t get it done and are on pace to have our worst record since he’s been here.
Super happy to find you SSO! I stopped reading the “other” site due to your absence. The pseudo insider perspective is a breath of fresh air. Keep up the good work. I’ll spread the word!
Thanks for making it over! Wish I was still over there but it appears they’ve moved on. It actually has worked out really well over here.
Careful what you wish for. It’s gotten really bad over there. More than ever, it’s a bunch of people that don’t know anything smiling at each other.
Ya, they didn’t like my negative posts so much that they would skip over my positive ones that agreed with them many times.
Well, I just got banned from that other site because I linked to one of your articles. It was working fine for recaps and previews until today, guess someone didn’t agree with your SF retention article. Glad you are still putting out the quality content.
Kind of crazy they banned you for that. But I got banned for not returning a phone call while I was having a newborn so I guess it doesn’t surprise me.
Oops…that last post was supposed to read everyone is sniping at each other.
It made sense either way lol