Nobody seems to like Cotton. I do think the OL is a weakness, but I don't know how bad they really are. This defense might actually be decent if Randy Gregory stays healthy. What I find most frustrating is that we just can't seem to ever win the turnover ratio.
I said this about the UCLA game last year, and I'll say it for the Miami game this year...it's gonna dictate the rest of the season. If we win, I think Bo might finally get the 4 loss monkey off his back. If we lose, I think it's more of the same old crap for this year.
It's hard to assess the OL now to 10 years ago and further back, since the game is just different 10 years later, but they sure seem to be underachieving now. I would have to look to be sure, but it seems like Nebraska back in the "pipeline" days had about the same number of midwestern guys as the line does today. They were dominant back then though, and I don't see them opening the same kind of holes now. Maybe the recruiting is better on paper now, like Joshua says, but either way it's not translating. The OL may not be bad, but they are not dominant like they used to be, and I don't know why. Again, it's not like Nebraska had tons of OL talent from outside the midwest back in the heyday, so why can't we be better than we are now? I gave an example of Wiscy doing it with their local guys during the same time frame that Nebraska has been underachieving. Maybe we need to recruit Wisconsin a little more!
Bo's defenses don't generate a lot of TOs, IIRC. His scheme is more about not giving up a big play and letting the offense kill their own drives. They are not aggressive TO creating defenses. That is not necessarily bad either, but it makes it hard to win the TO margin every game. Of course if the offense was better it would help a lot too. I don't remember the numbers, but I don't think Nebraska had great TO margins under Osborne either. I think they had a lot of TOs with the option runs, but the defense was lights out anyway of course.
