So - the LJS makes mention of a team fight before the team left for CA. Presumably between players wanting to move forward and those still steamed about Bo. Riley let it go on. Interesting.
Fight before bowl game last year
- Thread starter Husker.Wed._rivals
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The coaches have had to overcome a lot. Its a real stain on any previous person or coach who promoted this - warping the minds of impressionable young men, to live in some past and against their own future. GBR
Well, considering how we played in the bowl game, it didn't seem to hurt. If it separated out those who were buying into the program and those who weren't, it was probably a good thing. The team already seemed to be close coming into this year(and tragedy probably brought them closer), and there doesn't seem to be a problem with players not buying in anymore.
Good for them. My only issue is this should have happened earlier in the year and the upperclassmen who still had a hard on for Bo should have been riding the bench and the younger guys who wanted to play and win for the new staff should have been starting.
I guess I read it more as a fight between players that were sick of losing.
It really doesn't even specify if it was a fistfight or whether they were just yelling at each other. People make such a big effing deal about practice fights like they are the great barometer of a program somehow. Football is violent. People are gonna fight over it. Doesn't necessarily mean anything.
I believe the fact that the coaches let it go, which they had not done, was the thing that made this particular scuffle unique.
I would think there would be quite a few things that would contribute to a fight at the end of the season. Up to that point they had won 5 games, some of these guys may have never been on a losing team. Then you got the Bo hangover. And general frustration finally busting out. Hopefully this year will be different.
That or somebody just hit a guy late or put hands up in his face on a block and they decided to fight then guy B has to back guy A because he's a fellow DL and guy C jumps in etc. etc. etc.
Exactly. I think the story is true. I mean, what reason could we have to doubt it? It is pretty obvious there was a complex and difficult chemistry on that team last year.
And short of dismissing all of the residual Bo grumblers, Riley handled things with professionalism and maturity. Not once last year, as the losses mounted and the heat intensified, did he ever call players out or blame things publicly in a euphemism of some sort on Pelini.
Can't wait for this season to start.