This is absolutely unwatchable right now.
- Thread starter Alvious
- Start date
I’m giving it until NU’s drive to start the second half. If there’s no signs of life, I’m out.
And I never do that.
And I never do that.
To the fans who unfortunately lived through the dark ages… how does this feel any different? Not trying to be a rabble rouser but watching NUFB is miserable now.
Dark ages were a multi-year curse. So far this curse is every other year. so hope still exists.
Many of the dark age offenses were way better than this. Defense is similar. The difference is most of the players on this team have multiple power 5 offers. There’s no reason this team should be so horrible and that much worse than teams like Wisconsin, Nebraska and Minnesota.
First, the dark age teams would almost never have an opening drive like the first the Cats had, nor get a stop on their first defensive series. To be at 0-0 at the end of the first quarter would have been reason to tear down the goalposts.
A dark ages team would not have won a conference game, much less with margin.
A dark ages team would have struggled with Ohio.
There really is no comparison.
I will agree the second quarter, and undoubtedly the rest of the game, will be miserable.
Classic 32-yard FG miss from Charlie. After a false start on a first and goal. So bad it’s almost comical.
I’m out.
I’m out.
It's different in one big way. In the dark ages you didn't have to worry about seeing the slaughter on TV
During the Dark Ages, we could beat bottom of the barrel MAC and FCS teams. And Rutgers wasn’t in the B1G.
During the Dark Ages, we could actually put some points on the board.
During the Dark Ages, we could make field goals and punt the ball.
The Dark Ages had players like Bob Christian, Len Williams, Lee Gissendaner, and Richard Buchanan.
First time I’ve turned one off in a loooooong time
If you’re truly building a program then you should not keep having seasons like this in 2 of 3 years.
If you’re truly building a program then you should not keep having seasons like this in 2 of 3 years.
I am at a dog show and while waiting for group I go outside to my vehicle to listen to the game. The Cats are so thrilling that I ended up napping while the game was on. Clean house get rid of both coordinators, linebackers and receining coaches and the strength guy
If you get good at dog disc you can do it on the field at halftime instead of trying to bounce back and forth during a game.
I agree. This team isn’t watchable! I hope they put Fitz on the hot seat to make changes to coaches and scheme.
This is worse than any of our previous 3-4 win seasons of the past 20-25 years.
At least pretty much every other one of our bad seasons, we looked somewhat competitive in a lot of games. Walk's 3 win teams put up a lot of points. Our 2019 team had a great defense.
This team is just flat out bad; like an actual MAC level team. Don't think I've seen us this devoid of talent to this extent in a long time.
We are not competitive at all in a lot of these games (except against Iowa's lack of offense).
I was about to point to 2002 as a season this reminds me of. But then I looked, and this is waaaay worse.
Yeah, whether you look at Fitz's first season or 2019 or Walk's 3 win teams..., at least you can see a lot of competitive games there even though we might have been 3-9 or 4-8.
This team is way worse than any of those; that's what's so disheartening. This team doesn't belong on the same field with 80% of the Big Ten.
Honestly don't think you can say that has happened to us for the past 3 decades until now. That's the problem.
To me our talent hasn’t dropped off the face if the Earth. There are Coaches that need to be replaced, seems clear to me. Why are some of our veteran players worse this year than last year? Who has taken a leap forward.
Fair point with respect to defense, but offense does look like most of the players need to be replaced.
As far as defense goes, not sure we'll ever have another DC anywhere near as good as Hank. Obviously there probably has be plenty better than JON available but not sure whether it's reasonable to expect us to return to previous years form on that side.
The 2002 team with Basanez would beat this 2021 squad soundly. Same with the 2006 (with a healthy Bacher) and the 2019 team (the defense was good).
The 1999 team may have been worse. 1998 too although they had Bates and Gardner.
And unless we get some awesome transfers we will look even worse or just as that next year
I wasn't there for the darkest of the dark ages. Just the Peay years.
We smashed Princeton when we played them. I don't remember losing to or even playing MAC teams.
Yes Sir. We have way more talent now... despite how bad we're playing, than during the early Dark Ages.
The Dark Ages were so much worse. Depressingly so. Especially the late 70s, early 80s. During those years, the Nebraska game - running backs flying UNTOUCHED for 70 yards, or freshman running backs steamrolling six defenders before waltzing to the end zone.... that happened every single week. For years. Not because our defenders we're badly out of position like in JON's scheme, but because they were physically drastically outmatched and out talented. We basically lined up freshmen vs varsity for many years during the Dark Ages. Even from the student section I could see our players were skinny runts next to the muscle bound freaks on the other side of the line. We had no shot to compete. Much more so than this year's team.
Anybody remember the Stop State at 28 game? That was in 81, the game that broke the D1 consecutive losses record, right? I'll never forget it - I'm in the student section, and the team sprints out of the locker room out to midfield, jumping up and down, "Not this time!" A lot of these players were my friends, great dudes, giving their heart and soul to trying to get this team out of the CFB trash heep. Today is going to be different, I thought!
Sure enough, Sparty returns the opening kickoff to inside our 20 yard line. Effortlessly. Barely touched. And just like that our whole sideline deflated. We were down by 30 before the 1st quarter ended, and lost something like 63-14. With fourth string RBs running for over 100 yards in about 8 carries.
That was the Dark Ages. That happened most weeks, not occasionally. Our non-con games were against Notre Dame, Washington, Pitt, USC and other top 25 teams (we did often have one game a year against a MAC team, but the MAC was much stronger back then). We didn't start scheduling Princeton, NIU, Ohio, Wake and other bad non-con teams to get "easy" wins till the late 80s. Some mentioned above that at least in the Dark Ages our offense scored points. True - during garbage time.
The thing I can't figure out this year is how our DL and LBs are getting manhandled. That does resemble the Dark Ages, but still not nearly as bad. I still hope and believe that this year is an anomaly, in how bad we are outmatched every week. This happened for years and years during the Dark Ages... not one outlier year.
During the 3 1/2 seasons without a win, we didn't actually play any FCS teams, and lost to only one MAC team (Miami Hydroxide). One year we played both Washington and Michigan, because playing just one of the two teams that would end up in the Rose Bowl wasn't enough for us!
Oh, and Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten in the Dark Ages, but we still lost to them in 1989.