Alabama #1, Nebraska onl Big-12 team in Sporting News pre-season rankigs

[CardinalAndGold]

Why should Oklahoma be in the top ten? They finished outside the top 25 last year. Texas should be in there instead of Nebraska. Just not sold that you lose Suh and get better on defense

Completely agree with this post

[M3MEPLEASE]

Oregon above Ohio State is comical. Wisconsin should not be ahead of Iowa in any polls. Same goes for GT.

Nebraska will be the most overrated team this year. Not saying they won't be good, but they have no business being in any top 10 poll yet with the loss of Suh.

[timappelgate]

still confuses me how nebraska is worthy of a top ten.

[huskerman]

Why should Oklahoma be in the top ten? They finished outside the top 25 last year. Texas should be in there instead of Nebraska. Just not sold that you lose Suh and get better on defense

you probably didnt expect to see the number 1 scoring defense from nebraska just 2 seasons after we gave up 70+ to kansas and fielded the number 109 ranked defense either did you?

Our defense as a whole may not be better, but our defense last season was on the field 70% of the game.....that wont be the case this season if our offense improves even just a little (and it will).

for example: NU vs. UT in 2009 the NU defense gave up 202 yards while being on the field almost exactly 60% of the game as texas had 19 more snaps of the ball than did nebraska.

so lets say that number is dropped down to 50% instead of 60% (just a marginal offensive improvement), then the nebraska defense would have only givin up 168 yards. that is a 34 yard improvment, i somehow doubt that suh alone made a 34 yard difference. so we could allow less yards if our defense takes a small step back and our offense takes a small step forward.

all of that doesnt even take into account that our secondary will be much improved. just means that you give up your yards in a different way.

but it is the offseason!!

[CYKOFAN]

Kind of crazy they list GT at number 5 then talk about all their problems, including a qb that can't pass. Any team as one dimensional as GT doesn't even belong in the top 20. And I'd wait to see what the loss of Suh does to the Husker defense before I'd put them in the top 10. A great player like that changes the blocking schemes of offensive lines and can disrupt the whole offense.

[Wesley]

Boise St. should be #2. Surprising they have Oregon #2 considering their QB and RB might not even be playing extended portions of their seasons. I like Ohio St. at #3. GT is not a top 10 team. That's just ludicrous. I'm fine with Miami, TCU & Wisconsin, but I think Florida should be swapped with iowa and Nebraska should be swapped with Oklahoma, though Nebraska will probably visit the top 10 at some time next season. I think USC and Georgia could make their way in there too.

Boise might even be abke to run the table if they only have the last tough game to win. Oklahoma looked like sick ducks in the bowl a few years back when The Dan was coach. They can only be better since he left for CU.

[heitclone]

Landry Jones is firmly entrenched as the starter. Broyles and Murray are two of the biggest impact players in the conference and maybe the country. The defense lost McCoy and some other big time names, but there is depth in that defense and they bring back a nice returning cast of starters.

I expect OU to resemble their teams of '06 & '07. They aren't national title contenders, but they will rise to the top of a B12 that is rebuilding, if for no other reason than they don't experience as much fluctuation year-to-year and they continue to bring in very good recruiting classes.

I think youre right. People shouldn't sleep on OU, they have a tough schedule but itf they are undefeated heading into the OU they'll be a top 10 team. And most of teh big 12 south has some rebuilding to do.

[heitclone]

you probably didnt expect to see the number 1 scoring defense from nebraska just 2 seasons after we gave up 70+ to kansas and fielded the number 109 ranked defense either did you?

Our defense as a whole may not be better, but our defense last season was on the field 70% of the game.....that wont be the case this season if our offense improves even just a little (and it will).

for example: NU vs. UT in 2009 the NU defense gave up 202 yards while being on the field almost exactly 60% of the game as texas had 19 more snaps of the ball than did nebraska.

so lets say that number is dropped down to 50% instead of 60% (just a marginal offensive improvement), then the nebraska defense would have only givin up 168 yards. that is a 34 yard improvment, i somehow doubt that suh alone made a 34 yard difference. so we could allow less yards if our defense takes a small step back and our offense takes a small step forward.

all of that doesnt even take into account that our secondary will be much improved. just means that you give up your yards in a different way.

but it is the offseason!!

I think Nebraska has no business in the top 10 RIGHT NOW, just too many question marks. They have a pretty favorable schedule so they could be by the end of the year. I see them being very similar W/L record to last year, which isn't bad by any means. The offense is still a question the obvious losses on the DL are going to take some time to replace. Suh made life easier for all of the other 10 guys on the field, they have some talent back but no one even remotely close to him. I agree though if the offense makes even minimal improvement you guys will be very tough to beat.

[CTTB78]

I could see Iowa rated in the top 20, maybe. Way too many lucky wins last year.

[Bobber]

I could see Iowa rated in the top 20, maybe. Way too many lucky wins last year.

Oh I don't about that. Michigan State is the only one that comes to mind for me. True Indiana played a heck of a game early, but Iowa won handily. Give them a little credit. They won most of them fair and square.

The should have won at Ohio State. One of the few times I thought coaching lost them a game...

[WalkingCY]

I could see Iowa rated in the top 20, maybe. Way too many lucky wins last year.

yeah. agree. UNI, MSU, IU....

[M3MEPLEASE]

yeah. agree. UNI, MSU, IU....

UNI. Yes lucky. IU? Maybe, they still won by 18+ points. MSU? Disagree. You see teams make 80+ yard drives with a minute left to win games all the time. Usually it just shows how good they are, but in this case it somehow makes Iowa lucky? If it were Texas, Florida, Alabama, USC who made that drive, I doubt people would be calling it a "lucky" win. They had 4 tries to score a TD inside the 10 yard line, its hardly luck if you convert on just one of those downs. Sure it was more dramatic because it was on their last down.


Another funny thing about this Top 10, most of the bowl losers are ranked ahead of the teams they lost to. Doesn't even make sense since most of these teams are returning a lot of their players.

Oregon over OSU
Miami over Wisconsin
GT over Iowa
Wisconsin over Iowa

[TarHeelHawk]

Oh I don't about that. Michigan State is the only one that comes to mind for me. True Indiana played a heck of a game early, but Iowa won handily. Give them a little credit. They won most of them fair and square.

The should have won at Ohio State. One of the few times I thought coaching lost them a game...

Michigan State was luck?

[garn91]

Why should Oklahoma be in the top ten? They finished outside the top 25 last year. Texas should be in there instead of Nebraska. Just not sold that you lose Suh and get better on defense

Nebraska returns 7 starters on Defense, and in the spots were they need to find new starters, there are several candidates who saw significant playing time in 2009. Suh's partner on the D-line, Jared Crick, has potential to be just as good as Suh was.

Bo said several times during the 2009 season, that he expects the 2010 defense to be just as good, if not better than last year.

Edit: Nebraska also returns 10 starters on an offense that dealt with alot of injuries in 2009. If people can stay healthy and if indeed the offense that was on display against Arizona is the offense that we will see in 2010, it's not that hard to see why NU is preseason top 10 in alot of polls.

[Cyclonepride]

you probably didnt expect to see the number 1 scoring defense from nebraska just 2 seasons after we gave up 70+ to kansas and fielded the number 109 ranked defense either did you?

Our defense as a whole may not be better, but our defense last season was on the field 70% of the game.....that wont be the case this season if our offense improves even just a little (and it will).

for example: NU vs. UT in 2009 the NU defense gave up 202 yards while being on the field almost exactly 60% of the game as texas had 19 more snaps of the ball than did nebraska.

so lets say that number is dropped down to 50% instead of 60% (just a marginal offensive improvement), then the nebraska defense would have only givin up 168 yards. that is a 34 yard improvment, i somehow doubt that suh alone made a 34 yard difference. so we could allow less yards if our defense takes a small step back and our offense takes a small step forward.

all of that doesnt even take into account that our secondary will be much improved. just means that you give up your yards in a different way.

but it is the offseason!!

Looks like someone forgot to spray again.

Just kidding, your avatar makes up for it. Kinda