Iowa Hung 40 on Us. Then the Firings Started.

Iowa Postgame and Butler fired!Wow…that was quick.Iowa rolled into town and - despite the heroics of team MVP Emmett Johnson - steamrolled the Big Red 40-16. While Jay was optimistic in calling for a Big Red victory, Bob saw this coming in last week’s podcast, predicting an Iowa blowout.The game actually started well and was a 1-point game late in the 2nd quarter. A late score put Iowa up by 8 at halftime. Not great, but not insurmountable. The problem is, Nebraska is a terrible second-half team.Not counting the tomato cans from Akron and Houston Christian, Nebraska was outscored 138-82 this season in the second half. The only two times they scored more than an opponent were the Michigan State and Northwestern games.There are really only two reasons for continually getting outscored in the second half. The first (and most obvious) is the lack of halftime adjustments by the coaching staff - time after time SMQ seemed to see a light switch go off with other teams that said “here’s how we’re going to beat them and they’re powerless to stop us.” The second reason is that the team is out of shape and gets worn down. With the advent of the 3-minute break on timeouts, you would think this is a lesser concern…but who knows.The end result? Embarrassment, combined with a serious re-thinking of Coach Rhule’s extension.While we were busy licking our wounds and wondering what was going to happen, Coach Rhule dropped a bomb and fired defensive coordinator John Butler. In a world where things move fast, THAT was fast. Whenever you make such a big decision, it begs one question: Did Rhule know that he was going to do this before the game? As business guys, Bob and Jay know that “knee-jerk” decisions aren’t really so knee-jerk.The next question is, what other dominoes are going to fall? While TJ Lateef did his best to run the offense, the Huskers went from over 25 points a game with Raiola (not counting the tomato cans) to only 18 with Lateef (and 13 in the last two games.) To be fair to Butler, if your offense can’t score, you’re already behind the defensive 8-ball.At SMQ, we think the problem is one of philosophy - we keep bringing in JV offensive and defensive philosophies into the Big 10. For the defense, we bring in a Pro-style defense that protects the pass first…while teams maul the Huskers in the run game. For the offense, we have long, long, long-developing plays that lack the speed needed to win in the Big 10.Letting Butler go is a good first step. The big question is - what happens next?