Anybody got the Stick-um?

[Enhance]

I've been trying to track down overall receiver drops so far this year including game-by-game and overall. No luck yet so if anybody has that information (or knows where to get it) let me know and I'll update the OP.

 

Regardless, it's so difficult to watch what's happening with that unit. I'll give Wisconsin credit for playing tight coverage in the secondary and being in positions to make plays, but there were several passes that hit players right in the hands and fell incomplete. I didn't watch the first drive of the game but the radio call made the pick six sound like it was tipped off DPE's hands. DPE later dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone. Morgan dropped at least one in the first half. You can pretty much go across the entire unit and see these inconsistencies. The high highs and the low lows.

 

I won't pretend to know exactly what to blame. I think it can be a mix of everything including overall offensive rhythm, route running, the opposing defense, the throw, etc. And I think Williams deserves some culpability in this, too. The offense has been inconsistent this year but, despite his reputation, his unit has been underwhelming. How much blame goes on him is debatable.

[Huskers44]

Pick six was off ozigbo. 

[krc1995]

And then do a category for deflections that were returned for 6.  

1 hour ago, Huskers44 said:

Pick six was off ozigbo. 

was that a drop or a bad pass?

[lo country]

2 hours ago, Enhance said:

I've been trying to track down overall receiver drops so far this year including game-by-game and overall. No luck yet so if anybody has that information (or knows where to get it) let me know and I'll update the OP.

 

Regardless, it's so difficult to watch what's happening with that unit. I'll give Wisconsin credit for playing tight coverage in the secondary and being in positions to make plays, but there were several passes that hit players right in the hands and fell incomplete. I didn't watch the first drive of the game but the radio call made the pick six sound like it was tipped off DPE's hands. DPE later dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone. Morgan dropped at least one in the first half. You can pretty much go across the entire unit and see these inconsistencies. The high highs and the low lows.

 

I won't pretend to know exactly what to blame. I think it can be a mix of everything including overall offensive rhythm, route running, the opposing defense, the throw, etc. And I think Williams deserves some culpability in this, too. The offense has been inconsistent this year but, despite his reputation, his unit has been underwhelming. How much blame goes on him is debatable.

Here are some articles ref the drops.  In a nut shell.  It's killing us.

https://hailvarsity.com/s/2160/consistency-for-the-huskers-can-start-with-fewer-drops

https://nebraska.247sports.com/Bolt/Drops-hinder-Nebraska-offense-107662554

https://nebraska.247sports.com/Bolt/Even-with-the-drops-Stanley-Morgan-showed-how-much-the-Huskers-n-108202899

[Huskers44]

3 hours ago, krc1995 said:

And then do a category for deflections that were returned for 6.  

was that a drop or a bad pass?

Kinda both. I think we should’ve ran the ball though instead of getting fancy with it. 

[zoogs]

That pick six was a pretty bad pass. It was way behind him.  Misthrow, or miscommunication.

 

A lot of the other ones though have been exceptional throws and should have at least been closer to a catch than what they were. Some of this is probably talent level of the receivers, but drops happen, too. Still, I think it's more revealing of talent level in the pass catchers than anything else. A sharper, more developed crew of receiving talent will just show up as a better passing game in other ways. Some of these players are quite young and we'll get some back from injury, too. I think this year will be good for them and there's good reason to expect improvement in the near future.

[Mavric]

19 minutes ago, zoogs said:

That pick six was a pretty bad pass. It was way behind him.  Misthrow, or miscommunication.

 

This is exactly right.  That would have been a tough catch for our best receiver, let alone a power RB who rarely catches the ball. 

 

It would be nice if our WRs could help out a little more.  Morgan has had some really bad drops this year - though I don't remember him having any yesterday.

 

But I continue to think a lot of the plays people like to label as "drops" are not nearly as easy of catches as people would like to think.  DPE's "drop" yesterday was an example.  Obviously, that's a play you'd really like to see him make.  I'm sure he'd tell you he should have caught it.  But it was a bomb down the field into double coverage where the guy in front of him had a chance to get a hand on it and there was another defender behind him.  And DPE had to jump to try to get to it.  On the dead run that's a lot of moving parts.

 

So we are often asking our guys to make some fairly tough catches.  Thus it's not surprising (to me) that they've "dropped" more than we'd like.