Everybody’s in the equation

[Goal-line]

By the end of Monday’s practice, NU coaches and players had offered a full reckoning of the historically bad performance. And their focus had widened to even the most basic elements of athleticism.
“We want to get a little bit faster,” Papuchis said. “Team speed is something that’s been lacking over the first couple games, so we’re going to try to get some of our faster guys on the field and see how that works this week. Everybody’s in the equation right now.”

First up: linebackers Zaire Anderson and David Santos. Despite few snaps against Southern Mississippi and none at UCLA, they worked at the No. 1 Will linebacker spot Monday.

“These guys are much more progressed in understanding how we play the game and what we need to do,” linebackers coach Ross Els said. “They’ll see playing time.”

What the hell took Papuchis this long to see this? Isn't that what spring ball and fall camp is supposed to be for? We got schooled as to why speed is the most important component on the field.

“Heck, yeah,” Anderson joked when asked if learning the scheme was harder than he expected. “When a playbook’s harder than your homework, that’s a problem. I think it’s harder than my homework.”

This is also a huge problem. Why the hell should a playbook be so damned hard? Football is about two things, blocking and tackling! Way too much time spent on technique and scheme. Get to the ball! Swarm the point of attack. Run through your angle of tackle.

“We’re not very dynamic,” Els said. “We didn’t make plays in the open field like we needed to, but also we don’t have that eraser mentality, that ‘bang, there’s the ball, I’m gonna go hunt it down.’ We need to get to that level. We’re a little cautious right now. And maybe lacking a little confidence.”

Duh!

http://www.omaha.com...RED/709109864/0

 

[Blackshirts007]

I don't agree with the quote about Zaire and David being much more progressed....I think it's code for "our other LB's are not good enough to compete at this level."

 

[MLB 51]

I don't agree with the quote about Zaire and David being much more progressed....I think it's code for "our other LB's are not good enough to compete at this level."

Or maybe just not fast enough. Either way, I agree.

 

[skersfan]

Must have gotten a lot better in one day of practice. Amazing this was not seen last Friday so they could have played Saturday.

Bunch of coach speak, and Bo and company write the book on it.

I doubt we will see anything different, maybe one, but a lot needs to happen before conference play for sure.

 

[HUSKER FREAK]

I don't understand why the coaches don't see that you can change personel up for the team we're playing against. When we are playing against the power run teams and/or Pro set Offenses our front seven maybe fine, but against the speedy spread teams we see it just won't work. Not fast enough, equates to poor tackling techniques, like arm tackles, tackling high, or tackling air like we have seen from our DE in the first two games. I don't think that current front seven should be the starters, but I wouldn't say that they shouldn't play. It also seems to me that we are really not conditioned on D for our uptempo type of offense, espeacially when we are going against a team like UCLA. We just didn't have enough rest. And, I am not saying just when we go three and out, also when we have a huge run for TD or when we go three or four plays and score and the D comes back on. They just looked really gassed by the end of the first half and really bad by the fouth quarter. This is a big problem that hopefully if Anderson or Santos can come in and even play half of the game along with Someone like Moss or Curry to get some relief. I want to add that I am not saying that I want to move away from our offense, but I do think that there is a time when you have to slow it down and a time to speed it up. Kind of like Oklahoma did when Bradford was running the offense.