Defense.... of BO

[Bowfin]

We need talent. We need it now.

Texas says "Hi!" with more four and five star recruits than anyone except Alabama, plus a 1-2 record. So what about Alabama? Success breeds success.

If you recruit the best high school football players in the country, do you know what shows up? A high school football player that needs to be turned into a college football player. One cannot win national championships or even the conference with high school football players. Lou Holtz, Bill Snyder, and the like don't count on five star players being able to turn themselves into All-Americans or NFL prospects on their own. Holz at Minnesota and Snyder at KSU didn't ever see many "stars with stars". Holz at Minnesota fired half the team and took try outs on campus, and came up with a better team with zero beginning talent than the talent that was there. Talent can only be a starting point at best, raw material. The finished product comes from coaching, conditioning, and will power.

I suppose a case could be made for 7'4" athletes that run a 4.1 and can bench 800 pounds with I.Q.s of 180 being recruited and filling in our needs. Marines would like to get recruits like that, I'm sure, but they are resigned to taking whoever comes through the door, weeding out those who don't fit and painstakingly turning the rest into world beaters. (Not that football is similar to a military entity, but turning young men into more than they were or even thought they could be were is relevant in both cases.)

 

[husker_99]

We need talent. We need it now.

Texas says "Hi!" with more four and five star recruits than anyone except Alabama, plus a 1-2 record. So what about Alabama? Success breeds success.

If you recruit the best high school football players in the country, do you know what shows up? A high school football player that needs to be turned into a college football player. One cannot win national championships or even the conference with high school football players. Lou Holtz, Bill Snyder, and the like don't count on five star players being able to turn themselves into All-Americans or NFL prospects on their own. Holz at Minnesota and Snyder at KSU didn't ever see many "stars with stars". Holz at Minnesota fired half the team and took try outs on campus, and came up with a better team with zero beginning talent than the talent that was there. Talent can only be a starting point at best, raw material. The finished product comes from coaching, conditioning, and will power.

I suppose a case could be made for 7'4" athletes that run a 4.1 and can bench 800 pounds with I.Q.s of 180 being recruited and filling in our needs. Marines would like to get recruits like that, I'm sure, but they are resigned to taking whoever comes through the door, weeding out those who don't fit and painstakingly turning the rest into world beaters. (Not that football is similar to a military entity, but turning young men into more than they were or even thought they could be were is relevant in both cases.)

Sounds like Bo needs an ex military person to come in and do strength and conditioning or at the very least motivate.

 

[Hayseed]

I call BS.....it looks like we're stocked full of good athletes to me. Evidently Wyoming is getting all the 4 and 5 stars....whatever stars mean?....and our boys are responsible for the girly offensive strategy? We could use a few lock-down corners or something....every team could including Alabama and Notre Dame, that doesn't excuse the bad coaching we've seen on both sides of the ball. In defense of Bo, I liked him when he got here and I still do.....don't ask me why the team keeps going the wrong way. One thing I can see is they sure don't understand momentum or the effort a leader can bring to the team, whether verbally or just by his performance. What we have is key players who instill a sense of impending doom and a coaching staff that rallies around it.

 

[Hammerhead]

Say what you want about Bo's system. It can be the most ingenious defensive scheme in the history of the game of football, but if the players don't even have solid fundamental skills (let alone grasp of the actual scheme) it's barely even a step above having no scheme at all.

 

[Morrison]

Say what you want about Bo's system. It can be the most ingenious defensive scheme in the history of the game of football, but if the players don't even have solid fundamental skills (let alone grasp of the actual scheme) it's barely even a step above having no scheme at all.

Precisely. When our players year in and year out consistently lack those fundamental skills (i.e. proper angles and tackling) there is no one else to blame but the coaching staff.

Which makes me sad, because I genuinely like Bo and respect what he's done in terms of where we were when he got here and where we are now. I just don't think he can take us any farther

 

[Goal-line]

I hear what you guys are saying about the onfield product. But I still have to say it comes down to piss poor recruiting. We get very few studs, and most of those guys end up being busts, so we go into desperation mode. Why is JSP playing a starting role in the secondary? We have major problems locating talent at that position and therefor we resorted to getting somebody from another position group on the team.... that's desperation. Why is Nickens at DT? We have major problems locating talent at that position and therefor we resorted to getting somebody from another position group on the team.... that's desperation. Why isn't Santos on the field at LB? Anderson? We are starting true freshman over guys that should be better or at least that is the bill of goods we were sold. They are not better. And offense is not immune either. How many high level dual threat QBs did we miss on before settling for TA and JS? We got beat out for one of the top QBs by Northwestern last year. Ummm... Northwestern. What about Heard at the RB? We recruited him. We wanted him. He had academic problems. We stuck by him. He got here. And then flamed out. Aaron Green anybody? GONE. What makes any of us have much confidence that the two FR backs on this team will stick around? They might be busts too. O-line has had its share of recruiting misses and busts too. The list goes on. I will listen to the people that say Bo has some coaching problems and a BIG recruiting problem. I will listen to those that say it's just a recruting problem. And the only fix in either scenario might be to replace Bo. But the idea that this guy knew what he was doing on defense in the first few years and now is a complete idiot... well, it makes no sense. I will say this... not that long ago I said THIS year's team could be anywhere from 12-0.... if the defense panned out as advertised and the O lived up to the hype.... to 7-5 if the defense turned out to be a turnstyle as it was last year. You've seen three games now. Tell me you would be shocked by 7-5. SHOCKED. No way. That is what this team is likely capable of...

Totally agree! Bo was a big mistake. No, let me rephrase that, a Huge Mistake.

 

[URSS]

I am not sure that recruiting is the only answer. You can't get 4 or 5 Suh's every year. You have to work with you have and do the best. I don't think Bo is getting the most from what he has on the team and certainly from the staff. He picked a lot of young inexperienced friends to be his assistants. We are still paying for it now.

Tom Osborne had some very hard times before he found the answers. He struggled in the 70s and 80s and usually found himself 1 or 2 games short and with a reputation for not being able to win against top 10 teams. There were many calls for him to be replaced. Its not as easy as just replacing the head coach in my opinion.

Remember Craig Boh. was fired from NU when the Blackshirts did not perform as needed- he is now a great headcoach and was listed as a possible replacemetn for Bo in another post. Shawn Watson was run off and is now considered to be a guru at Louisville and a possible head coach. Frank Solich went on to become a good head coach at Ohio.

I remember Bill Jennings complaining that we did not win because we just didn't have the talent. Bob Devaney came in 1962 and won with Jenning's talent. Some of that talent went on to the NFL and became some of the best ever Huskers in the NFL. We fired Jennings and he got a job at Kansas- taking his latest running back recruit from Omaha with him- Gale Sayers.

I think the mix of assistants is probably just as important as who is the head coach.

 

[shyndy]

I found it really telling when the announcers said Saturday (my paraphrase)... "Bo is looking for answers... Well, I am gonna give him one, blitz."

I was glad not to be the only one thinking that on 3rd and 15...

At one point he also made the comment "if you live by man coverage, you die by man coverage".

Similar to what Damon Benning was saying during the Wyoming game.

I wish we would "live by the blitz, die by the blitz" instead

at least with that mantra there is some element of life involved

 

[Count 'Bility]

Lol, I remember getting blasted a few years back on this board for basically saying Pelini was not the guy for us. Glad to see many have come around to reality.

And I've bet you've sat around secretly pulling against Bo and Nebraska just so you can come back here today and gloat about being right. I know some others who are the same way. Just remember one thing. It's not quite over yet. The book isnt finished yet. Just remember. If for some reason Bo somehow turns it around, you better have your a$$ right back here to take the hits of being wrong. Cuz right now, I'm one of the wrong ones, and it's been a tough day, but I've frequented it and took my licks. Let's see if you would grow a sack.

 

[bbhusker]

You know, I used to think this way too, back before the 2012 UCLA game. I still felt that things would get better after Ohio St., too. After the CCG against Wisconsin I began to have my doubts and after the bowl game against Georgia I was on the fence. After Wyoming this year I began to get really concerned, but after today it's become clear to me that its not a recruiting problem, it's a coaching problem.

I mean, you can say we need to bring in better athletes, but we already have better talent than Wyoming, and at least equal to if not better athletes (per the last four years of recruiting rankings) to Wisconsin and UCLA. But we still managed to find a way to give up 500-600 yards of offense and 40+ points to each of these teams. We've upgraded players this year, but the product today looks remarkably similar to last year and 2011.

For a myriad of reasons (location, weather, ethics, relevance over the last five years, etc.) we will never have a coaching staff that is able to consistently bring in top 5 recruiting classes and simply "out-athlete" the opposing teams to the point where we can afford to be out-coached on a consistent basis. Hell, it's even debatable if that can even be done anywhere (see Texas).

The bottom line is that our problems are systemic within Bo's (and Beck's) schemes, preparation, and ability motivate. It doesn't matter who you plug in there at this point, experienced vets like last year or young studs like this year, the results are still the same. Blown assignments, missed tackles, lack of aggression, and stupid penalties have nothing to do with our recruiting (or lack thereof) - they are simply an extension of our coaching staff's shortcomings.

Which really hurts to say because I have been an ardent Pelini supporter. Unfortunately, you can only say "this will get better when..." for so long and, for me at least, that point was reached today.

+1

 

[Knoxville Husker]

But in the end, that didn't matter because the defense couldn't do anything right. That's because the Husker defenders are flat not good enough to play at this level. The ones that have capabilities are playing too early in their careers.

So Bo's good defensive schemes are wasted when we can't hold up physically at the point of attack.

That's bunk. The defense is very green but we have some nice looking young players on the DL in particular. They definitely showed some flashes of what they can be and really had UCLA on their heels early in the game. Hundley was feeling the pressure and we were stuffing the run fairly well too.

Our LB rotation has me puzzled, we need to find the best 3-4 guys that are ready to play now. Banderas I think will be good but is not ready to play right now it appears to me. It seemed to me we have 2-3 guys with more speed and quicker reaction times that aren't playing as much.

What I saw was a veteran offense that failed to answer the bell in the second half. A couple of ball control drives with points at the end REALLY would have helped out the young D and possibly been enough to eke out the win. Instead our offense went into a complete shell and and it was just sickening to watch. The defense followed suit and appeared shell shocked, but that was far more expected than what we saw from the offense. Through it all UCLA managed just over 500 yards, which is not a huge deal anymore in this age of video game style offenses and rules making it harder to defend (e.g. the "phantom" QB roughing calls, targeting, defenseless player, etc.). Had we managed a respectable showing on offense in the second half, both the yardage and the game are very even, instead we are outgained 300 to 500 yards. Do the math, a couple good ball control drives fixes that no problem.

 

[walksalone]

Lol, I remember getting blasted a few years back on this board for basically saying Pelini was not the guy for us. Glad to see many have come around to reality.

Well thank god you showed up now to remind us... whew...

 

[Power-I]

Lol, I remember getting blasted a few years back on this board for basically saying Pelini was not the guy for us. Glad to see many have come around to reality.

And I've bet you've sat around secretly pulling against Bo and Nebraska just so you can come back here today and gloat about being right. I know some others who are the same way. Just remember one thing. It's not quite over yet. The book isnt finished yet. Just remember. If for some reason Bo somehow turns it around, you better have your a$$ right back here to take the hits of being wrong. Cuz right now, I'm one of the wrong ones, and it's been a tough day, but I've frequented it and took my licks. Let's see if you would grow a sack.

Your comment would really strike a chord if you were right, but that's not the case. I am a season ticket holder and pay a $1500/seat donation. Not the kind of thing someone who doesn't support the program or coach does. When i reached the age of 30, and started having real responsibilities in life, I put away the fan glasses and put on the reality glasses for Husker football. I don't care how or who we get it done with. We just need to get it the hell done at this point. And Pelini has had 6 years. So you can keep up the blind faith if you need to, but while this program might not be Alabama-level now, it certainly isn't Colorado level, and we should have much higher expectations.

 

[Power-I]

Lol, I remember getting blasted a few years back on this board for basically saying Pelini was not the guy for us. Glad to see many have come around to reality.

Well thank god you showed up now to remind us... whew...

I agree that its a good thing I showed back up. Because all the people who were calling me out a few years back are wondering why Pelini is still coaching here now.

 

[walksalone]

Lol, I remember getting blasted a few years back on this board for basically saying Pelini was not the guy for us. Glad to see many have come around to reality.

And I've bet you've sat around secretly pulling against Bo and Nebraska just so you can come back here today and gloat about being right. I know some others who are the same way. Just remember one thing. It's not quite over yet. The book isnt finished yet. Just remember. If for some reason Bo somehow turns it around, you better have your a$$ right back here to take the hits of being wrong. Cuz right now, I'm one of the wrong ones, and it's been a tough day, but I've frequented it and took my licks. Let's see if you would grow a sack.

Your comment would really strike a chord if you were right, but that's not the case. I am a season ticket holder and pay a $1500/seat donation. Not the kind of thing someone who doesn't support the program or coach does. When i reached the age of 30, and started having real responsibilities in life, I put away the fan glasses and put on the reality glasses for Husker football. I don't care how or who we get it done with. We just need to get it the hell done at this point. And Pelini has had 6 years. So you can keep up the blind faith if you need to, but while this program might not be Alabama-level now, it certainly isn't Colorado level, and we should have much higher expectations.

And your comment would hold more weight if you didn't come across as somebody to appear from thin air as another of the "I told you so" horde...