Rojo Breakdown: NU penalties on the decline

Saunders

Heisman Trophy Winner
For the better part of the last two seasons, Bo Pelini has been on his best behavior. His sideline tirades have gone way down and his interactions with the media are generally sunnier. Television cameras follow his every step on the field, waiting to catch Pelini's latest outburst. But he has denied them that pleasure for the most part lately.

Then there's this year's Iowa game, a 38-17 loss.

For reasons unknown, Pelini reverted back to his old ways. He was in the officials' ears all day and earned a personal foul penalty for nearly hitting a referee while swinging his hat in anger. His comments after the game, which included profanity, certainly didn't help his case.

These actions did nothing but affirm the general thoughts of national football fans and media - that Pelini is a rage monster on the sidelines, and his teams follow his lead. The Huskers commit turnovers and penalties at a significant rate because he's out of control.

Most of those assumptions are not only unfair, but unbased - Pelini has undoubtedly had some sideline blowups, but he has absolutely mellowed in recent times. The Iowa game was an outlier, not the norm. And while NU's turnovers remain high (the Huskers' 29 turnovers this year ranked 114th in the nation), the penalties have dropped with Pelini's anger.
http://nebraska.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1600008

 
Very interesting. This is something I have been wanting to see since the season ended. Glad someone did the work.

One more thing that I think would be interesting is to see how many of those false starts came from the O line. I would put my money on less than half. I remember a number of times our RBs, WRs or TEs would get flagged for that and not our O line.

Personal fouls seems awfully high. What all could that entail? Roughing the passer, hands to the face...etc?

 
Personal fouls seems awfully high. What all could that entail? Roughing the passer, hands to the face...etc?
Excessive celebration (see: Kenny Bell TD against Illinois)

Unsportsmanlike conduct (see: Bo smacking ref with hat)
Kenny Bell's excessive celebration penalty was Grade A bullsh#t.

All he did was throw the diamonds up (like he does every time he scores), then pumped up the crowd while turning around to celebrate with his teammates.

 
Don't forget RG44 getting a personal foul for "roughing the passer" against Wyoming when he sacked the QB.

There's also LeRoy Alexander getting the PF for that hit against the Georgia WR when he lined up to hit the guy in the midsection but the WR ducked into the impact, causing helmet-to-helmet.

 
I have to comment on that Gregory hit on the Wyoming qb. That was awesome. Penalty or not. I was thrilled. That was basically Randy Gregory's "look what I can do" moment. I just remember thinking after seeing that kind of violence in hitting a qb that we havent seen that kind of ferocity is rushing the qb in quite a while.

 
There's also LeRoy Alexander getting the PF for that hit against the Georgia WR when he lined up to hit the guy in the midsection but the WR ducked into the impact, causing helmet-to-helmet.
Hey, my boy Cunningham just KNEW that was targeting . . . until he was forced to slowly walk it back after being called out by the Pac 12 head official.

 
Kenny Bell got penalized after that catch against Illinois for shushing the crowd.
Yes, his home crowd.
And still maybe the dumbest thing I've ever seen in Nebraska football. Okay, that, and when Joe Dailey ran out of bounds on fourth down to end the game that year against Southern Miss. Those are the two dumbest things.

It seemed like penalties on the offensive line were down quite a bit this year. It was only down from 15 false starts to 13, but for some reason it just didn't seem quite as bad this year. Not sure why.

 
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There's also LeRoy Alexander getting the PF for that hit against the Georgia WR when he lined up to hit the guy in the midsection but the WR ducked into the impact, causing helmet-to-helmet.
Hey, my boy Cunningham just KNEW that was targeting . . . until he was forced to slowly walk it back after being called out by the Pac 12 head official.
If, god forbid, we have Cunningham for another game, we'll have to do an over/under on number of walkbacks. What was it during that game? 5? 6?

 
I think that Iowa game says a bit about how much Bo's mentality affects the teams mentality. Like the article said, Bo truly fueled the fire once again with his antics in that game. He really showed his critics he hadn't changed all that much. The heat was on and he faltered big time. Much like his team did that day.

 
There's also LeRoy Alexander getting the PF for that hit against the Georgia WR when he lined up to hit the guy in the midsection but the WR ducked into the impact, causing helmet-to-helmet.
Hey, my boy Cunningham just KNEW that was targeting . . . until he was forced to slowly walk it back after being called out by the Pac 12 head official.
Yep....

He completely contradicted himself after the fact. "Oh, that's definitely not targeting."

Yeah, yeah.........you're agreeing so you don't look like an a$$ on live T.V.

 
I think that Iowa game says a bit about how much Bo's mentality affects the teams mentality. Like the article said, Bo truly fueled the fire once again with his antics in that game. He really showed his critics he hadn't changed all that much. The heat was on and he faltered big time. Much like his team did that day.
Can't necessarily argue that specific instance but this line of reasoning seems to be a one way street. I don't see very many people crediting Pelini and the staff for keeping the team together and fighting in other games when things don't go our way and we get down but then come back to win. How many of each instance have there been in the last three years?

 
Kenny Bell got penalized after that catch against Illinois for shushing the crowd.
Yes, his home crowd.
And still maybe the dumbest thing I've ever seen in Nebraska football. Okay, that, and when Joe Dailey ran out of bounds on fourth down to end the game that year against Southern Miss. Those are the two dumbest things.

It seemed like penalties on the offensive line were down quite a bit this year. It was only down from 15 false starts to 13, but for some reason it just didn't seem quite as bad this year. Not sure why.
Probably because they werent glaring drive killers, since you know, we werent moving the ball much anyway.

 
I think that Iowa game says a bit about how much Bo's mentality affects the teams mentality. Like the article said, Bo truly fueled the fire once again with his antics in that game. He really showed his critics he hadn't changed all that much. The heat was on and he faltered big time. Much like his team did that day.
Can't necessarily argue that specific instance but this line of reasoning seems to be a one way street. I don't see very many people crediting Pelini and the staff for keeping the team together and fighting in other games when things don't go our way and we get down but then come back to win. How many of each instance have there been in the last three years?
Sorry Mavric, but you couldn't be more wrong about this. I can't tell you how many repeated times after some of our hard fought victories I heard fans, analysts, players, and other outsiders crediting this team and Bo. They constantly said this team took on the resiliency of their head coach. I heard numerous times how these kids took on the tough personality of their coaching staff and especially their head coach. I'm almost shocked that anyone would try to claim that narrative wasn't repeated over and over.

My comment was based off the beginning of the article, period. The article stated how Bo fell apart that Iowa game, and I simply drew the conclusion that his team followed suit and seems to sallow suit in other situations. Good and bad. If I can't say a negative about Bo without saying a positive in the same sentence, forgive me. I've proven over and over, as have many, that I am willing to state some positive things Bo does. I also will not sit like a blind stooge and act as if the man is great in all phases either. He's not.

I heard the positives about this team fighting and being resilient much more than I heard the negative side of Bo's attitude affecting the team. Fact is, the Iowa game is the only game I can really think of that Bo acted like a complete asshat, therefore, it was the only example I used.

 
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