Bo's Monday Presser

knapplc

knapplc

International Man of Mystery
I don't know if I've been part of a locker room after a win that was that quiet. It definitely got our attention. I am responsible for how we played. I'm embarrassed by it, and obviously the team felt the same way.

We have an interesting mix on this team. We have a good group, but a small group of 13 seniors. Shawn brought in a guest speaker today, a guy from West Point. Coach K came and talked to that team about what it takes to play for your country. It's one thing to talk about it, but

We can talk about what's necessary, the type of focus you have to have to play great, and we didn't have that Saturday. It's one thing to talk about it, but it's another thing to feel it. They felt it Saturday.

Bo doesn't feel any different about what this team is capable of than he did a week ago. But some of the same things they did in the first game, they had breakdown after breakdown in this game. They didn't change what they were doing, they just didn't execute it.

We're lucky to walk out of there with a win. You can use that and learn from it and hopefully become a better football team because of it. We broke it down and went through every snap in detail. Talked about it, and I think we have a football team who got their attention.

You can't ride waves of being way up, way down, whether you win by 50 or win with 20 seconds to go. At the end of the day your approach has to be the same. You can't buy in to things that don’t matter. It's a humbling sport because it's the greatest team sport, because you have to have 11 guys doing their job. It took just one guy not doing it right and then another the next play, and another the next.

We made a huge jump in Special Teams. Those guys responded to the challenge. Bo expects the same thing from the Offense & Defense next week.

I'm not worried about where we're playing, or what time we're playing, I'm read to see this team play to the level they're capable of.

Bo says there weren't as many missed tackles as they thought, it was sloppy tackling, leaky yards. Giving up a yard or two or three when they made the tackle. Bad fundamentals. Bo's message was there's only one way to play, and when you're supposed to close, you close.

 
It's not what we were doing, it's how we were doing it. We didn't just miss tackles, we were in bad positions, our eyes were in the wrong place.

Leaky Yardage - new Bo-ism.

We're only completing 20% of passes on First Down, and that's because our level of detail was terrible. Guys weren't running the wrong routes, it was at times missed reads by the quarterback, but not a lot of those. Didn't know how to run routes. Sometimes it wasn't the receiver in the pattern, sometimes it was the other receiver bringing the safety into the area, and the QB had to throw the ball way outside the hash. Other times it was Tommy not reading his progressions but deciding where he was going to throw the ball, and we've lost a lot of yardage that way.

Tommy reverted back to some bad footwork habits. When he wasn't doing that well, he threw the ball low and we missed out on some enormous plays.

On first down, in the run game, one guy after another on our front, just missed targeting, not playing with fundamentals & technique. Lack of communication, and letting guys run through but not communicating that to the back side. If you're going to let a guy through, and you don't tell the back, you're going to have problems.

Kenny Bell is day-to-day. A little sore yesterday. He'll respond quickly.

Randy Gregory ran yesterday, looked great yesterday and looked great today. He'll be ready to go Saturday.

Westerkamp is OK, he's just sore.

Burtch & Reilly are day-to-day. Hoping to get Reilly back by Wednesday. Same with Burtch.

Alonzo Moore just has to go turn it loose. He's tremendously talented and at times he was going out there worried to make a mistake, playing tentative. He's just got to let it loose.

Bo wanted Ameer to get the ball more, and we need to be more creative to get the ball more.

Bo took responsibility for everything. (we've heard this before)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I watched Bo's post game comments on Saturday. And they sound a lot like his game week comments today. And for most of it, I get it and understand what he is saying. Tommy pre-determined his reads, leading to the big pick six and a few others that probably should have been picked. He needs to stop doing that. And our defense has to bring guys down. Good defenses bring down players after first contact either in solo fashion or because the contact impedes the runner and enables pursuit to arrive.

So where does that leave us?

For me, no where I wasn't a week ago. Call it, the fruits of having no expectations for this team.

Nebraska is an average to slightly below average team in comparison to the teams in their division and conference.

That means that if the team plays the right way in every aspect of the game, they are capable of beating nearly any team... although I don't think we would have any chance against Oregon or Auburn or Bama or LSU .... maybe a few other elites.

If we struggle, turn it over, suffer from penalty problems or poor execution in one phase of the game, we become very vulnerable to losing.

Back in the day.... the offense and defense were so strong that if one unit was messing up the works, the other would make the difference. We could get around our struggles and come out with wins. And that is why we took care of business against the un ranked so well in the Osborne years.

We aren't that great program. We are a team that is going to have to grind it out every week. Our first goal... bowl eligibility. Then work each week for a better and better bowl and so on. Conference titles are not a consideration at this point.

The old teams felt confident they could win all but a few games, so people talked big picture with the Huskers. This team won nine games last year and that was after having eeked out wins in several games. A .500 season or even a losing season could have happened quite easily last year. Because of that, I find it hard to entertain too many ideas of going unbeaten or winning the conference title.

I enjoyed the game on Saturday. I appreciated the comeback by the Huskers and was glad we won.

I didn't go to the "I can't believe we almost lost to an FCS team" place. And that's because McNeese, a team I knew very little about until Saturday, played a solid game. And our average Huskers were a bit below average. And so that's the way the game probably should have gone.

We play right and we win by three or four scores. But the game would have still likely been competitive because Nebraska and McNeese are just not worlds apart talent wise.

 
Not going to single out one guy but we HAVE to get faster at reacting to the ball when it is going to the flats or we will get killed

 
HUSKER FREAK said:
Not going to single out one guy but we HAVE to get faster at reacting to the ball when it is going to the flats or we will get killed
Click to expand...
Thank God Mike Moudy reacted to the ball as quickly as he did when Armstrong got blindsided. That was one of the best plays of the game (although I don't know if Moudy's guy was involved in the sack).

 
tmfr15 said:
Our first goal... bowl eligibility. Then work each week for a better and better bowl and so on. Conference titles are not a consideration at this point.
Click to expand...
We'll get bowl eligible. The minute we start setting that as a goal is the minute this program, as we all remember it, is completely gone. They didn't look like conference champions Saturday, no doubt, but who in the B1G did? Nobody in our division is playing well and the top teams in the other division lost.

I get it was a bad game that exposed an awful lot of what you addressed in your post, but lowering our standards this far, this early in the season, means Nebraska is just an ordinary program. As fans we can't live in that realm.

 
knapplc said:
HUSKER FREAK said:
Not going to single out one guy but we HAVE to get faster at reacting to the ball when it is going to the flats or we will get killed
Click to expand...
Thank God Mike Moudy reacted to the ball as quickly as he did when Armstrong got blindsided. That was one of the best plays of the game (although I don't know if Moudy's guy was involved in the sack).
Click to expand...
No. Sterrup had to pick up a blitzing Corner. Had him, then stumbled, and the little sh#t flew right around him and stripped Tommy. Sterrup got his lunch ate on the that. Though he had it handled until he tripped/stumbled/whatever.

I wonder if it was his injury that maybe affected his footing there. Cuz he was shuffling pretty quick to keep pace with that corner flying around the edge.

 
Second-half drives:

#1

Ameer run 3 yards (penalty, holding, 7 yards)

Ameer run 2 yards

Tommy run 1 yard

Tommy pass 6 yards

#2

Ameer run 3 yards

Ameer run loss of 2 yards

Tommy pass incomplete

#3

Tommy run 34 yards

Ameer run 1 yard

Ameer run 8 yards

Tommy run 4 yards & TD (penalty, tripping, 15 yards)

Tommy run 5 yards

#4

Ameer run loss of -2 yards

Tommy pass 7 yards

Tommy pass incomplete

I find nothing wrong with any of this playcalling and can understand why we started to go to the run less. Ameer carried for 7 out of 15 plays and gained 13 yards (6 carries for 10 yards not counting the penalty). Still think we could've stuck to the ground game maybe but McNeese was stuffing it, and that's honestly completely embarrassing.

Our next drive was my least favorite of the game:

#5 (11 minutes left in 4th)

Tommy pass incomplete

Newby run 4 yards

Tommy pass incomplete

To me, it seemed there was no need to throw on 1st & 10 yet, but I can see why we might have thought this was a better way to test McNeese than trying to run against their loaded box again. Wish we'd have tried a zone read or something, some other way to get to 3rd & short and keep the clock burning. The 3rd & 6 play must have broken down pretty quickly, as Tommy launched one deep. Maybe there was an underneath option he should've taken but didn't.

The next two Nebraska drives occurred at the 4-minute and 1-minute marks in the 4th quarter. No problems there. On the first, Tommy had a 41 yard pass to Jordan Westerkamp negated and we punted, and on the second, we scored the winning TD.

The real reason Ameer didn't get enough touches in that second half? We ran 24 flippin' plays compared to McNeese St's 44.

Credit the defense for making a stop after the illegal formation penalty took off a TD at the end, but McNeese had two drives that went 12-83 and 14-88 and combined to take over 11 minutes off the clock. And they held all Nebraska RBs to 8 carries for 17 yards (2.12 ypc). Thank goodness we had a QB that managed to do something in spite of all that.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
zoogies said:
Credit the defense for making a stop after the illegal formation penalty took off a TD at the end, but McNeese had two drives that went 12-83 and 14-88 and combined to take over 11 minutes off the clock. And they held all Nebraska RBs to 8 carries for 17 yards (2.12 ypc). Thank goodness we had a QB that managed to do something in spite of all that.
Click to expand...
Gotta give it to Nate Gerry for knocking down a sure TD. He was one of the bright spots on Saturday.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
MinnwiscowaSker said:
tmfr15 said:
Our first goal... bowl eligibility. Then work each week for a better and better bowl and so on. Conference titles are not a consideration at this point.
Click to expand...
We'll get bowl eligible. The minute we start setting that as a goal is the minute this program, as we all remember it, is completely gone. They didn't look like conference champions Saturday, no doubt, but who in the B1G did? Nobody in our division is playing well and the top teams in the other division lost.

I get it was a bad game that exposed an awful lot of what you addressed in your post, but lowering our standards this far, this early in the season, means Nebraska is just an ordinary program. As fans we can't live in that realm.
Click to expand...
that's always been a goal. even when TO was coach. it just isnt THE goal.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top