McKewon: Huskers Best Half of B1G Football Since 2012

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
The whole thing started, frankly, with better play from Zaire Anderson and Josh Banderas. The defensive line gave linebackers and safeties tackling chances all night. Anderson and Banderas — spelling Trevor Roach — finally took them. The man-to-man pass defense finally paid off when Northwestern quarterback Trevor Siemian and his average bunch of wideouts stopped connecting on middle routes. Pelini bets — and usually he’s right — that college quarterbacks can’t consistently hit moving targets while under a variety of blitz pressures.


Once Nebraska’s offense finally overcame its errors — and it took two Armstrong third-down bullets to make that happen — you saw what the Huskers’ defense could do against a one-handed, desperate offense. Opposing quarterbacks are now completing just 48.3 percent of their passes on the season vs. the Huskers, including an anemic 35 percent on third down. Taking away the first quarter — the last matter Pelini and defensive coordinator John Papuchis have to clean up — opponents are averaging just 4.42 yards per play for the rest of the game.

How good is that? The 2009 defense gave up 4.25 yards per play after the first quarter. The 2010 defense gave up 4.97 yards per play.
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OWH

 
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I agree about Banderas especially. He was definitely playing with something to prove out there and ended up having a great second half. Hopefully he keeps his sh#t together now and will be able to put some good minutes in without being a liability.

 
I think we're starting to see some shades of Suh's last couple of years with Gregory, also. Gregory's getting so many double teams that others on our line are able to blow through the line for sacks.

It was nice to see Gangwish and Williams play well Saturday night.

 
Undone said:
I think we're starting to see some shades of Suh's last couple of years with Gregory, also. Gregory's getting so many double teams that others on our line are able to blow through the line for sacks.

It was nice to see Gangwish and Williams play well Saturday night.
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I agree. All around great defensive line play Saturday night. Collins and Valentine were shoving their guys five yards into the backfield on a regular basis. That sack Collins had that was nullified by the timeout was ferocious.

Scary thing is, you look at these numbers and stats, and look at the overall play of this unit and consider that we usually get much, much betterminmthe second half of the season....well lookout Big Ten. Nebraska could be very tough to deal with.

I'd also point out Daniel Davie as a guy really holding his own out there. He had a few plays that were just outstanding.

 
Collins and Valentine have been ballin all year. And theyre performances will never show up on the stat sheet. Having to great DTackles is a big deal in this defensive philosophy. We've seen how porous it is with just one solid guy(late 2011), and how horrid it was with none(end 2012).

 
I thought we had a very aggressive defensive plan against Northwestern, and hopefully it's something we continue to see going forward. With Gregory taking up double teams, sending more guys is going to lead to favorable results, either sacks or forced passes. Teams will have to beat us with short, quick passes, which means the guys responsible for patrolling those areas of the field (LBs and NB) need to be on point at all times. When they are, you get what NW produced in the 2nd half. The way we played should motivate these guys to continue to do that against Rutgers and Purdue, and hopefully that momentum will sustain itself through trips to Madison and Iowa City and a home contest against Minnesota.

 
Id really like to see Valentine and Collins given the green light a little more often. When Collins is allowed to shoot gaps and disrupt, he is a bad bad man.

 
I would argue that the 09 unit played against some pretty poetent offenses that year where the 14 unit has played against some pretty impotent ones.

With that said you cant deny stats. I wouldnt have believed we have been playing that well unless I saw it just now. I gotta say Ive been impressed with our defensice play but it doesnt give me the same high it did in 09 when they took the field. You knew you were about to see absolute carnage when they came out. You felt like the game was about to change. The 14 unit could get there though, and next years is gonna be pretty damn special even without Randy.

 
1995 Redux said:
I would argue that the 09 unit played against some pretty poetent offenses that year where the 14 unit has played against some pretty impotent ones.
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Agree, but that defense (and Bo Pelini) was taylor made to stop those offenses...and did it quite well for some time. This defense is a retooled Nebraska built from the ground up for B1G play...and in a few short (actually it's they've been pretty long) years it's statistically rivaling the 09' group. I don't think they'll be able to flat out take over a game like the 09' defense did...but that's more because of the balanced offenses we play today than the defensive unit.

 
Agreed. Overall we now face more oowerful offenses capable of battles. Rebuilding the defe se to suit the conference has been a long journey. I think soon though, we could see the D start taking games over like the 09 unit did.

 
The best part is we're a relatively young defense still. We may lose Gregory to the NFL, and it would suck, but we're picking up some other guys who are missing this year. Moss should be back, Rose, Jackson, Alexander. Add that to all the other young guys who are playing well right now. The best is yet to come from this defense.

 
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