***The Nebraska Defense - Blackshirts 2021***

Husker in WI said:
I think the opposite has been floated during the pressers - supposedly Frost had been keeping it slower than he'd like for the past couple years to protect the defense, and this was the year he'd felt comfortable enough with the defense to run more tempo. Of course, we only run tempo after positive plays so.. didn't happen a lot. But I think from pressers Frost considers a good defense license to go fast, not a reason to shift to a ball control style.
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I'm not saying we didn't run tempo at times - but it seemed far less than his history and what he did at UCF. It also seemed like he did not use tempo as much with Martinez as he did with McCaffrey (I know a different convo). 

 
bugeater17 said:
I'm not saying we didn't run tempo at times - but it seemed far less than his history and what he did at UCF. It also seemed like he did not use tempo as much with Martinez as he did with McCaffrey (I know a different convo). 
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I think it was still way less than they did at UCF but possibly more than the last couple years.

I think a lot of the "tempo" with McCaffrey was because when he went in they knew they were going to run two or three specific plays so they just lined up and ran those plays.  They didn't have to do any of the checking on the defense they just went with it.

 
bugeater17 said:
Completely agree on Chins. I do still wish he would blitz or design pressure more often. His defense still has some room left for improvement on 3rd down as well. But overall he has improved the defense. 
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I was a big fan of UCF in Frost's final season, and I watched most of those games. It is fun to see how Nebraska's defense is slowly (but surely) approaching the defense Chins was running in 2017. They loved to bring pressure, almost to the point Chins was criticized for leaving the defense vulnerable too often. From what I'm seeing at Nebraska, he's getting there - it's coming. 

 
Atbone95 said:
I was a big fan of UCF in Frost's final season, and I watched most of those games. It is fun to see how Nebraska's defense is slowly (but surely) approaching the defense Chins was running in 2017. They loved to bring pressure, almost to the point Chins was criticized for leaving the defense vulnerable too often. From what I'm seeing at Nebraska, he's getting there - it's coming. 
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I do think some of the decisions being made on defensive playcalling, when to bring pressure, etc. boil down to talent. Riley just left the cupboard bare in too many spots. Perhaps we just don't have the dogs at OLB or in the secondary to bring the heat like he'd like? We are still pitifully low in sacks despite other improvements and I know OLB has been a sore spot in recent recruiting classes. Hopefully this kid from Hawaii actually gets here and can help.

I do think given his druthers and the right pieces on defense he'd like to be more aggressive. 

 
Cdog923 said:
Oh nice, we've got a bunch of pieces from the *checks notes* 66th ranked scoring defense last year. 
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That number getting better or worse will always seem random (or only explainable by big things like coaching changes) if you ignore the reasons behind it. But it's more convenient to ignore the stats that do show significant improvement, like this one:




 
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Husker in WI said:
That number getting better or worse will always seem random (or only explainable by big things like coaching changes) if you ignore the reasons behind it. But it's more convenient to ignore the stats that do show significant improvement, like this one:
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Oh, they have improved the past couple of seasons, but incremental increases in things like "per play efficiency" are getting to be not enough, particularly when you're still giving up 30 points and 400 yards a game. 

Make no bones about it, the offense is still the (much) bigger of the two (three?) problems with this team. However, don't let the idea that one dumpster fire isn't as bad as the other just because it isn't as large get into your head. 

 
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The defense could get better statistically by having a better offense too. As the saying goes the best defense is a good offense. But then again......

 
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Cdog923 said:
Oh, they have improved the past couple of seasons, but incremental increases in things like "per play efficiency" are getting to be not enough, particularly when you're still giving up 30 points and 400 yards a game. 
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They gave up 30+ points twice last year... Same as runner up Ohio State in the same number of games.  When you consider the opponents starting field position, that becomes even more impressive imo.  The defense, did enough to win all but the Ohio State and Illinois games.  I think if the offense didn't look lost against Illinois, the defense would have had us in that one as well.  

 
Cdog923 said:
Oh, they have improved the past couple of seasons, but incremental increases in things like "per play efficiency" are getting to be not enough, particularly when you're still giving up 30 points and 400 yards a game. 
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Incremental is putting it pretty lightly, 10% better on every play is significant. But in either case, the only was you go from 30 points a game to whatever your standard for a good defense is by improving things like per play efficiency, YPC allowed, etc. Field position was big too, there are a lot of teams ahead of us in scoring defense that gave up a lot more yards. 

At this point we're a knack for creating turnovers away from a top-25 defense, which is a big improvement. And traditionally, Chins defense have been good at that so I'm willing to bet last year was an outlier. 2016-17 UCF, 2.0 and 2.5 TO per game. 18/19 Nebraska, 1.7/1.8 per game. Last year, 0.9. It's actually pretty miraculous the scoring defense was as good as it was considering the field position and lack of turnovers. And I do understand the defense is responsible for their own lack of turnovers, I'm just saying that looks like an outlier rather than a trend. 

 
Husker03 said:
Wow.. Just wow. We get to keep the new and improved pieces as well, you know. 
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In a way I can understand where he's coming from.  We aren't going to win the B1G anytime soon with a def ranked where it is currently.  At the same time I thought our 3rd down % was really encouraging as far as improvement in ypc allowed.  Getting some guys who can really ball back also is encouraging for me.  True however that simply put Nebraska has to start winning against teams with a pulse as well as continue improving statistically which I think goes hand in hand.  I was just happy with the overall improvement this year as I wasn't expecting that from Chins defense before the season started.  

 
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