Michigan: What did we learn

ST being “fixed,” to me, would mean we actually have a PR strategy, right now we are just content with fielding a punt cleanly - which is an improvement. 
 

Also, I wouldn’t count it as being fixed when the HC doesn’t believe winning the game would come down to kicking a fg. That comment in itself sounded odd, but nonetheless, details matter and the fine details are what’s missing from this team being 6-1, instead of 3-4. 
 

We’re getting there, this train is pulling out of the station and ready to roll.  

 
Undone said:
You'd have probably been very shocked preseason if somebody told you that through game 7, playing Oklahoma away, that the offense that puts up the most points on our D would be Michigan.

It was just a really terrible game to have the defense give out in the fourth quarter.

Frost talked about how we scored so fast in the 3rd that our defense didn't have chance to rest. That may be one relatively legitimate excuse...but to me what really happened was that their tight end delay ate our lunch in the second half.

We have the horses to snuff out that play and we just didn't do it. That's really frustrating to me.

Sunday was the least upset I've been about a Husker game since...well, possibly ever to be honest. Except for the officiating. And I don't want Husker fans to get a rep of b*****ng about calls, but they got gifted that touchdown in the second quarter.
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I do think us being tired was part of it.  Nelson got burned just standing there on two straight plays in the red zone in the fourth quarter.  That usually doesn't happen to him.

And they did run 81 plays to our 60.  Which is a pretty big discrepancy.  And 42 running plays where we were getting pushed around too much.

You would have thought all those reviews would have given us time to rest.   :lol:

 
Savage Husker said:
Also, I wouldn’t count it as being fixed when the HC doesn’t believe winning the game would come down to kicking a fg.
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But that doesn't have anything to do with the coaches and players that prep for special teams and how special teams play.

That decision did cost us big time though for sure.

 
Mavric said:
The answer is that most of the "special teams problems" were mainly just kickers and punters who couldn't get the job done.  If you can't kick it in the end zone, it makes it a lot harder for your kickoff coverage teams.  If you can't get the right balance between height and length on punts, you're either letting them fair catch a short punt or out-kicking your coverage.

Most of the issues this year have been just one guy not being able to do his job.  Missing kicks.  Bad punts.  The missed kicks were basically all in one game.  The bad punts were basically all in one game.  But people like to overreact and insist that we don't care about special teams.

So, like you said, it didn't just all get fixed in two weeks.  We had fixed most of the placekicking issues last year.  It just cropped back up in one game.  We fixed most of the kickoff issues coming into this year.  Punting has still been a little shaky but it's mostly just been one guy not being able to perform, not a systematic failure.
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 Special teams coaches coach kickers. Kickers are their responsibility and they are coached, trained and tweaked like any other position in football. Players are evaled- recruited and decisions are made which ones play and which don't- those are coaching decisions.  When several of your kickers seem to consistently have issues and its happened 3 of the 4 seasons- that's a coaching issue. Dan Young back in the day - got himself coached up on how to coach kickers better. He didnt just give them a ball and tell them to kick. 

We could go on and on like Dirk did about this teams special teams snafus it isnt just the kickers. MOST of our special teams have been ranked 100+ for FOUR YEARS. Kick returns for scores- multiple times- terrible coverage, fair catching on the 3-5, not clearing out on short kicks- the list is REALLY LONG- When you have a problem that is consistent over a 4 year span and over a change of players it is SYSTEMIC. https://omaha.com/sports/huskers/football/chatelain-special-teams-are-costing-nebraska-games-especially-close-ones/article_f90f5726-1bfc-11ec-b07f-3fc424431e2d.html

 
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Undone said:
That decision did cost us big time though for sure.
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It only cost us in hindsight. We go up 7-0 on the opening drive that really punches Michigan in the mouth. Going up 3-0 or 0-0, there isn't a lot of difference in momentum, MU feels like they "won" the drive after giving some big plays.  Punching that in to culminate a dominating offensive drive really throws the momentum in NU favor. I'd go for that TD 100 times out of 100, so I won't talk about would have could have should have in the rear view.

 
Savage Husker said:
ST being “fixed,” to me, would mean we actually have a PR strategy, right now we are just content with fielding a punt cleanly - which is an improvement. 
 

Also, I wouldn’t count it as being fixed when the HC doesn’t believe winning the game would come down to kicking a fg. That comment in itself sounded odd, but nonetheless, details matter and the fine details are what’s missing from this team being 6-1, instead of 3-4. 
 

We’re getting there, this train is pulling out of the station and ready to roll.  
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In pre game- Culp was missing nearly every FG attempt past the 20. If I was Frost, would think the same thing. He was yipping them all over the place. Couldn't make one to save his life. Was almost comical if it wasn't so sad to watch. 

 
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Butterfly effect is one thing (see OU threads on kicking), but Frost definitely is coaching around known inefficiencies. I guarantee lack of confidence in Culp played a role in his decision to not kick a FG. 
 

If he actually believed FGs wouldn’t win the game, then he wasn’t prepared for all factors to win the game - hence the ST isn’t fixed. 
 

It leads me to believe he made that comment to protect from throwing Culp under the bus knowing he has no faith in him. 
 

In addition to that 4th down play, don’t know why AM tried to beat them to the outside after getting strung out the play before. Be a tough runner and cut up. Also, don’t get why Yant didn’t come in for a carry but then immediately see him get the next handoff on the following drive. 

 
I can guarantee Frost made the decision to go for it instead of kicking a FG based purely on aggression and on how we walked down the field on them that series.  If he had that little confidence in Culp, we wouldn’t have been kicking extra points but going for 2.

Only in hindsight can we say it was the wrong decision. I loved it at the time, while also acknowledging it could come back to bite us. But it had zero to do with Culp and everything to do with Frost wanting more than 3.

 
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Nebraska55fan said:
 Special teams coaches coach kickers. Kickers are their responsibility and they are coached, trained and tweaked like any other position in football. Players are evaled- recruited and decisions are made which ones play and which don't- those are coaching decisions.  When several of your kickers seem to consistently have issues and its happened 3 of the 4 seasons- that's a coaching issue. Dan Young back in the day - got himself coached up on how to coach kickers better. He didnt just give them a ball and tell them to kick. 

We could go on and on like Dirk did about this teams special teams snafus it isnt just the kickers. MOST of our special teams have been ranked 100+ for FOUR YEARS. Kick returns for scores- multiple times- terrible coverage, fair catching on the 3-5, not clearing out on short kicks- the list is REALLY LONG- When you have a problem that is consistent over a 4 year span and over a change of players it is SYSTEMIC. https://omaha.com/sports/huskers/football/chatelain-special-teams-are-costing-nebraska-games-especially-close-ones/article_f90f5726-1bfc-11ec-b07f-3fc424431e2d.html
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We had the B1G kicker of the year last year.  So he seemed to be getting good coaching then.  He had one terrible game.  It happens.  Mason Crosby had made 27 straight FGs.  He missed three yesterday.  But people reacted to that like we didn't care about it.  That's not accurate.  It's a knee-jerk reaction to one bad game.  Based on one player having a bad game.

Last year we were #109 in the country in kickoffs.  This year we are #40.  That's still not great but a heck of an improvement.  

We've struggled to find consistent punting.  But that's mostly on the guys doing the punting.  Przystup has shown he can be very good.  But he's hit a couple clunkers.  I'm pretty sure he didn't hit a seven yard punt because he hasn't gotten coached to be better.

 
The majority of the fan base (for the most part understandably) seems to basically be in a feedback loop right now:

1. The loss to Illinois ruins the actual or perceived level of where we're at in 2021

2. The stupid-tough strength of schedule gets largely overlooked because of Point #1

 
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Undone said:
But that doesn't have anything to do with the coaches and players that prep for special teams and how special teams play.

That decision did cost us big time though for sure.
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We lose by 1 even if he kicks the field goal on the first drive :dunno

 
Archy1221 said:
We lose by 1 even if he kicks the field goal on the first drive :dunno
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Because they would have just kicked the PAT. Yeah and this goes to what I'm saying in the Martinez thread also though about how I'm not sure it's entirely sound logic to say that everything down stream happens identically to how it really played out if "X," "Y," or "Z" occurs in the first quarter.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

I wish we would have taken the points, but obviously these kinds of hindsight observations are low-hanging fruit.

 
I can't believe Harbaugh's immaturity in the stupid stuff he said in the post game presser. It's childish, bordering on classless.

Anyway, this might sound dumb but I think one of the biggest things that could prevent us from beating both Wisconsin & Iowa is Prochazka being out for the season. As soon as the lineup changed our ability to pass block went downhill.

 
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