Mavric

Player: Elysee Mbem-Bosse Hometown: Ellenwood, Georgia School: Cedar Grove Position: Linebacker Height: 6-3 Weight: 232 40 time: Offers: Alabama, Auburn, Cincinnati, Duke, Florida, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Florida, Syracuse, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wake Forest, Wisconsin Visits: Twitter Rivals: #173 Overall; #7 ILB; 247: #31 ILB; Scout: #15 ILB; ESPN: #11 ILB; Hudl

Doesn't seem to have taken any visits since he was here.....

Not sure why this won't embed.

I think there's some revisionist history in here. When you say last year's defense "regularly fell apart", what is your definition of "regularly" and which games would you say that happened? Last year we were #48 in the country in total yards given up per game at 373. That was about #33 out of 67 Power 5 teams (including BYU and Notre Dame). That's not great but not terrible either. It's almost exactly average. But a lot of damage was done in one game. In the 11 games we played against teams not named Wisconsin (ESPN apparently doesn't include bowl games in their stats), we gave up 350 yards per game. That would have been good enough to be #30 in the country and #24 in the Power 5+. That's pretty decent. Doesn't negate what happened against Wisconsin but shows that we were actually pretty decent the rest of the time. There have also been a lot of comments about people always being able to run all over us. These comments are basically focusing on Wisconsin and ignoring the rest of the games. Against non-Wisconsin opponents last year, we gave up 3.8 yards per rushing attempt. That would have been good enough for #33 in the country. In 2013 - when we didn't play Wisconsin - we finished #32 in the country in yards allowed per attempt at the same 3.8 number. Those aren't great numbers but they're not that bad. And I would bet they're better than most would guess. Again, I'm not discounting what Wisconsin did, just speaking to the idea that we were always bad against the run and regularly fell apart on defense. So far this year we are #107 in the country in total defense at 444 yards per game. That's 70 yards per game worse than last year's total. We are allowing 3.3 yards per rushing attempt so that is a little better but we've also played a lot of teams that don't try to run it much. Before the Wisconsin game we were only giving up 3.0 ypc so it already went up 0.3 just facing one opponent that is decent at running the ball. In general, most would agree that you need to stop the run first. But I don't think many answering that question would think we'd go from #27 in yards per game allowed passing (196) to #128 (348). We haven't just traded stopping the run for stopping the pass. We've traded moderately better run defense for abysmal pass defense. So no I don't think that's a good trade.

Awesome stats that you drew up. Across the whole of the game though, we just awful on first down in general. That was really the case against Illinois also, regardless of whether it's a nitpick of "play calling/play selection." Agree with this. I'll try to do the run-down of first down plays tonight or tomorrow.

10 yards is a stretch but 6-7 yards and backpedaling. When the QB has time to stare you down, double-clutch and still complete a sideways pass all the way across the field, that's terrible coverage. When you're running cover two and your Secondary can't cover, what do you do? Throw to the TE. Guy had four catches coming into Saturday's game. He gets six and a touch. The way the secondary is playing, it's like you could throw quarters coverage out there. Wouldn't matter. This is our quarters coverage. Not Cover 2. I hope you're laughing at the simple mistake you made by saying it was a Cover 2 coverage.

10 yards is a stretch but 6-7 yards and backpedaling. When the QB has time to stare you down, double-clutch and still complete a sideways pass all the way across the field, that's terrible coverage. When you're running cover two and your Secondary can't cover, what do you do? Throw to the TE. Guy had four catches coming into Saturday's game. He gets six and a touch. The way the secondary is playing, it's like you could throw quarters coverage out there. Wouldn't matter. This is our quarters coverage. Not Cover 2.

10 yards is a stretch but 6-7 yards and backpedaling. When the QB has time to stare you down, double-clutch and still complete a sideways pass all the way across the field, that's terrible coverage.

Sam still going with the "Damn the stats. We tried to run but couldn't." line. OWH So here we go again: First possession: 1-10 NEB 25 Pierson-El, D. rush over left end for loss of 3 yards to the NEB22 (Biegel, Vince). 2-13 NEB 22 Armstrong Jr. rush over left end for 9 yards to the NEB31 (Tindal, Derrick). 3-4 NEB 31 Armstrong Jr. pass complete to Carter, Cethan for 3 yards to the NEB34 (Caputo, Michael). 4-1 NEB 34 PENALTY NEB false start (Natter, A.J.) 5 yards to the NEB29. 4-6 NEB 29 Foltz, Sam punt 27 yards to the WIS44, downed. So they were ready for the Jet Sweep. Considering they run that themselves, probably not that surprising. Then we ran for 9 yards and threw short. The run was to the outside as well - QB counter. No runs for the RBs. Second possession: 1-10 NEB 25 Newby, Terrell rush over right tackle for 9 yards to the NEB34 (Tindal, Derrick). 2-1 NEB 34 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 2 yards to the NEB36, 1ST DOWN NEB (Sagapolu, R1 Olive;Caputo, Michael). 1-10 NEB 36 Cross, Imani rush over left tackle for 3 yards to the NEB39 (Caputo, Michael). 2-7 NEB 39 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 5 yards to the NEB44 (Orr, Chris;Schobert, Joe). 3-2 NEB 44 Armstrong Jr. rush over right end for 1 yard to the NEB45 (Tindal, Derrick), PENALTY NEB holding declined. 4-1 NEB 45 Foltz, Sam punt 55 yards to the WIS0, touchback Ran for 9. Ran inside for 2 but go the first down. Run with our power back straight ahead for a short gain. Run for 5 - great job by Newby to not lose several yards as Wisconsin blitzed into the jet sweep - then run for 1. On the last play the defender who was left behind by the Jet motion made the tackle. No one to block him. Third Possession: 1-10 NEB 20 Armstrong Jr. pass incomplete to Turner, Jamal. 2-10 NEB 20 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 1 yard to the NEB21 (Goldberg, A.;Sagapolu, Olive). 3-9 NEB 21 Armstrong Jr. pass incomplete to Carter, Cethan. 4-9 NEB 21 Foltz, Sam punt 46 yards to the WIS33, out-of-bounds Pass - run up the middle - pass. Fourth possession: 1-10 NEB 20 Armstrong Jr. pass incomplete to Pierson-El, D.. 2-10 NEB 20 Newby, Terrell rush over left end for 16 yards to the NEB36, 1ST DOWN NEB (McEvoy, R2 Tanner;Caputo, Michael). 1-10 NEB 36 Armstrong Jr. pass incomplete to Reilly, Brandon. 2-10 NEB 36 Newby, Terrell rush over left end for 6 yards to the NEB42 (Caputo, Michael;Orr, Chris). 3-4 NEB 42 Armstrong Jr. pass incomplete to Ozigbo, Devine. 4-4 NEB 42 Foltz, Sam punt 41 yards to the WIS17, Erickson, Alex return 6 yards to the WIS23 (Janovich, Andy). Pass. Outside run for 16. Pass. Outside run for 6. Pass. So they were keying on our Jet Sweep. Probably shouldn't have been a surprise. The just sweep and the TA run off it netted -2 yards. Only a great play by Newby turned the third Jet play into a 5 yard gain. TA had a nice gain off the Jet fake but they learned the second time and shut it down. Newby running to the edge had plays of 9, 5, 16 and 6. That's 9 yards per carry. Funny how when he actually gets a chance he does pretty well. The other runs were straight ahead. Gains of 2, 3 and 1 although one of those did get a first down. The third and fourth possession we had 3 runs for 23 yards (7.7 ypc) while being 0-5 passing. But Sam lumps them in with with the "running game not working" stats.

For those who are trying to blame the Linebackers for the pass defense, how much better can they play than they did on Saturday? OWH

LJS

More to Count's point:

The winner will rejoice over getting this ..... apparently.....