Mavric

So far this year, he's 81 for 100 passing (81% if math isn't your thing) for 929 yards, 9 TDs and 2 INTs in three games. Also has 202 yards rushing, eight off the team lead.

And now Michigan

All the season ticket renewals are done online now. You get an account to log into and pick which seat you want. Keep your same seats, switch to different seats or add more seats - whatever you want. You have to pay for the ones you have in February/March and the online process is in May (I think).

I would assume that new season tickets are handled in the same way. I would think you'd get to have a chance to select from whatever seats are left after all the renewed ticket holders choose. But I'm not sure how they decide when you get a chance to pick. When I first got mine, I had to put in an amount and I got seats for less than that amount. But that was before they did it all online.

If they're still asking you for an amount that you'd be willing to donate, you have to have more of a chance with a higher amount. But I thought they were pretty much out of a waiting list so I'm not sure how they decide on an order.

True freshamn TE Matt Snyder was dressed for practice today after missing several weeks with an elbow injury.

They said earlier that they'd redshirt him but I wonder if he gets another look if Sutton is going to be out awhile.

 

 

 

Definitely an interesting take. USA went deep over and over on the Blackshirts with seemingly no effort to respond from us, but perhaps testing our corners was part of the plan.

 

I could see this if we weren't running the same coverage against BYU. Unless we were fine losing a game as long as we didn't tip our hand to future opponents.

 

I agree, Mavric. However, just for fun. Maybe the BYU game made them aware of some deficiencies, player and/or scheme. They feel comfortable in the scheme fix in practice during the USA week, but want to see it the players took the coaching also. ...

 

I hope not. Because if we have three defensive coordinators that don't know that playing mostly man coverage leaves you vulnerable, we definitely have issues.

 

 

https://twitter.com/HuskerExtraSip/status/643585629209665536

Definitely an interesting take. USA went deep over and over on the Blackshirts with seemingly no effort to respond from us, but perhaps testing our corners was part of the plan.

I could see this if we weren't running the same coverage against BYU. Unless we were fine losing a game as long as we didn't tip our hand to future opponents.

Hard to say that.

 

We were never in danger of losing to SoBama, and we didn't lose to BYU until :00 seconds left.

 

If BYU had staged some miraculous comeback and won in the last second, maybe.

Considering they were tied for most of the second quarter, led for over a quarter in the middle of the game and were within a score for the last 20 minutes, no.

Also J Rose.

Can we make a special user group for retired mods, with the one perk being they get more +1s in a day than the rest of these unwashed heathen?

 

I've gotten this message too many times:

 

You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day

 

 

 

I gave you one more +1.

So do we have room for 1 more WR then this year or is that it? Maybe willing to take a stud if they want to come otherwise 2 is good?

For sure one more and, depending on who's interested, looking for a bigger WR since we have only short guys right now.

 

Definitely an interesting take. USA went deep over and over on the Blackshirts with seemingly no effort to respond from us, but perhaps testing our corners was part of the plan.

I could see this if we weren't running the same coverage against BYU. Unless we were fine losing a game as long as we didn't tip our hand to future opponents.

Which is possible, depending on what the play is. However, watching a lot of the BYU game, I see releases from LB's, and coverage from both LB's. Here are two plays that I see both coverages.

 

Here's a play with LB in coverage while you have both safeties have robber roles. Quick pass from Hill, smart read, he knows whats going on. LB stays in coverage, while Cockrell becomes robber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOU5N2PCoM?t=25m47s

 

The play after, you can see Dedrick release the guy to Safety.

I don't think your analysis of the first play is correct. Davie has the outside WR, Williams has the slot and Gifford has the RB. That's why Gifford takes a hop step toward the formation at the snap. It's only when the RB goes away from him that he retreats and drops into a zone coverage of the flat. But that's why the quick out is wide open - because Williams is assigned to cover it but he's too far away to stop the short pass. Gerry is in more of a robber roll as he steps up an can come from the backside to make a play on a short pass on the other side of the field. You can also tell there is no deep safety help as the pass is a bomb down the middle of the field but there is only man coverage - no safety help deep.

I believe the same is true on the next play - the CB has the wide out, the safety has the slot and Young has the RB. But the RB again goes the other way so Young drops to zone (flat). This is also what I'm talking about when I say the LBs are "not doing anything." Obviously I don't mean just sitting down and taking the play off. But they aren't covering anyone or pressuring the QB. They're covering a zone that often has no one there. If you're running a true zone, that will happen from time to time. But when you're largely running man-to-man, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have LBs covering no one, especially short after all the WRs have gone deep.

You can see this coverage illustrated even better on this play.

It's the play before the second play you linked. At first I couldn't figure out why Cockrell let the slot go so easily for an easy catch. But when you watch closer - and especially when you watch the replay from the low angle behind the defense - you can see that the corner has the wide out, Williams, from the safety spot, eyes the slot and immediatly breaks to the outside as the slot does, and Cockrell, lined up in an OLB spot, takes a couple steps forward toward the back to which he is assigned. It's only after the pass is thrown that Cockrell retreats to try to catch the slot. Again, because the RB to which Cockrell is assigned stays in to block, he is rendered basically useless in pass coverage.

And on this trips play, you can see Banderas begin to cover the third guy in, but as soon as he passes him, he releases him also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOU5N2PCoM?t=16m40s

 

That play is ingenious, because they attack on one side, leaving two guys having to play m2m. Gerry is robber on the play,but he bites a bit on the PA fake, so that split second keeps him out of the play. And with the LB releasing to Cockrell, he's essentially out as a robber.

 

But you might be right. There might be certain plays where we play that type of role, but I see the m2m with LB's on the under, as well as the release to the Safeties.

I don't think this is right either. Bando is indeed in some sort of zone coverage but there is no receiver within 15 yards of him so he is basically "doing nothing." We are completely manned up on the trips with Gerry as the robber on the other side (Gerry had no chance to help on this play because he was the short route robber and they threw the deep seam route, exactly like the play above). You can tell this because the CB runs deep with the outside receiver and Williams follows the inside slot across the field on the crossing route, ending up in the same place as Gerry. If it was a zone coverage, Williams would have stayed in his quarter of the field and had help for Cockrell over the top. But because they're all in man, Cockrell has no help and is left to try to cover his man anywhere he goes on the field. Since his man is just outside the hashmarks, he can run basically any route imaginable, making that a very tough spot for Cockrell to be all by himself. I don't think the play is so ingenious as it is taking advantage of our man coverage with little pass rush and giving a pretty good quarterback time to find any of three receivers who are able to beat their man.

Well, what I know about Cover 4/Quarters is based off of MSU's scheme, which might be nuanced enough to be different. I haven't really had time to dive deep into how we use it, but from my eyes, there are plenty of similarities for me to recognize they have "that" cover 4/quarters look.

 

In Quarters, the safeties generally play closer to the line. MSU liked this because it potentially put 8-9 guys in the box, while simultaneously being in pass D.

 

On what can be recognized on the pass play, the outside guys are on an island. CB's match up with outside guys which we'll call #1's. #2's are the next guys in, and #3's the same (usually RB). Now, #2's are LB's responsibility in their zone, until they go deep enough for the Safety (+8 yards or so). Then, those guys are essentially the Safety's responsibility, which then becomes m2m coverage at that point.

 

If the #2 stays under (8 yards-ish and under), they stay the LB's responsibility. At which case, the safeties then become a "robber", meaning they help with #1's. Which is what happened on Gerry's INT. He was free to become a robber, and came up with INT.

This is more what I was expecting to see but it's not what we've been running - at least not a decent percentage of the time. Or perhaps only on one side of the field. There are a lot of times where the safety is sprinting up toward the line of scrimmage at the snap to cover a slot.

The corner has the outside WR, the safety has the slot and the OLB has the RB. All man-to-man. Which is why we've had trouble covering the slot receiver on a quick out because we are having to come from too far away.

Now, I don't agree with you on the LBs. I think they have been very active. I remember Young being in pass coverage and he has broken up at least one pass in the first game.

I probably didn't explain that enough. It's not that they're not doing anything. As you mentioned they do have some coverage responsibilities.

It seems to me that everyone - save possibly one safety - is locked up man to man on a designated receiver. There are five eligible receivers on any given play and we have six guys to cover them (assuming rushing four and one safety in the hole). But what seems to be happening a lot is teams are keeping their back in to pass protect as they need extra help blocking our DTs. But it seems to me - and I'll have to watch this more closely when I get to re-watch the USA game - is that when the backs stay in to block our LBs are kind of stuck doing nothing. That's not the worst thing as I would assume they could still pick up some sort of delayed route or screen. But a lot of times it just seems like they don't end up doing anything. Which doesn't help when we are struggling in pass defense.

Those that understand the schemes better than I do, what exactly are our safeties doing now? Are they manning up on receivers?

We do have safety help a decent amount on one side of the field. The second half against BYU and fairly frequently against USA one safety helped over the top. That's how Gerry got his INT against USA. But the other side of the field is manned up. The other safety locks onto a slot receiver.

Look way better than Miami's.

 

I love the all-whites but only as an occasional look. I think the players really love them, though, which they should, because they're super sharp - but they're best as a once-in-a-while alternate.

I don't mind the all white look at all. Especially when it's going going to be upper 80s and 70%+ humidity.

Have Eric Lee or Avery Anderson played at all, or are they redshirting? Both of those kids were excellent HS players... if Davie can't handle it, one of them could surely step in to fill the role. This may have been a case of Davie winning the starting position due to experience.

Both redshirting unless something changes.

I don't like what I'm seeing out there. We are playing A LOT of one-on-one coverage. Not that we've been totally beaten - Davie actually had about as good of coverage as you could ask for a couple times - but we're just not giving ourselves any margin for error. Obviously the deep passes get the most attention but we give up all kinds of easy 8-12 yard passes. We have to play off so as not to get beat deep but that makes it easy for the receiver to check up about 10 yards down the filed and be wide open for an easy throw.

I haven't watched the USA game again but our linebackers seem non-existent in pass coverage. I gave them a little pass against BYU as I thought they may have been staying home to spy on Hill but they seem to just be in no-man's land a lot - not creating a pass rush but not really helping in coverage either.

There was an article on ESPN last week where they talked to some opposing coaches who were questioning Michigan State's ability to continue to play Cover 4 without elite corners. I think we have some good talent at CB but probably not elite. After seeing how our concepts are playing out after a couple games, I don't see how this will work without a significant change in scheme.

We're currently #119 in the country in passing yards allowed per game. We're #94 in yards allowed per attempt. Per McKewon, we're #110 in passing plays of 20+ yards allowed. And we haven't played teams that have particularly good athletes at WR.

Perhaps we still have something in the bag of tricks but if we do it would have been nice to use it instead of getting beat by BYU.

Miami's cleats for Saturday:

https://twitter.com/Huskers/status/643518523369750529

Interesting. I didn't know Urban was on that staff when we beat them.

 

He went from a WR coach to HC?

Yep. Hired as Bowling Green's HC the next year.

"I'm looking at Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and ........... " Interview has to help: "Nebraska?"