BLACK22Trap

The mid 90's Huskers defenses says that the "read and react" you're advocating is pretty much worthless. However, Kevin Cosgrove's defensive style completely agrees with you. And for the record Uncle Rico....I played DT...and I only worried about a screen or draw when I saw the tell tale signs of pulling lineman or one that let me go without any real resistance. In other words, I played fast and aggressive, but I kept my head up and played with smarts. The best defenses we ever had here at Nebraska, those from the 90's run, played fast and aggressive and didn't worry about getting beat. Because they knew that if they played mean, fast, aggressive, and full bore on every snap by the time the offense "popped" a big play the Huskers would be up by 50 and it wouldn't matter. Hilarious, call me Uncil Rico right after you refer to the golden 90's in 80% of your reply. I'm not going to sit here and break down every aspect of how to play the defensive line, but I can say using 1 guy per gap is the most worthless decision a coach can make, IMHO of course. If the best thing your coach had to tell you was, "play with smarts", then I feel for the program you came from. As for "getting into the guys numbers", of course I mean shooting your hands. Only a rookie would ever let the Olineman get in on you, because his next move is to hold you nice and tight.

Ive been reading for awhile and the best post was from the gentleman who broke down the production of the recruiting classes over the last 2-3 years. That should literally be the only post about the defense on this forum IMO. He put the proof in the pudding about the talent we have and thats that. But it sounds like the coaches are trying everything they can to shuffle people around and recruit on the JUCO level. It just doesn't make any sense to me to change to a 1 gap control when our LB's are already suspect. They would have more responsibility with the change, would they not?

A lot of heat coming down onto this style of play and I would just like to register and post in defense of the current system. I played DE and was taught to do something very similar to what our D line is taught now. Get into your mans chest- stand him up- feel which way he is trying to take you and react. "read and react" 2 gap responsibility. A matter of fact our coach wanted a good 1-2 power steps out of stance(thats all). Always stay home to stop the reverse. Obviously these are some general rules but when you go any further up field you take yourself out of the play. You may be screaming for Merideth to rush the QB, but odds are he is doing a better job staying right where he is on his gaps containing the QB. Once he goes anywhere else that opens up a running lane. I see why some of you want to lick your chops, pin your hair back and get up field, but I PROMISE that we would make way more mistakes and be 3 times as frustrated as we are right now. The 2 gap is the way to go. Mcbride claims you need a very strong man to control 2 gaps? I disagree. How strong must a tackle be to get into his guys numbers? The other guy cant even use his hands? If he is double teamed, perfect- bring both guys down with you and roll into the play- and likely someone else is open to make the play(i.e SUH/CRICK) We saw what this system can do back when we had the right players to run it. i.e 2009? with SUH and crew. Alabama literally said we had the better defense that year and that we made a lot fewer mistakes. That is because our guys were not rampaging up field. GAP CONTROL FOOTBALL/ASSIGNMENT FOOTBALL Yes Alabama looks awesome being aggresive, but they also have the best players in just about every position on the field. When you have that it doesn't matter what system you run, youll likely win. ALSO Alabama and the SEC will pay for their oversigning and cutting of scholarships. It is very disgusting what kind of operation those teams are running and it is clear they are operating on a "win at all costs" model. It will not sustain. I just want to touch on the UCLA loss. Yes frustrating. But I didn't see any comments about how those kids(UCLA) dont even start class until sept 24? I read that somehwere. Are those kids just hanging out playing football until then or are they in summer classes? Also, they had rice first and we had USM. Who do you think they were practicing for all spring summer fall? We HAD to put decent prep time into USM, they are always a very salty team. Either way, the end of the year will define the loss to UCLA and if we would have made 1-2 more plays EVERYONE would be picking us to win the B1G. We made just about every mistake in the book and we were still in the game until the very end.... that is worth a shout out. We've seen what our defense can be like when hitting on all cylinders and this year is the first time we will see our offense hitting on all cylinders. In time they will both hit at the same time and that is when we will shoot for a nat title. I am looking for this to happen next year