FrantzHardySwag

I’ve been hard on Chin but he called a hell of game Saturday. Blitzes, Coverage, Personnel - if he can build off that with another strong week against Iowa I’ll be very encouraged. 

1 minute ago, krc1995 said:

We are so gonna smoke Iowa.  It's time

For how terrible it looked before this week, a convincing win over Iowa would completely salvage this season.

Nebraska is passing on 20 years of bad Karma - Maryland is now the new host. 

5 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

And I guess to say it a different way, is our defense bad because we line up certain ways and give a lot of cushion in some scenarios, or do we just notice and complain about those things when it's just the defense is bad regardless? I was surprised on the rewatch how few of our issues last week were anything other than guys not getting off blocks and not making tackles.

 

I still think this is a vast improvement over Diaco, but giving up a lot of points consistently has been a hallmark of our defense for some time.

That’s what sucks about being a fan, we truly never know. Maybe the coaches are conveying everything the correct way , it’s repped out perfectly Tuesday - Thursday and the players are crapping the bed on game day. Maybe the scheme sucks and the players are doing exactly what the coaches are telling them. Maybe the scheme is sound but the coaches are struggling conveying and inputting it. 

1 hour ago, WyoHusker56 said:

 

Ty Robinson showing how the defensive line should play in a 3-4. He stalemates his OL which should allow our ILB to fill a run gap and stuff this play. Not sure the gap responsibility but the playside ILB runs away from the hole. The future is bright if we can keep adding true freshmen who play like this against Wisconsin. 

Stille gets turned, playside backer must be not trusting his reads because he ends up opposite side of where he should be. Other backer is flat footed and slow on his read. Taylor stays patient. Nice play by Ty. Man the LB play is truly awful. Who was the playside backer? Everything on the read coming towards him and he gets sucked up into the slop and negates everyone else’s work. 

7 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Chin's defense has held four opponents to 10 or fewer points in the last two years.

 

The last time a Nebraska defense did that was under Pelini in 2012-2013.

 

Chin did it against Bethune-Cookman, Michigan State, N. Illinois & Northwestern.

 

Bo did it against Idaho State, Michigan, Iowa & Purdue.

 

Didn’t realize how hit and miss this defense has been. Banker held opponents under 20 points 10 times, Chin has 4 times. 

21 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Busch for Dewitt would be a massive upgrade imo.  Busch has worked with Aranda at Utah St, Wiscy and LSU, so he knows a 3-4.  And he can recruit.

I think a veteran set of eyes would do wonders for Chin and the defense. We wouldn’t have to scrap the 3-4 and would be able add some concepts. Also the kids get to keep the same DC for the 3rd year in a row and Busch is experienced in Special Teams. It would address our biggest short falls. 

Kindly tell Dewitt to find another job. Make Chin Co-DC/OLB and bring back Bill Busch as Co-DC/Special Teams.

34 minutes ago, 4skers89 said:

Mo made himself easy to block on that play.  I expect him to get around that fat boy instead of dancing with him.

My lord. That footwork. Read run and go! So many wasted steps laterally. So much time shuffling around he got caught up in the slop.

1 minute ago, TheSker said:

We need more than one serviceable a lot of things on the roster.

 

In fact, we need our first serviceable pass rusher.

Oh I’m with you. Part of the reason I’m more optimistic with the offense is the pieces and the track record. I can see the path to having a top tier offense. But you hit it on the nose - defense needs to find a pass rush among a lot of other things to become a top 50 unit. Defense also doesn’t come with near the history of success to point to as a blueprint. Hard for me to see the path to this defense becoming what we need it to be. God knows I’ve been wrong before.

24 minutes ago, Toe said:

The D was 88th in scoring defense last year and is 84th this year, but the O has plummeted from 58th scoring offense to 87th. You need to lay off the crackpipe if you honestly think the defense has been the bigger letdown this year.

Team rankings has us at 78th nationally for scoring offense. We’re 126th nationally in FG%, with a competent kicking game my guess is we’re top 60 nationally in scoring offense. My hunch is Frost learned the importance of having more than 1 serviceable kicker on the roster. 

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

Gotta love some Husker fans...thinking that the "fix" to Husker football lies in the hands of 12 year old boys that will be earning a scholarship to play for the Huskers in 6 years...CAN'T WAIT!

Penn State - 4 year post season ban, loss of 40 Scholarships - Takes 1 year for Bill O'Brien to win 8 games

Baylor - Rhule takes over after rape scandal, arrives in December with 1 recruit committed, wins 9 games in year 3.

Nebraska - Frost takes over for Riley - 7 YEAR REBUILD IF WERE LUCKY

1 hour ago, Mavric said:

 

All that is assuming we are facing the same level of offense in both years.

 

This year we've played teams rated -0.26, 1.97, -0.98, 1.07, 0.67, -0.12 and 1.30 in Football Outsider's FEI ratings.  Average = 0.52

Last year we played teams rated 0.64, 0.47, 0.25, -0.17, -0.17, 1.22, -0.14, -0.64 and 0.25.  Average = 0.19

 

The difference between those two numbers is worth about 30 spots in the middle of the rankings.

This site is intriguing, thanks for linking. When I calculated the average offense we faced according to these rankings it came out average of 46.7 ranked offense last season and on average 56.7 ranked offense this season. I think we can both post stats to swing the argument in our favor. I honestly don't think this defense looks any better right now than it did at the end of last season. I would take the defense we saw at end of last year OSU, ILL, MSU, Iowa games over the defense we've seen our last 4 games this season. The eye test for me says we had a below average defense last season and we've regressed or at best remained the same. Judging from Frost's comments yesterday I think he is getting sick of seeing opposing teams consistently putting 30+ on our defense as well. Look it doesn't mean we have to fire anyone -- but can't we all admit it has to be better? We HAVE to find a way to hold teams under 30 in conf play or we straight won't hit our goals. A 35-40 point game here and there - fine, but B1G teams averaging 34 points a game on us since this staff showed up, its not gonna cut it.

9 minutes ago, huskerfan74 said:

So basically, you have no proof...Wisconsin has had changes in their staff over the past six years and the new head coach and his new assistants have continued the success as if there was no transition, proving that good coaches can be successful in their first year. There are many more examples of first year coaches that brought the right assistants and succeeded in their firs year. So, stating that my comments are false is simply your own naive opinion. Time will tell if I am right or wrong about Dewitt and Chin. I am willing to bet good money that they will not survive past next year.

To his credit he has posted stats, and overall defense wise we are slightly better in total defense and scoring defense, but we're still not very good compared to the rest of the country. What I wanted to look at is how our defense has preformed in B1G play this year to last year. Nice apples to apples comparison - and were gonna need to see if Chin is any closer to figuring out B1G offenses. 

Scoring Defense 

Current : 33.7

Last : 34.3

Total Defense

Current : 429

Last: 466

Defense Yards per Play

Current: 6.2

Last: 6.1

Rush Defense

Current: 233.9

Last: 224.6

Pass Defense:

Current: 195

Last: 242

Defense Pass Eff

Current: 134.8

Last: 118.7

3rd Down D

Current: 46.2%

Last: 45.4%

Turnovers Gained:

Current: 6 in 7 games

Last: 15 in 9 games

Redzone D:

Current: 94% (woof)

Last: 84%

In B1G play you could not say we are any better on defense than we were last season. Actually a lot of stats show regression. Regardless of progress, these are bottom of the barrel stats both seasons - and if we continue to play like this against B1G teams we will be lucky to make a bowl game.

2 minutes ago, Toe said:

 

273 rushing yards to a team that's struggling to make a bowl and doesn't even have its top two rushing threats? Wisconsin should fire their DC!

For reference we've given up 320+ rushing yards 3x in conference play. 

29 minutes ago, BetterDayByDay said:

There is just no real talent on the team at this time to provide a good pass rush. 

I agree that the pass rush has been a huge concern. In the 3-4 your pass rush is gonna come from LB via the blitz - see Wisconsin yesterday. Do you see something in the pipeline that will fix this? I admit I don't follow recruiting too closely, but it appears we don't have any Linebackers currently committed.  Defensive coaches need to address this by either getting some stud pass rushers or adjusting scheme to manufacture a pass rush. 

4 minutes ago, Undone said:

Going to be honest here: If I had to pick the weakest link on the staff right now it might be Dewitt. It's just so hard because the man had cancer and I know he wasn't full time all the way leading up to the start of the season.

 

So I'm not saying he should be fired after this year. But special teams are still struggling more than I feel like is reasonable, and the outside linebackers don't play well. People will say that "we can't win with guys like Alex Davis." Fair enough. Again though, if we see this same stuff next season I believe it will probably be time to think about making a decision there.

Here’s the thing, it’s okay to say that. Dewitt is probably an awesome dude, and he’s in the top 1% of football coaches in the world. God knows he’s forgotten more football then I know. That doesn’t mean he’s right for this team at this time. And I tend to agree with everything you said. Our situation was never a copy:paste scenario with what Frost did at UCF, I hate that it’s compared as such and I hate that Frost treated it as such. This is a new challenge with its own set of problems and it’s own set of solutions. It was never gonna be the same formula it was at UCF.

49 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

Which literally tell you nothing about whether the defense is improving or not.

 

I don't know if Chins is the answer or not.  But I'm going to believe Frost when he says that he thinks we need more "pieces" on defense and give Chins more than two years to see how he does.  And believe me own eyes which tell me the same thing.

 

Especially when he is - in fact - improving the defense.

 

I don't think people realize how terrible our defense was the three years before these guys got here.  Look at how many Yards Per Play we have been allowing compared to what our opponents did against everyone else.  Everyone knows how terrible the 2007 defense was.  The 2015 was pretty much exactly as bad.  And the 2017 defense?  It was TWICE as bad as either one of them. 

 

TWICE AS BAD

 

Chinander cut the difference down to a third last year.  We haven't really gained anything this year but we haven't really been able to get any new players either.  

 

It has improved greatly from two years ago.  It doesn't matter where we're ranking in the conference, we're still better than we were.  We need to be even better than that - probably by quite a bit.  But we are headed the right way.

 

YEAR - YPP - OYPP - DIFF
2003 - 4.3 - 5.15 -(0.85)

2004 - 5.0 - 4.91 - 0.09
2005 - 4.6 - 4.85 -(0.25)
2006 - 5.2 - 5.38 -(0.18)
2007 - 6.0 - 5.53 - 0.47

2008 - 5.4 - 5.41 -(0.01)
2009 - 3.9 - 5.21 -(1.31)
2010 - 4.5 - 5.29 -(0.79)
2011 - 5.2 - 5.51 -(0.31)
2012 - 5.3 - 5.48 -(0.18)
2013 - 4.9 - 5.36 -(0.46)
2014 - 5.2 - 5.53 -(0.33)

2015 - 5.7 - 5.28 - 0.42
2016 - 5.4 - 5.26 - 0.14

2017 - 6.3 - 5.37 - 0.93

 

2018 - 5.8 - 5.51 - 0.29

2019 - 5.7 - 5.38 - 0.32

Yeah it does matter where we rank in the conference because it’s all

f#&%ing relative. Compared to our peers, who we measure ourselves against, where our goals lie - we’ve been trash. I don’t care if Chin is better than Jimmy McThumbUpHisAss at Florida International. But thanks for showing how we’ve barely been better than our turd defense last year - that combined with us sharing company with Rutgers and Maryland in pretty much all defensive categories has me pumped.

1 hour ago, Nebfanatic said:

 

I literally post stats weekly about Chinander improving every defense he has been a DC for but people like to ignore facts. This game didn't move the needle much on this season, still better defensively than last year in almost every category

 

 

Let’s Check the defensive stats. 12th in B1G in scoring defense. 12th in the B1G in total defense. 12th in the B1G rush defense. 9th in the B1G in pass defense. 12th in the B1G in 1st downs allowed. 12th in the B1G in 3rd down conversions. 14th in the B1G in red zone scoring. People aren’t ignoring the stats, they’re ignoring your stats because slightly better than a turd sandwich is still a turd f#&%ing sandwich.

Nebraska on Defense against all power 5 teams last 2 years. 34 PPG and 30+ points in 15/18 of those games....basically need 35 points a game against power 5 teams to go .500 in those games. I’d be sick of the defense if I were Frost.

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

How will firing Chinander fix those rushing totals? 

 

How many of those yards came in the second half when we were emptying the bench?

See Gophers, Minnesota....See Tigers, Clemson.

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

If you watched this game and didn't see improvement it's because you're happy being mad.

They know they got lucky to get out of here with a win. Our stats were nearly identical, but our young team made more mistakes than theirs. 

 

They had a double digit lead for the last 35+ minutes of the game. That’s wasn’t luck. And I did see improvement on the oline and enough on the offense as a whole. Still as long as we let the opposing offense dictate the game - were gonna lose. 320+ rushing yards is all you need to know.

9 minutes ago, Wistrom Disciple said:

 

It's a two way street... Think about how many three and outs or turnovers the offense has put up this season. Add in up tempo play calling to get to punt quicker and it's a bad recipe. I remember reading that through four games, our defense had been on the field something like 80 more plays than Iowa's defense had been through their first four games. In essence, our defense had already played an extra game than an average Big Ten team one month into the season. That 80 extra hits, tackles, twists and turns. It's not a surprise that we're getting more injuries and bumps with that kind of wear and tear. 

 

I agree with that too. We put extra pressure on the defense. But they fold like a cheap suit and I don’t see that changing. Just the whole defense mindset of we’re gonna give up a lot of yards and some points but we’re gonna create turnovers, pisses me off. I’d rather have a DC who subscribed to the school of thought of I don’t give a s#!t how quick our offense moves. Our defense will dictate everything while we’re on the field. A defense shouldn’t never be an accessory to the offense. 

2 minutes ago, 4skers89 said:

I doubt we presented enough of a challenge for them to get excited about.  The novelty of blowing out Nebraska wore out a few years ago.  It was just another game they had to play. 

Yep which makes us thumping our chest about this being a moral victory super sad to me. Wisconsin didn’t care and walked to a victory but man we got close once or twice!!!!