admo

Obvious. New ideas. Recycled. Like other kids.

It was a lot worse worse than it looks. Are you on Eaglepost? If so, keep that Nugget Ghost away from here.

I follow you, Fowler. By now I'm sure some of the freaking out is slowly going on hold until UCLA prep. I know what you are getting at, and what could have been. I just think that the stuff that did happen is part of the game. Comebacks, quick strikes, turnovers, penalties, big plays, great plays, blown plays, bad weather, long drives, fumblerooskies, etc. I take it all in, good and bad. Even so, I can clearly see the athletic talent on this team. Hope it all works out for us

I agree. The talent is there. Lots of it. Young guys and inexperienced. Just need game reps and each week should be an improvement. Play fast and physical, react without over thinking.

I know rewriting he chain of events to make us feel better, well, makes us feel better. But what if we give Wyoming a TD on SJB's INT? Then we're looking at a 21-3 Wyoming lead instead of 14-10. It's a cute game, but ultimately pointless. And entirely nonsensical. TMart could have been picked in first quarter. Their defender dropped a chest pass. A play or two later the Huskers scored TD. In the second quarter, their center snapped the ball over Smith's head on a designed comeback screen route that had the entire left side of the field uncovered, with blockers in front. Instead, they couldn't convert and missed a long field goal attempt on that drive. Early 4th quarter, Gerry disrupted the trick pass play and Evans made a great pick inside the redzone. More points were left off the scoreboard from that. With that said, I agree that it's important to take the game as it happened.

I follow you, Fowler. By now I'm sure some of the freaking out is slowly going on hold until UCLA prep. I know what you are getting at, and what could have been. I just think that the stuff that did happen is part of the game. Comebacks, quick strikes, turnovers, penalties, big plays, great plays, blown plays, bad weather, long drives, fumblerooskies, etc. I take it all in, good and bad. Even so, I can clearly see the athletic talent on this team. Hope it all works out for us

That's true about mobile quarterbacks. For the most part, I think a mobile QB leans on running instincts to make plays than make accurate throws all game. I would prefer to keep a mobile QB frustrated by holding him under 50 yards rushing, and forced to make plays passing the ball. Braxton Miller for example. Denard Robinson another. If they have to beat us through the air, then I take those chances. The real tricky ones are guys like Brett Smith of WYO, UCLA's Brett Hundley, and Michigan's Devin Gardner. They are pretty accurate passers that can also extend drives and make some plays with their feet. It's not an easy job to say the least. I really hope that Michigan does the stupid thing and tries to make Gardner a pro-style QB, in a "West Coast Offense". Their offense would be lethal if they stayed with the spread option game that they ran under Denard. But, Bourges is a WCO guy, so that's what he will do with Gardner. Yeah I don't think the Wolverines are very excited with Bourges. You are probably right because Gardner is kind of good at both. I'd still rather keep him from running and make him beat us throwing. Tip my cap if he does.

That's true about mobile quarterbacks. For the most part, I think a mobile QB leans on running instincts to make plays than make accurate throws all game. I would prefer to keep a mobile QB frustrated by holding him under 50 yards rushing, and forced to make plays passing the ball. Braxton Miller for example. Denard Robinson another. If they have to beat us through the air, then I take those chances. The real tricky ones are guys like Brett Smith of WYO, UCLA's Brett Hundley, and Michigan's Devin Gardner. They are pretty accurate passers that can also extend drives and make some plays with their feet. It's not an easy job to say the least.

The Spread Offense isn't new - it's been used for decades. Spurrier used in at Florida - his "Fun 'N Gun" offense was basically a version of the Spread with the QB under center instead of in the pistol or shotgun. Defenses have shut this offense down for decades, and specifically the attacking style of defense McBride ran in the 90s was able to shut them down as well. The Spread is always going to get yards, and some points. But by attacking the QB and putting him on the ground multiple times, the bet is that he's not going to have the same ability in the fourth quarter as he did in the first quarter. That's a gamble I'm willing to take if I'm Bo, especially seeing how his current philosophy has been exploited by so many teams over the past several years, using vastly different combinations of Husker defenders. Same here. Count me in on that.

When we are going against 4 and 5 wide, I am fine with 6 DBs. But, I'm surprised we don't (most of the time) keep one of them up for run coverage or pass rushing. You can disguise which one is staying up. Me, not so much, but that's okay, no worries. I completely agree with you moving one up. If that's what it's going to take. We did that in the second half. The QB will determine what to do based off of that - run/throw. With more in the box or near it, I'm a bit more at ease with that process. Not all warm fuzzies, but better. Why did it take a halftime to finally adjust? Got to be quicker to do so against other teams. Well, with man to man coverage, the key is that you have to get to the QB fast. You can't allow him to sit back there and pick the man coverage apart. Agreed.

When we are going against 4 and 5 wide, I am fine with 6 DBs. But, I'm surprised we don't (most of the time) keep one of them up for run coverage or pass rushing. You can disguise which one is staying up. Me, not so much, but that's okay, no worries. I completely agree with you moving one up. If that's what it's going to take. We did that in the second half. The QB will determine what to do based off of that - run/throw. With more in the box or near it, I'm a bit more at ease with that process. Not all warm fuzzies, but better. Why did it take a halftime to finally adjust? Got to be quicker to do so against other teams.

The biggest difference between the 90's and now it the style of offense that everyone runs. The spread type offense is designed to slow down the attacking style of the 90's type defense. In the 90's most teams ran a lot of Miami formations or Pro formation. Hardly any were sitting at 4 wide as their basic set formation. Even Spurriors fun and gun had a very conventional look to it most of the time. The spread principles is all about making space for runners and receivers to run. They want one on one match ups. That is why you see lots of short passing, lots of zone read. A spread team loves to play an attacking defense, it creates more space to run. BP big problem, and IMO is a philosophical one is that he doesn't want to give up the big pass play. He loves bracket coverage. That creates gaps in the run defense. He needs to make a choice to bring more bodies into the box against a true spread team and give up a little of his pass coverage. Yes! +1 loved it!

We had 2 safeties and 3 corners out there. In addition to that, one safety was filling in at outside linebacker. Math tells me that is 6 defensive backs. Which leaves a 4 man DLine with a MLB to support against the run with safety help. I do not understand that strategy. With that much coverage, WYO still threw for nearly 400 yards and picking apart for 200 rushing yards in addition. Mo Seisay played a lot next to Santos. He is a 200lb DB playing outside LB for pass coverage and speed. Gerry came in as a 210lb safety and recently moved from safety to LB role because of his coverage ability and tackling. Call them hybrids. I call them safeties. Coach's emphasis is a lot on pass coverage as we all know. Maybe because his roots go back to him playing safety in the secondary. Or his success against the pass happy Big 12 with few mobile QBs and weaker run game priorities. I will be honest. I don't know the answer. At least use 2 real linebackers out there with adequate coverage ability but physically better run stoppers to go help the D-Line. That way you have some bigger guys to form a wall that's hard to run against, including a scrambling QB, and be still capable to cover well enough with 5 DBs. I'm opposed to the one MLB and one hybrid theory. It's basically three safeties out there and six DBs to slow the run, keep receivers in front, and contain long enough that hopefully the QB won't find a running lane. Kind of been that way for awhile. Although I prefer a solid 4-3-4, I'm not coach. I just can only chime in and hope everything works out.

Of course I am only kidding ;-)

Steroids.

So, our DTs and DEs are basically useless against the run, reading between the lines.. LOL no, not useless against the run. The question asked was for 'thoughts on why they were gaining like 8-9 yards a pop in the ground game'. Just answered what I saw on those type of runs. The second level struggled. Formation and Strategy played a part. Throw in limited and/or inexperience, a mobile QB that was also an accurate passer, and they struggled. Until we brought a safety up from the third level in the third quarter, I saw the second level struggle throughout the first half. It was as clear as the middle of the field to see that, more often than not. Unfortunately. Against more talented teams -UCLA, Northwestern, Michigan - the chances that we might play from behind with that same 1st half strategy will probably increase.

Thanks Knapp, I liked that. Will just add the probable final game on the schedule. Brought to you by - Morning coffee, pop-tarts, and cereal with high hope. Ohio State: 1-0 Last game - defeated Buffalo (not the NFL Bills) Next game - San Diego State @ Urban Legend Field in Ohio The Buckeyes played an early game on ESPN2. The awesome sister of Dana Carvey - Beth Mowins - called the action with a nice deep, up and down Vin Scully-like flow. Joey Galloway was good for not being a homer. OSU won. It was boring.

I completely agree with you. The only thing I can possibly add to it is a guess, that they went into the game with mentality of a scrimmage to get their feet wet.

I laughed out loud! I'm optimistic as well. With so many talented young players and a beneficial schedule, at the very worst, we should be 6-1 going into the Northwestern game. And these guys will have the experience behind them, able to just react and play fast by then.

I see what you are saying. I wish they would stop using QB sacks as negative QB rush yards. Because like you and ZRod mention, if Martinez rushes 12 times for 105 yards, no negative plays, but is sacked 3 times for 30 yards, he ends up in the stat book as 15 carries, 75 yards. It's a different picture.

LOL they're called outliers LOL! I'm not all about throwing statistics out there without background. LOL yeah I hear ya. I do think this D has better talent this year and agree with you that these guys will improve as they get more reps and settled in.

Nebraska did not plan on Wyoming running the ball as much as they did. Which nobody would if you have watched the Wyoming offense at all in the last couple years. You could see for much of the first quarter the defense was not respecting the run what so ever and Wyoming did a great job of getting matchups they wanted when they wanted to run the ball. It came down to Wyoming's gameplan more than Nebraska's ability to stop the run. In the second half they stuffed a lot more runs and only allowed minimal gains except maybe a couple plays. Pretty much every team can run on us. Bo's scheme is ripe to be run on, that's why we frequently get the ball shoved down our throats by teams that aren't even good at running the ball. It's not really gameplan. A team sees it's very easy to run on us so they continue to do so. Totally false. It was sloppy line play and poor LB/DB play. In the first quarter VV was rushing up the field without regard to where the ball carrier was going and the LBs and DBs were just tacking poor angles on their flow, or not keeping leverage on their blockers. VV and the others settled more as the game went on. If you take away the longs runs from Smith and their running back, I think they were both crappy plays on our part, they only average about 4.5ypc, not that great but better the the 7.3 listed for the game. Like I said in another thread the QB runs don't bother me so much because they're are going to happen and we've proven in the past that unless he's a freak athlete we'll be fine. What's totally false? Bo's scheme is weak against the run. How he thinks he can win in the run game when we are outnumbered by 2 is pure delusion. He could cheat the numbers game when we had Suh, but he can't anymore. He needs to commit to stopping the run with more players in the box specifically up the middle. The only years we've been good against the run was 2008-2009 (Suh). We'll be soft against the run until he changes his philosophy and commits to stopping the run. Nebraska's Rush defense rank nationally 2008 21st 2009 9th 2010 63rd 2011 64th 2012 90th 2013 94th (currently) Soft against the run? You would be correct. Commit to stopping the run? I'm all for that. It's highly unlikely that a full commitment to heavy pass coverage will take a back seat in strategy. That's why we see a lot of nickel and dime coverage with just 5 or 6 in the box. Exploiting that with pistol set formation and running the ball seems to be fortunate theme. Works even better with a mobile QB.

Nebraska did not plan on Wyoming running the ball as much as they did. Which nobody would if you have watched the Wyoming offense at all in the last couple years. You could see for much of the first quarter the defense was not respecting the run what so ever and Wyoming did a great job of getting matchups they wanted when they wanted to run the ball. It came down to Wyoming's gameplan more than Nebraska's ability to stop the run. In the second half they stuffed a lot more runs and only allowed minimal gains except maybe a couple plays. Pretty much every team can run on us. Bo's scheme is ripe to be run on, that's why we frequently get the ball shoved down our throats by teams that aren't even good at running the ball. It's not really gameplan. A team sees it's very easy to run on us so they continue to do so. Totally false. It was sloppy line play and poor LB/DB play. In the first quarter VV was rushing up the field without regard to where the ball carrier was going and the LBs and DBs were just tacking poor angles on their flow, or not keeping leverage on their blockers. VV and the others settled more as the game went on. If you take away the longs runs from Smith and their running back, I think they were both crappy plays on our part, they only average about 4.5ypc, not that great but better the the 7.3 listed for the game. Like I said in another thread the QB runs don't bother me so much because they're are going to happen and we've proven in the past that unless he's a freak athlete we'll be fine. LOL no you can't take away those runs because, they really did happen. It is averaged in for a reason. Just because WYO did not score on those two runs, they did score a touchdown on each drive that they occurred on. That's fourteen points and those runs were a big part of it. Got to average it in unfortunately.

11) any thoughts as to why they were getting like 8-9 yds a pop in the ground game? That worries me, alot. Yes. In the first half, MLB Santos was pretty much out on an island. We played nickel & dime mostly with 2-high safeties. In the second half we brought one of the safeties up into the box to help against the run. Not every play though. WYO then adjusted by running when they saw Jackson stay back, and passed when he move up into the box. The corners played soft press. Also when Smith broke his long run in the second quarter, there was absolutely no one in the middle of the field. Same thing for the RB in 1st quarter. In the third quarter we got a big break when they snapped the ball over Smith's head. The inside screen was there with the left half of the field empty. He didn't have enough time to recover and make the throw. That cost them 7 points if not 3.