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I’ve been meaning to sit down and gather some of my thoughts about the game since about midway through the first half. This was one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen in a while - and I mean that. It was 60 minutes of awesome back-and-forth. A good, competitive match. It was also very defining. It told us a lot about where things were, and for Nebraska fans, certainly a disconnect between that nd the hopes we had ridden in on. So, two games into the season, where do we stand? Bo & the Defensive Scheme Bo is our defensive coordinator, no question about this. So when he gets outschemed, it’s concerning. And that was the case last Saturday night. In many ways, I don’t consider the UCLA game to be as bad as most people do. It was a barn-burner. When teams trade scores, the yards pile up. When one team can't hang onto the ball, the yards pile up some more. UCLA ran over 90 plays! Besides, the Nebraska defense won their share of battles. They made their stops, with the game on the line. They had a solid bounce-back going on for much of Half 2. It’s just that when they failed, they failed spectacularly. And that is frightfully alarming. Going to credit a user from another message board here for these numbers: 82% of UCLA’s plays resulted in just 2.92 ypp. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the remaining seventeen plays, which averaged 25+ypp and totaled 428 yards. This is half “jimmy & joes” stuff - all those missed tackles, the lack of fundamentals. It speaks to talent and recruiting issues I cannot really take Bo to task for. While early apathy hurt us, this staff has turned a corner in recruiting, in a huge way. We’ve had strong classes of late, and this current class is Bo’s best effort yet, by a large margin. But another part of it is straight-up getting outmanuevered by the UCLA OC. The number of times UCLA was able to get the ball to any player in space in the flats, and have no Nebraska defender in the same zip code (blocked or not!) Such as that play where Compton couldn’t stay with his slot man - hardly Compton’s fault. He’s a MLB covering a slot receiver running a drag route across the field. The problem was there was no Nebraska zone for over ten yards downfield after that RB/WR got a step on Compton, something which is bound to happen in these 1-on-1 mismatch-ups. We were never able to adapt to what they were doing, and they made a complete killing of it. Over and over. The defense was not defeated all day in the X’s and O’s chessmatch, not by a long shot. But when they were, we watched them burn. The worst of it all was the story we were told about UCLA’s final touchdown. Bo panicked. According to Dirk Chatelain of the OWH, Bo drew up that play in the sand on the sidelines, sending everybody on an all-out, 8-man blitz. He was clearly frustrated with our lack of pressure, but such a drastic reaction is just unbecoming of our veteran, defensive mastermind of a head coach. UCLA had either twins or trips right, and Hundley, in the shotgun, calmly took the snap and flipped it over to his RB on a swing pass. Easy TD. Beck & the Offensive Scheme Beck panicked, too. That second half was a mild disaster, and his panic was exemplified by that drive, 7 minutes to go in the 4th with a nearly tied game. Beck called that drive like we had 50 seconds to go. He aired it out when he had no ability to do so. Beck has pulled his weight and more for years on this staff. I love the guy. He’s a creative mind, and a good recruiting asset to the staff. But he has to be grow into that OC role very fast. The panicky play-calling was a big, big reason for our loss. You have to be able to trade score for score to keep up in a shootout. Our offense was without life! It's a small wonder we didn't see UCLA run away with it in the second half - and for that, I have to give credit to the defense. Beck has two big calls riding on his shoulders, in particular. We all know what they are - the one that resulted in a safety, and the one that resulted in an interception. Both of these led straight to UCLA points - before which, the game was tied. Taylor No discussion of the offense is complete without Taylor. Taylor bears responsibility on each of those plays as well, whether or not you disagree with Beck’s call. A correct read spares us the safety, which put us down 2. Almost any reasonable throw spares us that critical interception, which put the game out of reach. Taylor has improved so much this year, that can’t be stressed enough. The dude has worked hard in this offseason. Very happy about our QB situation with Taylor, but that said.... He's still got his limitations. Nebraska went away from the run game for one reason or another in the second half, but this offense doesn't have that ability. Taylor's effectiveness as a passer hinges completely on the run game, and forcing defenses to respect the run. If defenses can afford to do focus on it, they can still dismantle our passing attack, because Taylor won't be sitting back, picking apart coverages, and throwing every down with success. He's also got to cut down on those freshman mistakes. On at least two occasions, it was scary as hell. When Taylor goes down next, I hope he tucks that ball in and accepts the bad play. A sack, and a safety, could easily have become an interception, and a touchdown. Live to play another down. Defensive Players I think this team has some good talent on this defense. How about that Josh Mitchell guy, eh? Blanked his receivers, really a fantastiic job. Plenty of young talent. Curry, Williams at DT, both freshmen. A whole slew of young, talented LBs yet to be unwrapped. The future of the D is plenty exciting. The present is a bit of another story. I lay this firmly at the feet of the DL. If we can’t win the battle in the trenches, we are going to suffer, no matter what else happens. We’re still not seeing anyone show up and really take command of that line. The DL needs to be an impact position group, which they aren't right now. I’m also a bit uncertain about our safeties. Harvey Jackson gave up a huuuuuuge play in UCLA’s early touchdown. He let that guy get behind him, can’t have that. Damion Stafford has a reputation as a tackler, but struggled in coverage last year. Wonder if that’s been resolved yet. Also, in years past we've had very reliable Nickel/Dime sets. This year and last, I think we've seen a big drop-off in this area. If we can bring together a solid #2 or #3 LB, we might be seeing a heavy dosage of base defense sets. It could be fitting, in the Big Ten...but it could also be our best 11 on the field. Overall The storyline so far is that the team got hit in the mouth, and fell against a tougher-than-expected BCS opponent on the road. Make no mistake: UCLA is talented, well-coached, up-and-coming, and exciting to watch. The game was a back and forth where both sides landed their share of punches. NU just came up short in the end. Now the response of the team, is going to bear watching. We saw both our offensive, and defensive coaches flat-out panic the last time this team took the field. In film review, our head coach supposedly had some choice words for a starting sophomore defensive tackle, who left the team in a bizarre, abrupt huff. The point is, it’s really easy to spin this all as the wheels falling off. So, is that going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will the team benefit from the departure of the disgruntled, and rally around each other? Do the coaches show an even keel in reworking their strategies while staying the overall course? Or will the panicked, undisciplined playcaling we saw vs. UCLA carry through and seep into all aspects of this season? Burning questions, especially for a fanbase with a psyche as fractured and fragile as ours currently. For what it’s worth, I think we’re going to watch NU lay a beating down on Arkansas State. Bo is a driven, tough competitor, and this is a great chance for him to show his quality. He is not going to lose this team. He won’t allow that to happen. whew, hope you beared with me in reading that! sorry if there was a lot of re-hashing in here. I wanted to kinda wrap up all my thoughts in one place, in context for this next game and our season in a not-totally-flipping-out kind of way. GBR, everyone