Is it coaching or recruiting?

[Scofrosghost]

What Tony White has done with the defense is remarkable. What I have found interesting;  he’s done it with mostly the same guys the previous staff had. 

So is the offense woes more of a coaching thing or is it the players we have? 

To some extent I feel like improving an offense is more difficult than a defense, but the mental errors and turnovers are as bad as ever. 

So my question is do we need to wait until these current players are gone to see an improvement or is Satterfield missing something fundamental to get this offense moving? 

[Cornfed]

12 minutes ago, Scofrosghost said:

What Tony White has done with the defense is remarkable. What I have found interesting;  he’s done it with mostly the same guys the previous staff had. 

So is the offense woes more of a coaching thing or is it the players we have? 

To some extent I feel like improving an offense is more difficult than a defense, but the mental errors and turnovers are as bad as ever. 

So my question is do we need to wait until these current players are gone to see an improvement or is Satterfield missing something fundamental to get this offense moving? 

I get your point...and I have my suspicions about Satt...but undeniably injuries are a major factor this year. Why the injuries? That's another bag of worms. 

[Scofrosghost]

30 minutes ago, Cornfed said:

I get your point...and I have my suspicions about Satt...but undeniably injuries are a major factor this year. Why the injuries? That's another bag of worms. 

My question isn’t necessarily an indictment on Satterfield. His play calling is ok, some head scratching plays, but all OCs do. Whats hurting us is ball security and mental errors. 

Just want to know if people think these players are beyond being coached up or if Satt is missing something. 

 

The injuries have hurt for sure, but we had the problems I listed before all those guys went down.  
To your point… I have seen way more non contact injuries in all levels of football this season. Almost all of them are on artificial turf. Although correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation…
 

[Hagg]

Either notion being heavily lacking will doom a team (and dooms many every season).   I wish I could analyze thoroughly enough to understand, but can only say that for about 15 years of football now I've seen both as I watch games.  Earlier on  we were getting our 7,8, and 9 wins per season and we were lathering the whole program with bad words, but especially the coaches as the players seemed to at times be basically in a different world than Husker football (articles in the papers intimating that Callahan had "lost the players" for example). 

 

Those were the good ole days with that many wins... I guess.  Compared to the past three coaches, yeah.

 

Recruiting looks scary these days, being dominated apparently by certain programs other than us around the country.   I fear for Nebraska football.. still.

[LumberJackSker]

I don't know if Satterfield is any good or not but the talent on offense just isn't there. Even if there weren't a bunch of injuries at rb and wr this was never going to be a good offense. Even with the transfer portal I think it's going to be rough on that side of the ball for a while.

[Scofrosghost]

1 minute ago, LumberJackSker said:

I don't know if Satterfield is any good or not but the talent on offense just isn't there. Even if there weren't a bunch of injuries at rb and wr this was never going to be a good offense. Even with the transfer portal I think it's going to be rough on that side of the ball for a while.

I get what you are saying about talent. In the offenses defense though, they are moving the ball and putting some drives together. They are constantly in the redzone. Is that a talent thing or is that coaching? Devils advocate..

[Toe]

I feel like last year's defense didn't have any particularly glaring spots where we were lacking talent. It was more of an all-around mediocrity, compounded by a few certain coaching issues - like not practicing tackling enough. Better coaching has done wonders for them.

 

The offense, though, I think does have more of a genuine lack of dudes. The recruiting was fine, but the retention and development were atrocious. The Frost era was a revolving door for WRs in particular, and Betts continued that tradition. Held couldn't develop guys to save his life, and now when it finally looked like we might have some depth, we lose two of our top three. The OL is a bit of both: dudes that ain't that great, and dudes that haven't been developed well. And of course we lost last year's top two QBs, and replacing them has been, ah, a bit of an issue.

[Scofrosghost]

3 minutes ago, Toe said:

I feel like last year's defense didn't have any particularly glaring spots where we were lacking talent. It was more of an all-around mediocrity, compounded by a few certain coaching issues - like not practicing tackling enough. Better coaching has done wonders for them.

 

The offense, though, I think does have more of a genuine lack of dudes. The recruiting was fine, but the retention and development were atrocious. The Frost era was a revolving door for WRs in particular, and Betts continued that tradition. Held couldn't develop guys to save his life, and now when it finally looked like we might have some depth, we lose two of our top three. The OL is a bit of both: dudes that ain't that great, and dudes that haven't been developed well. And of course we lost last year's top two QBs, and replacing them has been, ah, a bit of an issue.

So you think it’s more of a wait until we get a couple of Rhules recruiting classes in before we see an improvement?

[Undone]

This is a good thread. I remember on this board after the Georgia Southern loss last season that people were saying we had no talent whatsoever on the D line and the linebackers weren't athletic enough and we needed to completely clean out the current roster on defense to be good.

 

Those people got proved wrong this year. Honestly, even just Bill Busch's influence made it significantly better than where Chinander had things heading into that Northwestern game in 2022.

 

Our roster heading into fall camp this season (especially before Betts announced he was leaving for the second time) was better than it is right now. I think having Rahmir out is a pretty underrated loss, and so is not having Ervin. And now Washington is hurt.

 

I think we had a couple coaching errors in the Minnesota game that played a part in that loss. But I don't think it's like we would have beaten even Colorado with some all star cast of offensive coaches. So, it's mainly players.

[Wistrom Disciple]

One key factor for the success on defense this year is that we have offensive coaches who are intentionally controlling possession and eating the clock when possible. Through six games, we average Time of Possession (TOP) at 31:04 minutes per game (versus last year's average of 26:44). This has lead to reduction in opponent's total plays from 75.6 plays per game last year down to 67.8 plays per game this year. That is the equivalent of a couple fewer series per game that the defense has to face. With the rest of our opponents this season having lower TOP averages and thus controlling the ball less than we do, the averages are likely to improve and make the changes more drastic compared to previous seasons.Although not an absolute indicator of success, keeping the ball away from an opponent can be especially helpful for teams without an explosive or highly efficient offense. 

Note: It is still astonishing how Purdue called 101 plays against us last season and we were in it until the very end. Quite impressive between Thompson & Palmer

 

TLDR version: The offense holding the ball longer is allowing our defense to not get burned as often this year. 

 

[krc1995]

3 hours ago, Scofrosghost said:

So you think it’s more of a wait until we get a couple of Rhules recruiting classes in before we see an improvement?

I think having a QB that is not a rental or a warm body will help tremendously. 

[secretasianman]

We are starting a third string QB and RB.  No WR’s with Betts gone, Washington out, Garcia-Casteneda out… and we are 3-3, barring a fumble from 3rd string RB , likely 4-2.  

 

I think Satterfield gets a pass this season; maybe even praise.  
The offense he is calling is limited by the personnel he has available.  

 

 

 

[84HuskerLaw]

It will help as time goes on to have a sincere focus on running the ball.  We have miscues and mistakes, much like the frost era, but we have a scheme and plan offensively.  Players never got better under Frost on offense. He had very little to do with defense and STs.  Development (guys getting better as they age up) almost never happened.  Frost moved a great athlete from TE to Center and it took 2 seasons to get better just snapping the ball.  The O line was always a mess.  If Frost would have adopted a balanced, multiple back offense, he would have had better results - on both sides of the ball.  We had lots of three &outs and six & out possessions.   A revolving door at WRs and WR coaches made offense inconsistent.  
 

Frost saw his only real QB never improve and played hurt half the time.  Our run defense was poor bc they never saw run game in practice.  
 

In the end, it has been BOTH coaching and players.  We had athletes but failed to scheme and adapt the play to fit their talents. Big slow footed O linemen. WRs could not run routes and catch and block.   D line couldn’t stop the run. STs weren’t even coached apparently.  Kickers and punters - bad luck, bad choices or both.  
 

We have better staff, as a whole, but  it is too early to tell on how much and where, if any, we need to adjust.  We need a better QB. But HH and Simms may improve by next fall.  The offense needs more tweaking. 
 

Defense is playing as well as talent can be. Over time, we can upgrade talent and play even better.  
 

Do we have ANY all conference players?  As of today, I don’t think so.  By season end?  Maybe a couple on defense. Nobody close on offense.  

[Scofrosghost]

27 minutes ago, secretasianman said:

We are starting a third string QB and RB.  No WR’s with Betts gone, Washington out, Garcia-Casteneda out… and we are 3-3, barring a fumble from 3rd string RB , likely 4-2.  

 

I think Satterfield gets a pass this season; maybe even praise.  
The offense he is calling is limited by the personnel he has available.  

 

 

 

I agree he isn’t trying to hammer square pegs into round holes like the previous staff, so that’s an improvement. 

[Wunderkind]

We have some very athletic wr's, but they are young and need some time to develop. There's just not much experience there. Question is can we develop those WRs because that was a huge issue with the previous staff.

 

The QBs limit what we can do. We are not having much success on any deep passes. 

 

That being said I have been disappointed in Satts play calling. I would have expected more passes to the TEs, we have some good ones. Also thought we would have seen more designed plays for Bonner who can create favorable match ups. Outside of a few plays I don't remember seeing much creativity, but that could be due to personnel.