Stopping the run key to Huskers' title run

[The Dude]

I work myself up so much thinking about stuff like this. If B Stein improves even some, and Crick improves even some, and Camstache improves even some, and EMart is an upgrade over Allen... good God that's a scary D Line. That's 2009-esque, that's what that is.

Agreed, and considering the coaching staff, there's no reason to think Stein, Crick, and Stache won't improve. Well, Allen may be one reason to think that, but I'm pretty certain he's the exception and not the rule.

 

Suh was a beast, but I personally think he owes Crick a few million bucks for his senior season.

Couldn't agree more.

[knapplc]

Not sure what to make of Pierre. He exploded his Freshman year, taking over after Turner broke his leg. Allen should have been better and better, but he just never seemed to improve.

[The Dude]

Not sure what to make of Pierre. He exploded his Freshman year, taking over after Turner broke his leg. Allen should have been better and better, but he just never seemed to improve.

Part of me wonders if it has anything to do with Pelini's system. DEs don't seem to cause much of a ruckus in his defenses. During the MNC game when he was at LSU I remember the announcers talking about the dominating "triangle" on Pelini's defense (two DTs and a MLB). The ends didn't make much noise on that defense, at least during that game. Seems to be a pattern.

[RedDenver]

Not sure what to make of Pierre. He exploded his Freshman year, taking over after Turner broke his leg. Allen should have been better and better, but he just never seemed to improve.

Part of me wonders if it has anything to do with Pelini's system. DEs don't seem to cause much of a ruckus in his defenses. During the MNC game when he was at LSU I remember the announcers talking about the dominating "triangle" on Pelini's defense (two DTs and a MLB). The ends didn't make much noise on that defense, at least during that game. Seems to be a pattern.

I remember reading something similar when Pelini was here in 2003. His defense tends to "funnel" plays the the LB's, which is why Ruud had so many tackles (and probably David last season as well).

[Fuzzy]

You can't convince me that the front four perform as well as the front four the year before.

 

Of course they didn't. The 2009 front four was the best defensive line at Nebraska since Grant Wistrom and Jason Peter. Ndamukong Suh, arguably the greatest defensive player ever at Nebraska, was on that line, along with Jared Crick (who right now is generally seen as the team's best player), Barry Turner and Pierre Allen.

 

To lose Suh and Turner and then expect the defensive line to dominate the same way is completely insane. We may not see a defensive line at Nebraska that good again in our lifetime. That's the only college defense in my memory, including the 90's Nebraska defenses, who could create all the pressure they wanted while still containing the QB and the run game, without using blitzes or spies. It was completely ridiculous.

 

If that is your measuring stick for our defense, your expectations are WAY out of control. We're not going to see that again. The truth of the matter is that Pelini has lined up championship defenses in 2009 AND in 2010. Nebraska's 2010 defense was better than Oregon's or Auburn's. Now, you can always nitpick with each player or unit and say that they could be better in this way or that - but to honestly expect them to be at a 2009 level year in and year out, that will never, ever happen.

 

A Championship defense would have had a better showing against Iowa State last year and not play it down to the wire. It would have played a much better game against Texas and perhaps won it for us, given Hagg's punt return for TD. And it certainly would have been able to shutdown Washington's Locker a second time in the bowl game.

[Fuzzy]

Not sure what to make of Pierre. He exploded his Freshman year, taking over after Turner broke his leg. Allen should have been better and better, but he just never seemed to improve.

Part of me wonders if it has anything to do with Pelini's system. DEs don't seem to cause much of a ruckus in his defenses. During the MNC game when he was at LSU I remember the announcers talking about the dominating "triangle" on Pelini's defense (two DTs and a MLB). The ends didn't make much noise on that defense, at least during that game. Seems to be a pattern.

 

I think its because we haven't seen explosiveness off the the snap of the ball, like we have seen in the older days. I think this year we will see that with Eric Martin. Meredith shows flashes of it. He just had to be more consistent with it. Allen and Turner weren't very quick and it showed. They had brute strength to over power the tackles and push them back, but they lacked the ability to use speed to get underneath the offensive line.

[NebraskaShellback]

The D is fine, we had a good last year make no mistake about it. It seams that Crick and anyone else has to be up to your expectation. Each of us are individuals, unique in our own way. Stats do not give the whole picture. The players have to stay in the frame work of the game plan set out by the coaches in each game. If a player or players deviate from the plan, the ship will sink. This is a team sport, not beef up your stats to make zillions in the NFL with a big inflated head. Our D are just fine and doing their jobs!

Look at it this way, we are displaying our talent on D as a whole, not on the D line in games.

 

 

 

[Hercules]

You can't convince me that the front four perform as well as the front four the year before.

 

Of course they didn't. The 2009 front four was the best defensive line at Nebraska since Grant Wistrom and Jason Peter. Ndamukong Suh, arguably the greatest defensive player ever at Nebraska, was on that line, along with Jared Crick (who right now is generally seen as the team's best player), Barry Turner and Pierre Allen.

 

To lose Suh and Turner and then expect the defensive line to dominate the same way is completely insane. We may not see a defensive line at Nebraska that good again in our lifetime. That's the only college defense in my memory, including the 90's Nebraska defenses, who could create all the pressure they wanted while still containing the QB and the run game, without using blitzes or spies. It was completely ridiculous.

 

If that is your measuring stick for our defense, your expectations are WAY out of control. We're not going to see that again. The truth of the matter is that Pelini has lined up championship defenses in 2009 AND in 2010. Nebraska's 2010 defense was better than Oregon's or Auburn's. Now, you can always nitpick with each player or unit and say that they could be better in this way or that - but to honestly expect them to be at a 2009 level year in and year out, that will never, ever happen.

 

A Championship defense would have had a better showing against Iowa State last year and not play it down to the wire. It would have played a much better game against Texas and perhaps won it for us, given Hagg's punt return for TD. And it certainly would have been able to shutdown Washington's Locker a second time in the bowl game.

 

Iowa State: The defense was put in awful position by turnovers in that game, and they scored 6 of their own (Cassidy), AND it was Eric Hagg who came down with the game-sealing INT. The defense wasn't the reason that game was close, it was the reason we won it at all.

 

Texas: The defense gave up early points following Helu's fumble inside our own 20 yard line, and still held Texas to just 20 points. Furthermore, this wasn't the 2010 defense yet. The 2010 defense, as the history books should read, included Courtney Osborne and Austin Cassidy as starting safeties - not Rickey Thenarse and P.J. Smith, the safeties who played and missed tackles throughout the entire Texas game. Also, the punt return was a play by the defense (Hagg), not by the special teams. Texas lined up to go for it on 4th down and then pooched - the Blackshirts scored those 6 points, the only reason the final score looked even remotely competitive.

 

Washington: The Blackshirts DID shut down Washington's Locker a second time in the bowl game. The score to the first game was 56-21, Nebraska. The score to the second game was 19-7, in favor of UW. How in the world do you look at those two games and come to the conclusion, "Well, if the defense had just played like they had in the first game, we would have won?"

 

Anyways, championship defenses have bad games sometimes. 1997 Nebraska's defense, featuring Grant Wistrom, Jason Peter, Mike Rucker, Mike Brown, Ralph Brown, etc, almost lost us the national championship that year - they gave up 38 points to a mediocre Missouri offense, and were saved by one of the luckiest plays in the history of college football, and by the fact that our legendary coach announced he was retiring before the bowl season started.

 

Finally, the games you chose to bring up merely proves my point that your expectations for the defense are out of control. The one game you can easily argue that the defense got its butt kicked would be the Oklahoma State game. But, even though that was an inferior performance, you don't bring it up simply because the offense saved the day. You're not looking at the defensive performance objectively, you're just looking at games that were close or that we lost and blaming the defense without taking the whole story into consideration.

 

We did have a championship defense in 2010. Our problem was that we only had a championship offense for about 1/3 of the season, and when it wasn't performing like a championship offense, it usually looked like an offense from the Sun Belt Conference.

[bshirt]

Lots of good points by many. I too wondered why Allen seemed to vanish the last two years. I know he was hurt but still played his junior year but why his senior year he was almost non existent?

 

If Caveman does the same thing this year I just gotta believe it's the scheme.

 

Hey, I can't argue at all with Bo's superb results. But I really, really miss Tomich, Wistrom, Rucker, Alberts, etc viciously attacking almost every play. Also frequently shooting J. Williams, T. Farley, Super D,....oh well, a guy can't have everything.

[bshirt]

Also 100% agree we had NC quality blackshirts the last two years with a Pop Warner offense for the last 1.5 years.

 

C'mon Beck......you can hack it!!