Analysis/Summary

[JJ Husker]

Excellent game synopsis OP. You nailed our team for this game (and for the whole season) with your 3 things we need to do.

[ladyhawke]

Well, here's what I thought of the game:

 

Running:

 

NU did a better job in this area, seemed like their O-line run-blocked pretty well. Especially in the first half they were making good yardage on a regular basis.

 

USC made some runs, but not as consistently as NU did during the first half. Some of them were just Shaw trying to get some yards when he couldn't throw downfield cause NU had all the USC receivers covered.

 

Passing:

 

USC did better than I thought they would, although the NU secondary mostly shut down the USC passing game in the first half, except for those couple big throws to Alshon. Mostly this was because Shaw had all day to throw (I haven't seen him have that much time to throw all season). The USC O-line seemed to be doing a better pass-blocking job than they usually do. That Hail Mary wasn't really quite as lucky as it seemed, Alshon is good at catching those jump balls, he's done it many times before.

 

NU was OK at passing, Martinez seemed pretty accurate, but the receivers seemed to have problems with dropping a lot of passes. Also, they needed to keep the running option open. At the end of the game when Martinez went pure-passer for a few downs, it just ended in a pile of sacks. The NU O-line wasn't very effective on passing downs if it was obvious it was a passing down.

 

Penalties/ Refs:

 

Both sides got some breaks from the Refs, as well as a bunch of penalties. USC had less penalties, but lost more yards from them. NU got a break early in the game when they got facemasked on that 4th down and ended up getting a TD when they were otherwise going to have to punt. They also got some yards out of Gilmore's stupid pass interference tackle when the ball wasn't anywhere near the NU receiver. USC got a break from a seemingly bogus pass interference call that kept that drive alive. Alshon and Dennard got ejected later on after fighting, and fortunately for NU Alshon got ejected with Dennard even though he didn't throw any punches (he was shoving him around and grabbing his facemask, but all the same refs tend to eject primarily for punches). In the end it seems like it came out about even for both teams in this facet of the game.

 

Lost oppurtunities:

 

USC failed to punch it in from the 1-yard line and then failed to get a TD when a receiver dropped the ball in the endzone (I think they went for a FG instead), and NU failed twice on drives due to turnovers. NU probably had more missed oppurtunities, but not by much.

 

Defense:

 

The NU secondary played very well, but gave up several big throws, 2 of which resulted in TDs, and got beat badly a couple other times, but fortunately for them the balls were overthrown. The USC secondary didn't play very well in the first half, but seemed to get better in the second half. Still it seemed like they lucked out a lot that NU dropped so many passes, as they were beaten a lot of times.

 

The USC D-line seemed rusty the first half, but pretty much shut down the NU offense during the second half. The NU D-line did quite well at stopping the USC running game, but was unable to get any pass rush going on Shaw.

 

Special teams:

 

Nothing especially remarkable here, USC's punting was atrocious as usual, both teams made some good/bad special teams plays, but nothing especially game-changing.

 

Coaching:

 

USC came out throwing, which kinda surprised me, but in retrospect Spurrier always does that, so I guess it wasn't too unexpected. He knows we are a running football team, he just likes to try to keep the other defense honest. Seems like Pelini had the same idea, and was a little more successful at it at first. USC made some good defensive adjustments at halftime, which made the difference in the second half.

 

Summary:

 

NU had several issues which cost them the game in the end (no, I don't think penalties were really that big of a game changer since USC had a lot of them too, and the impact was about the same on both sides):

 

#1 for whatever reason they did not double-team Alshon (EVERYBODY double teams Alshon). Alshon can only be shut down completely by double teaming, 1-1 coverage never does it. He's very good at bringing down jump balls and getting ridiculous catches when he isn't double teamed. If he is covered well 1-1, he typically doesn't get a lot of catches, but he'll usually still get a few, and the few he does get are amazing. NU left him 1-1 and payed for it.

 

#2 NU receivers dropped a lot of passes. I think this caused the USC front 7 to loose respect for the NU passing game and focus more on stopping the run during the second half, which made NU one-dimensional and really hampered the offense.

 

#3 NU didn't get to Shaw with an effective pass rush. Their secondary made up for this partially with good coverage, but Shaw still had all day to throw and was able to make smart throws, avoid any interceptions, and converted a lot of bad situations into 1st downs and TDs.

 

What USC needs to do:

 

#1 Get a better punter, for one. USC's punting is worse then awful.

 

#2 The USC secondary needs to work on their coverage. They are decent, but still tend to blow assignments too often.

 

#3 The USC O-line needs to get better at run and pass blocking, they did well at pass-blocking today only because NU has a weak pass-rush, but they usually don't do so well at that aspect, and their run blocking wasn't good.

 

What NU needs to do:

 

#1 Focus on getting better at throwing the ball. The receivers need to get better at catching, and the O-line needs to improve at pass-blocking. Martinez seemed to do a decent job of throwing, but the receivers dropped a lot of good passes, and his O-line let him get pressured and/or sacked too many times.

 

#2 Get a better pass-rush going. The times that the NU D-line did manage to sack Shaw was typically only after they had given him 6-7 seconds to throw the ball without any sort of pressure at all, which helped USC overcome some penalties (like that 3rd-and-18 conversion). If the NU secondary wasn't so good at coverage, it could have been a lot worse.

 

#3 Try shaking up the playbook a little when things aren't working out, didn't seem like NU tried anything unusual to get a spark going during the second half. Try a fake punt, suprise onside kick, or at the very least a couple trick plays or something to try to get some momentum going.

Welcome to the board! What an intelligent, accurate summary of the game. Best wishes on next year! Good game. I wish it could've been closer on our side. We were so hopeful at the beginning of the game. Hopefully, we can clear up those three things that you so astutely pointed out. Well done! Come visit us again sometime!

[Huskerzoo]

I think the biggest turning point in the game was the drive in the 3rd for USC that started with them picking up flags for a block in the back on a punt. There were 2 flags thrown on the same block and they got picked up. Followed by the bs PI call, followed by another penalty that didn't look quite right from the stands.

 

With that in mind, the Huskers gave the game away, too little execution deep in USC territory.

[bshirt]

Great post and a fun read. Pretty much agree with everything. Thank you sir!

[WAHusker]

edit - woops wrong thread

[Excel]

Well, here's what I thought of the game:

 

Running:

 

NU did a better job in this area, seemed like their O-line run-blocked pretty well. Especially in the first half they were making good yardage on a regular basis.

 

USC made some runs, but not as consistently as NU did during the first half. Some of them were just Shaw trying to get some yards when he couldn't throw downfield cause NU had all the USC receivers covered.

 

Passing:

 

USC did better than I thought they would, although the NU secondary mostly shut down the USC passing game in the first half, except for those couple big throws to Alshon. Mostly this was because Shaw had all day to throw (I haven't seen him have that much time to throw all season). The USC O-line seemed to be doing a better pass-blocking job than they usually do. That Hail Mary wasn't really quite as lucky as it seemed, Alshon is good at catching those jump balls, he's done it many times before.

 

NU was OK at passing, Martinez seemed pretty accurate, but the receivers seemed to have problems with dropping a lot of passes. Also, they needed to keep the running option open. At the end of the game when Martinez went pure-passer for a few downs, it just ended in a pile of sacks. The NU O-line wasn't very effective on passing downs if it was obvious it was a passing down.

 

Penalties/ Refs:

 

Both sides got some breaks from the Refs, as well as a bunch of penalties. USC had less penalties, but lost more yards from them. NU got a break early in the game when they got facemasked on that 4th down and ended up getting a TD when they were otherwise going to have to punt. They also got some yards out of Gilmore's stupid pass interference tackle when the ball wasn't anywhere near the NU receiver. USC got a break from a seemingly bogus pass interference call that kept that drive alive. Alshon and Dennard got ejected later on after fighting, and fortunately for NU Alshon got ejected with Dennard even though he didn't throw any punches (he was shoving him around and grabbing his facemask, but all the same refs tend to eject primarily for punches). In the end it seems like it came out about even for both teams in this facet of the game.

 

Lost oppurtunities:

 

USC failed to punch it in from the 1-yard line and then failed to get a TD when a receiver dropped the ball in the endzone (I think they went for a FG instead), and NU failed twice on drives due to turnovers. NU probably had more missed oppurtunities, but not by much.

 

Defense:

 

The NU secondary played very well, but gave up several big throws, 2 of which resulted in TDs, and got beat badly a couple other times, but fortunately for them the balls were overthrown. The USC secondary didn't play very well in the first half, but seemed to get better in the second half. Still it seemed like they lucked out a lot that NU dropped so many passes, as they were beaten a lot of times.

 

The USC D-line seemed rusty the first half, but pretty much shut down the NU offense during the second half. The NU D-line did quite well at stopping the USC running game, but was unable to get any pass rush going on Shaw.

 

Special teams:

 

Nothing especially remarkable here, USC's punting was atrocious as usual, both teams made some good/bad special teams plays, but nothing especially game-changing.

 

Coaching:

 

USC came out throwing, which kinda surprised me, but in retrospect Spurrier always does that, so I guess it wasn't too unexpected. He knows we are a running football team, he just likes to try to keep the other defense honest. Seems like Pelini had the same idea, and was a little more successful at it at first. USC made some good defensive adjustments at halftime, which made the difference in the second half.

 

Summary:

 

NU had several issues which cost them the game in the end (no, I don't think penalties were really that big of a game changer since USC had a lot of them too, and the impact was about the same on both sides):

 

#1 for whatever reason they did not double-team Alshon (EVERYBODY double teams Alshon). Alshon can only be shut down completely by double teaming, 1-1 coverage never does it. He's very good at bringing down jump balls and getting ridiculous catches when he isn't double teamed. If he is covered well 1-1, he typically doesn't get a lot of catches, but he'll usually still get a few, and the few he does get are amazing. NU left him 1-1 and payed for it.

 

#2 NU receivers dropped a lot of passes. I think this caused the USC front 7 to loose respect for the NU passing game and focus more on stopping the run during the second half, which made NU one-dimensional and really hampered the offense.

 

#3 NU didn't get to Shaw with an effective pass rush. Their secondary made up for this partially with good coverage, but Shaw still had all day to throw and was able to make smart throws, avoid any interceptions, and converted a lot of bad situations into 1st downs and TDs.

 

What USC needs to do:

 

#1 Get a better punter, for one. USC's punting is worse then awful.

 

#2 The USC secondary needs to work on their coverage. They are decent, but still tend to blow assignments too often.

 

#3 The USC O-line needs to get better at run and pass blocking, they did well at pass-blocking today only because NU has a weak pass-rush, but they usually don't do so well at that aspect, and their run blocking wasn't good.

 

What NU needs to do:

 

#1 Focus on getting better at throwing the ball. The receivers need to get better at catching, and the O-line needs to improve at pass-blocking. Martinez seemed to do a decent job of throwing, but the receivers dropped a lot of good passes, and his O-line let him get pressured and/or sacked too many times.

 

#2 Get a better pass-rush going. The times that the NU D-line did manage to sack Shaw was typically only after they had given him 6-7 seconds to throw the ball without any sort of pressure at all, which helped USC overcome some penalties (like that 3rd-and-18 conversion). If the NU secondary wasn't so good at coverage, it could have been a lot worse.

 

#3 Try shaking up the playbook a little when things aren't working out, didn't seem like NU tried anything unusual to get a spark going during the second half. Try a fake punt, suprise onside kick, or at the very least a couple trick plays or something to try to get some momentum going.

Troll