Help for the D line

[lo country]

Hey guys. I wanted to start yet another thread about the D Line. I am hoping to get answers from those more savvy than me as it relates to the X and O's.

 

It seems that except for 2009 with SUH, our D line and LB's have an incredibly hard time stopping the run and mobile QB's. Now everyone will all teams struggle with a mobile QB, but the same can be said about a true pocket QB. The difference, I love for our D to go up against a pocket passer.

 

All last year season, the announcers talked about how open the middle of the field was. Yesterday I noticed the same thing. We also seem to play so far off the LOS and get no push. Our DE's look S-L-O-W. They all seem to over pursue and take poor angles.

 

It seems that we have recruited guys for the Big 12 and now are seeing issues with the B1G. I am sure this poses problems. If the guys we recruited can't succeed or excel in the new B1G would it be better to play guys "recruited" for the new conference and can possibly "attack" more.

 

Folks comment about game film, but it doesn't excuse the poor tackling, pursuit and slowness.

 

Have heard good things about the true fresh DL. If they are the future, why not play some of them now? Same with the LB guys.

 

Are our schemes to complicated that you have to be in the system for some time before you can play effectively?

 

If you are the coach, how do you shore up the perceived inability to stop the likes of Miller, DR, the kid from NW etc..... Stop the power run with road grader OL like Wisky?

[The Dude]

road grader OL like Wisky?

[lo country]

road grader OL like Wisky?

huh?

[The Dude]

road grader OL like Wisky?

huh?

They managed a whopping 3.6 yards per rush against Northern Iowa. This isn't the same ol' Wisconsin.

[Stumpy1]

I'm re-watching the game and the Dline is getting good penetration on the Oline, but are just getting beat by the RB at the LOS.

[The Duke]

This has been mentioned in previous threads before, but it really isn't so much that our schemes are complicated, it just goes back to the scheme in general that we are running on defense. Defensive Coordinators can generally use one of two different schemes: either a One-Gap Defense or a Two-Gap Defense. Under Bo Pelini Nebraska is a 2-Gap defense.

 

There was a great interview recently by HailVarsity.com with former Nebraska Defensive Coordinator Charlie McBride where he talks about the differences between the One-Gap and Two-Gap Defense. Here is a small quote explaining the role of a two gap defender:

 

"The two-gap system asks a defender to stand his blocker up, read where the play is going, and handle one of two spots, the A-gap or the guard-tackle gap (B-gap)."

 

 

Another great quote from Charlie McBride towards the end of the article was: "If you don't have a defensive line, you can go home."

 

It's a fantastic read that really does a nice job of explaining what Nebraska's general defensive scheme is, and I would highly encourage any Husker fan or football fan for that matter to check it out: http://hailvarsity.com/2012/08/mcbride-talks-two-gap/

 

Another great blog post brophyfootball.blogspot.com or "Cripes! Get back to fundamentals" has some very in-depth X's & O's information on Bo Pelini's defense from the last few years. This is another great read for those that enjoy this type of thing: http://brophyfootball.blogspot.com/search/label/Bo%20Pelini

 

 

My personal opinion is that I am not a big fan of the 2-gap defense. I think it causes our defensive lineman to be too passive. When the ball is snapped they have to think too much instead of just playing and plowing off the ball. Asking a defensive lineman to be in charge of two-gaps is a lot of responsibility to put on one player.

 

If it were my choice we would go back to running an aggressive 1-gap Cover 1 defense with Robber Coverages like we did under Charlie McBride. That way the defense is dictating to the offense what it can and cannot do, and not the other way around. It should be noted that this type of defensive scheme is also heavily used by Nick Saban at Alabama. (Pictured below is a sample of a 4-3 Cover 1 Robber Defense)

 

[Brouhaha]

Our defenders were in the right position the majority of the time, we had 11 tackles for loss and 3 sacks. That's not bad for an offense you have no prior game tape and 3 rotating quarterbacks. Let's judge after UCLA. Give the defensive line some credit.

[suigeneris]

This has been mentioned in previous threads before, but it really isn't so much that our schemes are complicated, it just goes back to the scheme in general that we are running on defense. Defensive Coordinators can generally use one of two different schemes: either a One-Gap Defense or a Two-Gap Defense. Under Bo Pelini Nebraska is a 2-Gap defense.

 

There was a great interview recently by HailVarsity.com with former Nebraska Defensive Coordinator Charlie McBride where he talks about the differences between the One-Gap and Two-Gap Defense. Here is a small quote explaining the role of a two gap defender:

 

"The two-gap system asks a defender to stand his blocker up, read where the play is going, and handle one of two spots, the A-gap or the guard-tackle gap (B-gap)."

 

 

Another great quote from Charlie McBride towards the end of the article was: "If you don't have a defensive line, you can go home."

 

It's a fantastic read that really does a nice job of explaining what Nebraska's general defensive scheme is, and I would highly encourage any Husker fan or football fan for that matter to check it out: http://hailvarsity.c...-talks-two-gap/

 

Another great blog post brophyfootball.blogspot.com or "Cripes! Get back to fundamentals" has some very in-depth X's & O's information on Bo Pelini's defense from the last few years. This is another great read for those that enjoy this type of thing: http://brophyfootbal...bel/Bo%20Pelini

 

 

My personal opinion is that I am not a big fan of the 2-gap defense. I think it causes our defensive lineman to be too passive. When the ball is snapped they have to think too much instead of just playing and plowing off the ball. Asking a defensive lineman to be in charge of two-gaps is a lot of responsibility to put on one player.

 

If it were my choice we would go back to running an aggressive 1-gap Cover 1 defense with Robber Coverages like we did under Charlie McBride. That way the defense is dictating to the offense what it can and cannot do, and not the other way around. It should be noted that this type of defensive scheme is also heavily used by Nick Saban at Alabama. (Pictured below is a sample of a 4-3 Cover 1 Robber Defense)

 

Thanks for posting this. The explanation on Hail Varsity was very helpful.

[HuskerShark]

I am really anticipating the D to make a lot of improvement throughout the season. The biggest problem that I saw was the missed tackles. It seemed like over half of our defensive plays resulted in missed tackles, and it just seemed like Southern Miss was able to move the ball at will, mostly with the QB run. I don't have the answers, but we had better see a much better defense out there going forward.

[ferrisbva68]

Read an interesting quote that because the D wasn't allowed to tackle Taylor in practice (only tag) that the D should improve the missed tackles as they get used to mobile quarterbacks and tackle better as the season goes along. I hope that is right, but only time will tell.

[lo country]

Duke,

Thanks for the link. Glaring to me were the comments that you need a "SUH" and a David to be good. Questioned if NU has either. I do not think we do. Now I realize that SUH was a once in a generation player and guys like David are incredibly rare as well. I think the point being, to make it work, you need dominant athletes at those positions.

 

I hope that some of the young guys step up.

[lo country]

Read an interesting quote that because the D wasn't allowed to tackle Taylor in practice (only tag) that the D should improve the missed tackles as they get used to mobile quarterbacks and tackle better as the season goes along. I hope that is right, but only time will tell.

 

On another note talking about Martinez, if he has been throwing that well in practice, our DB's should be getting a very good workout trying to stop the pass attack.

[tschu]

I thought we were going away from the two-gap this year?

[The Dude]

I thought we were going away from the two-gap this year?

Someone started a thread that was titled something similar to that, but they were wrong.

[C N Red]

Our defenders were in the right position the majority of the time, we had 11 tackles for loss and 3 sacks. That's not bad for an offense you have no prior game tape and 3 rotating quarterbacks. Let's judge after UCLA. Give the defensive line some credit.

Nice post. Those 2 stats are actually very good. I really didnt think they were that good. Maybe the better question would be how many of those TFLs and Sacks were from D lineman?