What we learned today...

[JJ Husker]

The OCs have learned how to defeat Bo's scheme. The game is always changing, but Bo will not change a scheme that even teams the caliber of Wyoming can exploit. Wyoming was ranked 70th in total offense last year.

 

This, so much this. The elephant in the room. The fact that we we've won nine the past two seasons is much more telling of who we've been playing than what we do. It is exactly why good, capable teams embarrass us on nationally televised games. It's also why we eek out wins and have all these come from behind victories over lesser competition.

[The Red & White Knight]

Why there hasn't been an alternate scheme to at least rotate to when there are more mobile quarterbacks, I don't know.

 

I think my biggest defensive concern, although I will have to rewatch the game (any ideas?), is the presence up the middle and the LBs. (as far as 'the kids' go). Scheme wise, idk. 600 yards.

[suigeneris]

I see at least 3 more games in which our opponent will put up over 500 yards on our D.....this is a Bo problem, like it or not this is the future of NU football for now...if you don't want to fire Bo, then this will be the norm.....get used to it.

 

Yards aren't the issue. Points are.

 

Again, I ask, why are you surprised? Bo Pelini has said himself, he doesn't care about how many yards we give up. We'll give up yards. We don't want to give up touchdowns.

 

We give up a lot of points, too. The two are related.

[skersfan]

35 first downs and rushing for 8.2 yards a carry, is not getting pushed around. Okay.

[skersfan]

How many would have Wisconsin or Georgia put up, triple digits is likely. We beat Wyoming by 3, 602 yards, 35 first downs. Yea it is a great scheme.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

From the psychology literature, from a psychology major--here's why I'm a firm believer that we could still be fielding a high caliber defense this year:

 

The learning curve. Initially, performance is low. But as the number of trials continue to increase, learning steeply increases and performance improves significantly until plateauing; where the number of reps doesn't significantly improve performance.

 

Applying that to our situation, we have a lot of players who played their first snaps at the collegiate level last night. It should have been no surprise that the product we were going to see wasn't going to be a very good or even average performance. But what we did see was the defensive line (VV and RG44) pushing their offensive line back, getting pressure on Brett Smith, forcing him to dance around (which not all QBs can do by the way) and throw the ball away, sometimes forcing the ball into a tight window. What we did see was the coverage making two interceptions and breaking up a handful of passes. What we did see was our safeties and corners being there on most of the passing plays.

 

Yes, we did see the silly mistakes, the missed tackles, the inability to get to the QB despite getting pressure on him, the linebackers failing to adjust to the motion. But we also saw a lot of good things, a lot of athletic plays, suggesting that the plateaus for these players are MUCH higher than the defense we had last year.

 

What needs to happen is for them to start making that jump, it will happen, just a matter of when--it might not be next week, it might not be by the end of the year. For the fan's and Bo's sake, I'm hoping it is before B1G play starts (we can beat So Miss and SDSU with our offense, and a loss to UCLA won't be the end of the world).

[Hunter94]

I see at least 3 more games in which our opponent will put up over 500 yards on our D.....this is a Bo problem, like it or not this is the future of NU football for now...if you don't want to fire Bo, then this will be the norm.....get used to it.

 

Yards aren't the issue. Points are.

 

Again, I ask, why are you surprised? Bo Pelini has said himself, he doesn't care about how many yards we give up. We'll give up yards. We don't want to give up touchdowns.

 

We give up a lot of points, too. The two are related.

 

there are damn few team who can win games and give up 500-600 yards.....points usually accompany that type of yardage output.

[TheSker]

I'm tellin yall, it's not as bad as it seems. Up 31-14 and 37-21 and shoulda made it 44-21 with only half a quarter left, and then just packed it in. This is obvious. A legit concern, but obvious. The Int was a game changer that gave them hope and we couldnt wake back up

I agree with this. As an offensive leader and fourth year starter, Martinez must stop turning the ball over.

[shyndy]

The OCs have learned how to defeat Bo's scheme. The game is always changing, but Bo will not change a scheme that even teams the caliber of Wyoming can exploit. Wyoming was ranked 70th in total offense last year.

 

I agree with you but I don't think it is necessary to try and degrade Wyoming's offense to support the argument.

[BOurNe sUpremacy]

Sorry, I do not coach football still, did when my kid was small, but have coached and trained Olympic level athletes, ran major off road motorcycle and mountain bike teams. I have an idea of coaching.

 

This defensive scheme has shown to be the worst ever at the University. How is this game different from the last two last year, other than supposedly a less talented team to play against. The trend is down with last nights game. 600 yard 4 times in less than a year. 4 of the 10 worst games to ever be played by Nebraska. Clownahan was gone after two. We most likely will 3 more this year. If history means anything, we are bound to repeat it with scheme. This game screams change is needed.

 

So your saying that the players this year are not anymore talented then they were last year because of the yards they allowed?

Kinda doesnt matter if they are giving up the same amounts of yards, does it? The proof is in the pudding, talent or no talent.

 

Kinda does matter because there is a thing called "room for improvement" because they are so young and inexperienced. You think these players will get worse as they get more experience? Learn the scheme better?

 

The issue last year is we KNEW the scheme, we WERE experienced, because we WEREN'T young, and yet we sucked.

 

This year we did poorly BECAUSE we don't KNOW everything about our scheme and we AREN'T experienced and we are YOUNG.

 

We have the athletes in place now. It's about getting them experienced.

What I'm saying is, it doesn't appear to matter during Bo's epic D meltdowns--talent and/or experience need not apply. The sh&t is going to happen regardless and that's coaching. 600+ yds, great way to kick off a new season. Kind of makes one question the alleged talent level, or football IQ, or both. I think it's mostly the coaching though.

 

It should never happen at NE, not with the resources they put into the program.

[irafreak]

Watchin the game again for the 2nd time, hench the 3rd time I've seen it. I'm tellin yall, it's not as bad as it seems. Up 31-14 and 37-21 and shoulda made it 44-21 with only half a quarter left, and then just packed it in. This is obvious. A legit concern, but obvious. The Int was a game changer that gave them hope and we couldnt wake back up. Our D had the clamps down pretty decent from mid 1st quarter all the way till the 4th when we got up 31-14 and they seemed to let off and let Wyo get a quick score. A lot of their yards came in that flurry of a ridiculous comeback in the final 7 minutes. Without that, it wouldve looked a lot more respectable numbers wise. i wasnt hitting the panic button last night and I'm still not. These things happen. Kansas St lost to an FCS team at home and they were #1 less than a year ago.

 

 

 

I'm going to have to agree with you on this...I rewatched the game this morning and found the same...it wasn't near as bad as it seemed when I was watching last night.

Of course the game doesn't seem as bad the second time...because you're expecting bad. We expected a solid performance and got bad. The performance was poor against a low quality MWC opponent that won 4 games last season with the same qb. It's not as though they had a new genious coach or a new stud superstar transfer qb.

[BOurNe sUpremacy]

 

Here's what I KNOW. Fricking WYOMING put up fracking 600+ yds on us and nearly pulled off the upset of my lifetime vs Big Red, K? Thats all I need to know. The sh&t aint working and putting RG @ at 'roving DE' is just more smoke and mirror, cutesy Bo b.s. We dont have the mojo on the d front to even not get owned by l'il ol' Wyo, and thats sad, so he's just bullsh@tting his way around.

 

1-8 on third down conversions. That means when we were getting into scenarios to get off the field, WE GOT OFF THE FIELD. A defense that is getting "pushed around" doesn't do that. Good lord Here is an article from last year on the topic. http://www.omaha.com.../708119859/1707 - our issue has continued to be GETTING OFF THE FIELD. Which, for the first time in a long, long time, we actually did! For instance, last year USM completed 50% of their 3rd conversions against our D. So, yeah, I'd say us using Gregory as a drop end has helped us get off the field. Cutesy stuff that works, I guess.

 

I'm not sure how we are getting owned when our D actually did a good job getting off of the field? Yeah they had a big fourth quarter, but once again, we wanted to fix our issues on third down and it appears we have taken steps to do that. Sheesh.

Ok, the house burned down, but my bathtub was saved. Thats basically what you are saying here.

[irafreak]

Think we learned that we know what other teams especially Michigan and NW are going to do to our D. Spread it out with 4 or 5 wide and gash us up the middle with RB or QB.

Yea, Bo has proven with a large sample size to date that he has no clue how to defend the wide open spread offenses of the new millenium.

Is this serious or sarcastic?

serious

Please explain. IN 2009 and 2010 Bo was THE most innovative coach in the country in defending the types of offenses we played last night. I see a lot of folks complaining about the scheme. Do you even know what the scheme is? Do you even know what it takes to defend these offenses as a player in Bo's system? It takes a heavy amount of experience and film study. It's about knowing tendancies and concepts. Those defenses in 2009 and 2010 knew the opposing offenses as well as they did. Go back and watch the Missouri and oklahoma games of 2009 and '10. Watch the 2009 Big 12 Champ game. Do not pay attention to Suh or the pressure on the qb. pay attention to the DBs and their alignments and watch the routes ran. The defenders knew what routes were coming based on the alignment they were giving the O. This gave them the ability to anticipate with great success. We didnt have that last night. We always had a young guy just one step behind. I was encouraged by the speed on D, but I'm holding back judgement for when we play teams this defense is now built to defend. We're not necessarily all in to defend Wyoming style of offense anymore.

So if the defensive player HE recruits can't grasp his scheme....something has to change...hopefully that's the transition we're looking at but we are wasting a good offense in the process...

[BOurNe sUpremacy]

From the psychology literature, from a psychology major--here's why I'm a firm believer that we could still be fielding a high caliber defense this year:

 

The learning curve. Initially, performance is low. But as the number of trials continue to increase, learning steeply increases and performance improves significantly until plateauing; where the number of reps doesn't significantly improve performance.

 

Applying that to our situation, we have a lot of players who played their first snaps at the collegiate level last night. It should have been no surprise that the product we were going to see wasn't going to be a very good or even average performance. But what we did see was the defensive line (VV and RG44) pushing their offensive line back, getting pressure on Brett Smith, forcing him to dance around (which not all QBs can do by the way) and throw the ball away, sometimes forcing the ball into a tight window. What we did see was the coverage making two interceptions and breaking up a handful of passes. What we did see was our safeties and corners being there on most of the passing plays.

 

Yes, we did see the silly mistakes, the missed tackles, the inability to get to the QB despite getting pressure on him, the linebackers failing to adjust to the motion. But we also saw a lot of good things, a lot of athletic plays, suggesting that the plateaus for these players are MUCH higher than the defense we had last year.

 

What needs to happen is for them to start making that jump, it will happen, just a matter of when--it might not be next week, it might not be by the end of the year. For the fan's and Bo's sake, I'm hoping it is before B1G play starts (we can beat So Miss and SDSU with our offense, and a loss to UCLA won't be the end of the world).

From the psychology literature, from a psychology major

 

Sorry bro', that's all I needed to read. Nothing personal.

 

Ok, scratch that, bring in Freud, Skinner, Pavlov, Pavlov's dog, Jung, Old, Ed Bernays, Bueller, anybody, I don't give a crap, but make this team play better dagnabbit!

[irafreak]

I learned that a lot of people think they are better defensive football coaches than Bo Pelini. That, gentlemen, is absurd.

Don't see a single post here where someone is claiming to be a better DC than Bo Pelinin...just that his defenses aren't as great as we thought they were. I think Bo brought a lot of inovation to the league from the NFL...some ahead of the curve stuff. Now the rest of the coaches are catching up and Bo has shown an inability to take his game to the next level. Whether it's due to hiring underlings instead of proven people to be his coordinators (fresh perspective is not a bad thing) I don't know....don't claim to know. But his teams are consistently sloppy and that's a reflection on the coach. His teams take plays off and often don't play hard for 4 quarters...that's probably again the coach.

 

Again, doesn't take a proven DC to see the poor habits his players have had for 5 years. Habits that have cost us games many times...