Fowler's take

[HuskerFowler]

I havent gotten a chance to rewatch the game, assuming my remote still works from repeatedly slamming it on the floor. I have some serious concerns, but I'm still cautiously optimistic.

 

Top reasons my remote may be broke.

1. Randy Gregory roughing the passer call

2. Taylor Martinez QB sneak with a 220 RB right behind him

3. Swing pass to Cross. Are you serious Beck?

4. 10,000 straight running plays with 8 or 9 in the box.

 

Brett Smith had to be dragged off the field after that last play like he just lost the NC.... saw on twitter he was crying in the locker room. Dude busted his ass the whole off season, watched a ton of film, and i gurantee you, their whole fall camp was dedicated to beating us. He said in an interview he knew everything we were doing on defense from his film study, and knew exactly what to do by how we lined up. Great job on his part, and shame on our staff for thinking we could come out and play basic vanilla football on both sides and have a good showing. I firmly believe the players see the game plan throughout the week, understand that were not going to do much outside of basic football and get complacent. I dont understand why we do this, but this is a Bo thing, it always has been....drives me nuts. It works with the Idaho states of the world but not on teams like this. Line up play your football, drive them into the f'ing ground, take away their will to win, then let off the gas and get your young guys some PT, but stick to fundamentals. The team lacks focus, and energy when you dont unleash them to play at their potential. If they know going in the game plan is dumbed down, you naturally are not going to take your oppenent seriously.

 

Ok on to the my positive spin, (excuses) that i pray to the football gods are right.

 

1. Rich Fisher said tonight that they came out with a whole new defensive scheme that we were not prepared for. Leads back to what i said above, if someone comes out with something we didnt expect, we dont know what to do. This is why we will dominate teams like Michigan State. They do the same things all the time, and our coaches are smart when they get the time to sit down and watch the film. This is why we are also good at finding under the radar recruits. IMO we dont like putting our plays on tape until we have to use them, which i dont agree with, but seems to be the philosophy of Bo's teams, and thats fine, it his team. Problem is your going to get games like this, and SDSU. Not sure i saw the diamond formation, didnt throw the ball down field AT ALL. Even thou they were primed and ready for a play action wide open 50 yard TD. Does Beck really sit there and see that, and just not do it because we feel we dont need to? IDK, but there is no way in the world we dont throw the ball down the field in a close meaningfull game against, say, Michigan with the game on the line, especially with them stacking the Box.

 

2. We are going be just fine on offense, for the above mentioned reasons. Id venture to guess we didnt show 5% of our playbook/routes/strengths. Not even slightly worried about the offense, even with one of Becks worst games as a play caller on Saturday night.

 

Beck said this tonight

“Yeah there is no doubt, there is opportunities to be able to do it, but once again I kind of feel like we were running the ball pretty effectively,” Beck said. “We were going to run it until (Wyoming) stopped us, and I didn’t think there was any need to risk -- and then that one pass at the end of the quarter got intercepted. If you look back there were opportunities we could have took, probably should have took them in hindsight, but we didn’t.”

Pelini

"There were some missed opportunities," Pelini said. "I’m not talking about short gains, I am talking about big plays that we did not take advantage of. Just like defensively, we did not have a lot to go on, going into that game as in what they were going to do defensively. They were a 4-3 team a year ago, so there was a lot of guess-work that went on to prepare our guys, and you could see that. Our guys didn’t come off the ball. It was almost like they were hesitant at times. That is not how you play great offense. You don’t play with the right physicality that way. At times we were very good and at times we were really average.”

 

3. Defense showed flashes. The yards given up look alot worse than it was. This is going to be a very good defensive front 7, with time, probably not dominate this year, but they can be servicable and make some big plays down the stretch....VV is going to be good. He was taking on double teams like a champ, he also stuffed the run a few times on his own (havent seen a DT do that in a long time) and he sniffed out a screen pass in the second half. Maurice got some good push on a few plays i noticed live, Curry made some nice plays along with the 3 new DEs. If Ankrah could learn how to tackle we would be in better shape, McMullen may end up taking over for him by confrence play. Gerry was lost a lot, a bit tenative, but has a ton of talent. I watched him alot and he got better throughout the game. Once he settles in, hes going to be a key playmaker on this defense going forward. Really like the athleticism i saw from that guy. Hes a faster, more athletic Eric Hagg. Can not believe some of those balls Smith got in tight spaces. Venture to guess no other QB we play could have been as consistently accurate against us.

 

4. Lots of commuication issues. On one of their first TD, Ciante and Siesay were confused. Ciante was running with him, well covered, then he was either supposed to pass him off to siesay or stay with him. Siesay thought ciante was going to stay with him, the reason Siesay was so far off in the EZ. Fixable.

 

5. Foreman brought up a good point in his blog about Zone and man concepts, and it comes back to my vanilla Bo opinion, and why Bo said we made it too simple on Smith. We didnt disguise our coverages, they were very basic. Smith is a great QB, and came in well prepared. Bo said we were too simple and it sure looked that way. In the second half Bo brought down another saftey in the box. Thats really the only adjusment we made beside swithing from zone to man coverage, just basic, basic stuff. We did blitz a little and we did move our lineman around a bit, but for the most part it was basic dime defense, he said line up and come beat us one on one, which Brett was able to do quite a bit more than everyone thought, even Bo and Co. Point being were not going to do that against UCLA, at least i would hope we arent that stupid. Defense is cat a mouse, in disguising coverages for the D, vs getting mismatches on the O. A good QB like Smith will know exactly what to do when he can get his defense to tip thier hat on coverages, he knows the weakspots (UCLA exposed that last year) and here is where im holding out hope Bo has found a way to help combat this but didnt show it on Saturday. I mean, he would have to be pretty stupid to not address this right? Obviously if we run this against UCLA we will get beat worse than we did in the CCG. I gotta believe he knows what hes doing here. It may be false hope, but i really dont think Bo is so stubborn that he didnt do anything to change the defensive shortcommings, despite what he rolled out there on Saturday. He plainly said the gameplan was too simple. Leads me to believe he didnt show LA what he has in mind to try and help stop their offense. Not saying were going to roll out some new D, but hes gotta have something better than the simple D he rolled out there, at least as far as diguising coverages and matching routes go.

 

6. Are we baiting UCLA into thinking they are going to be able to run the same plays they did last year? God i hope so. The optimist in me thinks this could be the case. If not i gotta question what the hell Bo is doing. Last year i didnt think they were going to let Whaley cover LA's TE and sure enough he did in the first half, so i dont know. I dont know if the pathetic game plan on D was with the intent of not showing LA anything, but they sure had to have it in the back of their mind.

 

We will play a great game defensively against UCLA, i think i believe this statement, good enough to win anyway. We have a whole year of film on them this time around and we know their tendencies a lot better than last year. I think the coaches have circled this game, and already have a game plan in place to combat their spread offense. I wouldnt be surprised if fall camp was centered around the defense to stop the spread, even if its not what we showed Sat night. We should be able to run the ball freely on their inexperienced D. I see us slowing down and pounding the ball at em playing a better ball control game, but really uping the tempo when we got the D on their heels. That should be our offense against good teams imo. Ball control, keep the D off the field. We have the oline and the backs to run on anybody. Play action passes mixed in to get them out of the box. When we see a weakness go up tempo so they cant sub and exploit it, but only after a first down or two. Ball control. Im still optimistic. If we go out and dominate S Miss its not going to change much im my eyes, but it needs to happen. We need a 56-3 beat down. Its not going to change things, most posters said we wont know who we are until the UCLA game is over, and i still believe this to be the case. I know theres alot of built in excuses here, and alot of blind hope, but i gotta think we have something in store for LA. If its the same old crap, im going to be flabbergasted, I'll shut the tv off and go about my life. I think and hope he'll have something like we did for Missouri in Gabberts senior season. Come out and run all over LA and shut em down on D, before they can adjust the games out of hand. If not god have mercy on Husker nations soul. Its gonna get ugly.

[MichiganDad3]

Great write up. I really want to believe you.

[Mavric]

I'll add in mine:

 

1 - I actually feel (a little) better after watching the game a second time. Most of the big defensive lapses were when we were so terribly mis-aligned that they couldn't help but run for a lot of yards. That is (hopefully) very fixable. Also, it still took way too long but we did adjust to how we were covering the motion out of the backfield that fixed it for the most part. That's why we had them slowed down - at least not scoring - from early in the second to late in the third. Probably my biggest gripe about Bo was that we wouldn't change our scheme if it wasn't working. Not that it fixed everything but we did make adjustments that helped. The other play they hurt us on was the dig route which they ran and completed often. However, we were covering the route fairly well as they didn't get basically any YAC - a vast improvement (albeit, possibly a drop is skill level) from Northwestern a couple years ago. Again, hopefully an alignment change will help prevent them from getting over the middle quite so easily.

 

2 - Jake Cotton really struggled. Moudy didn't get a lot of snaps but I didn't see him missing so much but wasn't dominant either. Many of the running plays that didn't work well were because Cotton missed blocks.

 

3 - Jake Long wasn't much better. We really miss Ben Cotton's blocking. Carter and Foster also struggled blocking but that's probably more expected from them. I'll cut Long some slack for now as he really only practiced this week but much of what we like to do is based on good edge blocking and we didn't get that.

 

4 - Mo Seisay isn't going to get there. Slowed by injuries last year but was looking for a breakout this year. Gerry was MUCH better. He still made some mistakes but also made several plays. I'd rather have some mistakes out of a Freshman than a Senior. Gerry should be on the field as much as possible - and he basically was, playing well over half the defensive snaps and on basically every special team.

 

5 - SJB was awesome. Coaches weren't lying on this one when they said he had been playing great.

 

6 - I have no problem admitting I was wrong about Cross. Really nice feet and just enough speed to really contribute. And still has power. Very nice.

 

7 - Valentine looked really good. Didn't make a lot of plays but was a force in the middle. Got a good push, even facing a lot of double-teams. Didn't notice during the game but watching it again he also made a great play sniffing out a bubble screen and making the receiver adjust enough for everyone else to close in and make the play. That was great.

 

8 - Disappointed in Santos. IIRC, the coaches said he was playing better because he was reacting and not thinking. Spent way too much time thinking. He was trying to play both runners on the zone read and then couldn't recover in time. They rarely blocked him, he just didn't get there. If he would have simply attacked hard at the running going to his side, he would have stuffed several more runs for no gain or a loss. Has to attack and let others do their jobs the other way. Perhaps that's why he's a more natural OLB where he has a little more time to diagnose they play.

 

9 - Would someone please kick off to Terrell Newby!

[knapplc]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Fowler. What pisses me off the most is it seemed like these coaches felt they could beat Wyoming with the absolute basics, and they clearly can't - or can, just barely.

 

 

 

We simply cannot take teams for granted, AT ALL. Not South Dakota State, not Wyoming, not anybody. We have to run our offense, every play in it, from day one. If future opponents get film on what we're doing, whatever. Throw the whole playbook at the non-con schedule and make future opponents practice for EVERYTHING.

 

We almost lost this game trying to be too secretive. It's going to cost Bo his job if he does this much more. It's just plain stupid.

[husker07]

Awesome. Pretty much said everything I wanted to say but am too stupid to do so.

[The Dude]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Fowler. What pisses me off the most is it seemed like these coaches felt they could beat Wyoming with the absolute basics, and they clearly can't - or can, just barely.

 

 

 

We simply cannot take teams for granted, AT ALL. Not South Dakota State, not Wyoming, not anybody. We have to run our offense, every play in it, from day one. If future opponents get film on what we're doing, whatever. Throw the whole playbook at the non-con schedule and make future opponents practice for EVERYTHING.

 

We almost lost this game trying to be too secretive. It's going to cost Bo his job if he does this much more. It's just plain stupid.

After watching the Wisconsin game, then the Nebraska game, it's really hard imagine why anyone would disagree with this.

[Ric Flair]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Fowler. What pisses me off the most is it seemed like these coaches felt they could beat Wyoming with the absolute basics, and they clearly can't - or can, just barely.

 

We simply cannot take teams for granted, AT ALL. Not South Dakota State, not Wyoming, not anybody. We have to run our offense, every play in it, from day one. If future opponents get film on what we're doing, whatever. Throw the whole playbook at the non-con schedule and make future opponents practice for EVERYTHING.

 

We almost lost this game trying to be too secretive. It's going to cost Bo his job if he does this much more. It's just plain stupid.

 

Great post.

[True2tRA]

+1. Great write up. Lots of good points and we see eye to eye on a lot. I think your right about Smith. I did not hear about him having to be dragged off the field and the crying in the locker room but hell he had to have been crushed. That kid gave everything he had. That whole team did and I have to remember there are two teams out there, not just Nebraska in their failures but Wyoming was earning a lot of those successes.

 

I hope this UCLA game is at least respectable. Right now I don't have high hopes for that game but it's the only one I can think about for now. As a fan I can look past teams, but these players better put something on the field they can build upon starting Saturday against Southern Miss because the way I look at it, Southern Miss is a chance at a mulligan for this team to show how the season should have started.

[HuskerFowler]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Fowler. What pisses me off the most is it seemed like these coaches felt they could beat Wyoming with the absolute basics, and they clearly can't - or can, just barely.

 

 

 

We simply cannot take teams for granted, AT ALL. Not South Dakota State, not Wyoming, not anybody. We have to run our offense, every play in it, from day one. If future opponents get film on what we're doing, whatever. Throw the whole playbook at the non-con schedule and make future opponents practice for EVERYTHING.

 

We almost lost this game trying to be too secretive. It's going to cost Bo his job if he does this much more. It's just plain stupid.

 

 

Absolutely.

 

I fogot to add in there, that i think most of us are eating crow on Cross. I had to put some Franks red hot on mine but it went down good. His hesitancy was gone, looked quicker, faster and ran with a purpose. Glad to see his hard work paying off.

[Danimal]

They certainly didn't expect the ugliness level we saw but it's evident they were prepared to compromise on effectiveness and accept some ugliness as not to show anything. With the practice-visitor ban I wonder how much they could be working on that they don't want anyone to see.

[Army_Allen]

Mav, while I'd like to say I told you so about Cross (and I shall at some point). It WAS Wyo. But I think he played about 100 times faster than he did last year, where you could tell he was hesitant. I think this is just one of many big games for him though and when he pounds a buck twenty on UCLA, I'll gladly toss you and EZ and all the other Cross "doubters" a polite 'told you so'.

[Hooked on Huskers]

..........Are we baiting UCLA into thinking they are going to be able to run the same plays they did last year? God i hope so........

+1

 

Oh BTW, great write up!

[sd'sker]

i was expecting chris fowler's take on this.

[HuskerShark]

Count me in as someone who has loved the way Cross runs since day 1. And it appears he has transformed into an every-down back instead of a short-yardage back. That's a great 1-2 punch with him and Ameer. And with Newby coming in as well, our run game is damn fun to watch.

 

About the post, I totally agree with Fowler. Bo gets so stubborn with his 2-high safety look, and it pisses me off. The reason he runs it is because he doesn't want to give up the big play. So instead, teams just nickel and dime us all the way down the field, and it's demoralizing. We have only 5 guys in the box sometimes. Then when Wyoming rolled their RB out in the slot, our LB followed him out, and Smith just shot right down the field. 20 yards easy.

 

Harvey Jackson has a long ways to go. He's just not all that fast, and I didn't see him take a good angle on a WR all game. Andrew Green wasn't any better. Hopefully CJax can make the mental jump, because his athleticism is needed at that spot.

 

One group that I probably saw more out of than I expected was the DL. In particular, our DEs looked pretty good. Gregory is all over the field. I love how he makes it all the way across the field after rushing the QB to make a play on a WR. The dude is big-time. Avery Moss gets really good penetration consistently. He's so big and athletic, and he makes it look easy to shed a Tackle and make his way into the backfield.

 

Maliek Collins had a play or two where he really caught my eye. As others have said, VV took on double teams all night. Curry looked good and hit hard when he got to the ball, and Maurice held his own inside as well. The future is bright for the DL.

[Hammerhead]

I loved what I saw out of Cross and Newby, though the swing pass to Cross did have me scratching my head a bit (like Fowler said, that one was on Beck though). I don't think anyone's too concerned about our offense. The play calling didn't bother me much, it's what I would've expected given who we were facing. I just don't think Beck expected it to be as close as it was.