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Excluding coaching changes, what repairs are needed?


Hercules

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The defense has come a long ways this year. Pelini and his staff successfully addressed the pass rush, a huge area of need in the offseason, by landing Randy Gregory (identified by Chris Spielman today as the best pass-rusher in the country). The play of the interior line has improved over the course of this season as well. Pelini also made some philosophical adjustments by using the safety much more in run support and blitzing far more often than we've seen during his tenure, and as a result of all of that, the defense has actually started to look like Blackshirts again.

 

Meanwhile, the offense was able to move the ball fairly consistently on the #1 defense in the country, even without it's All-Conference QB, three starting offensive linemen, and a starting WR, not to mention all the guys who did play while beat up.

 

This is all to say that people calling for an overhaul of the staff are misguided. They've shown the ability to adjust, to improve, and they've shown the potential to do great things even when half of their starting offense is out.

 

That said, there are a few areas in which Nebraska has been trending poorly for quite some time now - punt returns and turnovers. I think most posters would agree that on Saturday, those two areas were the difference between a 41-28 loss and something like a 31-17 win.

 

My question is, excluding coaching changes, what adjustments need to be made? Do we need two punt returners back? Do we need three? Do we need to rush the punter more aggressively? Do we simply need to change the way we practice?

 

As far as turnovers go, I believe that does come back to the way we practice. I think there probably needs to be far more full-speed/full contact in practice than there is right now, especially with the QBs. It's become clear that ball security was not just a Taylor Martinez issue, but it's something that everyone on offense struggles with. I don't believe it's coincidence that over the past few years, the offense has fumbled the ball more than anyone in the country, and our defense has been consistently poor at tackling. I think if Bo wants to win a conference championship, he's going to have to make philosophical adjustments to the way his team goes about practicing.

 

Thoughts?

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Maybe the answer is contact at practices ... until we get key players injured in practice and it is Bo's fault.

 

At some point, players have to take some responsibility.

 

I'm not sure I've ever actually heard a fan blame a coach for when a guy gets hurt at practice. Obviously, that would be a concern, but maybe it's worth the risk. I mean, our starters didn't have great ball security either, and when their backups played for them today, they still moved the ball - but it was turnovers that did us in.

 

Our injury bug is another issue that I didn't mention in the OP that probably needs to be addressed. Fans were questioning our strength and conditioning even before our rash of injuries this season. Definitely needs to be looked at, though I don't know what specifically needs to be changed. Any S&C experts, feel free to weigh in...

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A coach solely responsible for special teams. Not someone who already has two other jobs.

 

Recruiting front office people like they have at Alabama. Maybe not 30 of them. I believe I heard this is happening, though.

 

Is the recruiting front office needed in order to identify better recruits, or simply to lighten the work load of coaches on the staff? Or both?

 

And if you make someone soley the special teams coach, who takes on more duties? Does JP go back to coaching a position on defense, and then does Bo go back to being more hands-on DC? How should those dominoes fall?

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The hard part of the whole situation is that both TA and TM have had fumble issues. You can teach ball security all you want, but until you practice holding onto the ball while getting hit, its just not the same. Im not sure I want the QBs getting tackled in practice just to work on their fumble issues. Im not sure, but I bet many teams do not let their QBs get hit in practice.

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Our injury bug is another issue that I didn't mention in the OP that probably needs to be addressed. Fans were questioning our strength and conditioning even before our rash of injuries this season. Definitely needs to be looked at, though I don't know what specifically needs to be changed. Any S&C experts, feel free to weigh in...

Can any of these injuries be attributed to S&C? Maybe Kenny and Jamal need to be told to stretch more, I don't know. Other than that, can you train OL to not get rolled up, not to tear ligaments, or not to dislocate shoulders?

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A coach solely responsible for special teams. Not someone who already has two other jobs.

 

Recruiting front office people like they have at Alabama. Maybe not 30 of them. I believe I heard this is happening, though.

 

Is the recruiting front office needed in order to identify better recruits, or simply to lighten the work load of coaches on the staff? Or both?

 

And if you make someone soley the special teams coach, who takes on more duties? Does JP go back to coaching a position on defense, and then does Bo go back to being more hands-on DC? How should those dominoes fall?

 

Im not quite sure on the recruiting front office people. Im sure they will be the ones contacting and setting up visits and stuff like that. The coaches will probably still do the evaluating. But like I said, I have no idea what their job description will be.

 

You could put someone like Ganz in charge of ST. Or another GA kind of coach. Just need to put more emphasis on ST as a whole.

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The hard part of the whole situation is that both TA and TM have had fumble issues. You can teach ball security all you want, but until you practice holding onto the ball while getting hit, its just not the same. Im not sure I want the QBs getting tackled in practice just to work on their fumble issues. Im not sure, but I bet many teams do not let their QBs get hit in practice.

 

But what about teams who want to use their QB in the run game like Nebraska does? It'd be interesting to know how much contact Braxton Miller has in practice, or even Phillip Nelson at Minnesota. I'm fairly certain that back in the Solich/Osborne era, the QBs didn't have a green jersey, and those teams had a lot of full contact in practice.

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The hard part of the whole situation is that both TA and TM have had fumble issues. You can teach ball security all you want, but until you practice holding onto the ball while getting hit, its just not the same. Im not sure I want the QBs getting tackled in practice just to work on their fumble issues. Im not sure, but I bet many teams do not let their QBs get hit in practice.

To some extent, the nature of our offense certainly hurts. We ask the QB to do a lot of tough ball handling. Certainly, the players are to blame too. As bad as TM was, TA is even worse.

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The hard part of the whole situation is that both TA and TM have had fumble issues. You can teach ball security all you want, but until you practice holding onto the ball while getting hit, its just not the same. Im not sure I want the QBs getting tackled in practice just to work on their fumble issues. Im not sure, but I bet many teams do not let their QBs get hit in practice.

 

But what about teams who want to use their QB in the run game like Nebraska does? It'd be interesting to know how much contact Braxton Miller has in practice, or even Phillip Nelson at Minnesota. I'm fairly certain that back in the Solich/Osborne era, the QBs didn't have a green jersey, and those teams had a lot of full contact in practice.

 

If they do get hit in practice, I would guess its just wrap up and not taken to the ground. Its playing with fire letting your starting QB get tackled in practice. The one person on the team you don't want to have injured is your starting QB, that's for sure.

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Our injury bug is another issue that I didn't mention in the OP that probably needs to be addressed. Fans were questioning our strength and conditioning even before our rash of injuries this season. Definitely needs to be looked at, though I don't know what specifically needs to be changed. Any S&C experts, feel free to weigh in...

Can any of these injuries be attributed to S&C? Maybe Kenny and Jamal need to be told to stretch more, I don't know. Other than that, can you train OL to not get rolled up, not to tear ligaments, or not to dislocate shoulders?

 

Don't know the answer to that. I do know that the more fatigued you are on the field, the more likely you are to play with poor technique, and the more you play with poor technique, the more likely you are to get injured.

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