***** What did we learn - Northwestern Edition *****

[NUance]

Our offense worked better behind the adjusted OL of Lewis, Moudy, Reeves, Kondolo, Price vs the starting OL of Lewis, Cotton, Pelini, Moudy, Sterup

 

I wonder if we've about seen the end of the Cotton era? The Barney Cotton era, that is.

[SouthLincoln Husker]

 

I think Tommy played a very good game and you're all crazy.

Also, we have an offensive line now . . .

Wrong. He was not good. Luckily we've been able to winv in spite of our shortcomings at QB.

 

Really, 5 dropped passes & 2 thrown away. S/B 80% with no TO. Granted he still needs work on the short pass. Better get use it, he will be our starter for 2 more years.

[NUance]

 

 

I think Tommy played a very good game and you're all crazy.

Also, we have an offensive line now . . .

Wrong. He was not good. Luckily we've been able to winv in spite of our shortcomings at QB.

 

Really, 5 dropped passes & 2 thrown away. S/B 80% with no TO. Granted he still needs work on the short pass. Better get use it, he will be our starter for 2 more years.

 

 

Yeah, there were a lot of dropped balls last night. Fortunately NW dropped quite a few balls too. In the second half anyway. Tommy had a better passing game last night than he had against Sparty. But he did miss a couple of short passes which would have gone for good yardage. That continues to be a frustration.

[Branno]

 

 

 

 

 

I think Tommy played a very good game and you're all crazy.

Also, we have an offensive line now . . .

Wrong. He was not good. Luckily we've been able to winv in spite of our shortcomings at QB.

Really, 5 dropped passes & 2 thrown away. S/B 80% with no TO. Granted he still needs work on the short pass. Better get use it, he will be our starter for 2 more years.

Yeah, there were a lot of dropped balls last night. Fortunately NW dropped quite a few balls too. In the second half anyway. Tommy had a better passing game last night than he had against Sparty. But he did miss a couple of short passes which would have gone for good yardage. That continues to be a frustration.

That's my biggest complaint. Like the screen to AA that would have gone for 6 if the pass is thrown anywhere near him.

[SouthLincoln Husker]

 

 

 

 

I think Tommy played a very good game and you're all crazy.

Also, we have an offensive line now . . .

Wrong. He was not good. Luckily we've been able to winv in spite of our shortcomings at QB.

Really, 5 dropped passes & 2 thrown away. S/B 80% with no TO. Granted he still needs work on the short pass. Better get use it, he will be our starter for 2 more years.

Yeah, there were a lot of dropped balls last night. Fortunately NW dropped quite a few balls too. In the second half anyway. Tommy had a better passing game last night than he had against Sparty. But he did miss a couple of short passes which would have gone for good yardage. That continues to be a frustration.

That's my biggest complaint. Like the screen to AA that would have gone for 6 if the pass is thrown anywhere near him.

 

He is getting better, which tells me he is watching film & making adjustments. Last night, at times in the second half he was really making efforts to get his feet set. Thus, he got hit hard a few times.

[Mavric]

From everything I saw, we looked really good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/ I was traveling and had to listen to the first half on the radio.

[Scratchtown]

I think we learned that NU can and will make adjustments at halftime. That is growth in Bo. Maybe it was stubbornness before?

 

Gotta find ways to get other running backs involved to take pressure off Abdullah in the early portions of games.

 

Rutgers may be worse than I thought, but Purdue may be a whole lot better. We will still beat both.

 

Again with the running backs, I would like to see both Cross and Newby get some more carries.

 

I'm not impressed with Gregory.

[JJ Husker]

I didn't learn much about the team I didn't already know.

 

They don't quit, am that's a good thing.

Often times they don't get started and that's a bad thing.

We had yet another 50/50 game.

Where oh where has Kevin Williams been hiding. He's been tearing it up.

DPE continues to impress. Need to find more touches for him.

 

And finally I learned that when I lower my expectations I can ride out a half game of this team sucking much better. I guess the key is to expect them to play poorly and lose. Then when they actually play up to potential, it seems they are exceeding expectations. This mindset may be the difference between pumper and nellies.

[Apathy]

Here's what I took out of the game:

 

- Nebraska showed no life at all on the field (1st half) and on the sidelines while Northwestern players and coaches were pumping each other up. This was also visible during the Michigan State game. We need to start going into these games pissed off and ready to tear some sh*t up from the very start

 

- Northwestern's freshman running back Justin Jackson will be giving us fits for the next 3 years. Dude is a baller very impressive

 

- We had great field position on our own 46, 48 and their 43 yard lines and punted on all 3 occasions. We need to capitalize on these opportunities better if we want to continue winning games.

 

- Trevor Roach needs to continue to start

 

- We can actually make half time adjustments

 

- O-Line need to get their sh&t together. I'd have to rewatch the game again but I saw a lot of new faces on the O-Line in the 2nd half that played really well

 

- DPE needs to start and get the ball more. Dude makes plays on a weekly basis.

 

- Don't understand why we don't get Westerkamp the ball more when Bell started dropping more balls. Westerkamp has the best hands on the team so when it matters, he needs to get the ball more and create more plays in his favor.

 

- D-Line lacked any push in the 1st half but picked it up in the 2nd

 

- TE's need to get the ball more. Both Iowa and Minnesota do this and is one of reasons why they beat us last year. When Bell got hurt during the Michigan State game, why not dump the ball off to the TE's more to create more opportunities for our WR's to get open and AA to make some plays in the running game

 

- Were is the Wildcat? Were is the Diamond formation? Our running game in the 1st half was nonexistent so why not open the playbook and put in some plays that have been effective for us in the past. We ran the wildcat twice against Miami and was successful both times but have failed to utilize it since then. Same thing could be said with the diamond formation.

 

- We were outplayed and outcoached again (1st half) but with some adjustments in the 2nd half our balls finally dropped and we came out ready to play football in the 2nd half

 

- Defense on some of Northwesterns drives in the 1st half especially Northwesterns 89 yard drive for a TD, they looked tired and gassed

 

- Sam Foltz did an amazing job punting the ball keeping Northwestern deep into their own territory

 

- Tackling seems to be our worst enemy on Defense

 

- On AA's long run, I loved Westercamps effort on blocking and doing what it takes to help out the team. Not only did he block his man but dove after another defender in an effort to help AA reach the endzone. Sure that defender Westerkamp dove at made the tackle but you gotta give Westerkamp props on his effort to help continue the play

 

- I hope that Northwestern player is all well and in good health after being carted off of the field.

[Thanks_Tom RR]

 

 

Our offense worked better behind the adjusted OL of Lewis, Moudy, Reeves, Kondolo, Price vs the starting OL of Lewis, Cotton, Pelini, Moudy, Sterup

I wonder if we've about seen the end of the Cotton era? The Barney Cotton era, that is.

Sam Cotton had a good night blocking.

[Redmusky]

I can't understand why we start so slow, coaches can make 2nd half adjustments, and I need to remember that the game is not over if the opponent scores first

[Thanks_Tom RR]

I can't understand why we start so slow, coaches can make 2nd half adjustments, and I need to remember that the game is not over if the opponent scores first

Actually, it's more like they first make 2nd drive adjustments.

[74Hunter]

 

 

 

I think Tommy played a very good game and you're all crazy.

Also, we have an offensive line now . . .

 

Wrong. He was not good. Luckily we've been able to winv in spite of our shortcomings at QB.

Really, 5 dropped passes & 2 thrown away. S/B 80% with no TO. Granted he still needs work on the short pass. Better get use it, he will be our starter for 2 more years.

Yeah, there were a lot of dropped balls last night. Fortunately NW dropped quite a few balls too. In the second half anyway. Tommy had a better passing game last night than he had against Sparty. But he did miss a couple of short passes which would have gone for good yardage. That continues to be a frustration.

There were lots of points left on the field last night. Some of those completions were great catches. True about the drops, but many of those balls weren't thrown particularly well.

 

I don't recall seeing him hit a defender right in the hands, so i guess that's progress.

[strigori]

My take-away's the day after:

 

1 - Another slow start, it has happened often enough to really be a troubling problem.

2 - In relation to the previous, the coaches seem to be doing a good job of making halftime adjustments. Defense is puzzling, going from getting gashed in the first half, to only giving up 28 in the second. Simply baffling.

3 - The starting O-Line had better be the guys we saw in the second half. It can't be a coincidence that the offense started clicking with different players.

4 - DPE needs to be on the field all of the time. Even as a decoy, he is going to demand more defensive respect than some of the former walk-ons and drop prone players. Bell, Westerkamp and DPE should make for a very scary set for most defenses to cover.

5 - Our field goal kicking has descended to being normal in college football. Brown has not been Mr. Automatic that we have been accustomed to. Though in all fairness, he have been very spoiled in that department.

 

Over all impression is that what started out as a "here we go again" episode of playing down to the competition, turned into a very convincing win by the end of the game. While the end result of the W is easily the most important part, and we can get away with poor play for half of a game when we have a decided talent advantage, it is a serious problem vs teams with equal or greater talent. As we saw with MSU. And while the remaining schedule looks like we will have a solid talent advantage, there is no taking wins for granted this year. With Minnesota being 3-0 in the division, there is next to no room for error. And it is quite possible that another loss, especially to Minn, could well eliminate the Huskers from the division race.

[Danny Bateman]

• I too wish we'd use RB screen passes more often. With someone as dynamic as AA at your disposal we have no reason not too. But we definitely need to put in work on the practice field on them, because Tommy has floated the ball way over AA the last two times in a row we've tried. Kid looked good last night,k but he's still learning the nuances of touch passing. He was stumbling backwards and didn't step into the screen he floated, which means he probably just hasn't practice that throw enough. Still think he needs mechanical work, but he had a better game last night.

Cethan Carter needs to hurry up and get healthy. Did anyone consider that perhaps Sam Cotton is just not a very good receiving TE? The guy has 5 career receptions. Carter not being out there destroys that dimension of our offense. Hell, we threw to Trey Foster (which was awesome) before we did to Cotton. Hurry back, Cethan.

Cooper had a very poor game last night (from what I remember-- only rewatched through one quarter). Whiffed on 3rd down tackle on first drive and lost contain on the huge 26 yard gain by Jackson later in the first quarter. He needs to step it up. Missing Alexander hurts.

Hope it's an open competition between Roach and Bando or Roach outright keeps his job. My biggest fear is Bo just hands it back over to Bando.