TO's Defense - the Early Years

[ColoradoHusk]

 

 

 

 

(Did they all stay?)

 

No. Edit: I looked at wikipedia. Looks like lots stayed. '76 was an interesting year though.

 

1972:

Bob Devaney Head Coach

Tom Osborne Offensive Coordinator

Cletus Fischer Offensive Line 1960-85

Carl Selmer Offensive Line 1962-72

Jim Ross 1962-76

John Melton Tight Ends, Wingbacks 1973 1962-88

Mike Corgan Running Backs 1962 1962-82

Monte Kiffin 1967-76

Warren Powers Defensive Backs 1969-76

Boyd Epley Head Strength Coach 1969 19692003

Jim Walden 1971-72

Bill Myles Offensive Line 1972 1972-76

Not sure what happened in 1976, but maybe Powers and Kiffin had decided they had been assistants at NU long enough. I am sure they were disappointed when the young OC (Osborne) was named HC after 1972, but stayed a few more years out of loyalty to Devaney. Then they left to pursue their own HC jobs. From what I have heard, it was pretty controversial when Devaney selected TO to succeed him.

[TGHusker]

 

 

 

 

(Did they all stay?)

 

No. Edit: I looked at wikipedia. Looks like lots stayed. '76 was an interesting year though.

 

1972:

Bob Devaney Head Coach

Tom Osborne Offensive Coordinator

Cletus Fischer Offensive Line 1960-85

Carl Selmer Offensive Line 1962-72

Jim Ross 1962-76

John Melton Tight Ends, Wingbacks 1973 1962-88

Mike Corgan Running Backs 1962 1962-82

Monte Kiffin 1967-76

Warren Powers Defensive Backs 1969-76

Boyd Epley Head Strength Coach 1969 19692003

Jim Walden 1971-72

Bill Myles Offensive Line 1972 1972-76

Not sure what happened in 1976, but maybe Powers and Kiffin had decided they had been assistants at NU long enough. I am sure they were disappointed when the young OC (Osborne) was named HC after 1972, but stayed a few more years out of loyalty to Devaney. Then they left to pursue their own HC jobs. From what I have heard, it was pretty controversial when Devaney selected TO to succeed him.

 

Then Powers gets his revenge in 78 as his MO team beats NU after NU beats OU for the #1 place in the poll - thus we end up playing OU again in the Orange Bowl instead of winning the nat'l championshiip - what a bummer that was.

[Paul in WI]

I don't ever remember thinking that we had weak defenses. I remember having two basic gripes as a casual fan:

 

1. Our secondary seemed slow and many times would not turn around to challenge for the pass. We usually didn't get burned by this until the really "big" games against teams with a competent aerial attack. We finally got that sorted out in the early 90's. Why it took so long, I don't know.

 

2. I always felt that both our offensive and defensive numbers got terribly diluted during the last quarter and a half of games. While we took great pride in getting the water boy a lot of playing time, it made our overall numbers look more pedestrian compared to those teams that left their starters in for practically the entire game versus our typical 2.5 - 3 quarters.

[cg_8]

 

I wasn't saying Osborne's defenses got that much worse. I'm also not trying to say what one team would do to another across the decades.

 

I'm saying you can't say they gave up 14 ppg while last year we gave up 28 ppg (or whatever) so Osborne's defense was that much better. Too many things have changed. The best may have similar numbers but the shape of the curve (amongst many other factors) is likely quite different.

 

 

That's my first thought when seeing this posted. The game has changed drastically in too many directions.For example, let's see how that defense, and it's similar concepts do against 4 verticals and other "air raid" concepts. How well does the defense defend the zone read?

 

It's difficult for a guy like me to try and "compare" TO's defense, and say it's better than Bo's. Bo had more to deal with.

 

Don't get me wrong, Bo and his D should have done better. No question. Coaching in general on that side of the ball should have been better. Coaching back then, was most likely on point. I think TO and his staff had the better ability to "teach" and "coach" than Bo and his staff. I think that's the element that I would like to compare.

[junior4949]

I believe too much credit was being given to the offense in those years and too much blame was given to the defense. What one must remember is the fact that the offense at times can leave the defense in a very bad position. Take the 73' season for instance. The two losses can almost be entirely blamed on the offense. We lost to Missouri 12-13. It wasn't the defense that cost us that game. It was the offense. Then, take the loss that same year to OU 0-27. Has a team ever won a game by scoring zero points? If you go back through a lot of the years and a lot of the losses, you will see the offense in most cases scored less than half the points they averaged for the year. When you go back through the losses in TO's career, there were quite a few of those where the offense didn't even crack double digits for points.

 

After having said all of that, our defense did have a few problems. We were big and slow. Whenever we played a team with speed particularly at receiver, we were extremely vulnerable. I do believe in a lot of those earlier years that players very athletically gifted more times than not ended up playing on the offensive side of the ball.

[MichiganDad3]

I lived in Louisiana at the time, but took a Nebraska newspaper and Huskers Illustrated. I was only able to see nationally televised games, which were against better competition. My memory, which is selective, tells me the defense was weaker than the offense, and fumbles often killed us. I also recall many complaints about McBride, until he became a hero at the end of TO's reign.

 

I really miss reading about participation counts exceeding 100 players. IMHO, that is a great way to get the younger guys ready to be starters, and to select the best future starters.

[1HuskrFan]

Well lets consider the 71 defense, whether its a different era or not. All Americans are the same in an era (best at their position that yr). They controlled the game. DC Monte Kiffin, yes the same Kiffin that led the Tampa two defense with a great middle guard (warren Sapp) his mg in 71 was Rich Glover (all american). In their perspective era's, Glover was every bit as good as Sapp. DT Larry Jacobson (another all american) 1st round pick Giants. Both linebackers to Buffalo 1st round & 2nd round) Willie Harper DE played lb for SF. My memory fades on some of the other players, but the D line was fearsome. John Dutton, & Monte Johnson-back up dt both played in NFL.

At the time, several references were made to that team, one being said during an NFL game, don't remember which one, "I think Nebraska could probably beat half of the NFL teams, which we know wouldn't be the case, however, just to have that comparison is pretty lofty praise.

Before the game against Alabama, the announcers were spouting off about the SEC defenses and how Nebraska hasn't faced that type of defense and the Alabama offense with their All American center, (which Glover owned) and all american running back Johnny Russo would dictate the play. Actually Russo didn't do to bad, however the final score 38-6 was exactly how the game was. Alabama could do very little against Husker D, meanwhile the Offense had little trouble moving the ball.

Just an old timers take on the 71 Defense. Was it as good as 95? Hard to say, different eras as well as different schemes. For the time they played in`I'd say they were just as good. Other than Oklahoma, they weren't really threatened. Game of the Century 71 Oklahoma, if memory serves, was ranked #1 offense and #2 defense in the nation, while Nebraska was ranked #1 defense,#-Offense(dont recall exactly, It was top five I think, but I like to think of it as #@1 vs #1 and #2vs#2 in same game when teams are ranked #1 and #2, which made for a great game memorable is so many ways. You won't see that type of match up in today's game, even if it is 1 vs 2. their nation ranking for offense and defense won't approach this match up.

Quick litle note, I lived in Omaha at the time 21 yrs old, and during commercials, the water company complained about difficulty in keeping up with water demand. They actually came on during commercial time and asked viewers to space restroom activities over longer periods of time. Another commercial time out, ABC shot live footage of Omaha and Lincoln and both cities looked like ghost towns. Nationally Televised broadcast on Thanksgiving Day.