What Did We Learn: Miami Edition

[TheSker]

 

This is a bit more of a rebuild than I was hoping for.

A .700 winning percentage isn't a rebuild.

[gobiggergoredder]

Offense -

• Westercamp and Reilly are warriors
• Anyone can knock TA all they want, I'll take him.
• Need to get the penalties figured out. This is on the coaches.
• I wish Newby could get up the field when he cuts.

 

Defense -

• Overall speed is lacking at DE, LB and DB.
• We need to go after every JUCO DE that is available. There is no pass rush whatsoever.
• The DB's are struggling, but the lack of a pass rush is exaggerating the reality of this issue.
• Tackling regressed back to 2014.

 

Special Teams

• Browns field goal would have been good from 65. I can't believe they even kicked it (i was screaming NO).
• Westercamp has done a great job filling in for DPE.

Team Overall

• They were not ready to play at kick off.
• Tighten up penalties and turn overs.

 

I really think that BYU and Miami would have been blow out loses had a change not been made. I think there is a talent/speed gap that we will fight against for the rest of the year (mostly Defense).

[84HuskerLaw]

I, for one, have not given up on this team. I have been pretty realistic in my assessments for the past 4 decades I have been a fan. Perhaps as many as 7 times over the said 42 years or so, I have over estimated the team's prospects and maybe three or four I under estimated them. This year, despite the 1-2 won/loss record I am feeling a little BETTER about the team's prospects now than I did a month ago. I say this because despite having been behind in both losses by substantial margins and momentum and the overall ebb and flow of the game seeming to be going against us, we fought hard and played better in the second half and came back. Sadly, the last few moments of both losses were disappointing but our team has a calm demeanor and certain underlying confidence. I believe that comes from Riley and his staff and they players are reflecting their coaches for the most part.

 

A penchant for inopportune penalties has been a trademark of the Huskers for a number of years. It should not be surprising that penalty issues remain. Penalties typically show up for one of two reasons: the team has a rather nasty attitude evidenced by a blatant disregard for playing within both the spirit and letter of the rules often reflecting the head coach's like minded approach to the game or life in general, or the penalties flare up as a result of player's general frustrations at being out manned or played by overall better players (bigger, stronger, faster). Personal fouls, roughness, illegal blocks,unsportsmanlike conduct, etc frequently fall is the former case while holding, formation and alignment issues, delay of games, motions, off sides, etc. tend to be more common in the latter case. Though of course any penalty can happen, even to the best coached, most talented team in the country.

 

Miami used to have a 'bad boys' reputation that was generally earned, although it may have been over blown by the media somewhat. They had a swagger back in the day that was obvious. Oklahoma had the same type of attitude. I felt at the time, the teams reflected their coach's demeanor. Barry Switzer had a swagger and bad boy attitude as did Miami coaches of the era for the most part. The Huskers had Tom Osborne's calm, reflective, steady approach generally. We had a few teams (think Broderick Thomas' "our house") that gained a bit of a reputation as a little on the 'bad' side at times. But for the most part, this was only a couple seasons and a handful of individual players' the projected this.

 

The best player of the Pelini years is easily Suh and certainly he has developed a 'bad boy' reputation which came on his senior year somewhat, arguably reflecting the attitude of his head coach. Not sure why but perhaps there is some of that in the Detroit Lions organization as well? Personally, I don't like that attitude and hope the Huskers avoid it. But, we do, at the same time, need to get a more aggressive attitude with more toughness and hard hitting style. I see more of this approach this year than in recent years as we see better gang tackling and so on. We need to find more toughness and desire to dominate physically on the offensive side of the ball and from the defensive line in getting the push to collapse the pocket. The D line needs to 'meet at the quarterback' on every obvious passing down certainly.

 

We have seen good adjustments in these first three games defensively as the team played better in the second, third and fourth quarters (for the most part). This suggests the coaches are recognizing things we can do differently to better match up and or control the opponent's schemes. The negative to making all these adjustments is that we could or should have been better prepared for the opponent before the game started and not have needed to make the adjustments. This preparation often is more accurate as the season moves along and the coaches have more film and games to evaluate along these lines. So let's give them about three more games before we unfairly rush to judgement on preparation capabilities. BYU and Miami may turn out to be top 25 teams by year end. If so, playing with a couples snaps of wins may be less painful to take looking back in hindsight. The next three games will tell us a great deal about the character and quality of this team. If we fall and fade and have a 2-4 record or something, we will have more to worry about. But, we can still be looking at a 4-2 record at that point as well and be riding a three game win streak, fresh off a win over a top 25 caliber Wisconsin bunch.

 

If the penalties decline significantly (from 13 to say 7 for example), and the wins are coming, we can be fairly confident that things are indeed headed in the right direction. We have all recognized the prospects, based on so many predictions on this board, were for about 8 or 9 wins and 4-5 losses. We appear headed in that general vacinity as of now. The argument has been more about overall competitiveness and quality of play than wins and losses for most. Many want the team to look better losing and not appear to be out classed. We should be a perennial top 20 and maybe top 10 team to most on here. I agree. However, I know we are NOT there now and we have not been there for about 12 years. The drop off happened under Frank Solich (it is one of the reasons he was fired but NOT the only one as certain unpublicized off the field things also contributed to his departure). Callahan couldn't bring us back from the abyss so he was replaced by Pelini. He was able to keep the Huskers from falling completely off the football map but unfortunately he had so many negative issues that reflected badly on the reputation of the school and its leadership as well, that he had to go. Now, Riley was brought in to hopefully fix the reputation problems certainly and maybe begin to resurrect the once almighty Huskers to prominence. I don't know that he has time before retirement looms out there 6 or 8 years hence but?

 

I will make this prediction: next year's team has a great chance to be top 10 level! Will it be a once in a decade splash? Perhaps. But we have a good bunch of young players that have learned a lot in just three games, in my opinion. Tommy Armstrong will have rewritten all the records by the time he graduates. In this game, he passed up some Husker legends in his numbers. He still has nearly half his career to go yet! Tommy is playing at an all conference level right now and it seems likely to me that he will only get much better as this season progresses. As will the many younger players seeing action this year. The freshmen won't be freshmen by mid October.

[gobiggergoredder]

[commando]

i learned that there are way to many husker fans that can't wait for a loss so they can jump on the forum and bash almost anything about the huskers, the coaches, and the administration. some of them seemed like they were almost overjoyed about the loss.

oh well. i will be there again next week cheering on the Huskers and the coaches. win or lose i will be there cheering them on.

[Walk_On_Reject]

1. players tend to break their personal records against this defense

2. again, a near comeback shadows people's minds about how bad this team played (MSU from last year anyone?)

3. people blamed the sloppy play on Bo's demeanor, well this team plays as sloppy

4. Mike Riley is gonna fail at NU and it's not gonna be pretty

 

Awesome points, I agree entirely.

 

(1)Our defense is porous. The media talking heads at the OWH and LJS could have been more upfront about that before the season began. . . . . or after the first game.

 

(3) & (4)-All we can say now at 1-2 is; "At least our coach is a nice guy." I'm amazed at the number of people who are content with that.

[84HuskerLaw]

LOL Well, I get the comment about my lengthy articles! Sorry but writing is what I do for a living and apparently I like to read what i write! LOL I find it interesting that nobody seems to be discussing and pointing out the ONE major area of the team's play thus far this year that is quite a surprise to me. I think frankly it is the reason we are NOT comfortably 3-0 AND is capable of making dramatic improvement fairly quickly and being consistently good the rest of the year? Can anybody guess what I am thinking about?

[commando]

 

1. players tend to break their personal records against this defense

2. again, a near comeback shadows people's minds about how bad this team played (MSU from last year anyone?)

3. people blamed the sloppy play on Bo's demeanor, well this team plays as sloppy

4. Mike Riley is gonna fail at NU and it's not gonna be pretty

 

Awesome points, I agree entirely.

 

(1)Our defense is porous. The media talking heads at the OWH and LJS could have been more upfront about that before the season began. . . . . or after the first game.

 

(3) & (4)-All we can say now at 1-2 is; "At least our coach is a nice guy." I'm amazed at the number of people who are content with that.

 

We are Nebraska. We Deserve better!!!!! Right?

[Jeremy]

Also learned that there aren't nearly as many miami fans that want to attend their home football games as we have. Our stadium vs miami last year was absolutely rockin; sun life - half empty. Heck, if Husker fans weren't there, it would have been REALLY bad. This tells me we, as fans, don't really have much impact on things. We can sell out the stadium every game since '62, but that doesn't seem to bring in top 300's very much. We want winners with N's on their helmets. What's it gonna take?

[dvdcrr]

The ONLY thing I learned was that Al Golden actually is capable of motivating a team.

[True2tRA]

That crafting your Defense to theoretically stop the run doesn't really matter if every team throws for over 300 yards a game.

To be fair, Kaaya and Taysom Hill are two of the better QB's we see all season. In the Big Ten schedule, stopping the run is usually the priority. Had we been able to stop the run in conference the last five years, we'd probably have one or two conference titles. Illinois and MSU have QB's capable of passing on us, especially Cook at MSU, but aside from that we don't have any pure throwers on the schedule.

 

Now, theoretically stopping the run is right. It's what we want to do and we are devoting our resources to becoming the team that does just that. Three games into the season it appears the players we have on the roster are not all capable of playing this way, and the ones that are capable do not have a full understanding of the importance of taking the proper angles and positioning themselves.

 

Is that surprising? It shouldn't be. Three games in, I don't expect it all to be there yet. Honestly still, if we could just be a little more effective with our front four, it would work miracles for us. The fact that we lack a presence at DE, and that Maliek Collins has not been the impact player we felt he would be, has made the growing pains only that much tougher.

[Redux]

I keep seeing how this would have been a loss under Bo or a blowout etc. I'm not sold on that idea. What killed us early were the big pass plays. Under Bo we played a stingy secondary. I mean that was the one thing he knew how to coach. Maybe we get beaten down in the end but I doubt the epic fail that was the first half happens like it did.

 

*Note: This is in no way a plea for Bo to still be here, just some perspective.

[Savage Husker]

 

 

That crafting your Defense to theoretically stop the run doesn't really matter if every team throws for over 300 yards a game.

To be fair, Kaaya and Taysom Hill are two of the better QB's we see all season. In the Big Ten schedule, stopping the run is usually the priority. Had we been able to stop the run in conference the last five years, we'd probably have one or two conference titles. Illinois and MSU have QB's capable of passing on us, especially Cook at MSU, but aside from that we don't have any pure throwers on the schedule.

 

Now, theoretically stopping the run is right. It's what we want to do and we are devoting our resources to becoming the team that does just that. Three games into the season it appears the players we have on the roster are not all capable of playing this way, and the ones that are capable do not have a full understanding of the importance of taking the proper angles and positioning themselves.

 

Is that surprising? It shouldn't be. Three games in, I don't expect it all to be there yet. Honestly still, if we could just be a little more effective with our front four, it would work miracles for us. The fact that we lack a presence at DE, and that Maliek Collins has not been the impact player we felt he would be, has made the growing pains only that much tougher.

I agree. On top of that, Banker can't scheme a run first defense against a pass first offense and think we're going to shut down mobile/effective passing teams. If someone can teach me the philosophy on our game plan yesterday, please do so, because it doesn't make sense to me.

[Landlord]

To be fair, Kaaya and Taysom Hill are two of the better QB's we see all season. In the Big Ten schedule, stopping the run is usually the priority.

 

 

Sure, but the way our secondary is positioned on a lot of those passing plays, Joel Stave will have just as much success as Kayaa or Hill often enough. It'd be different if it was like 2012 Georgia where our secondary played really well and just got beat on near undefendable balls, but with things as they currently are, mediocre QB's will be able to have similar success as great ones with the cushion available to receivers.

[Dagerow]

1. Nate is a beast

2. Westerkamp is a beast

3. Armstrong played well. He never gave up and showed a lot of character. Exactly want I want from him. (And I admit it, I had my doubts about him and how much he would progress with the new coaches. I was wrong on both accounts).

4. We are lucky the Big10 is largely a run based conference.