Bend but don't break

[zoogs]

Yeah, look, the bottom line is points. There are only a handful of scores per team in most games. Nothing "works" if the points end up on the board.

[krc1995]

How adjustable is this defense? And at what point do you change it up?  It seems to me that this scheme only works with a high scoring offense and it's not real geared to be a tone setting, win the turnover margin, aggressive defense. I kind of have a problem with its lack of intensity. 

[Huskers44]

I mean if you watched the West Virginia vs Virginia Tech game you saw an attacking defense. Both teams got beat by some deep balls, but also had plenty of stops. Most deep balls were players just making plays. Look at Bama for example, they are never content giving up any yards. 

[84HuskerLaw]

The basic theory of the "prevent" defense was that it was near the end of the half or the game with small amount of time left and the opponent has gained possession of the ball deep in their own territory with a long way to go to pay dirt.  Rather than play up close and tight and aggressive in trying to stop the offense from getting even a first down, you basically were going to prevent them from getting a big play or score and give some ground and kind of let them use up the game clock time remaining just getting short gains.  The defense is baiting the offense in to taking short gains while using up their limited time remaining.  

 

The 'bend but don't break' defense is really just a friendly way of saying a weak or soft defense that has trouble stopping the oppoent from marching down the field on them.  The only other argument sometimes offered for the prevent or soft type defensive schemes are that if you force the offense to make a longer, 10 plus play drive, there is a greater likelihood the offense will make a mistake and get a penalty or make a turnover or otherwise fail to execute a given play.  This then will put the offense in a disadvantaged down and distance or other situation where the defense has a significant advantage.  

 

The biggest problem with the soft and prevent defense mindset is that you allow your opponent to have time of possession in the process.  Your own offense can't be scoring if it is on the bench and doesn't have the ball while your defense is out there basically in tackling drill all game long.  The more plays the defense has to face, the more fatigued it will become.  Our defense was worn down by Ark State.  This is something that is absolutely NOT Nebraska football.   We should NEVER be worn out.  We have plenty of players to substitute in and need all the playing time they can get. If the starters are tired, put in the 2s and or 3s.   This is how you build depth.  

 

I liked Bo Pelini's mindset on defense of switching up and playing tight or loose or feigning aggressive / passive throughout the games.  He was always trying to ge the offense in a bad down and distance situation.  He would back off and play soft or come up and 'in your face' kind of like his own personality.  He was particularly good when he had Suh which of course is the key in football.  The team with the best players is going to win most of the time.  Scheme and strategy are nice but talent is the biggee!

[The Dude]

There's no way a team like Arkansas State should be able to get 20 first downs on us.  Let alone 32.  If that's really Disco Bob's strategy then cut him loose right now.

[Hayseed]

Seems to me the Prevent defense started way back in the day before they had these explosive offenses and was used strictly to slow the chance of scoring to maintain a lead at the end of the game. I don't know when it became a game strategy and doubt that's what Diaco has in mind. It's more likely that we're keeping it vanilla because we have a young team with new coaches and don't want a bunch of busts while they're learning the positions.

Once they settle in ,I expect to see more risk taking. Much of it depends on how fast the QB releases and his accuracy, kinda dumb to blitz a bunch of guys when the ball is out in 2 seconds. Not sure why we give up so much space though, it's not like Peyton Manning was back there? And if they have a good runner do you really want to have everybody back in coverage? That's next. Like some of you guys are saying, what's the difference between beating you with the long ball or giving up every short pass? I'd rather take my chances defending the long low-% pass. Playing it safe means you don't have much confidence in your guys matching up physically....which is what it mostly comes down to.

[olddominionhusker]

18 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

The basic theory of the "prevent" defense was that it was near the end of the half or the game with small amount of time left and the opponent has gained possession of the ball deep in their own territory with a long way to go to pay dirt.  Rather than play up close and tight and aggressive in trying to stop the offense from getting even a first down, you basically were going to prevent them from getting a big play or score and give some ground and kind of let them use up the game clock time remaining just getting short gains.  The defense is baiting the offense in to taking short gains while using up their limited time remaining.  

 

The 'bend but don't break' defense is really just a friendly way of saying a weak or soft defense that has trouble stopping the oppoent from marching down the field on them.  The only other argument sometimes offered for the prevent or soft type defensive schemes are that if you force the offense to make a longer, 10 plus play drive, there is a greater likelihood the offense will make a mistake and get a penalty or make a turnover or otherwise fail to execute a given play.  This then will put the offense in a disadvantaged down and distance or other situation where the defense has a significant advantage.  

 

The biggest problem with the soft and prevent defense mindset is that you allow your opponent to have time of possession in the process.  Your own offense can't be scoring if it is on the bench and doesn't have the ball while your defense is out there basically in tackling drill all game long.  The more plays the defense has to face, the more fatigued it will become.  Our defense was worn down by Ark State.  This is something that is absolutely NOT Nebraska football.   We should NEVER be worn out.  We have plenty of players to substitute in and need all the playing time they can get. If the starters are tired, put in the 2s and or 3s.   This is how you build depth.  

 

I liked Bo Pelini's mindset on defense of switching up and playing tight or loose or feigning aggressive / passive throughout the games.  He was always trying to ge the offense in a bad down and distance situation.  He would back off and play soft or come up and 'in your face' kind of like his own personality.  He was particularly good when he had Suh which of course is the key in football.  The team with the best players is going to win most of the time.  Scheme and strategy are nice but talent is the biggee!

Didn't we have more time of possession in this game?

 

I understand the philosophy of the defense and I think it actually can work. It's just miserable to watch. 

 

When we were really dominant back in the 90's it was the Defensive play that would get me pumped up. This style is just so uninspired. 

 

Also, you are usually losing field position consistently as well with this method. 

 

Its just so blah

[Mavric]

Complete BS by Sam here.  22 plays of 10 yards or more is A LOT for one game.  Last year the worst team in the country for allowing 10+ yard plays (Texas Tech) gave up an average of 20 per game.  There are only 5 teams who gave up more so far this year.

 

Quote

NU clearly feared its young cornerbacks getting beat deep, and Diaco applied a scheme designed to prevent big pass plays. Nebraska gave up 22 plays of 10 yards or longer, but only two plays of 20 yards or longer — standard football analytics tell you that’ll do just fine.

 

OWH

[RedDenver]

13 hours ago, Mavric said:

Complete BS by Sam here.  22 plays of 10 yards or more is A LOT for one game.  Last year the worst team in the country for allowing 10+ yard plays (Texas Tech) gave up an average of 20 per game.  There are only 5 teams who gave up more so far this year.

 

 

OWH

True. But context: how many 20+ yard plays did we give up and how did that compare to the average last year?

[Mavric]

2 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

True. But context: how many 20+ yard plays did we give up and how did that compare to the average last year?

 

Last year we gave up 51 which is basically 4 per game.

 

We also played a team that was content to take the 6-8-12-16 yards we were giving them and rarely attempt to get a bigger play so I don't think that necessarily means a whole lot.

[ColoradoHusk]

13 hours ago, Mavric said:

Complete BS by Sam here.  22 plays of 10 yards or more is A LOT for one game.  Last year the worst team in the country for allowing 10+ yard plays (Texas Tech) gave up an average of 20 per game.  There are only 5 teams who gave up more so far this year.

 

 

OWH

I usually like Sam's stuff, but giving up 22 completions which are basically automatic first downs is very concerning.  The offense wouldn't even try to throw it deep if it can rip off 10-15 yard completions nearly all game.

[RedDenver]

8 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

Last year we gave up 51 which is basically 4 per game.

 

We also played a team that was content to take the 6-8-12-16 yards we were giving them and rarely attempt to get a bigger play so I don't think that necessarily means a whole lot.

So we cut big plays in half. That seems like progress, but it's of course only one game.

 

Diaco talked about how ASU tries to throw deep on teams, and our defensive strategy was designed to not allow deep throws on single coverage (Diaco called them 50/50 balls). And when they did throw deep, Kalu picked them off. So you can say ASU was content to throw short or that the Husker only allowed them to throw short.

 

The bend but don't break pretty much did what it set out to do - limit big plays and make them drive the ball.

[Mavric]

Yes, if you only look at part of the picture.

 

We cut the big plays in half but nearly doubled the 10+ yard plays.  Maybe that's progress.  Maybe it's a wash.

[RedDenver]

Just now, Mavric said:

Yes, if you only look at part of the picture.

 

We cut the big plays in half but nearly doubled the 10+ yard plays.  Maybe that's progress.  Maybe it's a wash.

I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that while we did worse in 10+ yard plays, we improved in 20+ yard plays. I'm not sure if that's much of an improvement.

[84HuskerLaw]

I guess if your strategy was to win the game, by whatever means, then arguably it worked but considering the fact that they only needed one more 9 yard completion and 1 more three yarder to win the game, then we cut that pretty close indeed.  Of course, one could argue that the offense came up a little bit short on its end of the bargain by only scoring 34 of its own and I'd say 40 is more in the 'target' area presumably.

 

The back off and give them 10 yard easy throw and catch plays however also means that the defense is essentially conceding a significant amount of time of possession to the opponent that you'd like to try to capture by stopping them quicker with a more aggressive defense.  If the opponent still ends up scoring or gaining sufficient yardage to pin the offense back deep in its own territory, then you can make a case that the defense didn't do enough.  Just preventing points is really not a sufficient accomplishment if the team goal is to win about 80% or more of its scheduled games.