Northwestern Takeaways

[Archy1221]

6 hours ago, TheSker said:

Those same players in the locker room also voted Martinez a team captain.

 

.....not everything is as easy as it seems.

That is the biggest head scratcher to me.  

[Archy1221]

4 hours ago, Huskers93-97 said:

Another indictment on play calling. You know where we rank in 3rd down conversions in the country. 

 

122nd. 

 

Most of our passes are within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage yet we are rated 65th in pass completion. 

 

Penalties per game

 

108th. 

 

First downs per game 

 

98th

 

Passing yards per completion 

 

114th

 

Red zone offense

 

123rd

 

Scoring offense 

 

116th

 

These are pretty sobering facts. 

All this adds up to the coaching and QB play has been less than ideal to put it mildly. 

[Archy1221]

3 hours ago, husker_fan_from_sweden said:

Four things need to change if Nebraska is going to win any games this year.

1. Our Senior offensive line (and supposed strength of our team) needs to stop committing dumb penalties and our team as a whole needs to play with more discipline. Too good of a schedule to play sloppy.

2. Luke needs to start from here on out and so do the new WR's. Scott had a whole offseason and fall camp to teach the young guys the ropes and so far his best excuse is "They know only part of the playbook". Someone on the team in the WR room needs to take some ownership and lead by example or take the new guys under their wing because the bubble screen should be your #40 option on offense not #1, #2, and #..... aw **** three and out.

3. 2nd half adjustments and playing the game all 4 quarters. Scott is a brilliant guy. He has shown next to no flexibility when the last two quarters are being played and a COMBINED 3 POINTS over two games in the second halves of our games show it.

4. Find the endzone. Where the hell are the explosive plays that SF's offenses are known for? So far we are on pace to have the worst red zone offense of Scotts career.

Excellent post 

[Wistrom Disciple]

2 hours ago, RedDenver said:

Miller was a starter at ILB and Honas was his backup. Barry was the other starter at ILB. Tannor was a starter at OLB. Davis was the other starter at OLB with JoJo backing him up. Reimer played a bit (I think he was out with an injury quite a lot) as 2nd or 3rd string behind Barry,  and Payne and Heinrich didn't play at all. That's a lot of different players getting time this season than last, which is what I mean by our talent is young and still trying to get on the field.

 

Not their entire defense but one or two LB, a DL, and at least 2 DB's maybe more. And I think our defense is pretty good, but I don't think we have a major lead over them in talent (at least among the starters). Yes, our offense did pretty well moving the ball even against their D but failed to score.

I don't follow your  logic by first saying we are losing because of a lack of talent, then that it's inexperienced and then saying our defense is pretty good. 

 

I realize that you're hung up on trying to prove that linebackers have improved but my point is that the core of backers are largely the same as last year. Their talent remains unchanged. Their development and knowledge of the defense appears to have improved a lot which, to me, points to coaching and not a lack of talent.  


 

[RedDenver]

16 minutes ago, Wistrom Disciple said:

I don't follow your  logic by first saying we are losing because of a lack of talent, then that it's inexperienced and then saying our defense is pretty good. 

 

I realize that you're hung up on trying to prove that linebackers have improved but my point is that the core of backers are largely the same as last year. Their talent remains unchanged. Their development and knowledge of the defense appears to have improved a lot which, to me, points to coaching and not a lack of talent.  

Maybe I'm not being clear, so let me try a different explanation. I should have made a distinction between talent on the team vs talent on the field. I'm trying to say that the young talent on our team isn't getting on the field yet, so it's not contributing to our talent that's playing games; whereas other teams have older talent so more of it is on the field. Does that make sense?

[UniversalMartin]

5 hours ago, husker_fan_from_sweden said:

Four things need to change if Nebraska is going to win any games this year.

1. Our Senior offensive line (and supposed strength of our team) needs to stop committing dumb penalties and our team as a whole needs to play with more discipline. Too good of a schedule to play sloppy.

2. Luke needs to start from here on out and so do the new WR's. Scott had a whole offseason and fall camp to teach the young guys the ropes and so far his best excuse is "They know only part of the playbook". Someone on the team in the WR room needs to take some ownership and lead by example or take the new guys under their wing because the bubble screen should be your #40 option on offense not #1, #2, and #..... aw **** three and out.

3. 2nd half adjustments and playing the game all 4 quarters. Scott is a brilliant guy. He has shown next to no flexibility when the last two quarters are being played and a COMBINED 3 POINTS over two games in the second halves of our games show it.

4. Find the endzone. Where the hell are the explosive plays that SF's offenses are known for? So far we are on pace to have the worst red zone offense of Scotts career.

Winner winner

[Wistrom Disciple]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

Maybe I'm not being clear, so let me try a different explanation. I should have made a distinction between talent on the team vs talent on the field. I'm trying to say that the young talent on our team isn't getting on the field yet, so it's not contributing to our talent that's playing games; whereas other teams have older talent so more of it is on the field. Does that make sense?

I understand but if the talent is that good, at what point do those guys beat out the guys that are seeing the field? If the talent is lower on the depth chart, isn't it the job of the coaches to put the most talented players onto the field? 

I agree with you that we have some very skilled young guys but as we are in year three with Frost & Co., they need to start getting the talent onto the field. I think at worst case, we had at least equal talent to Northwestern on the field last weekend and were simply outcoached. I think it is the job of the coaches to put the players to put the players in the best position to win and I feel that we have done a poor job of doing that in many games the past couple years.

[TheSker]

2 minutes ago, Wistrom Disciple said:

I understand but if the talent is that good, at what point do those guys beat out the guys that are seeing the field? If the talent is lower on the depth chart, isn't it the job of the coaches to put the most talented players onto the field? 

I agree with you that we have some very skilled young guys but as we are in year three with Frost & Co., they need to start getting the talent onto the field. I think at worst case, we had at least equal talent to Northwestern on the field last weekend and were simply outcoached. I think it is the job of the coaches to put the players to put the players in the best position to win and I feel that we have done a poor job of doing that in many games the past couple years.

We are not going to just put 22 freshmen/redshirt freshmen/sophomores on the field.

 

Northwestern has 3 senior linebackers.  Even if those 3.limebaclers are.*less talented" that our young guys, they have 3 full seasons of college football experience and BOTH physical and mental maturity.

 

One of the reasons.....hell, mainly THE reason Frost redshirts is to get a kid straight out of high school PHYSICALLY ready for college football.  Especially B1G football.

 

So no....just because a freshman is more "talented" does not mean he's ready to be a starter.

[3rd and long]

I truly believe the experience factor has become grossly overrated. Every top program in the country is playing true freshmen. I realize that there is a difference between those freshmen and ours, but kids are much more advanced now then they were back in our glory days. They come in ready to play. I don’t care if they don’t “know” the playbook, we only run a handful of plays anyway. If they’re more talented, get them on the field. We’re losing with the “experienced” guys now, we might has well lose with the talented ones. 

[TheSker]

8 minutes ago, 3rd and long said:

I truly believe the experience factor has become grossly overrated. Every top program in the country is playing true freshmen. I realize that there is a difference between those freshmen and ours, but kids are much more advanced now then they were back in our glory days. They come in ready to play. I don’t care if they don’t “know” the playbook, we only run a handful of plays anyway. If they’re more talented, get them on the field. We’re losing with the “experienced” guys now, we might has well lose with the talented ones. 

It would be interesting for someone to go through the Top 10 and see how many true freshman starters there are.

[3rd and long]

2 minutes ago, TheSker said:

It would be interesting for someone to go through the Top 10 and see how many true freshman starters there are.

Yes it would, and admittedly it’s probably less than I think. We get skewed ideas seeing all the Clemson and Alabama players who are impact players right from day one. Like I said, I realize we don’t have those kind of kids, but I still would rather have a rawer, but talented player on the field. At least he has the ability to to make something happen based on that sheer talent. 
 

[Mavric]

 

[TheSker]

1 minute ago, 3rd and long said:

Yes it would, and admittedly it’s probably less than I think. We get skewed ideas seeing all the Clemson and Alabama players who are impact players right from day one. Like I said, I realize we don’t have those kind of kids, but I still would rather have a rawer, but talented player on the field. At least he has the ability to to make something happen based on that sheer talent. 
 

I'll be fine with it too in about 2 more years when Frost's better recruited classes are upperclassmen.  When you've had several good classes on a row, the players around the true freshmen are what makes it look more refined 

[Wistrom Disciple]

49 minutes ago, TheSker said:

We are not going to just put 22 freshmen/redshirt freshmen/sophomores on the field.

 

Northwestern has 3 senior linebackers.  Even if those 3.limebaclers are.*less talented" that our young guys, they have 3 full seasons of college football experience and BOTH physical and mental maturity.

 

One of the reasons.....hell, mainly THE reason Frost redshirts is to get a kid straight out of high school PHYSICALLY ready for college football.  Especially B1G football.

 

So no....just because a freshman is more "talented" does not mean he's ready to be a starter.

I am not arguing that we should start all underclassmen. I think you're misunderstanding the thread. My point is that saying we have less talent than the likes of Northwestern & Purdue is a poor argument. Nebraska has more talented players than either program but we have been outcoached by both schools in recent years. 

[I am I]

In the prediction NW thread I had us up by like 125 yds or something and 15-16 more min of possession. Was wrong on TOP, but we were up overall. 
I just knew we couldn’t find the end zone cuz we don’t find it. I thought we would give more turnovers but they gifted us a couple. And we them. But overall our TO’s hurt is more. 
it’s really easy to predict our performance because we’ve been that way for far too long. 
 

chaz says play the guy that finishes drives at QB, but we never finish drives. Haven’t for awhile. We have a nice script that gets us going but then BAM the rest of the game happens. 
 

We’re just not that good until we get talent on the field. Do we have that talent (that seems to be the talk de jour)?  If we do but not ready, okay fine. Next year, as this whole year is f#&%ed for everyone in society, better see some damn results.