Michigan State: What did we learn?

[Stumpy1]

1 hour ago, Undone said:

 

Agreed. When the super seniors leave we'll see a drop off on defense.

 

I don't think it will be that big of a drop off.  We have a few younger guys that have been making plays for us and being consistent with it.  

 

[Hayseed]

I learned Adrian Martinez should be a receiver but his backups still aren't ready for the bigtime and would probably make a lot of rookie mistakes. 
A local high school could field a better special teams.
I still believe this could be the most talented receiving crew the Huskers have ever had....if only we had someone who could pass them the ball without them having to do back flips to catch it.
Had he stayed, Noah Vedral should start. Hopefully Smothers and Haarberg come along real fast.

[FrantzHardySwag]

4-8 or 5-7 is likely now. Next year with a new QB and losing some vets on defense could be another bowl-less season. Could be a long 14 months for Husker Football. 

[Nebfanatic]

2 hours ago, Undone said:

 

Agreed. When the super seniors leave we'll see a drop off on defense.

 

Not so sure I agree. Alot of young talent on that side of the ball at all 3 levels.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Special teams is losing games for this team. Let's take that off the table for a moment.

 

It was a good game. A good game for anyone watching college football. Fox Sports probably loved it. If you watched the last two Nebraska games on prime time national television, you'd agree that no team can take Nebraska for granted. That's a big step up from where we were four weeks ago. I'll take it.

 

Both offense and defense had a plan for the #20 team in the nation, including the NCAA's hottest running back. Arguably Nebraska got better in the second half, and seemed ready to own the fourth quarter before aforementioned special teams play.

 

Maybe bad Adrian returned with the fumble and interception, but given the amount of offense running through Adrian and the decisions he made, I give him high marks for this game. He's a baller, and maybe the nation is seeing this a little better than Husker fans are right now. Our OL has it's problems, but Frost and Martinez made the adjustments so Adrian can find receivers within the three seconds he has to plant and throw. i saw a Red Zone strategy that worked --- give Adrian a run pass option on two plays, and he will convert on at least one.

 

Attitude was back. That was a pretty badass team that took a 20 - 13  fourth quarter lead when AM walked into the end zone. Defense was on fire pretty much all day. 

 

Am I tired of moral victories in losses?  Apparently not.  For the first time I can see us winning any of these upcoming games, and I guarantee you  we're starting to make other Big 10 teams nervous.  It's progress. Well, except for that special teams part. And the false start penalties. Jesus. 

[El Straino]

I have learned a way to reduce the crushing headaches directly caused by our special teams!

Anytime we line up for a special teams play I que up the Benny Hill chase scene music on my phone and let it rip with the snap. 

Who says tragic incompetence can't be funny? We're sittin on a gold mine of it here.

[Nebraska55fan]

2 hours ago, El Straino said:

I have learned a way to reduce the crushing headaches directly caused by our special teams!

Anytime we line up for a special teams play I que up the Benny Hill chase scene music on my phone and let it rip with the snap. 

Who says tragic incompetence can't be funny? We're sittin on a gold mine of it here.

 I've been saying for weeks- any enterprising youtube earner needs to string together our special teams snafus together along with some Benny Hill music. Gold- Jerry Gold I'm telling you. 

 

Is Americas funniest videos still on? Send it over. 

[Nebraska55fan]

What we learned?

 

The defense is outstanding- confirmed that. Excellent scheme, game plan, calls and execution. They play well together, swarm. Good block destruction technique and tackling. A. 

 

Confirmed Offense is still very spotty. Oline is simply awful. QB has his good moments, (great kid, good citizen we love him blah blah) but he still holds the ball too long, has a tough time finding receivers even when he does have good time and overthows open guys with seemingly easy open sight medium length throws. Oline deserves most of the blame- Martinez is still best option- but still not a very good one-   D

 

Special teams  confirmed total dumpster fire. Dirk nailed it in his article and this was more of the same. PUnt return for TD. We gave up 24 yards of field position on average in the punting game. We let them return 2 kickoffs for significant yardage. When we returned a kick- they were kicking from their own 20 due to penalty- we only got the ball out to the 17 yard line. YEAH no PATS blocked or missed FGs- so on the special teams side of this we were AWFUL on 4 of them and good on 2 of them Overall score-  F-

 

We learned that those making fun of those of us who voiced concerned with the structural issues of our special teams- and suggesting we do something drastic like hiring a special teams coach- owe the board an "I was very wrong" apology  

[lo country]

To add on the D.  They are legit.  For all intensive purposes they have shut down to potent P5 top 20 teams offenses in back to back weeks.  IMHO, they stepped it up a notch or two last nite.

[Nebraska55fan]

We learned THIS familiar face is a pretty good Special Teams coach. Ross Els 

 

Everyone I know that played for him at Hastings or Nebraska loved the guy. 

 

https://msuspartans.com/staff-directory/ross-els/584

 

[Mavric]

 

[Danimal]

2 hours ago, Nebraska55fan said:

What we learned?

 

The defense is outstanding- confirmed that. Excellent scheme, game plan, calls and execution. They play well together, swarm. Good block destruction technique and tackling. A. 

 

Confirmed Offense is still very spotty. Oline is simply awful. QB has his good moments, (great kid, good citizen we love him blah blah) but he still holds the ball too long, has a tough time finding receivers even when he does have good time and overthows open guys with seemingly easy open sight medium length throws. Oline deserves most of the blame- Martinez is still best option- but still not a very good one-   D

 

Special teams  confirmed total dumpster fire. Dirk nailed it in his article and this was more of the same. PUnt return for TD. We gave up 24 yards of field position on average in the punting game. We let them return 2 kickoffs for significant yardage. When we returned a kick- they were kicking from their own 20 due to penalty- we only got the ball out to the 17 yard line. YEAH no PATS blocked or missed FGs- so on the special teams side of this we were AWFUL on 4 of them and good on 2 of them Overall score-  F-

 

We learned that those making fun of those of us who voiced concerned with the structural issues of our special teams- and suggesting we do something drastic like hiring a special teams coach- owe the board an "I was very wrong" apology  

 

Notice that they're now hitting line-drive rollers because they know that we're afraid of even fielding the ball? For punt returns we are now below the Santino Panico season, at least he caught the dang thing. This is killing us in in terms of field-position and completely unacceptable in year-4, this is partially why we get yards but not scores. Kick returns are still non-existent to the point I'd say opposition are doing themselves a disservice booting them through the endzone. Kick coverage isn't as poor as last year but it's still subpar. Kickoffs have gone from crappy to meh. We had a 7yd-punt and drilled one straight to the return-guy opposite of where our coverage was going. Culp has been inconsistent to say the least. We aren't good at anything.  I worried that Dawson may not be the answer since we didn't get him to fix the ST's last season when it was obviously needed but figured with Busch helping him we'd be alright. Allegedly we put considerably more time into ST's. Figured we'd manage ST mediocrity this season. What are we do doing and/or not-doing that our ST's are so garbage and costing us games? 

[HuskermanMike]

I learned that our offense just needs to score 24-30 points to win games. If we continue to get better there are some pedestrian offenses we play. Ohio State and Michigan are the best offenses left on our schedule. Does any teams offense in the B1G West scare anybody? This was one of the best offenses so far in the B1G and the defense held them to 16 points. Take out the botched Special teams play that gave them 7 and we still held them to 23. We need to create a few more big plays and once Oliver Martin gets back I can see us taking a few more deep shots early in games.

[Nebraska55fan]

4 hours ago, Danimal said:

 

Notice that they're now hitting line-drive rollers because they know that we're afraid of even fielding the ball? 

 Yes, good catch. I was going to talk about that later today.  Great coaching by MSU on this and reason why they averaged 56 yards per punt. Typical teams will try and get good hang time of 4 seconds or so- so their tacklers can get in position to make the tackle. Higher punts mean shorter punts.  But since our punt return team is so bloody awful and opponents know we wont field many punts- opponents just do the low trajectory long punt. Opponents don't need to have their defenders downfield to tackle- since they know we aren't going to field many punts. Brilliant strategy to take advantage of our ineptness. I'm guessing everyone else does this from here on out- Northwestern has a pretty sharp coaching staff- they will do the same. 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

I learned Garret Nelson is turning into a pretty good football player.  He just used to be the high motor guy running around like a chicken with his head cut off.  If someone can teach him some pass rush moves he'ld be really good.  The OL is very disappointing.  I thought they would be much better this year.  I figured they might not be great at pass blocking but would at least excel in run blocking.  They don't do either one particularly well.