Michigan: What did we learn

[krc1995]

46 minutes ago, Lorewarn said:

One of the things to do is just wait for the anomaly to revert back to median. 

 

Some of its in our hands but some of it is just freak unluck. If you believe in karma we're probably paying our dues for how exceptionally lucky Pelini was for 7 years, which means we should start winning more close ones after this season

Riley had a lucky win or two as well. I always knew that bill was going to have to be paid. 

[JJ Husker]

1 hour ago, Lorewarn said:

One of the things to do is just wait for the anomaly to revert back to median. 

 

Some of its in our hands but some of it is just freak unluck. If you believe in karma we're probably paying our dues for how exceptionally lucky Pelini was for 7 years, which means we should start winning more close ones after this season

 

21 minutes ago, krc1995 said:

Riley had a lucky win or two as well. I always knew that bill was going to have to be paid. 

Huh, I sort of figured the last 20 years, namely Callahan, Pelini and Riley, has been cosmic karma payback for the 90’s and TO’s career. I’ve never once considered that anything since 2001 was good enough to need to be paid off.

[ZRod]

4 hours ago, lo country said:

Sheer agony to be a Husker fan.....No doubt.  "This close".........

 

What do we need to do to get over the hump of these 1 score games?  Penalties have improved. Well legitimate penalties, not ones made up..........ST's through the past 2 games is observably better IMO.......Offensive TO's?  Get defensive TO's?  I wish there was a definitive, easily identifiable and more importantly fixable issue.  I'd say OL play. This would open up playbook (another area), the running game (another area) and "seeing the field" (another area)....

It's OL play and punt returns to me. Nearly every other facet of this team has improved dramatically outside of those two.

 

OL has improved, but not enough. Pass pro is marginally better, but not good enough to win us games. Run blocking has improved quite a bit, though there's still more work to do. And shout out to Austin Allen who has done a great job blocking after the first game. He had a rough game against Illinois but has really upped his stock IMO.

 

Punt returns stink. We barely block, we don't go after kicks, and with neither of those happening we aren't making returns. The only good thing is we're catching the ball and not dropping it or losing 10+ yards on the bounce. Other than that we may as well not put a return man back there...

[BigRedBuster]

8 hours ago, ZRod said:

It's OL play and punt returns to me. Nearly every other facet of this team has improved dramatically outside of those two.

 

OL has improved, but not enough. Pass pro is marginally better, but not good enough to win us games. Run blocking has improved quite a bit, though there's still more work to do. And shout out to Austin Allen who has done a great job blocking after the first game. He had a rough game against Illinois but has really upped his stock IMO.

 

Punt returns stink. We barely block, we don't go after kicks, and with neither of those happening we aren't making returns. The only good thing is we're catching the ball and not dropping it or losing 10+ yards on the bounce. Other than that we may as well not put a return man back there...

Pass pro in the Michigan game was much better. One sack going against a really good front 7. Now, they need to put multiple games together like that. 
 

Some of that can be attributed to the rest of the offense working better. I’m sure our success with the orbit option has helped slow down the rush. 

[Caven]

I find it interesting that OSU, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisky are all in a line out in front of most of the rest of the country (Georgia excepted).  Given that, Wisky and Nebraska are definitely on the wrong side of the W/L column for where you would expect them to be.  Wisky and Iowa are getting it done with defense, OSU with offense, and Michigan and Nebraska are both pretty balanced it looks like.