2016 Blowouts - Talent or Coaching?

L

LAblackshirt

Three-Star Recruit
I'm a long time lurker of this board, finally coming out of the shadows. I have really enjoyed reading all the inside information, and passionate discussions on here.

One thing in particular I want to get feedback on. We got blown out on two occasions this year and I want to know, was it bad coaching or talent gap primarily? I have heard many people on both sides

I understand the concern many husker fans have about Riley, especially after Iowa. When Riley failed to have a .500 season last year the main argument in his favor was that he didn't get blown out.

I gotta say though I think everyone is underestimating the impact an ineffective QB has on a team. Tommy Armstrong was rated as one of the worst QBs in the B1G this season by PFF and just isn't a talented passer when it comes to accuracy and decision making (2/3 of the puzzle). People who say that his running threat makes up for that clearly didn't watch him in the blowouts. He can only win with his legs against lesser competition. This is purely speculative but I would be willing to bet that with TA as a QB even mighty OSU and Michigan lose 2-3 games. His decision making and inability to hit the open receiver cause 3 and outs a majority of the time against good teams, which means the defense is always on the field. Props to Banker this year on the defensive improvement, but when his defense is on the field for 2/3 of the game(Ohio State) or the opposing offense gets 14 possessions (Iowa) any defense is at risk of breaking open. Even the great defenses need their offense to score more than 21 points to win a game which we failed to do in both blowouts.

This isn't to imply our defense is fantastic and it was all the QBs fault, they gave up 40 points to Iowa, its just to say our talent level at QB put the defense in a position where even though Iowa scored 40 points they scored on less than half of their possessions. Our defense stopped Iowa 8 times, and gave up 40 points. Let that sink in. With even an average QB i think we come close to beating Iowa (we were already close with Wiscy), and only lose to OSU by a couple touchdowns.

 
factor always forgotten in blowout losses is psychology. I believe that was the biggest factor against Iowa. It wasnt an effort thing, but sometimes youre just in the shitter mentally. The things that hurt us against iowa were things we hadnt seen a lot of, if at all all year.

 
I'm a defender of Mike Riley, but blowouts like Ohio State and Iowa are largely mental. Some of it is obviously talent and play-calling, but toughness and resiliency are part of the culture. In the first half it looked like Nebraska was going off the skids against Wisconsin, but they sucked it up and took a Top 5 team down to the wire at notoriously tough Camp Randall. Same with a top ranked Michigan State last year. So the talent is there, but they have a very small margin of error. It was sad to see them visibly surrendering in the two blowouts. That goes to coaching. But the same Nebraska team would beat Iowa on a different Saturday when some plays go a different way, and I'm betting the OSU game would have been closer had they snuck up on them prior to OSU's loss.

Which might go to your point about Tommy Armstrong. He doesn't help our margin of error. I also wonder if a more consistent and less-exciting quarterback makes those 7 - 15 yard passes that let us run a ball control offense.

I still think it starts with an offensive line. We're not bad and getting a little better, but that's the talent gap I'd fill first.

 
Talent difference - when we played OSU was evident.

Coaching - There were times when we could have made better decisions.

You forgot to add:

Injuries to key personnel.

And like Count said, in the Iowa game, it did not seem as if we showed up 'mind and body'!

Edit: By the way, welcome to the board LABlackshirt. Here's a little gas money +1 for your first post!

 
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Coaching.... Obv a team like OSU is going to have more talent but we should have never gotten embarrassed that badly. We also had some pretty good talent last year but somehow we managed to lose to Illinois & Purdue among others with largely the same team that went 9-3 the previous year. This years Iowa game should NEVER have happened and I'll even give Iowa some credit. They had some pretty good guys at certain spots too but you can't tell me they had that much more talent than Nebraska did. Sure talent is a huge part of the equation but Iowa and the losses last year are all perfect examples of the quality of coaching or lackthereof. To lose is one thing. To get blown out is telling of something else especially when you're getting blown out by a team like Iowa for example who you match up pretty evenly with.

Coaching, coaching, coaching. Without a doubt.

 
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A combination of talent and coaching for sure but one other key factor that I'd add is depth. We do not have it. You have teams like tOSU that are rotating around 8 guys on both OL and DL and hardly any drop off from one guy to the next. We on the other hand, have players starting (on both lines) who would not even make the 2-deep for a lot of fbs teams, so what's that say about our backups

 
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All of the above.

Talent in the tOSU game and talent on our lines and injured talent in other games. But, coaching factors into it also. The coaches could've done more to prevent such lopsided losses and, especially in the Iowa game, the offensive game plan was, well, offensive. It's both in all cases plus the intangible and inexplicable mental fart that seemingly everyone had in the Iowa game. Iowa is not more talented than us.

 
It definitely is talent and coaching. As others said, against Ohio State it mostly our disparity in talent compared to the Buckeyes. Against Iowa, it was just one of turd games where the Huskers utterly didn't show up. One could make the case that both scenarios point to poor coaching. However, coaching only goes so far. For example, you think LB coach Trent Bray coaches LB Josh Banderas to consistently over-pursue? Or that RBs coach Reggie Davis coaches Terrell Newby to jitter and shake so much at line of scrimmage? Point is, it is the players on the field who have to take what they learn in practice and apply it in games.

Which brings me to the real reason Nebraska has stunk it up this season: poor QB play. The simple fact is, we have literally no one to replace Tommy Armstrong and he knows it. So if he plays poorly, or makes a lot of bad decisions, he knows the coaches aren't going to pull him. I like Tommy Armstrong as a young man. He's always been good off the field and he's never done anything to embarrass the university. But as a QB, he's just not capable for the type of offense Mike Riley runs. Now, you put Tommy in Tom Osborne's or Paul Johnson's offense, and he'd flourish. But a west coast passing offense? Nope. On a side note: I believe Armstrong will play in the NFL, just not at QB. I think he could get a few snaps as a wildcat QB but he'll need to make his living at some other position.

 
JJHusker1 said:
All of the above.

Talent in the tOSU game and talent on our lines and injured talent in other games. But, coaching factors into it also. The coaches could've done more to prevent such lopsided losses and, especially in the Iowa game, the offensive game plan was, well, offensive. It's both in all cases plus the intangible and inexplicable mental fart that seemingly everyone had in the Iowa game. Iowa is not more talented than us.
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I think it was pretty clear that Iowa's fronts were more talented than ours, and I don't think there's this huge talent gap between us and Iowa. The only real position group I see that we were clearly more talented was WR, the rest I'd say Iowa probably has the advantage (DB's might be a toss up). Ohio State obviously blew us out of the stadium, the talent gap was overwhelming. So yeah, the talent level of Nebraska is a problem, especially up front. Not to minimize the importance of coaching, but imho good talent usually leads to good coaching, or at least the appearance of it.

 
Tommy's pick-6 right off the bat didn't help their confidence. Then the team peed down their leg when Tommy got knocked the beep out. They were scared going in and petrified after Tommy got crunched.

 
Atbone95 said:
OSU - talent. It was blatant.

Iowa - Banged up players and poor adjustments/preparation.
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Nebraska goes on the road and loses to Wisconsin by 6 in a game they most certainly should've won, a Wisconsin team that lost by 7 to Ohio State only two weeks prior. I don't think talent was the blatantly obvious factor there.

 
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