Alongside with new staff hires, one thing that needs to happen:

MyBloodIsRed16 said:
This is one of my biggest gripes with this defense.  Lack of turnovers.  We don't cause many fumbles because we don't put hats on the ball.  I think Miles Farmer has more INT's in his limited action in two season than Dismuke has his entire career.  Safeties should be turnover machines.  Did our corners have any ints this year??
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The thing is, his original defensive philosophy was to do this exact thing; the 2017 UCF D caused 2.5 turnovers a game, where this D caused 1.1 TOs a game. What's the reason for this? To me, it's the shift in philosophy that Chins has had to do because the offense isn't pulling its weight like it should be. The D has to cover the Os collective a$$ much more frequently and often at Nebraska, not allowing for the attacking, chance-taking D they could run at UCF. 

 
A couple things to remember: 

- Chins has consistently improved his side of the ball. YPG has decreased from 433 in 2018 to 389 in 2019 and 336 this season; PPG has decreased from 31.3 in 2018 to 27.8 in 2019 22.7 in 2021 (I've thrown out 2020 as an outlier). This against the 3rd rated SOS in the country this season. 

- This is a question of economics just as much as performance: if you want to keep someone who is clearly improving at his job, you have to pay him market value. Statistically speaking, Nebraska and Illinois had very similar defenses this year (despite Illinois having the 30th ranked SOS and Nebraska, again, the 3rd). Illinois's D-coordinator just got bumped to over $1 million a year; Chins is at $800,000. If you want to keep the man, you gotta pay the man, and just about everyone on this board (and I'd say a vast majority of the fanbase) has done a 180 on Chins and staff this season. 

 
Cdog923 said:
The thing is, his original defensive philosophy was to do this exact thing; the 2017 UCF D caused 2.5 turnovers a game, where this D caused 1.1 TOs a game. What's the reason for this? To me, it's the shift in philosophy that Chins has had to do because the offense isn't pulling its weight like it should be. The D has to cover the Os collective a$$ much more frequently and often at Nebraska, not allowing for the attacking, chance-taking D they could run at UCF. 
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They had a quite a few missed opportunities as well.  I think Doman and other LB's probably dropped 10 sure thing INTs this year.  CTB took some chances on balls and missed that other teams seem to make.  

 
Cdog923 said:
The thing is, his original defensive philosophy was to do this exact thing; the 2017 UCF D caused 2.5 turnovers a game, where this D caused 1.1 TOs a game. What's the reason for this? To me, it's the shift in philosophy that Chins has had to do because the offense isn't pulling its weight like it should be. The D has to cover the Os collective a$$ much more frequently and often at Nebraska, not allowing for the attacking, chance-taking D they could run at UCF. 
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Agreed with the premise.  I would disagree that it is wholly because of the offense.  Yes, putting an opposing offense behind the 8-ball by scoring a lot of points would likely help us with TOs.  However, this staff has also not recruited/developed any game changing pass rushers.  Pressuring quarterbacks to hurry throws and creating 2nd/3rd and long with TFLs would go a long way.

 
MyBloodIsRed16 said:
This is one of my biggest gripes with this defense.  Lack of turnovers.  We don't cause many fumbles because we don't put hats on the ball.  I think Miles Farmer has more INT's in his limited action in two season than Dismuke has his entire career.  Safeties should be turnover machines.  Did our corners have any ints this year??
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As has been stated, get a good pass rush and the turnovers happen.  And, I'm sure not having a pass rush is not part of Chin's plans for the defense.  Just need to find the right guys.

 
Jason Sitoke said:
Agreed with the premise.  I would disagree that it is wholly because of the offense.  Yes, putting an opposing offense behind the 8-ball by scoring a lot of points would likely help us with TOs.  However, this staff has also not recruited/developed any game changing pass rushers.  Pressuring quarterbacks to hurry throws and creating 2nd/3rd and long with TFLs would go a long way.
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You aren't wrong; they desperately need someone who can consistently get to the QB on their own. 

 
Jason Sitoke said:
Agreed with the premise.  I would disagree that it is wholly because of the offense.  Yes, putting an opposing offense behind the 8-ball by scoring a lot of points would likely help us with TOs.  However, this staff has also not recruited/developed any game changing pass rushers.  Pressuring quarterbacks to hurry throws and creating 2nd/3rd and long with TFLs would go a long way.
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True, but going hard for the QB often is risky to give up big plays etc.   Chins has to play slow em down style because the objective seems to be use up the game clock by whatever means to keep close til the end of the game and try to score late and hold on.  Keep it close and hope is the overarching strategy.  Frost has little faith in his offense to retain possession, sustain drives and score TDs or if desperate field goals.  
Of course, outscoring is the foremost objective in every game, but Frost seems to focus largely on scoring 40 or 50 and holding the opponent under that.  As opposed to winning the “Big Ten” style of 24-17.  Big ten defenses play smart and safe to minimize possessions per game and lots of big ten games seem to be one or two score outcomes. 

 
84HuskerLaw said:
True, but going hard for the QB often is risky to give up big plays etc.   Chins has to play slow em down style because the objective seems to be use up the game clock by whatever means to keep close til the end of the game and try to score late and hold on.  Keep it close and hope is the overarching strategy.  Frost has little faith in his offense to retain possession, sustain drives and score TDs or if desperate field goals.  
Of course, outscoring is the foremost objective in every game, but Frost seems to focus largely on scoring 40 or 50 and holding the opponent under that.  As opposed to winning the “Big Ten” style of 24-17.  Big ten defenses play smart and safe to minimize possessions per game and lots of big ten games seem to be one or two score outcomes. 
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I don't really buy this.  Chins blitzes and stunts quite a bit because he's trying to manufacture pressure.  He has played some soft zone against the better offenses, trying to minimize big plays.  I gotta believe if he was getting consistent pressure with 4 guys, we'd be playing more aggressively in the secondary.

 
gossamorharpy said:
Right. Because a defense that ranked towards the middle in the country in most defensive stat categories and around 75th-80th in 3rd down efficiency just screams elite.

Just because our offense was consistently inept doesn’t make the defense world beaters for playing better.  
 

Money doesn’t grow on trees and they’re already paid pretty well. Give me a defense that actually forces some turnovers and plays with aggression and you can talk pay raises
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But, just a grain of salt here: This is where you probably have to take a double glance at our strength of schedule and really take in what our competition was this season.

If we had had Iowa's schedule I'm confident those stats look better.

 
Undone said:
But, just a grain of salt here: This is where you probably have to take a double glance at our strength of schedule and really take in what our competition was this season.

If we had had Iowa's schedule I'm confident those stats look better.
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Probably a bit better- for the most part tho, we played the same teams outside of Ohio state (we'll get to see how iowa handles michigan this weekend).

They didnt have an oklahoma non con on the schedule but we also lucked out in playing against rattler as their offense was almost as inept as ours.

Still not creating enough turnovers and pushed around too easily by the minnesotas of the world for my liking.

 
gossamorharpy said:
Still not creating enough turnovers and pushed around too easily by the minnesotas of the world for my liking.
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The Minnesota game's box score is interesting; they didn't exactly put up a ton of points on us compared to the amount of offensive yards they racked up (396). Their offense put up 28 points and then our offense somehow managed to get another safety that gave them another 2.

Tanner Morgan was 20/24 with 2 passing touchdowns. You see those stats and you go "Damn, he crushed; that's an 83% completion rate!" But two of his four incompletions were INTs by us. We were +2 in the turnover margin in that game. Still, he had too much time to throw and our coverage was probably too soft - two areas Chinander does still struggle in.

Our lack of a pass-rusher is a big deal, and it's been a big deal in all of Frost's four seasons. And this has flown under the radar this year a bit more because of how much improvement we've had this season defensively versus other years.

We have got to fix that element somehow.

 
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NebraskaHarry said:
Mmmm, he and his staff certainly did better this year, buuuuut that run defense against wisconsin and iowa sucked. I'm still not sold on Chinander like many on here. Our LBs without Domann looked like they were swimming. The lack of pressure our defende gets on QBs is also concerning to me.
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Chins needs to continue to improve his scheme vs power run heavy offenses, but they did enough in both of those games to win. 

 
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