Bo's Job Security - 2013 (Poll 1)

[sd'sker]

Geez some people need dictionaries.

i guess you are either winning championships or you are mediocre. almost every team is mediocre.

 

[HuskerShark]

but hawkins had no where to go, Bo more than likely would.

Not sure if anyone else would have watched it, but I was watching College Football Live the other day, and they rated the top 5 college coaches who would be candidates for NFL gigs, and Bo was put at #5. He is widely respected for being a great defensive mind.

I would agree with that up until the last 2 seasons. His defense has gotten shredded last couple of years. Be nice to atleast have something in the 2010 defense range going forward.

I still think it's true, and we just haven't had the right guys to make the defense effective as of lately.

 

[knapplc]

I still think it's true, and we just haven't had the right guys to make the defense effective as of lately.

That's my problem with the "defensive genius" moniker. A "genius" wouldn't need blue-chip players to succeed. They'd be able to take the pieces they have and mold them into a good defense. Not only does this not happen, but throughout the season our defense shows little sign of getting better, or they downright regress.

I think Bo has developed a great system, and he deserves accolades for that. But for me to jump back on the "defensive genius" bandwagon he's going to have to have no meltdowns like we've had.

At this point I'd take Charlie McBride's crappy old 5-2 defense of the late 80s over what we've seen the last two years - and people were clamoring for Osborne to fire McBride during that stretch. I'd definitely rate McBride over Pelini as a defensive guru based on the past few years. McBride took walk-ons and made them into Blackshirts. There have been scholarship players on the team that wouldn't have cracked McBride's two-deep in a bad year.

 

[Mavric]

I still think it's true, and we just haven't had the right guys to make the defense effective as of lately.

That's my problem with the "defensive genius" moniker. A "genius" wouldn't need blue-chip players to succeed. They'd be able to take the pieces they have and mold them into a good defense. Not only does this not happen, but throughout the season our defense shows little sign of getting better, or they downright regress.

I think Bo has developed a great system, and he deserves accolades for that. But for me to jump back on the "defensive genius" bandwagon he's going to have to have no meltdowns like we've had.

At this point I'd take Charlie McBride's crappy old 5-2 defense of the late 80s over what we've seen the last two years - and people were clamoring for Osborne to fire McBride during that stretch. I'd definitely rate McBride over Pelini as a defensive guru based on the past few years. McBride took walk-ons and made them into Blackshirts. There have been scholarship players on the team that wouldn't have cracked McBride's two-deep in a bad year.

Not disagreeing with you but wasn't it basically the same with McBride's defenses as well? We were decent on defense but didn't get really good until they started recruiting different kinds of players and got some really good athletes on campus.

 

[knapplc]

I still think it's true, and we just haven't had the right guys to make the defense effective as of lately.

That's my problem with the "defensive genius" moniker. A "genius" wouldn't need blue-chip players to succeed. They'd be able to take the pieces they have and mold them into a good defense. Not only does this not happen, but throughout the season our defense shows little sign of getting better, or they downright regress.

I think Bo has developed a great system, and he deserves accolades for that. But for me to jump back on the "defensive genius" bandwagon he's going to have to have no meltdowns like we've had.

At this point I'd take Charlie McBride's crappy old 5-2 defense of the late 80s over what we've seen the last two years - and people were clamoring for Osborne to fire McBride during that stretch. I'd definitely rate McBride over Pelini as a defensive guru based on the past few years. McBride took walk-ons and made them into Blackshirts. There have been scholarship players on the team that wouldn't have cracked McBride's two-deep in a bad year.

Not disagreeing with you but wasn't it basically the same with McBride's defenses as well? We were decent on defense but didn't get really good until they started recruiting different kinds of players and got some really good athletes on campus.

Depends what you mean by "basically the same." Charlie never got run off the field like Bo's system does when he doesn't have the athletes to run it. We had some bad losses, but I don't remember a season under McBride where we gave up 63 or more points twice in a season, or where we let opponents earn 500 yards of offense four times in a single season.

 

[KJ.]

What's the story with the first pitch? Bo's an Indians guy.

In Chicago for B1G Media Days. The Cubs owner is an Omaha native.

Is there a rehearsal dinner or something for that? B1G media days are in a few weeks.

 

[Mavric]

I still think it's true, and we just haven't had the right guys to make the defense effective as of lately.

That's my problem with the "defensive genius" moniker. A "genius" wouldn't need blue-chip players to succeed. They'd be able to take the pieces they have and mold them into a good defense. Not only does this not happen, but throughout the season our defense shows little sign of getting better, or they downright regress.

I think Bo has developed a great system, and he deserves accolades for that. But for me to jump back on the "defensive genius" bandwagon he's going to have to have no meltdowns like we've had.

At this point I'd take Charlie McBride's crappy old 5-2 defense of the late 80s over what we've seen the last two years - and people were clamoring for Osborne to fire McBride during that stretch. I'd definitely rate McBride over Pelini as a defensive guru based on the past few years. McBride took walk-ons and made them into Blackshirts. There have been scholarship players on the team that wouldn't have cracked McBride's two-deep in a bad year.

Not disagreeing with you but wasn't it basically the same with McBride's defenses as well? We were decent on defense but didn't get really good until they started recruiting different kinds of players and got some really good athletes on campus.

Depends what you mean by "basically the same." Charlie never got run off the field like Bo's system does when he doesn't have the athletes to run it. We had some bad losses, but I don't remember a season under McBride where we gave up 63 or more points twice in a season, or where we let opponents earn 500 yards of offense four times in a single season.

I was speaking in general terms about how good our defenses were overall. Yes, we didn't used to give up 60+ points but a lot has changed since then. For starters, even our "bad" defenses had a lot better athletes than most of the competition we faced because the talent wasn't spread as thin. And offenses are a lot different today.

Not making excuses for the meltdowns but I think pretty much everyone's defense works better when you have great players.

 

[knapplc]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.

That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

 

[Landlord]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.

That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

My brain is fuzzy but Matt O'Hanlon is one example (I feel like there are others) that doesn't support this.

Cody Glenn too.

 

[knapplc]

I'm not into calling players out personally, but I can think of five to ten off the top of my head that do support it. There will always be exceptions to the rule. You can't look at that defensive product we've put on the field the past few years and make any kind of claim that Bo consistently coaches up talent.

 

[Hercules]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.

That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

Don't really disagree with anything you're saying, except that I think Bo will probably prove himself to be a defensive "genius" or "guru" or whatever you want to call it, in time. Tom Osborne is considered one of the greatest offensive minds of all time, had the most consistent program of all time, and even his teams would get shut out every now and then.

I think Pelini's recruiting has improved, and I have no doubt that his ability to develop players and coach defense will also continue to improve.

 

[True2tRA]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.
That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

This X100! ^^^. Knapp is 100 percent correct on this. The question lies in how does he fix it? Can he become that coach? And if so.......how? In my opinion this is where simplifying the scheme comes into play. If he scheme was simplified, I believe more focus could be put on execution and development. What do you think? If Bo was this said " guru", the defense wouldn't be amongst the worst in program history in this "guru's" 5th season? Correct? I mean, I can't think of any legitimate excuses for what we saw last year. I'm aware of the lack of talent last year, trust me I preached about it more than most, but as is the point of Knapps comment, it's a coaches job to develop the talent, increase the performance level, or make the changes necessary, whether it be personnel or scheme, to make the defense at least fundamentally stable. I would say we were far from it last year, and have slowly been getting worse instead of better.

Yet this could all be irrelevant because the fact is I believe the talent and speed aspect of this defense is going to skyrocket this season. I believe we will show flashes of real greatness this year. I also believe there will be some growing pains. I am wondering if those flashes of greatness will become a constant at some point. So far we have seen nothing but flashes in five years, only to see some efforts that just leave you scratching you head asking "how did that just happen"?.

 

[knapplc]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.
That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

This X100! ^^^. Knapp is 100 percent correct on this. The question lies in how does he fix it? Can he become that coach? And if so.......how? In my opinion this is where simplifying the scheme comes into play. If he scheme was simplified, I believe more focus could be put on execution and development. What do you think?

He has to be willing to compromise. Bo is a black-and-white kinda guy (like a lot of posters here, which is probably why so many of us like him). But in order for him to have fewer blowouts and become more consistent, he's going to have to be willing to simplify his scheme like you said, he's going to have to put a premium on developing talent from mediocre players, and he's going to have to keep reining in that famous temper. He's doing some of this already - most notably the temper - but the memories of his blowups/blowouts are too recent for them to be completely gone from the minds of recruits.

He's going to have to ramp down the complexity of his scheme to get the best athletes on the field. We've had players with far less athleticism play in front of better athletes simply because they have the knowledge necessary to run his system. BAD IDEA. If his system can't get the best athletes onfield then the system has to be scrapped.

One thing I very much disagree with in Bo's system is the "rush four" philosophy. He very rarely blitzes between the 20s, and gives up too many first downs to QBs with all the time in the world to find an open receiver, or simply run for positive yards when the pocket gets garbled. Even Blaine Gabbert ran for several first downs against Bo's defense. It's murder on the down linemen to have to maintain a rush for several seconds when they're not able to get to the QB, and as we've seen all too often, the defense begins to break down against high-powered offenses the longer the game goes on.

 

[True2tRA]

Agreed that everyone's defense is better with great players. My gripe is that the "defensive genius" can't make great players out of mediocre players, and that's what we need. Recruiting isn't bad here, but it's not this coach's or this staff's forte. So they're going to have more misses than the top-tier competition we want to become, and that means taking less-than-stellar players and getting more out of them. Like what McBride used to do. But Bo doesn't do that, and when he's been unable to coach up mediocre players he's gotten beat, badly.
That's where I jumped off the "defensive genius" bandwagon. I have no doubt Bo knows defense better than most. But he's not a great developer of talent, and we need that more than we need a defensive genius.

This X100! ^^^. Knapp is 100 percent correct on this. The question lies in how does he fix it? Can he become that coach? And if so.......how? In my opinion this is where simplifying the scheme comes into play. If he scheme was simplified, I believe more focus could be put on execution and development. What do you think?

He has to be willing to compromise. Bo is a black-and-white kinda guy (like a lot of posters here, which is probably why so many of us like him). But in order for him to have fewer blowouts and become more consistent, he's going to have to be willing to simplify his scheme like you said, he's going to have to put a premium on developing talent from mediocre players, and he's going to have to keep reining in that famous temper. He's doing some of this already - most notably the temper - but the memories of his blowups/blowouts are too recent for them to be completely gone from the minds of recruits.

He's going to have to ramp down the complexity of his scheme to get the best athletes on the field. We've had players with far less athleticism play in front of better athletes simply because they have the knowledge necessary to run his system. BAD IDEA. If his system can't get the best athletes onfield then the system has to be scrapped.

One thing I very much disagree with in Bo's system is the "rush four" philosophy. He very rarely blitzes between the 20s, and gives up too many first downs to QBs with all the time in the world to find an open receiver, or simply run for positive yards when the pocket gets garbled. Even Blaine Gabbert ran for several first downs against Bo's defense. It's murder on the down linemen to have to maintain a rush for several seconds when they're not able to get to the QB, and as we've seen all too often, the defense begins to break down against high-powered offenses the longer the game goes on.

Opposing teams third down conversion percentages are a testimony to this. I couldn't have said the rest better myself. I like Bo, but these things right here are his biggest downfall. These things can be fixed though, the problem is I view him as such a stubborn person, very set in his ways. He has really not shown a willingness to adjust or modify much at all. Even calling questioning his scheme "asinine" at one point. He can think its asinine all he wants, but the evidence states in fact that there are plenty of legitimate questions. I'm rooting for Bo to make the necessary changes.

 

[RedDenver]

He's going to have to ramp down the complexity of his scheme to get the best athletes on the field. We've had players with far less athleticism play in front of better athletes simply because they have the knowledge necessary to run his system. BAD IDEA. If his system can't get the best athletes onfield then the system has to be scrapped.

While I usually agree with you knapplc, I've got a quibble with this statement. I hear year after year from fans of every team that getting the best athletes on the field is the way to have the best team. But there's nothing concrete to support this statement. IMO this is the result of years of recruiting analysts trying to convince the fans that recruiting is the most important part of college football. But lots of great players weren't the most athletic at their position - just look at the walk-on history at NU.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have athletic players - far from it. But I contend that the guy making the most plays is the guy you want on the field. Sometimes that's going to be a supreme athlete like Lavonte David, but sometimes that's going to be a heady player like O'Hanlon. And there's positions like WLB that can free lance more, as Cody Glenn showed, where athleticism means more than at a position like safety. There's no one size fits all solution here. Different players bring different things to the field.