I know everyone in Huskerland knows the success we had in the mid 90s was directly related to our DEFENSE and the 4-3 attack. I feel with Cosgrove we have fallen back into the craig bohl style of defense where our D is reacting and not attacking. during our NC domination tour our defense controlled the oppositions play calling and forced the issue. I feel like we are waiting for cos to learn a more advanced system or he is just to stubborn to see what has worked in the past and ignore it. I understand the talent was better, Ortiz and Farley were insanely gifted, but systems need to be practiced and incorporated to recruit need for specific positions. P.S. Grixby is probably the worst DB i have seen play defense @ NU....I would much rather see someone with better physical ability and absolutely no exp play corner.
As a response to the bulk of your original post, I will not disagree that I would like to see a more nasty defense that opposing teams fear. I think we are getting better athletes in his system.
It seems like I heard somewhere that Cos has made some sort of change to his scheme, but I couldn't confirm where I heard that. So hopefully with the experience coming our defense will dictate how the opposing offense is doing their play calling.
Agree! 90s defenses had tall/undersized DEs, that applied pressure off the edge. Carriker and Moore were very good, but likely would have been NT/DT in old system at the size they were in 07. The Wil backer is not the speed guys like the 90s either. Back then he was more like the Rover, while the best LB usually was the Sam, that had to do everything, while the Mike was big and physical, but did not require all the speed of the other two. The 90s Blackshirts were basically a 40 nickel defense, kinda like UW in 91. I would like an attacking 8 man front like VA Tech runs. It is basically the UW defense under James/Lambright.