Cosgrove

[formerfan]

I wonder if the dissenters are ready to give Cosgrove a little credit.  Anyone notice Wisconsin's D had an awesom year last year and this year they are giving up huge amounts of yards and points.  Every game is a shootout.  Could it have anything to do with Cosgrove leaving?  Huskers were pretty bad last year, but doing quite well this year.

Ya'll are gonna try to string me up for this, but even though the D is playing better, IMO, it has more to do with playing teams that have pretty bad offenses. The only good offense NU has faced this year was Tech, and they hung 34 and 400 on NU. If NU had to face teams like this week in/week out, the numbers wouldnt look so rosey. Remember, alot of you like to hang Pelini because his defense put up similar stats (dominated weaker teams/were dominated by better teams). :thumbs

Have they improved, yes. Are they playing well, yes. Is it a grand illusion.......... <_<

 

[DaveH]

The only good offense NU has faced this year was Tech, and they hung 34 and 400 on NU. If NU had to face teams like this week in/week out, the numbers wouldnt look so rosey. Remember, alot of you like to hang Pelini because his defense put up similar stats (dominated weaker teams/were dominated by better teams). :thumbs

The difference is we didn't get blown out by Tech like we did against teams in 03. We could have very easily won that game.

 

[NU fan in Denver]

The problem with 03 was that the offense couldn't score in two of the games they lost. I mean come on they only had 175 yards against Texas. If the offense produces a little more and scores a few more points then that changes the complexion of the game. I agree against MU the D gave up too many points while the O scored enough to win. If the offense hadn't commited 5 turnovers it might have put the D in a better position. Same with the KState game, 4 turnovers by the O. You can't blame those losses in 03 on the D, the O did not hold up their end of the deal.

 

[formerfan]

The only good offense NU has faced this year was Tech, and they hung 34 and 400 on NU. If NU had to face teams like this week in/week out, the numbers wouldnt look so rosey. Remember, alot of you like to hang Pelini because his defense put up similar stats (dominated weaker teams/were dominated by better teams).  :thumbs

The difference is we didn't get blown out by Tech like we did against teams in 03. We could have very easily won that game.

True, but his defense still gave up 34 and 400, if it were not for that, NU would not have lost. They still got handled by the only good offense they have faced, no different than Pelini's crew.

 

[DaveH]

The only good offense NU has faced this year was Tech, and they hung 34 and 400 on NU. If NU had to face teams like this week in/week out, the numbers wouldnt look so rosey. Remember, alot of you like to hang Pelini because his defense put up similar stats (dominated weaker teams/were dominated by better teams).  :thumbs

The difference is we didn't get blown out by Tech like we did against teams in 03. We could have very easily won that game.

True, but his defense still gave up 34 and 400, if it were not for that, NU would not have lost. They still got handled by the only good offense they have faced, no different than Pelini's crew.

They got handled in the first quarter. After that, not so much.

 

[StuckinChicago]

Dave is right, and if anything, that gives me more respect for Coz. In the first quarter, The D gave up 21 points and alot of yards. Holding the best offense in the country, which Tech is, to 13 points and a limited amount of yards the rest of the way shows great adjustments on the part of the coaches and coz. This defense is better than the one in 03, and if we still had Octavien and Bradley, oh man....

 

[Spartness]

By the middle of the second quarter, TTU did not do much against us -- not until the final drive in the fourth that we actually blunted and then gave back to them. Even after that Smith fumble, TTU had one difficult time getting it into the enzone. Did TTU overall dominate our defense? Absolutely not!

Don't forget in the third quarter we could had given that game away with those two turnovers. But all TTU could muster was two FGs. Most of TTU's offensive yards were produced in the early part of the game. There is a huge difference giving up those yards earlier rather than later in the game. This shows that the coaches made adjustments. This shows that our defense didn't fold. This shows our defense didn't wear out. This shows that TTU's offense couldn't dominate our defense. TTU had to fight for their lives! They did not handle us.

Folks, we got a lot of football left, but so far I don't see any illusions about our defense. Take care.

 

[huskerstag]

IMO it's not completely accurate to judge a defense simply on statistics. If you look at the big picture then you'll see that last year the defense won maybe 2 games for us - KU and MU. The rest of the season was pretty poor in my opinion.

This season, the defense won the game for us against Pitt and probably WF also. They really helped out against Maine. In the TT game we fell in a hole early, but the defense bailed the offense out for pretty much the rest of the game, limiting TT to field goals off of turnovers and setting up a score on the fumble recovery. If you're gonna judge a defense on its ability to keep a team in the game and get stops when they're needed then this year's squad is much much improved over last year's. Regardless of how many yards or points we given up, that's enough to make me believe in the D for the rest of the year.

 

[NU fan in Denver]

No the D didn't get "dominated" and they did play well from mid-2nd quarter on, but the game is 4 quarters long. If you don't play well in all 4 quarters there is a good chance you will loose. The D coaching staff has shown tremendous improvement from last year in their ability to change their gameplan and make adjustments to what the O is doing. As I mentioned in my earlier post, turnovers killed us. Turnovers were responsible for at least 13 TT points, maybe more, I can't remember. The last TD was a result of a turnover as were the 2 second half field goals.

I think our D is playing better than the 03 D. I don't know what the statistical comparisons are to this point, they are looking good. They have given up a good deal of yards to TT and ISU, but at least they didn't have 700 yards hung on them like KSU.

 

[TouchdownTommie]

I'm not going to give Cosgrove any credit for last year and I'm still not sold on him. Last year was a disaster in terms of dealing with players and gameplanning. And we still have some problems in gameplanning (i.e. first quarter against Tech, first drive against Baylor, last drive against Pitt). These were errors in judgement by Coz.

We have to remember there were significant changes on who does what on this side of the ball from last year (Elmo and Busch) and the "Base End" set is new this year as well. Were these changes Cosgrove's ideas or did Callahan say shape this up or you are gone? I don't know. I like what I see now and I like that he we are showing more of an ability to adjust to what other teams are doing, but there are still some obvious tactical errors being made under the head sets.

 

[DaveH]

We have to remember there were significant changes on who does what on this side of the ball from last year (Elmo and Busch) and the "Base End" set is new this year as well. Were these changes Cosgrove's ideas or did Callahan say shape this up or you are gone? I don't know. I like what I see now and I like that he we are showing more of an ability to adjust to what other teams are doing, but there are still some obvious tactical errors being made under the head sets.

Cosgrove and his staff brought in a couple coaches in the off season to go over defensive strategies and such. I can't for the life of me remember who they were though. I don't think it was a shape up or ship out issue.

 

[huskerstag]

And we still have some problems in gameplanning (i.e. first quarter against Tech, first drive against Baylor, last drive against Pitt).

I'm not sure we can label all of these instances as problems in gameplanning. If we say that every time a team gets across the 50 then the coach has made a mistake we're setting the bar way too high. While I agree that the first 1.5 quarters against Tech weren't planned well at all, I think Cos and co. have done a fine job of gameplanning and adjusting in game in every other game this season.

Pitt moved the ball within field goal range against a soft zone but who's to say that they wouldn't have burned us deep otherwise? We've known all season long that the secondary is the weakest unit on defense and one busted coverage is all it would have taken. The first drive against BU should have resulted in an int. if not for the late hit on the qb. Other than that, Bell made some good thows to convert on those 3rd downs. But it didn't seem that after the first drive the defensive scheme changed any, i think it was more a matter of the defense settling in.

As someone else stated, a game is 4 quarters long, so judging a staff's competence on 1 or 2 drives a game isn't a fair assessment.

 

[junior4949]

I know Alvarez didn't come right out and say it in an interview last year, but he alluded that it was just as well Coz left because he probably would have been let go. It all comes down to personnell and whether or not they buy into the scheme or not. Charlie McBride looked like a fool for the better part of the 80's especially the late 80's when we played in bowl games. Our slow DB's and LB's got their jock straps burnt to a crisp by the Florida teams WR's. It wasn't until we got the right personnell to run his defense did we begin to believe he was "godlike".

A lot of people believe Lavarr Arrington is a great LB. However, he has played very little the last 2 years under Gibbs. Great talent, but he doesn't fit the scheme well. IMO, Coz is having a lot more success this year because he has young players who believe. Also, we have a much improved front 4. Without great play from the D-Line, it always makes your CB's and LB's look suspect because there's never a lot of pressure on the QB. We went away from the man-on-man for the most part, and we're playing a lot more zone. I think in college football, this is probably for the best as it's very difficult to recruit DB's who are 6'2 or taller and run a 4.4 or 4.3 40.

I do know the D is improved from last year. However, I agree with some posting above that the offenses other than TT played so far are not that great. IMO, we have no one left on the schedule that will be ranked at the end of the season except possibly CU. In order to really know how far we've come from last year, I believe we need to get to the Big 12 Championship and play Texas. This is really the only measuring stick we have against top notch talent and teams! Last year, we beat a Pitt team that played in a BCS bowl. We played OU who was considered one of the best last year. This year, we just haven't played a real good team other than maybe TT. The combined record of the teams we've beat isn't very impressive. We really need to get to the title game to see how we gauge or compare before we can really think we're onto something.

 

[Spartness]

Agreed! You can't expect that the defense is going to have a three and out in every offensive series. The Blackshirts are human. They put their pants on like everyone else. You can't expect them to completely shut down an offense. They are going to give up some plays and some yards. Some people expect perfection, but you are not going to get that. Let's be realistic.

 

[formerfan]

Last year, we beat a Pitt team that played in a BCS bowl.

I agree with most of everything you said except for the line quoted.

Pitt was a terrible team last year, they never should have been to a BCS game. Heck, when NU played them, they punted on 3rd down (twice I think) :WTH

OU was good, but billy c. pretty much forfeited that game. Kicking the FG as time expired was really, really lame, made him look like a loser :rickjames