Defense

Mentality is the biggest factor. how is that Ohio St, will all these supposed jimmys and joes, one of the best coaches around, can lose to Penn St, squeak by Northwestern, then play like that? In the span of 2 calender weeks? Human mental factory.

I think Osborne, as a doctor of eduactional psychology, understood that more than anyone. Generating a pshychololgical advantage, on top of schematic and physical advantages. He revolutionized the game. Sports in general. You think the Husker vision screens and the tunnel came about jsut for entertainment? Or to be cool? These were calculated establishments, you can bet on it. Now everyone has leadership committees and such. Everyone pays attn to these things. it's one of the factors that has contributed to the insane amount of parity in sports today, where the human mental factor is as big as ever. I thought we hit a wall saturday, and Ohio st was a bit pissed and gettin ancy after the previous two weeks and had their get right game.
Of coarse the mental factor is huge. Nebraska has plenty of games under TO where they didn't look super sharp, but were just that much better than the other team that they still won. Too many people think that NU beat everyone by 30 all the time. didn't happen. Yes OSU was pissed Urban Meyer was pissed, they came to play. Nebraska came to play to, but it just wasn't there. The O-line injuries are killing this team right now. The defense played hard against OSU. Did they give up a ton of big plays? Not that I remember. They were out gunned and couldn't get off the field on 3rd down. I mean what did everyone expect that the defense was going to hold OSU to 300 total offense? No one has yet. The offensive play in the second half contributed as much to the score as the very tired defense did.
i thought it was interesting listening to Benning recall the 1996 Az St game when he had folks saying things to him like "i know you never experienced a game like this" and he'd be like " just cuz it was only 19-0, that was an a$$ kickin" Folks refuse the remember things like that. folks also forget abotu 45-10 and 45-24(wasnt even that close) to close out the 1990 season. 29 unanswered by Washington in 1991. Thatd be deemed as a fireable meltdown today.

 
yeah. I like yards per play. Gets closer to the real story behind the numbers. My favorite one though is points per game.

2003 14.5

2004 27.1

2005 21.0

2006 18.3

2007 37.9

2008 28.5

2009 10.4

2010 17.4

2011 23.4

2012 27.6

2013 24.8

2014 26.4

2015 27.8

2016 23.2 (18.4 before Saturday. i think the asterisk is necessary for the sake of trend)
Points are also good but I like yards better because points can be affected by a lot of things out of the defenses' control.

If a team gives up a big return or a turnover giving the other offense great field position but the defense stuffs them and they kick a FG, that's a great job by the defense but they give up three points. But if the defense gives up a 60 yard drive but the other team misses a FG, the points look good but the defense could have been better.

Not a huge difference but also the two pick-sixes from Saturday make the points per game look worse than the defense was. And also points per game is definitely affected by pace of play while yards per play is not (basically). Especially when we moved conferences from the no-huddle wide open Big XII to mostly slow-paced, run the ball B1G.

All that being said, the YPP and PPG numbers we listed are fairly similar.

 
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yeah. I like yards per play. Gets closer to the real story behind the numbers. My favorite one though is points per game.

2003 14.5

2004 27.1

2005 21.0

2006 18.3

2007 37.9

2008 28.5

2009 10.4

2010 17.4

2011 23.4

2012 27.6

2013 24.8

2014 26.4

2015 27.8

2016 23.2 (18.4 before Saturday. i think the asterisk is necessary for the sake of trend)
Points are also good but I like yards better because points can be affected by a lot of things out of the defenses' control.

If a team gives up a big return or a turnover giving the other offense great field position but the defense stuffs them and they kick a FG, that's a great job by the defense but they give up three points. But if the defense gives up a 60 yard drive but the other team misses a FG, the points look good but the defense could have been better.

Not a huge difference but also the two pick-sixes from Saturday make the points per game look worse than the defense was. And also points per game is definitely affected by pace of play while yards per play is not (basically). Especially when we moved conferences from the no-huddle wide open Big XII to mostly slow-paced, run the ball B1G.

All that being said, the YPP and PPG numbers we listed are fairly similar.
that's true too.

I dont think theyll ever be a perfect statistical ananlysis in sports. We're gettin closer with the analytics era, but it's never gonna be perfect.

 
Bankers defense has always struggled against the spread offense. It wasn't surprising Ohio State ran all over his us. Oregon ran all over Bankers D for the last 7 years while he was at Oregon State. This year, Oregon isn't very good, so we got a few stops. As long as Banker is our defensive coordinator, athletic spread teams will put up big points on us. On the bright side, his defensive scheme works well against pro style offenses. Unfortunately, those are becoming less and less common.
This^

 
Bankers defense has always struggled against the spread offense. It wasn't surprising Ohio State ran all over his us. Oregon ran all over Bankers D for the last 7 years while he was at Oregon State. This year, Oregon isn't very good, so we got a few stops. As long as Banker is our defensive coordinator, athletic spread teams will put up big points on us. On the bright side, his defensive scheme works well against pro style offenses. Unfortunately, those are becoming less and less common.
This^
This? Comparing athletes here and at Oregon St. is crazy. I did not like the Banker hire, but I will give him a chance. Without saying names, the past coach left with very little talent on the D & O line. There is no depth and this is something that takes time to change.

 
So... since I've been sitting at my computer for awhile tonight...

I went through and got the average yards per play of our opponents to compare to the yards per play that we allowed in a given year. Still not perfect as it should be some sort of weighted average for number of plays (minor) and opponent's opponents (more significant) but here goes. Stats are year, yards per play we allowed for the year, yards per play our opponents had for the same year and the difference - negative is better for the Huskers and in parenthesis.

YEAR - YPP - OYPP - DIFF
2003 - 4.3 - 5.15 -(0.85)

2004 - 5.0 - 4.91 - 0.09
2005 - 4.6 - 4.85 -(0.25)
2006 - 5.2 - 5.38 -(0.18)
2007 - 6.0 - 5.53 - 0.47

2008 - 5.4 - 5.41 -(0.01)
2009 - 3.9 - 5.21 -(1.31)
2010 - 4.5 - 5.29 -(0.79)
2011 - 5.2 - 5.51 -(0.31)
2012 - 5.3 - 5.48 -(0.18)
2013 - 4.9 - 5.36 -(0.46)
2014 - 5.2 - 5.53 -(0.33)

2015 - 5.7 - 5.28 - 0.42
2016 - 5.4 - 5.45 -(0.05)


So last year was within spiting distance of the worst defense we've had and those two are nowhere near any other year (which isn't surprising anyone).

But this year is also the second-worst we've had in the last eight years and it has a little breathing room between it and third.

 
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