Here is why we lost

[HuskerBCS]

Here's a scary stat, not counting the final kneel down, Northwestern ran 16 plays in the 4th quarter, 15 runs and 1 pass- they ran 15 times for 71 yards, or 4.7 YPC in the 4th when everyone knew what they were going to do. The lone pass was of course the 81 YD TD pass, in that situation you have to stack the box and stop the run, yet we primarily played 4 down with 1 LB, against 5 linemen, a TE, a QB and a RB. Northwestern was able to block everyone in the box and constantly gain positive yards because of Bo's decisions not to stack the box. Add in the clock management and it was a pretty poorly coached game.

This is what really frustrates me the most. I know Bo is supposed to be this defensive guru and the philosophy of playing only 4 down is to keep everything in front of you and limit the big plays but it definitely comes at the expense of stopping the running game. Im not sure we have ever been able to stop a top 25 team from running the ball fairly effectively since Bo got here (not counting Suh's senior season which we all know was an amazing defense because of 1 amazing player). We continually let teams control the line of scrimmage when were on defense and give up the 3-4-5 yard runs at will. Heck, even the plays where we have their run defended well, their guy still usually falls forward for 2-3 yards.

 

[roadrat]

Bo said after the game that Northwestern wanted the game more than us. Truer words were never spoken. Our offensive line didn't just take a play or two off , they took the whole game off. Northwestern was supposed to have a leaky defense and they played us better than the Spartans did.

 

[Axl_sued_me]

Our defense is more to blame than our offense.

 

[Alamo City Husker]

I am not a coach but , turnovers, penalties, time of possession, and good coaching is what beat us. They saw something vulnerable in our defense and went after us when we least expected it. They hit us in the mouth and stunned us, which put us in a hole. Cupple that with mental lapses, we just ran out of time. Now whether we learn from this or other teams learn from what NWU did to us will be the measure of good coaching in the future. I would have liked to see a more competitive onside kick, that really is my only complaint.

 

[gobiggergoredder]

Absolutely no creativity on offense.

No diamond. No reverse. No jailbreak screen.

The situations were just BEGGING for these plays. Where were they?

Why do you go more vanilla when you are BEHIND?

Reverse would have looked awesome as the NW D waited for it because they had so much penetration.

 

[r06ue1]

Team has no identity, I am sick and tired of all these different offensive formations. What ever happened to the I? What, you can't run and throw out of that formation or something? All of these changing formations aren't confusing defenses, this isn't high school football. Choose a formation and stick to it, run when they expect a pass and pass when they expect a run, that is what confuses defenses. If the oppossing defense stacks eight men in the box, then pass on every down until they stop. Pretty simple.

Against running teams with mobile quarterbacks, this defense does not seem to have any answers. That is more on the coaching than it is the players. This is going to be a problem for the Michigan game.

 

[NoLongerN]

Simply put ... Northwestern outplayed us. They played solid football ... very good on defense. On offense even their backup QB's stepped up. They took advantage of our mistakes ... but more then anything ... they wanted this game. To me, it was obvious that we were looking past this team. FYI ... if you look at the talk on this board this past week "many" seemed to think that we would walk over the Wildcats and take out Penn State, Michigan and Iowa and go represent our division in the B1G championship.

Frankly, we are not that good to look past the weaker teams in the B1G ... cause we have our own issues. As I stated last week ... we must take each game one at a time and we can make the next game more important. Unfortunately, the fan base overall doesn't seem to have this view ... and it translates back to the team IMHO.

Moving forward ... I can see this team putting together solid games and then coming home and losing to Iowa ... cause that's how this team rolls.

 

[WhatDoIKnow]

If there is a team that wants a game back it is MSU. Northwestern did what MSU was not smart enough to do, make us a passing team, and exploit the middle of our defense. Their 81 yard TD right up the middle, and the TD pass to the TE that was called back were exactly what Urban Meyer and other's in the booth were calling for MSU to take advantage of.

Martinez had a great game passing, but we will never be consistent enought to win as a passing team. The oline got consistently beat upfront. Martinez still does not actually do any "reading" on the zone read option. I think we ran the same play twice in a row. Martinez around the right side for a big gain, then Martinez around the right side for a big loss.

This team believes too much of the hype.

 

[The Snork]

All we heard from Beck in the offseason was how this offense was going to "Attack." His predictable running game was stuffed early and he gave up. Taylor did a great job in the passing game today, which is why we scored points. We didn't see one single misdirection running play. Counters, Traps, Reverses, Naked Boots, and HB passes. All of those would have stopped NW from over-pursuing Burkhead.

Oh yeah didn't he say "You wouldn't want to leave the room when the offense is on the field" in preseason?

Turns out he was right caus you'd miss it after all the 3 n outs they put up.

 

[lionsfan93]

Okay, I didn't get to watch the game...just listen to it on the radio. But I put the loss on simply not being tough enough, on offense and on defense. When we needed to make plays (first half on offense and second half defense) we couldn't do it. And its not because we are not talented enough.

 

[Whistlebritches]

I'm really surprised that people think we passed too much and think that's why we lost. Martinez was VERY effective today and the only time we were able to move the ball with any consistency was through the air.

The O line got pushed all over the field in one their worst performances of the year. Rex and TM had no running lanes and frequently TM was getting chased out of the pocket and forced to extend plays that way. Some of the blame has to go on Beck for a poorly called game but the defense played miserably as well, they gave up nearly 500 yards. They played really well for the final 20 minutes of the first half but couldn't do anything to stop whoever came in to replace Persa. Little to no pressure except when Martin was getting a push off the edge but I couldn't tell how much he got to play. I think the coaches knew that an adjustment was needed but our secondary can play pretty poorly at times and they probably didn't want to Evans to get beat, again. Not only did he (Evans) get beat on that 80+ yard play, he got flagged for PI on 3rd and 8 at the goal line which let them continue the drive and eventually score 7 instead of 3.

We were out-coached on both sides of the ball. If we hadn't gotten turnovers in the red zone the loss would have been worse.

 

[krc1995]

the coaching staff had zero respect for opponent and decided to take the week off

You literally have no idea what you are talking about. Please turn your computer off and walk away. I'm glad you could make that assessment by watching 60 minutes of football.

Had you been at practice, or spending the late nights that the staff and players did to prepare for NU, perhaps you wouldn't say something so foolish.

Oh, you've right, it was a coaching marvel. The team was well prepared. And that was sarcasm . I don't give a damn what they did all week at practice, they looked like sh#t on gameday. Remember, don't attack me, it's against board rules

 

[Calla]

I still can't hardly talk about this. It was no one thing that caused the loss, it was a death of a thousand cuts.

 

[beanman]

I still can't hardly talk about this. It was no one thing that caused the loss, it was a death of a thousand cuts.

I am distracted by the girl in the far right picture.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Beck takes what the defense was giving him...which came in the passing game. Sometimes the runs not going to be there. And you have to be able to pass, which he called, and which Taylor did well. I was hoping he would've called a few more passes, but I don't think it was his playcalling that did us in.

We lost because we coughed it up twice, dropped 5 passes and didn't execute defensively. Those are things you can blame Beck on, right...

This is what people around here just aren't understanding. Martinez had arguably his most effective day passing since he became qb at NU.....and we LOST. We lost because we had 5 drops???? So you're telling me in order to beat Northwestern, yes Northwestern, we must go 34/38 in the passing game (89%) and have 0 turnovers? We should be able to overcome 2 turnovers and not have to be near perfect in the passing game. We should also be able to move the ball on the ground, at will, against the 98th ranked defense in the country.

We shouldn't have to "take what the defense gives us" against such a pathetic team like Northwestern.

The defense played bad but we have known all year that they are bad. They played terrible today but only gave up 28pts. Again, our offense should be able to put up more than 28 against the 98th ranked defense out of 120 total teams.

We have no identity and are multiple every game which is why we suck. People who don't think we need an identity or who enjoy being multiple or agree with "taking what the defense gives us".....better get used to being very average....we are not good.

So we continue to pound the square peg into a round hole by running it constantly. My idea was to open up the running game by passing the ball more. Force those LBs to drop back and play in coverage rather than stack 8 in the box. If you disagree with me on that, fine, but to me that is what I thought could have been done.