I would only fire Banker IF...

[Nebfanatic]

Banker seems like a hard-working, loyal, good dude. But was he ever a real rising coaching star? His background seems to suggest that he's more known for being a hard working over achiever who's loyal to fault...not bad traits mind you. What I don't see is a track record or commentary that indicates he's all that innovative or talented at coaching defense. Also haven't seen any indications in the two years he's been here.

It might be unfair to blame him solely for our two meltdowns, but fwiw I've never been sold on him as a particularly inspiring coach that's gonna make this defense the backbone of the team again.

I choose to drink the kool aid that MR is a good college football CEO whose success will scale with the availability of resources. However, part of utilizing those resources is upgrading the coaching talent around you. Took a good first step with Read...here's hoping he stays committed to program success more than he is committed to professional loyalty

I think we will see if MR is committed to winning the next few years. I honestly think if his guys don't perform he will look elsewhere. Right now Langs and Banker haven't given him a reason to. 2 years from now if we are producing similar or worse results statistically on either side we need a new coordinator

 

[Jason Sitoke]

If a team has proven that they know how to play defense, they have proven they can come into a game and go against a decent offense and play well enough to win, the scheme has worked and held decent opponents to a score where we can win.......but then they come into the last game of the year and play like they have never played Div 1 football before......I have a hard time blaming the coaching staff first.

If you are a Div 1 player and you are going into the last game of the year with a chance to go to the championship game with a win and you're not focused enough to make the plays you have been making in 10 of the last 11 games......you need to look in the mirror. A coach should not be needing to somehow get into your head in this situation and make sure you're focused. This should be automatic and expected.

Not saying you're wrong, but it seems convenient to argue that the coaching is not the problem because the defense played well in game X, but the players totally failed in game Y. I think I could argue the opposite and be just as right/wrong

I think we should blame the players....and the coach

There's a thought.

 

[3rd and long]

If a team has proven that they know how to play defense, they have proven they can come into a game and go against a decent offense and play well enough to win, the scheme has worked and held decent opponents to a score where we can win.......but then they come into the last game of the year and play like they have never played Div 1 football before......I have a hard time blaming the coaching staff first.

If you are a Div 1 player and you are going into the last game of the year with a chance to go to the championship game with a win and you're not focused enough to make the plays you have been making in 10 of the last 11 games......you need to look in the mirror. A coach should not be needing to somehow get into your head in this situation and make sure you're focused. This should be automatic and expected.

Not saying you're wrong, but it seems convenient to argue that the coaching is not the problem because the defense played well in game X, but the players totally failed in game Y. I think I could argue the opposite and be just as right/wrong

That's very possible.
But....let me ask you this. Should a coach have to get you pumped up/focused/excited to play in a game like they played in on Friday?

Where I would argue with is, the coach is responsible to come up with a scheme that works, teach that scheme and then in the game put you in a position to succeed. If in the middle of the season, the players are in games that where it is displayed the coaches have done that, then I would assume they all of a sudden didn't unteach that to the players in the last game of the year.

Great point BRB. Makes this discussion tie into the thread asking if the players quit.

You'd like to think you wouldn't have to motivate a bunch of young men to go out and play a game. But I don't know if that's the case anymore. It's a long season, I wonder how many might have mentally checked out and are just playing out the string.

Tough to be a coach these days.

 

[I AM FOOT FOOT]

For those who want him to stay did you say at all when he was hired Yes! Great hire the man knows how to coach a championship defense?probably not.we all read the same reports from beaver fans.

 

[C N Red]

he is alive.

 

[Nebfanatic]

For those who want him to stay did you say at all when he was hired Yes! Great hire the man knows how to coach a championship defense?probably not.we all read the same reports from beaver fans.

That may be true but it is right now and Banker has shown improvement with less to work with this year, so that buys him another year in my book. If we continue to get better on defense he gets another year. Soon after that his job depend on maintaining an elite defense year in year out.

 

[RunMickeyRun02]

The only reason I would fire Banker is if Riley could actually get a better guy. Bray is not quite ready yet, give him time. By better guy I mean is only if Aranda would take a job here. This is of course if we don't get blown out in our bowl game.

Everything is right there in your post. People will always cry for the HC,DC,OC to be fired but they are making two incorrect assumptions.

That:

1. A better coach exists and is available to come here.

2. Said coach would be willing to come to Nebraska for the money Nebraska is willing to pay him.

For you older guys out there I'd like to know did NU open the check book for Devaney? Did they pay what at the time was considered a lot of money to pull him from Wyoming? I'm not being facetious, I really want to know. Or was it not really a big deal back then?

 

[Count 'Bility]

While not great, Banker (much like Cosgrove in 06) has more than earned the right to have another year or two. There was progress and improvement. I guarantee no one saw what was coming on 07 after how solid that 06 defense finished the year.

Again. I'm still waiting for intelligible football debate as to why Banker should be let go. This debate shall also include possible replacements and their resumes. But remember, Wisconsin and Penn St (Aranda and Shoop both leaving for SEC programs) both lost their DCs from a year ago and at worst remained the same, but basically really improved.

Our issues remain much deeper than basic coaching right now. We are young on both fronts and there is a mental as well a mature lack of physicality

 

[husker98]

I posted this in the Fired Read thread. Certainly not saying Banker's Ds were great this year, but he started in a hole losing our whole D-line during the spring:

Wow, so much hate for Banker in this thread. I realize this will be an unpopular thing to say, but we did not *totally* suck on defense this year. I know, I know, the two blowouts. I watched. (

) But despite those two games we finished the year ranked #22 in total defense. (#30 in scoring defense). Sure, that's nothing to write home about. Plenty of room for improvement and all. But you do have to consider that we lost our entire defensive line from last year, including our top four DTs. We played the year with two new starters at DT, one DE who was a walk-on and the other DE who is converted tight end. Even though I'm perplexed and a bit pissed about the two blowout games I was mostly pleased with our defensive performance in the other ten games. I don't think it's time to break out the pitchforks and torches just yet for Banker.

It helped that we didn't play good offenses, and the one that we did dropped a 60 point bomb on us.

» 13: Rushes of more than 30 yards allowed by Nebraska’s defense. That ranks 105th nationally. NU was hot and cold as a run defense all season. The Huskers held five opponents under 100 yards rushing and four teams gained more than 200 yards. NU allowed 4.28 yards per carry, which ranked 10th in the Big Ten. Teams that stuck with the run — Wisconsin and Iowa — were rewarded for it. The idea that the Badgers didn’t run the ball well on NU is inaccurate; Wisconsin ran for 223 yards and 5.87 yards per carry. That’s a good day. That’s Wisconsin’s highest yards-per-carry day all season.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/football/mckewon-iowa-debacle-could-make-husker-coach-mike-riley-an/article_41184864-e4b5-54f4-b0fd-3d89bfe72a0e.html

Mark Banker is Kevin Cosgrove, except Mark gets the benefit of not playing against good offenses all year.

And in that 60 point bomb we had zero offense to keep the D off the field and give it a chance too regroup. No ball control at all. If your offense goes out and dies against an elite team like that your gunna get blown out, doesn't matter who you are. Florida state got blown out in this fashion this year too.

 

[Mavric]

I would like to hear intelligible conversation as to what's so wrong with Banker at this point. Lot of uneducation generalizations based on nothing. You do realize that Banker is the DEFensive coordinator, right?

That's because people grasp at straws when things go wrong. A lot of what happened on Friday was on the players, both in effort and technique.

I'm not fully understanding the Banker hate either. 10 games this year, our defense played pretty decent. We had two blow outs.

Taking the Iowa game. In the 10 games that weren't blow outs, we played pretty decent against teams with the same type of talent Iowa has. Iowa wasn't running some type of trick plays we had never seen before. But...it was like the players were out of sync and out of position on the big plays.

That game was lost basically on three big plays in the first half by Iowa. They weren't anything special and they were plays we defended well in other games. So....this tells me the scheme is not a problem in stopping these plays. AND...the players obviously knew how to defend them because we have seen them do it before.

I'm failing to see how this is evidence that the coordinator should be fired.

So who do we say is mostly responsible for allowing Melvin Gordon to run for 408 yards? The defense was pretty good in the rest of the games that year.

 

[dtbugeater]

Our offense has some of the best skill players in recent years and puts up some of the worst yards/play in the history of Nebraska football...and people are talking about firings the defensive coordinator?

You guys crazy.

 

[Mavric]

As to why he should be fired, quite simply his defenses have been bad.

Last year, we were #92 in the country in yards allowed per play.

This year we are a more respectable #46. But we've had the benefit of playing a lot of bad offenses. We played the #124, #105, #97(t), #113, #71, #97(t), #100, #73 and #94 offenses in yards per play.

Below is a comparison of how many yards per play we allowed for the year compared to what our opponents averaged for the same year. Not a perfect metric but it adjusts for several variables such as strength of offenses faced and pace of play. As you can see, last year's defense was within a stone's throw of the 2007 unit for the worst in the last 14 years (as far back as I could find stats). This year's seems better because of the bad offenses we faced but is really right in the ballpark with the vaunted Callahan defenses. The yards per play we allowed were all but identical to the rest of the defenses our opponents faced meaning we were barley above average.

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 - 5.2 - 5.30 -(0.10)

We were also poor in allowing 20+ yard runs (#83 in the country) and Red Zone defense (scoring % - #80).

 

[Mavric]

And what's really going to boggle people's minds in a couple years is to look back at how bad the 2015 defense was with how many future NFL players were on it. Collins and Valentine already. Quite likely Gerry, Banderas and Jones. Possibly Maurice, Young and a Williams or two.

 

[GBRFAN]

Pretty sure it has been stated by players that lack of talent wasn't the issue in 2015. All have agreed that there was a buy in issue.

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

I don't know if it's coaching or if we are just terrible across the entire line, but we are the slowest ream off the ball in the big. Our linemen including ends look like they are on a delay. Did we ever have our ends go offside beside Dzuris on downs we all knew a hard count was coming except him.. so slow. Get some guys who explode off the ball and you cause a lot more problems for the offense. I'm glad Ross is graduating so I don't have watch him miss assignments all the time..