Keep the improved defensive recruiting in mind

[Blackshirt96]

[

http://bigrednetwork...uiting_1990-99/

It's interesting to me that one of the most sought-after recruits one of those years basically comments directly on what many here are arguing about: "I'm not saying Nebraska didn't have a winning attitude but they never won the big game. The team that can't win the big game isn't a great team to me. It doesn't matter whether you win 10 games every year if you don't win the ones that count." (He does mention the climate and social atmosphere as well).

Was this written in the 80's about Tom Osborne, because it is almost word for word what most writters wrote about Tom in the 80's. "He Just can't win the big game"

 

[The Dude]

I will say in 3 games they looked lost, but I don't know how that would be half of the time.

They looked lost half the time in most of the games we won, too. Aside from the Michigan and Minnesota, all of our conference games played out about the same. Our offense would come out flat, and perhaps turn the ball over a couple times. Our defense would be completely baffled, and we'd go into halftime trailing by a couple scores. Then at halftime we'd apparently start game preparation for that week lol. They must have left the game film at home when they traveled to L.A., Columbus, and Indy.

They gave up 7 to Iowa, 23 to Penn St, 24 to Michigan St, 28 to Northwestern & 27 to Wisconsin(1). For defense many people thought was going to be very low at the begining over the year they played pretty well over the course of the year. Add in the obsene amount of turnovers & I think they played quite well for what i was expecting at the begining of the year. In the first Wisconsin game the offense basically gave up 14 of the 27. The offense turned the ball over 4 times & recovered 2 of there own fumbles.

This is what it has come to? We're bragging about our defense "only" giving up 23, 24, 28, points to mediocre (at best) offenses?

The point is, a defense chalk full of 5th year Seniors shouldn't be lost at all. Especially to the point were we're having historically bad defensive performances.

 

[Blackshirt96]

IIRC, we currently have 11 DT on schollie/roster to date. We have some who are reported as injured. The issue I have is that Stein goes out and our only "real" DT who can play is Rome. A guy who took some time off a few months ago. So thin are we that we moved a 250-260 lb DE to tackle in an attempt to be a DT. You have got to be friggin kidding me. Cam was our only choice. So basically we had 2 DT, Stein and Rome. Again, WTH.

IMO, this speaks to incredibly bad recruiting of talent, horrific development or the worst luck with injuries in the NCAA.

You look at the OL and even worse. 20+ guys on schollie and we are starting 3 walk-ons one (Jackson) who was a converted DL player. Then you look at our massive "rotation" on the OL and we really simply rotated about 2 guys through various positions. Again, WTH? Why no deep rotation. Are the walk-ons really that much better than all the kids on schollie. If so, again EPIC FAIL on the staff.

At DT yes we are that thin due to a poor recruiting class & a lot of injuries. Cam has put on some major weight since the moved to the Big Ten he is closer to 270lbs & most is in his lower body. The weight gain slowed him down & with all of the injuries to the DT's it was only logical to move him inside to help.

As far as the OL yes we play 3 former walkons, Spencer Long, Seung Hoon Choi & Justin Jackson. All three have played very well & desirve to be playing. We have 25 OL on the 105 man roster, not all are on schollarship. Recruiting wise we should have 20 on schollarship & 5 commits, thats one whole line in every class. unfortinatly we have had some injuries & transfers in this group & the numbers are low. We have also had a couple of guys not pan out as well as we hoped. Say what you want but you don't lead the conference in rushing, by having bad line play.

 

[kchusker_chris]

[

http://bigrednetwork...uiting_1990-99/

It's interesting to me that one of the most sought-after recruits one of those years basically comments directly on what many here are arguing about: "I'm not saying Nebraska didn't have a winning attitude but they never won the big game. The team that can't win the big game isn't a great team to me. It doesn't matter whether you win 10 games every year if you don't win the ones that count." (He does mention the climate and social atmosphere as well).

Was this written in the 80's about Tom Osborne, because it is almost word for word what most writters wrote about Tom in the 80's. "He Just can't win the big game"

This was a quote from one of the recruits after he committed to another school (Miami) in the early 90's. Richardson I think. Obviously he came to eat those words a few years later.

 

[Blackshirt96]

I will say in 3 games they looked lost, but I don't know how that would be half of the time.

They looked lost half the time in most of the games we won, too. Aside from the Michigan and Minnesota, all of our conference games played out about the same. Our offense would come out flat, and perhaps turn the ball over a couple times. Our defense would be completely baffled, and we'd go into halftime trailing by a couple scores. Then at halftime we'd apparently start game preparation for that week lol. They must have left the game film at home when they traveled to L.A., Columbus, and Indy.

They gave up 7 to Iowa, 23 to Penn St, 24 to Michigan St, 28 to Northwestern & 27 to Wisconsin(1). For defense many people thought was going to be very low at the begining over the year they played pretty well over the course of the year. Add in the obsene amount of turnovers & I think they played quite well for what i was expecting at the begining of the year. In the first Wisconsin game the offense basically gave up 14 of the 27. The offense turned the ball over 4 times & recovered 2 of there own fumbles.

This is what it has come to? We're bragging about our defense "only" giving up 23, 24, 28, points to mediocre (at best) offenses?

The point is, a defense chalk full of 5th year Seniors shouldn't be lost at all. Especially to the point were we're having historically bad defensive performances.

Nobody is bragging, but most expected a lot less then we got on defense this year. Also did you look at where the defense started in those games or how long they were on the field. I also wouldn't call Northwesterns Offense Mediocre (at best). Smith, Stafford, Whaley, Compton, Fisher, Stienkuhler, Martin & Merideth are the Seniors who start. Stafford & Martin did not redshirt. So yes just over half are 5th year SR's. Martin was also a linebacker until half way thru his Jr year & Steinkuler was out for Wisconsin(2).

 

[Judoka]

My biggest question is related to Suh's time here. Even if he required little coaching, how does a program not use that as a springboard to build monster D-Line recruiting classes?

 

[Blackshirt96]

My biggest question is related to Suh's time here. Even if he required little coaching, how does a program not use that as a springboard to build monster D-Line recruiting classes?

I heard a rumor that the coaches used the "You could be the next Suh" line a little to much & the recruits were turned off by the amount of players they told it to. Take this info with a grain of salt, but the rumor came from a writter who follows recruiting pretty close.

 

[JTrain]

When a team runs the same play out of four different sets and averages 10.8 yards per carry and you cannot stop it, that is not simply fixed by putting a faster or younger or different guy in the game. It is fixed by adjusting your defensive look to take that play away. Every time we did exactly that they shifted to inside running game and completely man handled our dline. Part of it was we were completely unprepared coaching wise...

THIS. Anyone that tries to pin that loss on talent difference has managed to sneak the Kool-Aid through the back door.

:koolaid2:

I guess this is where people tend to differ in their interpretations on what they observe. The phenomenon in football known as the 'eraser' player leads me to disagree with you. That is, their raw talent allows them to erase schematic flaws/coaching gaffes/missed assignments on the players part, because in the heat of battle, they rely less on information crammed into their brain and simply reduce football to a very rudimentary form: they see a ball carrier and chase him down. Lavonte David in 2011 is one example many on HB would be familiar with. When a kid has wheels like LD, he books it to the ball carrier and tackles him behind the line. To the lay observer, the player just made a heck of an athletic defensive play, even though the coaches/players are the only ones who know that he whiffed an assignment on that play. But in the short-term (such as one play, one game, or one season), it doesn't matter, it's the end not the means. Don't care how you do it, just do it.

But if you want sustained success over multiple seasons, you can't rely long-term on that formula of turning loose a bunch of lightning fast, brain-dead dummies running around like chickens with their heads cut off. That might give you success for 1-2 seasons. Alabama is the perfect marriage between elite talent and elite coaching and their consistently excellent performance is an indication of this. That is why they are scary good, they are some of the best athletes in the country receiving the highest quality of coaching and fundamental instruction on the college level. Brains and Brawn. But I can give you two relatively recent examples of one-hit wonders that there is almost no debating that they won NC's relying largely on talent, being led by coaches that Bo would run circles around. 2001 Miami and 2010 Auburn. Larry Coker is/was a mediocre coach at best, yet he was gifted the most talent-laden roster in the history of college football thanks to Butch Davis' impeccable recruiting acumen. Look at that 2001 roster that pasted us in the NC and how many of those guys are/were NFL superstars. It's a crime that a coaching dunce inherited such a sweet situation, yet Bo has worked his butt off his entire career and doesn't get the same. Larry Coker mostly stayed in the background and out of his team's way on that 01 NC run and would have won in 02 if not for that erroneous PI call which cost them the game. He didn't have a huge hand in that short run of success, but he didn't really hinder it either.

Now Auburn in 2010 is really the biggest study in contrasts in coaching/talent pairing. For how incredibly gifted Cam Newton and Nick fairley were, Gene Chizik was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of how horrible his coaching ability was/still is. Auburn won the NC in 2010 in spite of Gene Chizik's poor coaching. An all-world QB and a genetically gifted D-line with crappy fundamentals "erased" dubious coaching by GC that year. No way they come back to beat Alabama that year after being down 24-0 if it weren't for Newton's rare talent and innate ability to manufacture improvised QB scrambles at the drop of a hat. I correctly speculated that Auburn would tank badly after Newton left and I laughed at Auburn for hiring GC after his joke of a tenure at Iowa State. The man Auburn passed over to hire GC, Turner Gill, would have put up a significantly more competitive fight year-in and year-out against Saban if he had Auburn's roster at his disposal and not KU's or Buffalo's. Once the otherworldly talent left Miami and Auburn, those two's coaching deficiencies were badly exposed and they crashed hard from their respective perches. GC is woefully awful at coaching and I have a hard time believing he would be a good coach anywhere. The gap in coaching ability between Saban and Bo is miniscule compared to the gap between Bo and Chizik/Coker. If you give Bo the speed/athleticism/raw talent he needs, he could do some things. He doesn't need a d-line with 4 Nick fairleys to be great, but he at least needs a few players that fall in between Fairley and Jason Ankrah, and Auburn usually has those players. If he were at Auburn he would have 3 Alfonzo Dennards and 3 Lavonte Davids on the bench, compared just having to one of each starting at NU. To his credit, Bo is slowly but surely bringing talent in numbers to Lincoln, with noticeable upgrades in quality/ quantity on the defensive side of the ball with the 2011-2013 recruiting classes.

Wisconsin ran basic principles against us and could have named the score. That is something you do against FCS talent. We do not have FCS talent. Wisconsin anticipated our defensive gameplan perfectly and we were shell-shocked and could never adjust to them schematically. When a team runs a simple jet sweep and you routinely have one safety between the ball-carrier and the endzone, that is a scheme issue. Watch our linebackers and ends on these plays. They were not being put in position to stop them. When the linebacker is not told to focus on the motion man and does not even realize he has the ball until he's 15 yards outside of him, his speed and talent do not matter. Usain Bolt could've been at outside linebacker and never come close.

It appears to me that Bo is great in two instances: when his gameplan anticipates the opponent's gameplan to a high degree, and when he has great talent to fit his system. Unfortunately there are plenty of times when neither of those is true. The former will never consistently be true, and the latter will probably never consistently be true at Nebraska (unfortunately). Bo needs to be willing to compromise parts of his scheme in adjustment to these realities, or else we will need to get used to seeing 1-3 complete defensive disasters per season.

 

[Blackshirt96]

Wisconsin ran basic principles against us and could have named the score. That is something you do against FCS talent. We do not have FCS talent. Wisconsin anticipated our defensive gameplan perfectly and we were shell-shocked and could never adjust to them schematically. When a team runs a simple jet sweep and you routinely have one safety between the ball-carrier and the endzone, that is a scheme issue. Watch our linebackers and ends on these plays. They were not being put in position to stop them. When the linebacker is not told to focus on the motion man and does not even realize he has the ball until he's 15 yards outside of him, his speed and talent do not matter. Usain Bolt could've been at outside linebacker and never come close.

It appears to me that Bo is great in two instances: when his gameplan anticipates the opponent's gameplan to a high degree, and when he has great talent to fit his system. Unfortunately there are plenty of times when neither of those is true. The former will never consistently be true, and the latter will probably never consistently be true at Nebraska (unfortunately). Bo needs to be willing to compromise parts of his scheme in adjustment to these realities, or else we will need to get used to seeing 1-3 complete defensive disasters per season.

I agree with you to a point, but there were other factors in this game that contributed to the defensive break down. The first being the injuries to the DT's, specifically Steinkuhler. I think a lot of people under estimated how improtant he was to the defense. He was not as flashy as Suh or Crick, but he did a great job containing the middle. The small, battered DL had no chance against Wisconsins line. If you watch the LB's & safties they are cheating to the middle to help stop the run, they also got sucked in closer by the shifting. Wisconsin figured it out quickly. If the defense cheats inside, run outside when they go back pound it up the middle & use the match zone to run the CB's off with the WR's. The only answer we could have had would have been to blitz the corners & clog the middle & hope they don't pass the ball because it was a easy 6.

 

[Saint Boseph]

Wisconsin ran basic principles against us and could have named the score. That is something you do against FCS talent. We do not have FCS talent. Wisconsin anticipated our defensive gameplan perfectly and we were shell-shocked and could never adjust to them schematically. When a team runs a simple jet sweep and you routinely have one safety between the ball-carrier and the endzone, that is a scheme issue. Watch our linebackers and ends on these plays. They were not being put in position to stop them. When the linebacker is not told to focus on the motion man and does not even realize he has the ball until he's 15 yards outside of him, his speed and talent do not matter. Usain Bolt could've been at outside linebacker and never come close.

It appears to me that Bo is great in two instances: when his gameplan anticipates the opponent's gameplan to a high degree, and when he has great talent to fit his system. Unfortunately there are plenty of times when neither of those is true. The former will never consistently be true, and the latter will probably never consistently be true at Nebraska (unfortunately). Bo needs to be willing to compromise parts of his scheme in adjustment to these realities, or else we will need to get used to seeing 1-3 complete defensive disasters per season.

I see merit in this argument. Good coaches make the jump to great usually after a drastic change, but obviously it has to be a well calculated risk i.e. Osborne switching from 5-2 to 4-3 defense in the early 90's was huge.

Mostly because I have what most of my fellow husker fans term as an irrational love for Bo, I sincerely hope he makes one or two adjustments in the manner of Osborne that pay the same dividends. I will be devastated the day he isn't the coach anymore because besides wins and losses (which is obviously very important), he runs the program the right way. The man is the face of our program and I love that he is our figurehead. I really really really want Bo to succeed here and I get a huge knot in my chest and experience a lot of anxiety every time the Fire Bo Pelini crowd comes out of the woodwork. But your post definitely watered down my blind worship of Bo with a nice dose of pragmatism, which isn't always a bad thing.

 

[Blackshirt96]

^My hope is for a 3-4. It is much easier to land a quality LB then it is to get a quality DL. Plus I think VV could be a monster at nose tackle.

 

[kchusker_chris]

^My hope is for a 3-4. It is much easier to land a quality LB then it is to get a quality DL. Plus I think VV could be a monster at nose tackle.

then we'd have to blitz to get a pass rush. pelini doesn't blitz.

 

[Blackshirt96]

^My hope is for a 3-4. It is much easier to land a quality LB then it is to get a quality DL. Plus I think VV could be a monster at nose tackle.

then we'd have to blitz to get a pass rush. pelini doesn't blitz.

Yes he does, almost everytime the defense is 3rd & 6+. Other then that you are correct he won't blitz. I put that as a "My hope is" knowing he probably will not go away from the 4-3, but after the CCG game who knows what Pelini has in-store for the defense. Maybe it will push him to change some things, maybe he gets things turned around the way they are & maybe he will pull a Callahan & ride this thing into the ground. Only time will tell.

 

[Blackshirt96]

^FYI, Im one of those people who thinks Callahan would still be here if he would/could have retained Pelini as DC or would have cut lose Cosgrove & got a big splash hire at DC.

 

[kchusker_chris]

^FYI, Im one of those people who thinks Callahan would still be here if he would/could have retained Pelini as DC or would have cut lose Cosgrove & got a big splash hire at DC.

I'm with you there. I'm 99% sure Coz would have been gone had Bill been given another year.

It's also why I'm kind of alarmed about where this will go if no staff changes are made this year. If you look at the 2006 season and our losses, we gave up 28 to USC on the road - a #4 ranked team. Not exactly a terrible showing. We lose by 2 to Texas, a #5 team and only gave up 22. Our major defensive breakdown in 2006 was our loss to Oklahoma state, giving up 41. Compared to the current program - that's not too bad. Then we gave up 21 to Oklahoma in the Championship game, but that was a #8 ranked team. And 17 to Auburn, a #10 ranked team. How do you fire your DC when 4 of their 5 losses were to top 10 programs, and he never gave up more than 28 in those contests? On a team that focuses on offense? On average they gave up 18 points a game that year, and made it to the championship game. (and were competitive) 18 points would be a top 15 scoring defense this year. How can you fire a guy like that?

USC ended up 11-2 beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl w/ a #4 ranking

Oklahoma lost to Boise in the Fiesta ending up 11-3 and #11

Texas was coming of a MNC and ended up 10-3 ranked #13

Aurburn finished 11-2 #9

(those are some solid teams - and one hell of a tough schedule)

In comparison...(you'll pull out your apples and oranges again I'm sure)...in 2012 we didn't play a single top 10 team (save maybe OSU depending on where you look) - and we are giving up 26 points a game with a 63 and a 70 in there. If you advocate for the firing of Cosgrove (which I'd say every single person in here does) then how can you not advocate for the firing of JP, or at least some sort of staff change? The state of this program currently - is much worse IMO than the state of the program after the 2006 season. And look where that got us. No one saw that one coming...most of all Bill or Cosgrove.