Pelini has something up his sleeve?

B

BigRedWeatherman

Five-Star Recruit
So my initial reactions through and after the game was that our defense is horrible (albeit we have a young and inexperienced secondary without Dennard). But after hearing Pelini's post game comments I am scratching my head a little. Here are a few quotes:

"I didn't call a great game in the fourth quarter," he said. "I thought they were going to come out and start throwing the football, so I kind of turned the defensive linemen loose a little bit and was like, ‘OK, go ahead, run the ball.'

"If we would have tackled better, I thought we could just use some clock. I didn't really care about the points at that point."

"They put us out of position at times. They gave us a lot of things that were different, that we weren't quite expecting. But, yeah, tackling was better. I thought we responded well early."

"I thought they kind of had us reeling a bit early. I thought some of our young guys got a little bit out of sorts. But then I thought we settled down. I thought we did a good job up until early in the fourth quarter."

and Bo went so far as to say that we had them guessing all day against our offense.

Call me crazy, but is this not one of the most non-negative comment laden press conferences for such a lack luster performance (I know it should be positive, but does Bo ever really give a positive press conference?)

Usually you hear Bo tearing up the team on a performance like that. I don't know what it is, but I just got a hint of confidence from this. Does he know something we don't, like not giving a crap about points in the forth quarter? I don't think one of his and Carl's defenses goes down so much in a year from a few inexperienced positions. Maybe...just maybe...he is having the D play as low key as possible right now so we don't have a huge bullseye on us coming into the Wisky game. I know I am drunk on the Kool Aid right now, but it's fun to have conspiracy theories!

 
I want to say he is holding back the D, but then again I thought the same thing when we played Texas last year and we all know how well that ended up

 
I only heard a quick snippet of another interview and he said something about it being a weird fourth quarter. He did sound really up beat though and was praising the Oline pretty heavily, I thought he was tripping or something with the way he sounded. I'm guessing he felt the team played pretty well and the execution was ok but for some slip ups, but the coaching may have been lacking some.

 
Bo's getting more like Osborne was with the press. Very even, never high or low. I think he also just looks at the way the defense played in the 2nd and 3rd quarter, and views that as what this defense is supposed to be. They just need to turn in a full 4 quarters, and getting Dennard back will help.

This defense could still be very, very good. I hope we shock some folks in Madison.

 
Hercules said:
Bo's getting more like Osborne was with the press. Very even, never high or low. I think he also just looks at the way the defense played in the 2nd and 3rd quarter, and views that as what this defense is supposed to be. They just need to turn in a full 4 quarters, and getting Dennard back will help.

This defense could still be very, very good. I hope we shock some folks in Madison.
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They very well could. They are going up there...not expected to win...Wiscy has a team loaded with upper classmen that played in the Rose last year and have been bolstered by the addition of Wilson etc. Our guys are mostly still kids that just don't know any better and if they tap into that "What the hell...just play...devil may care mentality" well then, Madison may be shocked into learning to fear the skers!

 
We're just reloading with a lot of our personnel. Some bumps on the road in that process. It really is nothing to freak out over, although the DL is a small concern. The season is still young, though.

 
The thing that bothers me about this is that he said the same thing after Fresno. That they were doing things we hadn't seen on tape and hadn't prepared for. That is your job as a coach, to prepare your players for whatever the opposition may throw at you.

You can't expect every team to come out and run exactly what they have on tape. Especially when teams gear up to play the Huskers and give us their best shot. This is on Bo and Carl to get it together and figure out a game plan for the defense to stop opposing offenses regardless of what they throw at us. Their offense shouldn't dictate our defense. Our defense should dictate their offense.

 
Here is a random thought and take it for what it is worth.

Remember how last year we had some trouble playing at home, but we did exceptionally well on the road?

I wonder if it has carried over from last year...

Wyoming is our first road game. Keep your heads up Husker Nation.

 
I noticed he was very calm and confident even during his little halftime interview before he went to the locker room. Very un-Bo.

 
I'm glad you started this thread. I thought the last 2 pressers were very different for Bo. When I hear him talk there is this kind of calm confidence about the team that I haven't heard before. He talks a lot about the product being unfinished but I think he believes the ceiling is higher than any team he's had so far. It almost sounds like he's got a secret. He knows something we don't. Maybe I'm hearing it thru red filters but I don't think he has ever sounded like this before.

 
I must admit I came away from this game somewhat impressed with the offense and the progress they've made. That said, do we our really think Bo would hold back his D? I can see not showing the whole playbook, but I still think we have some issues that may not be "fixed" by conference play. Our front 4 seems to be getting handled most of the time and our ST coverage has been pretty poor. I repeatedly saw the other team receive the ball and had 15-20 yards of field with no Huskers around. Not sure you can "hold back" on that.

Regardless, I really hope this is as fixable as Bo says, and we make the adjustments necessary before we visit Camp Randall. If not, it could be a rather rude welcome to the B1G IMO....

GBRR!!

 
Here's another thought. Perhaps Bo has now shifted his attention to the offense now that he has his own OC up there in the booth. He may have been so excited about the offense that the defense doesn't concern him. Bo's a genius at the Defensive side of the ball. Perhaps he feels he can now shift he attention a little more to that side and is feeling relief because he might have been nervous about getting his offense going at the start of the season.

I agree with him. Up until the 4th quarter when we just ran the ball with Rex repeatedly I thought our offense did keep them guessing all day. We had recievers open and holes open and guys running free most of the day. I thought the offense looked much more sharp and crisp this week. As disappointed as I was with the defense I was equally impressed with the offense.

 
I don't know any NU coaches so I don't know how/when they watch film and scout opponents, but........

All Spring and Summer Bo and staff talked about how the entire season will be an "out of conference" type schedule. They needed to deeply study film and tendencies on all the teams they would face (only Washington was a repeat, and they have a different QB with different skill sets). I believe Bo and Co. put far more credence into the conference schedule than the non-conference, which they should.

That said, maybe the coaching staff didn't get to spend as much time studying up on the non-conference portion of the schedule because they wanted to make DAMN SURE they were prepared for the likes of Wisconsin, OSU, Mich State, Iowa, etc. Now, I don't for a minute think that coaches had players preparing or practicing for Big Ten teams yet. But early morning and late night hours for coaches might have been spent watching film on conference teams rather than dissecting non-conference opponents.

I haven't noticed Bo & Carl using a lot of timeouts (like 5 out of the 6) when Fresno or Washington gave a look they weren't ready for. I think that might be because they weren't sure what was going to happen so why waste the timeout to tell the defense, "Not sure what they are going to do, so be ready for anything!" In games in previous years, it seemed like they were calling timeouts just because the offense's breathing pattern changed and it tipped the coaches off to something. They knew the intricacies of opponents down to minutia. I don't think Bo cares less this year, I believe he understands the situation: Get by the non-conference and roll the Big Ten!!!

My feeling about the staff is if they were going to lose a couple games, they would much rather lose them early and run the conference table.

This theory doesn't take all responsibility from the players, this just isn't last year's defense. We have young guys that currently are not as good as the folks they are replacing on D. Will Green, Evans, or Mitchell be as good as Prince, Gomes or Hagg by the end of the year? Very doubtful. But I believe they will be much better in two weeks than they were yesterday. Getting Dennard back is going to be a big improvement to the defense as long as he's physically ready. His return will not only improve coverage but also help to create pressure up front.

 
I came away from this game scratching my head a little with the way the D played. I know we are young in the secondary but man did we have some mis cues there. There O played a ton better we had some great plays but we had a couple bone headed plays too. I think we will be ok by the winsky game. that game is going to be awesome and the atmphear will be thru the roof. if we keep getting better we will be fine. I am not worried yet maybe a little on D but not much

 
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