Penalties: Yellow a bad color for Huskers

Saunders

Saunders

Heisman Trophy Winner
Bo Pelini's teams were often roasted for their tendency to disobey the rules during the former coach's tenure, but his teams were never this bad. The Huskers actually improved in Pelini's later years, dropping down to 5.8 penalties and 50.4 yards last year.

In fact, it was Nebraska's current coach who struggled more with flags last season. With Mike Riley at the helm, Oregon State averaged 8.9 penalties and 79.8 yards, some of the worst marks in the country. And while those numbers were high, they aren't giant outliers - the Beavers ranked 66th or worse in the nation in penalties accrued in each of the last five years, twice settling in the 100s.

Conventional thinking would suggest that infractions would decrease when moving from the combustible Pelini to mild-mannered Riley. That the opposite has happened is confusing, especially considering the manner in which NU has racked up its penalty yardage.

https://nebraska.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1812962
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Edit: There's also an interesting bit about the receivers at the bottom of the article. Who would have thought Alonzo Moore would have our highest catch percentage?

 
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My only question is, how come it is not going both ways? What does it cost for them to throw a holding flag against Collins. Dude gets tackled on almost every play but not one holding call against Wisconsin.

 
klb835 said:
My only question is, how come it is not going both ways? What does it cost for them to throw a holding flag against Collins. Dude gets tackled on almost every play but not one holding call against Wisconsin.
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I'd be happy with them just evening out the bad PI calls. The one on Cockrell was atrocious, because he beat the receiver to the ball. And Riley not getting a call after he got tackled mid air before the ball was bad too.

 
I remember Collins getting called for offsides with his helmet over the ball a couple times this year, and I see this all the time and it hardly ever gets called.

 
saunders45 said:
klb835 said:
My only question is, how come it is not going both ways? What does it cost for them to throw a holding flag against Collins. Dude gets tackled on almost every play but not one holding call against Wisconsin.
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I'd be happy with them just evening out the bad PI calls. The one on Cockrell was atrocious, because he beat the receiver to the ball. And Riley not getting a call after he got tackled mid air before the ball was bad too.
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Part of the problem is reputation--officials study the teams before they go and officiate the games, and Nebraska...well, we have a negative reputation that precedes us when it comes to penalties. As a result, things are going to be skewed against us until we fix our own mistakes and change perception.

Officials are human, and no, this isn't right. But it is how these things go, and it's why we won't get many 50/50 calls until we fix ourselves either.

Of course, whether or not the staff is equipped to actually fix this problem is another discussion...

 
If we get another illegal formation or 5-men in the backfield penalty this year, I might have to gouge my eyes out

 
This may be a no-brainer, but one thing I always take into account when it comes to penalties is the situation and the talent. A lot of times, penalties happen when there's a talent/athletic advantage or when there's confusion. A lot of our penalties I think have been due to confusion as I don't think there's been much of a talent discrepancy, at least on paper, with most of the teams we've played. I think the new schemes and the players' overall poor execution of the scheme, especially in the secondary, is leading to some of those penalties.

I have to say, though, that I was really disappointed with the refs against Wisconsin. Penalties are one of many things affecting the team, but, it certainly doesn't help when the ticky-tack calls are almost entirely one-sided. I saw Wisconsin do some very aggressive plays in the secondary, some of which were worse than at least one of the PI calls against the Huskers, and the Badgers were never called.

Overall, I've been disappointed with the consistency of penalties being called this year from an officiating standpoint.

 
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This is a cultural thing within a program. That's why it automatically doesn't improve just by a coaching change. It might take some time to get this out of their system. Hopefully it improves as the year goes and drastically improves for next year.

 
BigRedBuster said:
This is a cultural thing within a program. That's why it automatically doesn't improve just by a coaching change. It might take some time to get this out of their system. Hopefully it improves as the year goes and drastically improves for next year.
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Illegal formation and motion penalties are cultural? Yeah...sorry...but no. That's coaching and knowledge right there, not some cultural issue that exists in the locker room.

 
BigRedBuster said:
This is a cultural thing within a program. That's why it automatically doesn't improve just by a coaching change. It might take some time to get this out of their system. Hopefully it improves as the year goes and drastically improves for next year.
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I disagree that it's a cultural thing within the program. The penalties under Bo were not as high as they are under Riley. Under Riley, the penalties have increased. You can't blame that on the "culture".

 
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BigRedBuster said:
This is a cultural thing within a program. That's why it automatically doesn't improve just by a coaching change. It might take some time to get this out of their system. Hopefully it improves as the year goes and drastically improves for next year.
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Did you not read the article? Riley's teams have a history of being highly penalized. Illegal formation penalties have nothing to do with culture

 
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