Two biggest liabilities on D

huzkerbob

huzkerbob

All-Conference
Larry Asante

Don't get me wrong our entire secondary needs to get their head in the game. (O' Hanlon!!!) But the early blocked punt was a complete mental collapse on Asante's part. And at no time during the game was he consistantly covering his receivers. If our safety play does not improve we are in BIG trouble come conference play.

Tyler Wortman

Plain and simple, we allowed Taylor far to many rushing lanes on the strong side of the field. At least a half dozen times we covered their WRs, only to allow 20 yards of open field on Wortmans side! Go back and count how often Matt was blocked out of the play by a Tackle who was still engaged to our DE. They didn't even have to get to the second level to block our LB! This simply can not happen over and over again. At no time in the second half was their RB a threat in any way. Yet consistently Wortman was caught out of position in the middle of the formation. If he can't make mental corrections, that are that obvious he should not be on the field!

Harsh? Maybe, but can you argue?

 
No and no. Cannot argue.

Simple as that. :)

But I think the coaches finally began to wise up later in the game by playing Thenarse and Culbert.

 
Larry Asante has shown that time and time again that we have issues at saftey. He completely blows coverages and assignments, over pursues the runner, and is a poor tackler. The blocked punt was rediculous. How can you watch a guy run right past you within arms reach, and yet not be blocking someone else? But hey, at least he was the first guy running after the ball after it was blocked. <_<

 
Don't really agree with the Murrillo assesment. It seemed to be the players who both safeties should have been covering that where open all night.

Not sure if a n adjustment of assignments is possible at this point. But I think it's obvious that our intermediate coverage was an EPIC FAIL against VT!

 
I wouldn't just point the finger at Asante. Neither of the starters should play if you ask me. The only good thing that O'Hanlon did was stop a couple run plays. They are both not able to pick up a receiver and both get sucked in everytime leaving the deep ball there every time.

I disagree with however said Murillo. That guy had to make tackles for the safety because the safety forgot who to cover. I think Murillo making the tackles made it look like it was his guy that was open when it was either Asante's or O'Hanlon's.

Wortman = taking up space (he won't play much from now on though because we will be in a nickel)

Maybe I missed something but I don't remember Thenarse being out there on defense. I say Culburt not Ricky.

 
Murillo was out of position alot of times. came off of his reciever, on the QB scrambling, to have the pass thrown over his head to a wide open reciever.

missed tackles, he was not the only one, but he had his share.

just my thoughts and observations from the south stadium

 
husker rob said:
Murillo was out of position alot of times. came off of his reciever, on the QB scrambling, to have the pass thrown over his head to a wide open reciever.
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I'd have to go look, but that might be a safety problem. If they're playing zone, it's entirely possible that he'd let a receiver go if he's supposed to have safety help. *shrug*

 
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newearthhusker said:
I wouldn't just point the finger at Asante. Neither of the starters should play if you ask me. The only good thing that O'Hanlon did was stop a couple run plays. They are both not able to pick up a receiver and both get sucked in everytime leaving the deep ball there every time.

I disagree with however said Murillo. That guy had to make tackles for the safety because the safety forgot who to cover. I think Murillo making the tackles made it look like it was his guy that was open when it was either Asante's or O'Hanlon's.

Wortman = taking up space (he won't play much from now on though because we will be in a nickel)

Maybe I missed something but I don't remember Thenarse being out there on defense. I say Culburt not Ricky.
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Thenarse came in and made a couple of nice stops on Tyrod and in the passing game that I can remember distinctly. The radio broadcast crew mentioned his play after he got in, also mentioned that Asante didn't get back in.....

 
Agree with the Asante rants, and to go on record I called this guy out with a thread after the San Jose State game. There were two very concerning plays that Asante was involved in. First the blocked punt, he just barely chipped one of the rushers and took off down field. Take away the inside rusher at least cause the outside man has further to travel to get to the punter. The second play was a corner blitz by Prince I believe and Asante's responsibility was a deep half behind the blitz. For who knows what reason the only receiver on his side was twenty yards down field by himself, catching the ball for about 35 or so before Larry tackled the guy. By the way the play if you watch was a two receiver rout and max protection by Va Tech, there was no excuse for Asante not to know where he was supposed to be. The guy could have been an asset coming into the year, but looks like he is falling into last years form.

Wortman is not the best athlete at his position by far, but I am willing to bet that he knows more about the position, the defense and mental prep than those behind him so almost by default he starts and plays. And isn't that what we all screamed for last year was players knowing what they were supposed to be doing.

Finally some of the chinks in Cody Glenn's hype started rearing their heads. Yes the guy makes plays, but how many of those plays are made covering up his errors. It started to show and I for one was stoked to see Blake Lawrence getting a bunch of snaps. This kid should be playing a lot more.

These are just a few of my thoughts about the defense. THE BIGGEST SILVER LINING is the RED ZONE defense, they continue to give up only threes and not sixes and that is a positive, it certainly kept us in the game last night.

 
THE BIGGEST SILVER LINING is the RED ZONE defense, they continue to give up only threes and not sixes and that is a positive, it certainly kept us in the game last night.
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This is true. I just hope it is attitude and play calling getting it done. And not the fact that our safeties don't let the zones break down, cuz they only have 10-20 yards to cover :blink:

Whats worse is that it's all MENTAL! All these guys can play, they just aren't playing as a unit. Most of the mistakes are correctable.

 
Asante is the worst starting defensive player that I can ever remember at NU. Murillo isn't great either. He makes the occasional play, but whiffs on tackles and lets guys go by him. I really don't remember much of Wortman from last night. O'Hanlon is up and down.

Wow, we need help.

 
I got the impression from Pelini on his show tonight that he thought the blocked punt, safety, was one of the biggest plays of the game. I'm not an Asante hater or anything but he just looked lazy last night. That blocked punt made him look really, really bad - I mean it's not like he was busy blocking someone else at the time!

 
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