Offensively:
Much better on the o-line. Maybe UW was soft, but I really don't think that was the case. The oline looked like they meshed together a lot better today, and were much more physical. Backs ran hard, and the combination of Rex's tough yards and the frosh rb's speed and elusiveness, I feel fairly good about the running game. Martinez managed the game a lot better. Still sucks as a passer, but if the running game is working well, play action will open up and he does ok with that. He still shys away from contact, which is fine if he's going to slide, but if he's not going to slide, he needs to lower his shoulder. Reed, Bell and Enunwa are studs and need more opportunities. Turner is still not being used as much as he needs to be. Kinnie might be picking splinters out of his butt by the Wisconsin game. Overall, much better, but not good enough to win in conference play.
Defensively:
Not really sure what to say. They flat out sucked today. Secondary is and will take a lot of the heat, but they weren't helped out by the rest of the D at all. The D's crappiness all fed off of each other. The Dline was not getting pressure by themselves (kind of makes sense due to 5-6 blockers vs. 4 rushers, although Suh would tell you otherwise). The linebackers are not good enough to blitz one and still cover assignments with the other 2, therefore not helping the Dline by occupying a blocker. The secondary isn't good enough to lock down receivers to allow linebackers to be lost to blitz packages....yada yada yada. Defense is the epitome of "team", and we just don't have the playmakers at all 3 levels to disrupt good offenses. Dennard coming back will help, but what happens if he goes down again? Is our defense this year like our offense last year, where one guy may make or break a season? I hope not. One guy should not effect a defense quite that much. If the defense keeps up at this pace, I would have no problems taking the over in Wisconsin scoring 45 points. I have faith that the Pelinis will figure it out, but the D WILL cost us more games than the offense this year. Sad to say.
Everything else:
Little disappointed in the team's intensity for 4 quarters. We were up 44-17 and looking to cruise to a bigger win that last year, and the team kind of packed it in. Give UW credit, they came to play, and it took some questionable reffing and a huge boner on special teams for us to put it away. I was not happy to see UW make a game of it in the 4th quarter. This game could have been a 65-17 game, but they team didn't want it enough. That's on the coaches. Bo seems like a guy that would keep pushing to beat every team by 70 pts if they could, but he doesn't seem to preach that on the field. I'd like to see a lot more killer instinct from the team. I'm sick and tired of watching teams crawl back into games they have no business being in (OkSt and OU last year come to mind).
I don't know if I feel any better about this team this week than I did last week to be honest. But I've always tried to be an optimist in life, and until the Cornhuskers actually lose, I won't all that upset. Here's to a 3-0 start to the '11 season.
