*** What Did We Learn ***

[Jason Sitoke]

SJB put his head down and led with the crown of his head directly in the Purdue kid's chin. That was by definition of the rule "targeting". It was the right call, hopefully he will learn from it so we don't have to keep playing without him.

Its one thing to hate the rule, but it was an easy call.

No..... Just no.

His head was to the side and he led with his shoulder. I'm not sure how else a defender is supposed to make that play.

Having seen the replay a few dozen times, I'm just not sure how anyone is concluding that the crown of SJB's helmet didn't make contact with this kids chin?

Here is what they are trying to eliminate with this rule, and I repeat hating the rule is fine, I hate the way they are pussifying football just like everyone else hates it. I am simply interpreting the rule as it is. What they are trying to eliminate is guys leading in with the top of their head, or spearing. In other words, what they are asking of players is what coaches teach as fundamental tacking and one of those fundamentals is keeping your head up. Head up, facemask up, facing the opponent. Had SJB had his face up looking at the opponent, this call would never have been made. I don't understand how somebody can watch the same replay and not clearly see the fact that SJB led with the top of his helmet into the Purdue player. I also don't understand why guys want to tackle like this. I made a hit very similar to this on an opponent in high school and I swear I still get headaches as a result of the neck jam I got when I did it. It hurt me as much as it hurt him.

But how is a guy as tall as SJB supposed to get his shoulder into the mid-section of a player without bending forward? All defenders will be J. Mitchell size in a few years.

I didn't say anything about his shoulder. Also his height has nothing to do with it.

If his head is up, facing forward, this call is not made. PERIOD. They do not want guys trying to tackle like this. They don't want "spearing".

Again, all other arguments are useless. HEAD UP, NO CALL.

My point is that you must bend over at the waist to hit someone with the top of the shoulder. And if you are tall, you must bend over a lot. This means you need a near 90 degree bend at the neck to keep the face mask forward. The players should take off the shoulder pads and just run into opposing players with their chest. Football is dying a little every year as more BS rules are added.

If SJB's head is up...the call isn't made IMO. It was deemed a target because his head was down and he initiated contact with the crown. That's it. I don't believe they deemed the receiver defenseless in this case, which means you may hit high. If his head is up (which is absolutely how tackling is taught at all levels), there wouldn't be a penalty or an ejection.

I have been critical of these rules for a while, but with the long lasting effects of head injuries in this game, the spirit of the enforcement is in the right place. And honestly, the nfl has adjusted. Players are hitting receivers and separating them from the ball with their shoulders into the chest. And there is still plenty of hitting in the league to keep me entertained. The officials don't always get it right, but the rule is there for a reason, and with all of the attention brought to CTE and brain trauma lately, protection of the players is not taking a backseat anytime soon.

 

[jmfb]

Purdue is a really bad team and a very weak program now- Makes what Joe Tiller did there look even more impressive than I had thought

Defense improved, but against a very weak offense

Not just this week but in past games included, we defend 22 and 21 personell really well. Those are B1G style offenses

RGregory is the real deal. Doesnt matter if he was playing against air, his ball get off and body control are excellent

The receivers arent infallible- made some poor drops, easily left 80-90 yards on the field.

Abdullah may be one of the very best backs in the nation for running zone, he reads it about as well as anyone Ive ever seen. He is patient, but can react on a dime, split second decision making by him is just crazy good. When he sticks that foot in the ground and gets upfield, great explosiveness. Ive come to really appreciate how well this guy plays and what a perfect fit he is for this offense. If youve ever played running back and had to make those split decisions-you know what Im talking about. His field vision is uncanny, he rarely makes many mistakes in regards to that. He cleans up his ball security issues and he could be one of the better ones weve had- top 10 worthy.

Westercamp- we have a guy we can trust will catch the ball on punts- inside the 20 we are fine

TA is a work in progress who has a lot of potential

RKIII throws the post as well as anyone- but he limits our offense, the zone read, sweep read, power read, speed option- arent legitimate plays we can run with him in there and to Becks credit, we didnt.

 

[VectorVictor]

1. Spencer Long is a big out, unfortunately.

2. The officiating in this league is a disgrace.

I'll take blind incompetence over the willful malfeasance we had in the Big XII any day--at least with blind incompetence, it goes both ways.

 

[EZ-E]

Purdue is a really bad team and a very weak program now- Makes what Joe Tiller did there look even more impressive than I had thought

Defense improved, but against a very weak offense

Not just this week but in past games included, we defend 22 and 21 personell really well. Those are B1G style offenses

RGregory is the real deal. Doesnt matter if he was playing against air, his ball get off and body control are excellent

The receivers arent infallible- made some poor drops, easily left 80-90 yards on the field.

Abdullah may be one of the very best backs in the nation for running zone, he reads it about as well as anyone Ive ever seen. He is patient, but can react on a dime, split second decision making by him is just crazy good. When he sticks that foot in the ground and gets upfield, great explosiveness. Ive come to really appreciate how well this guy plays and what a perfect fit he is for this offense. If youve ever played running back and had to make those split decisions-you know what Im talking about. His field vision is uncanny, he rarely makes many mistakes in regards to that. He cleans up his ball security issues and he could be one of the better ones weve had- top 10 worthy.

Westercamp- we have a guy we can trust will catch the ball on punts- inside the 20 we are fine

TA is a work in progress who has a lot of potential

RKIII throws the post as well as anyone- but he limits our offense, the zone read, sweep read, power read, speed option- arent legitimate plays we can run with him in there and to Becks credit, we didnt.

We were able to play in our base defense a ton this week and get a lot of LBs some reps against Purdue's fairly traditional offense as you said, 21 and 23 sets. Really has to be a positive that we gave up only around 40 yards on the ground.

Agreed on Gregory. He's a basketball 6ft6 240 and I compared his game last fall to a Brian Arakpo or a Jason Taylor. He could almost very easily be an Outside LB in a 3-4. I don't think we should ever have him play with his hand in the ground. Standing up in the 5 technique would be ideal but I do like how we bring him from different spots on the OL to ensure they have to adjust to him and know where he is.

Malik Collins gets penetration quite often, but he really didnt disrupt many plays. I guess there is a difference between getting into the backfield and being disruptive.

Agreed on Ameer completely as we have said. That stretch play from the ShotGun is Ameer's play. I am hoping that Newby can be the next Ameer plus break away speed. Newby to this point has shown me that his top end speed is faster than Ameers. Newby doesn't make the right cuts like Ameer seems to do every play. That will come with experience.

I think TA was brought down to earth this week. It didn't help that we didn't have very good film to watch on Purdue though as they switched to a 3-4 over the bye week. Purdue showed quite a few run blitzes as well that I would venture to say Tommy hasn't seen many of.

Whenever Imani Cross is in we line up a TE basically behind one of the OTs and we run a power play up the middle from the gun. Like clockwork. TE blocks the opposite DE and the guard on the opposite side of where the TE lined up pulls and we run Imani up the middle.

If Imani wants to be an every down back, he is really going to have to work on exploding out of his first cut with a lot more speed. I just don't ever see him being an every down back unless he can do that in this offense.

Leroy Alexander played very well and I think he very well could be our other safety at this point in time. Hes at least up there. CC really left a lot to be desired this week.

We have something very special brewing in Lincoln. A lot of young talent on defense that is only held back by experience. I enjoy the fact that Bo learned from last year's mistake of not playing as many freshman as he should have.

 

[RedSavage]

I really liked the fact that we weren't afraid to take some shots down the field with Armstrong. I know a lot of people weren't happy with that bc it wasn't really working and we were deviating from what was working. I can't remember the last time Nebraska has taken shots like that down the field. It seems like we are pretty consistently too afraid to take those shots with Martinez in. I think there's a multitude of reasons why we don't take these shots with Martinez in; probably the biggest is that it obviously doesn't play to his strengths. I also don't think we are in a position to be able to take those shots very often.

I think getting Armstrong and the receivers these real game time reps is invaluable. Hopefully with more reps, would come more consistency from both the qb position and the WR position, as they were both at fault for the incompletions. I love Enunwa but he should have caught that long pass from TA for a TD, with more reps in those long situations, I imagine he doesn't drop that.

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[zoogs]

Love the breakdown EZ.

 

[EZ-E]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

 

[TGHusker]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

+1 - that is one thing I noticed as well. It seems that TA can feel and see the pressure in ways TM can't & moves to avoid it. TM can get happy feet a bit to quick.

I was wondering about Turner's drop pass - perfectly thrown into his hands. Didn't look like Turner stretched out for it - he was later out of uniform - what kind of injury does he have and I wondered if that contributed to that dropped TD pass.

 

[NUinID]

I learned that the game is starting to slow down for our young defense. Yes it was Purdue, but if this game is the second game of the year they don't look this good. They are starting to play faster, and Bo knows it.

I also know we really only play one more true spread team this year and they are beat up at RB and QB and that bodes well for us.

Ameer is a really, really good running back. The only thing that keeps him from being great is that he doesn't have great top end speed.

I don't even need to mention Randy Gregory, but I like the looks of McMullen, Curry, VV and Moss also.

We need to really think about throwing the WR screen a lot less, we don't block it very well most of the time.

 

[ZRod]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

+1 - that is one thing I noticed as well. It seems that TA can feel and see the pressure in ways TM can't & moves to avoid it. TM can get happy feet a bit to quick.

I was wondering about Turner's drop pass - perfectly thrown into his hands. Didn't look like Turner stretched out for it - he was later out of uniform - what kind of injury does he have and I wondered if that contributed to that dropped TD pass.

He's had a tweaked hammy for a few weeks now, that's probably why he couldn't get under the ball and catch it.

 

[QMany]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

I will somewhat agree with this. I think the big difference is the normalcy of TA's pocket presence and movement around the pocket. I think he is more traditional, and that it makes it more predictable and easier for the OL to block accordingly. I think Taylor has pretty good "presence," but his footwork and movement isn't traditional. Reminds me of playing basketball with a guy who would run the correct plays, but his footwork or timing were just a little off from what the rest of the team was used to seeing.

 

[Thanks_Tom RR]

And as far as SJB's hit, I was very close to the field on that end and it sure as heck looked like first contact was made with I

his shoulder and the helmet to helmet was incidental and really minor compared to what I've seen.

With the advantage of watching it on TV, this is also what I thought in real time.  When you break it down in slow mo, he does make contact with his helmet.  The refs were pretty spot on.

When 2 players approximately the same height are both in athletic stances and a tackle is made, the helmets will hit more times than not.  People need to stop acting like it's such a big deal.  A helmet is the most sophisticated piece of equipment on a player's body.  A little contact there won't do much.

What?! You did say a "little contact", so I will assume you did not mean to imply that the helmet is such a technological marvel that helmet-to-helmet contact is not a problem (even though that is how I initially read it). Really though, a player is at the greatest risk when they are hit in the head, so many statistics would prove this.

 

[Count 'Bility]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

I will somewhat agree with this. I think the big difference is the normalcy of TA's pocket presence and movement around the pocket. I think he is more traditional, and that it makes it more predictable and easier for the OL to block accordingly. I think Taylor has pretty good "presence," but his footwork and movement isn't traditional. Reminds me of playing basketball with a guy who would run the correct plays, but his footwork or timing were just a little off from what the rest of the team was used to seeing.

This is interesting. You guys bring up an intriging point. I think the two's pocket movement is totall reflective on their respective running styles. Taylor being more straight line and gashing while Tommy has more shake and bake, which is seemingly better in the pocket when trying to maneuver around pressure.

 

[HuskerShark]

And as far as SJB's hit, I was very close to the field on that end and it sure as heck looked like first contact was made with I

his shoulder and the helmet to helmet was incidental and really minor compared to what I've seen.

With the advantage of watching it on TV, this is also what I thought in real time. When you break it down in slow mo, he does make contact with his helmet. The refs were pretty spot on.

When 2 players approximately the same height are both in athletic stances and a tackle is made, the helmets will hit more times than not. People need to stop acting like it's such a big deal. A helmet is the most sophisticated piece of equipment on a player's body. A little contact there won't do much.

What?! You did say a "little contact", so I will assume you did not mean to imply that the helmet is such a technological marvel that helmet-to-helmet contact is not a problem (even though that is how I initially read it). Really though, a player is at the greatest risk when they are hit in the head, so many statistics would prove this.

A majority of football players would much rather get hit in the head than to have their knees taken out. I know I would.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

We also learned that our pass protection looks a lot better when we have a QB with pocket presence.

I will somewhat agree with this. I think the big difference is the normalcy of TA's pocket presence and movement around the pocket. I think he is more traditional, and that it makes it more predictable and easier for the OL to block accordingly. I think Taylor has pretty good "presence," but his footwork and movement isn't traditional. Reminds me of playing basketball with a guy who would run the correct plays, but his footwork or timing were just a little off from what the rest of the team was used to seeing.

This is interesting. You guys bring up an intriging point. I think the two's pocket movement is totall reflective on their respective running styles. Taylor being more straight line and gashing while Tommy has more shake and bake, which is seemingly better in the pocket when trying to maneuver around pressure.

Agree. I don't think Taylor's problem is that he gets happy feet too quickly, I think it's that he stays flatfooted too long. Sometimes you just need to take a couple steps to buy you that extra second in the pocket, staying mobile but not yet scrambling. The good quarterbacks all do this. Taylor's not bad when he's forced to roll out, but otherwise he stays frozen too long. It's interesting to hear the great QB coaches talking about what young QBs need to work on most. It's rarely the arm, or even the vision. It's the footwork.