ContributorsStrange things are afoot at the Husker Ranch since three UCLA victory formations for minus 5 yards were all that kept the Bruins from eclipsing the 656 yard NU pile-on record set by OU in 1956. Though the Huskers have returned home from SoCal, there’s a sense the whole program is still stuck in LA-LA land.
For history buffs the 1956 Sooners were perhaps HOF coach Bud Wilkenson’s best team. OU averaged 45 points per game and pitched six shutouts with only 2 teams scoring TDs on them. OU cruised to a second consecutive NC and the 1956 team helped OU reach 30 consecutive victories on its way to a never to be broken 47 consecutive win streak.
As with any game, there were a couple positives. The front four actually came out attacking better than the previous week and weren’t bowled over quite as badly as they were from the get-go against SoMiss. They clogged the middle, forcing ball carriers to alter their lanes and brought a better pass rush.
Give credit to Franklin and Hundley who will embarrass defenders all year, but NU’s D was in position to stop enough scoring drives to sneak out of the Rose Bowl with a win. The biggest problem was that, instead of tackling, they whiffed, slipped, armed, and/or bounced off anyone with the ball.
It felt a bit like the “Red Faced Around the World” Texas game, only this time instead of passes slipping through Husker hands, it was ball carriers. Tackling obviously wasn’t the only issue, but extending drives is tiring, demoralizing, and contribute to later fatigue.
On offense, the positive was that NU coulda-woulda won if a UCLA had gained (only) 500 yards. The O-line got murdalized-but-good in the second half and the wheels completely fell off T-Mart, but NU scored enough to win.
So, as weird as sounds to cite goodness in the UCLA game, there’s more strange in the bad of the game and the aftermath. There were definitely some odd D assignments and O play calls worthy of questions.
Stafford kept getting assigned to cover a tailback out of the backfield, including on the Bruins’ last TD. Even in a goal line situation, expecting Daimion to come up from his safety spot is a pretty big ask and much harder in the middle of drives when UCLA kept running swing passes at or behind the line of scrimmage.
Whaley was also seen trailing behind ‘Y’ receiver Fauria (8) on a few occasions which in a perfect world never happens, especially as I noted last week, he struggled to cover anything.
All more fuel to the questions about whether Pelini’s schemes demand total schtud-boys like Lavonte at WILL and Hagg ‘Peso-backer’ who can read and defend anyone from a 230 pound back to a 185 pound receiver. Beasts like Suh at DT that can blow up plays before they form and CBs like Dennard and Prince that are able to blanket in man coverage for 4 seconds. The statistical D drop-off over the past two years in direct correlation with those graduations adds up to smoke worthy of looking for fire.
Now in the post-mortem we learn OLBs Whaley and Fisher as well as likely CB Green will find more bench and DT Rome is out possibly for good. Five players built for “speed” will see significant turf time with three of them (CB Seisay and OLBs Zaire and Santos) having not seen a snap prior to this week. A radical move that feels like a shocking admission from the typically defiant Pelini that the talent question is in fact being questioned.
On offense, the aggressive UCLA D played in the backfield and Martinez’s kitchen most of the second half. As pressure mounted, Martinez’s passing accuracy, already off a bit all day, plummeted and he reverted back to trying to hand out turnovers.
The safety was the first time I can ever remember seeing a zone read play run from the endzone. Maybe because the ZR develops deep, allowing a DE to come free and if he does crash in, the QB needs to hand off. In this case it was extra strange because after T-Mart’s 94 yard TD run, UCLA committed to sniffing the play and crashing every time. Still a mystery is how T-Mart didn’t see a 6’ 4”, 275 pound, powder blue freight train coming, but he clearly read wrong as he’s often done over the course of two years, taking the play call to yet another level of curiosity.
The Huskers looked poised to regain sanity on the next possession and mustered a bruising 76 yard drive solely on the ground. Then, in the span of two plays, the Huskers couldn’t pound-out one yard with a 250 pound FB on 3rd and 1 and hooked a 37 yard field goal. Tim Beck would say the 3rd and 1 play was his deepest regret, but I’m guessing not his only one.
Maybe more regrettable was on the next possession with over six minutes remaining, Tim didn’t recall the ground attack that had just gassed UCLA’s D and gave NU its only sniff of the red zone since midway in the second quarter. Instead he got pass-happy, having his flustered QB throw (unsuccessfully) on three straight downs.
On the next drive with 3:23 remaining and armed with the knowledge that UCLA had just plowed NU’s O-line and chastised Martinez into three ugly pass attempts, Beck felt air-headed again and aimed skyward. The second of two pressured, errant throws was picked and UCLA was set up on NU’s 16, for all purposes putting NU away.
The silver lining is that, other than mild fantasies that a come-from-nowhere NC run like OU had in 2000 was theorhetically possible, I doubt many partisans really believed NU would play in Miami this season; so Bo’s right when he says “it’s still all out there for us” and “we want to play our last game back here (in the Rose Bowl).”
Understandably, after a 653 yard planting, many Nebraska faithful are feeling there’s more fertilizer than roses in any Pasadena talk; with more than a few folks already calling for heads or hot seats.
Reality however is there’s a slim to none chance of a change midseason (and Slim’s still at the bar trying to drown 653 sorrows). Frankly there’s little chance of a wholesale change before next year either, barring a losing season, so for now the Pelini mortality debate is futile and alternatives are few other than to watch it all play out. Looking at the depleted state of this year’s B1G, everyone will know soon enough the state of the program, especially if NU fails to compete for a ticket to Indianapolis.
For those keeping the faith, there are a few reasons to believe NU can realistically compete. The D can improve two-fold just by making tackles, which will often suffice. There are also undeniable improvements across the board on offense, even if they’re not as dramatic as some wanted to believe after laying 632 yards on Southern Miss.
Bottom line it’s going to be a crazy ride no matter how it goes. It seems pretty obvious it’s going to take awhile just to shake off the dizziness from a freaky trip to LA-LA land. How can I be so sure sanity is going to take some time to return? When was the last time a million Husker fans were panicking about a home game against Arkansas State?
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