Where *** was wrong

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

And 1st and 10.....there was dart for 4. Maybe i hadnt just noticed it as much as our run game blew

Yeah, I was in another thread, or I was going to tell you that there it was.

 

[huskermike]

Frost has an AD and department giving total support and working in unison. Riley had an AD micromanaging, interfering, and undercutting his ability to run his program as he saw fit. What's scary is this thought...give Riley Moos as AD and an athletic department working in unison and his teams would have ax murdered Frost's teams.

At this point Riley was 17-13 while Frost is 11-19. :Frown:

 

[Hat on the Ball]

Welcome to the board!

Yes, they are almost unrecognizably different except that both have 3 DL and 4 LBs in their base alignment. In the Diaco 3-4, about the only purpose that the 3 DL serve is to eat up as many OL blockers as possible so that the LBs can run free and make plays. The ILBs typically start at 5 yards depth, and ideally they are expected to be clean (unblocked} and free to run to the ball after they take their read step. The OLBs can be tight on the Line of Scrimmage, but often they'll play back at 2 and sometimes even 3-4 yards of depth, especially if WRs are split wide outside of them. Diaco rarely blitzes, so it's basically 3 War Daddy DL trying to take on at least 5 blockers (the OL) in order to get to the QB, and all 8 of the rest of the defense are dropping coverage. The CBs usually give a soft cushion to always keep the WRs in front of them. Likewise, the Safeties usually are deep. If it's a 2-deep with CBs covering WRs on both sides, it's supposed to look like an opened umbrella, so it's often called "umbrella coverage." The secondary will almost always be zone, and the goal is to always keep the ball and the WRs in front of you. This is perhaps the most conservative bend-but-don't-break defense that you're likely to see in Power 5 football. Although it's simpler and more conservative with greater depth, the concept isn't that different from Ohio State's defense, but it takes athletes like what Ohio State has to cover all of that ground and be able to come up quickly and thump people.

Chinander's is what is often called an "attacking 3-4," and he likes to run a Bear Front against running teams in traditional running situations. This means that the 3 DL will all line up inside of the OTs, so there are 3 DL to cover 4 gaps. If there's a TE, we'll roll up an OLB right across from him as the Edge Defender, but he'll also have to check the TE if he goes out for pass, and he'll usually have to cover the flat against pass. If there's no TE on the backside, we often roll up the other OLB onto the LoS, and he's basically a 4th DL and an Edge Rusher. He has Edge containment against the run or a QB rollout, but he is usually free to rush the QB if he reads Pass and there aren't any backs or WRs coming across the backfield in his direction. In Chinander's 3-4, if we line up in the Bear Front (3 DL inside of the OTs), it's almost impossible for an interior OL to climb to our ILB and get a clean block on him. If they send an OT to block him, it's a relatively easy read to know where to get to the ball, and it's a difficult block in space for an OT against a quicker ILB. Unless a back or receiver is coming across the formation, both ILBs will scrape in the direction of the ball, which means that even if the OT on the playside makes a good block on his ILB, the other should be coming to fill beside him. Chinander also runs a mix of pass coverages in the secondary. We do a lot of zone, but we ran man-to-man on the outside WRs against Penn State. Personally, I hope that we do that against Purdue because I think Cam Taylor-Britt can shut down a top-flight WR like David Bell if we unleash him and let him play. Even if we're man on outside WRs, we're still usually Zone underneath, but if the offense empties the backfield, we will sometimes go man all of the way across with just one deep Safety; this means that we can sometimes end up in a mismatch where a guy like Will Honas is guarding a faster RB. Chinander also blitzes ... A LOT. The 3 DL + 1 OLB is our base defense, so I don't even consider that a blitz, but we often bring an ILB, sometimes a Safety, occasionally a CB, and sometimes we bring a combination of 2 of those. We've even had blitzes that started out looking like a straight zone defense where 7 defenders were going to drop, but then we brought every defender that wasn't manned up on a receiver. That's high risk/high reward, and we can't afford to do that often, but we might see it against Purdue because their QB seems to get rattled when he gets heavy pressure.


There's a lot more to it than that, literally several books' worth, but that's probably enough to answer your question. Let me know if you want any clarification.

Thanks for the detailed insight @Middle-aged_Ball_Coach
You were correct on your hopes of having CTB cover Bell man to man. That was a big part of the defense's success. What do you think the game plan will be to stop the run this week? Do you think we can shut them down?

 

[NorthwoodHusker]

At this point Riley was 17-13 while Frost is 11-19. :Frown:

I think you take MRs last two years, when teams like purdue, illini,and even iowa became better teams.

The coaching and the recruiting has taken a decent uptick since the early days of Riley.
Besides the continual disruptions, bad admin controls,etc etc.
If things were so easy to turn around, texas would have been in the playoffs day one of Hermans hiring.

 

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

What do you think the game plan will be to stop the run this week? Do you think we can shut them down?

Minnesota has to be one of the largest O-Lines in the country, if not the largest. Their offense is based around a traditional Spread RPO offense. Ibrahim is a fantastic RB, and his running style will cause problems for any Nebraska defenders who don't wrap up. Morgan is a very competent and efficient QB in this system because he reads defenses well, makes good decisions, takes care of the football, throws the Inside-Slant passes very well, plus he can tuck the ball and run when needed. The entire offensive system is based on 1st grade math: Are there <6 defenders in the Box? If yes, run the ball; if no, throw the ball. Defenses have to be able to stop the run with only 6 defenders in the Box, but they also have to be able to stop the pass with only 5 defenders covering 4 WRs. It's a relatively simple offense, but they have all of the components to run it very well. Even if we do all of the above, there will still be times when our secondary has to turn their backs to the QB in order to cover their WRs, and that leaves us vulnerable to QB runs and scrambles. I don't expect us to shut down Minnesota's offense. Their O-Line should be the toughest test yet for our front 7 due to their massive size. If our D-Line can hold their ground, and if our LBs can get off the blocks of 320+ lb O-Linemen, we should be okay. Stopping the run is key. If it's a close game in the 4th quarter, I'm concerned that their O-Line will wear down our defense. I'm not as concerned about the pass, but I worry that we'll have a trade-off of either giving them too much space if we play zone, or we're vulnerable to big running plays by their QB if we play Man.

On the bright side, their defense is hurting. I expect them to stack the Box to stop the run, so we're going to need to complete some passes. If we limit turnovers and penalties and complete 60+% of our passes, our offense should roll. That means Red Zone production would be key.

If you go back and watch the 2nd half of the 2018 game, that is what I expect our whole game to look like. If our defense can get 3-and-outs, we could light them up. If Ibrahim runs for 200 yards, we'll be in a dog fight.

Here's Urban Meyer doing a great job of explaining the MN offense:




Here he is specifically breaking down how their then-young O-Line was able to handle Nebraska's D-Line last year:

 

[huskermike]

I think you take MRs last two years, when teams like purdue, illini,and even iowa became better teams.

The coaching and the recruiting has taken a decent uptick since the early days of Riley.
Besides the continual disruptions, bad admin controls,etc etc.
If things were so easy to turn around, texas would have been in the playoffs day one of Hermans hiring.

I've seen plenty of coaches take over a team and turn them into winners within 2 years. Some have even done it in their 1st season. Instead of 11-19; why isn't it 19-11? I, and most everyone here, expected more by this time. If Scott can improve on Saturday, I see him getting to that winning record.

...and I don't care about texass. :Smile:

 

[NorthwoodHusker]

I've seen plenty of coaches take over a team and turn them into winners within 2 years. Some have even done it in their 1st season. Instead of 11-19; why isn't it 19-11? I, and most everyone here, expected more by this time. If Scott can improve on Saturday, I see him getting to that winning record.

...and I don't care about texass. :Smile:

I had reservations about SF, not because he wasnt the guy, or certainly not our guy, but that he was a young guy.
Everyone points out that UCF isnt the Big, but never take into account at UCF, the players rejected the previous staff and went ofer, no wins coming from a decent team the prior years.
That team hadnt been discouraged or mis led, found their love of the game once again, the rest ncaa record breaking history.
So, young HC SF took over the exact opposite of that UCF team, where mediocrity was acceptable, people were quitting because of lack of love for the game, others leaving because they didnt embrace a higher standard and love for the game and went elsewheres.
''Pretty tough for a young coach to turn around quickly imo, though he'd shown he could do it, but not alone, you still need the jimmys n joes.
He's learning too, and he doesnt have an everyday Bobfather to learn from like TO did, and is why over time, things will improve, not a doubt

 

[Huskerwisdom]

Minnesota has to be one of the largest O-Lines in the country, if not the largest. Their offense is based around a traditional Spread RPO offense. Ibrahim is a fantastic RB, and his running style will cause problems for any Nebraska defenders who don't wrap up. Morgan is a very competent and efficient QB in this system because he reads defenses well, makes good decisions, takes care of the football, throws the Inside-Slant passes very well, plus he can tuck the ball and run when needed. The entire offensive system is based on 1st grade math: Are there <6 defenders in the Box? If yes, run the ball; if no, throw the ball. Defenses have to be able to stop the run with only 6 defenders in the Box, but they also have to be able to stop the pass with only 5 defenders covering 4 WRs. It's a relatively simple offense, but they have all of the components to run it very well. Even if we do all of the above, there will still be times when our secondary has to turn their backs to the QB in order to cover their WRs, and that leaves us vulnerable to QB runs and scrambles. I don't expect us to shut down Minnesota's offense. Their O-Line should be the toughest test yet for our front 7 due to their massive size. If our D-Line can hold their ground, and if our LBs can get off the blocks of 320+ lb O-Linemen, we should be okay. Stopping the run is key. If it's a close game in the 4th quarter, I'm concerned that their O-Line will wear down our defense. I'm not as concerned about the pass, but I worry that we'll have a trade-off of either giving them too much space if we play zone, or we're vulnerable to big running plays by their QB if we play Man.

On the bright side, their defense is hurting. I expect them to stack the Box to stop the run, so we're going to need to complete some passes. If we limit turnovers and penalties and complete 60+% of our passes, our offense should roll. That means Red Zone production would be key.

If you go back and watch the 2nd half of the 2018 game, that is what I expect our whole game to look like. If our defense can get 3-and-outs, we could light them up. If Ibrahim runs for 200 yards, we'll be in a dog fight.

Here's Urban Meyer doing a great job of explaining the MN offense:




Here he is specifically breaking down how their then-young O-Line was able to handle Nebraska's D-Line last year:

Great post and it's always great to listen to Urban Meyer!

Urban: "This is just sheer numbers"

-- That has to be one of the most frustrating thing I've seen in our offense these years. We are seeing loaded boxes quite often and just don't make them pay. We should be at a point where we can count heads and figure out the optimal response to their defensive alignment, but it just hasn't worked that way so far for us

 

[NorthwoodHusker]

If we allow to be pushed out of our lane, especially when I see my safety giving up the middle as he runs past, and cant get off the block, as we give up huge yardage away from the LOS, then I need to be talked to.
That last play shown by Meyer, look at our LB, he gve up ground and his lane thinking he was keeping everything inside, which he did, but was ten yards off the line before he could have made a play.

I dont think thats coaching, its bad awareness.

 

[Huskerwisdom]

If we allow to be pushed out of our lane, especially when I see my safety giving up the middle as he runs past, and cant get off the block, as we give up huge yardage away from the LOS, then I need to be talked to.
That last play shown by Meyer, look at our LB, he gve up ground and his lane thinking he was keeping everything inside, which he did, but was ten yards off the line before he could have made a play.

I dont think thats coaching, its bad awareness.

Fleck had this as one of our big weaknesses. He wanted us to get our LB's moving sideways, knowing that they couldn't get square and fill against their RB's.. when they got to the spot they often weren't square and they ran through the tackles.

I'm somewhat optimistic that our LB's have more speed and awareness this year. Reimer's a big step up in those areas already, but will be at a disadvantage against their big line as he needs a year more of S&C to fully match up, IMO

 

[NorthwoodHusker]

Fleck had this as one of our big weaknesses. He wanted us to get our LB's moving sideways, knowing that they couldn't get square and fill against their RB's.. when they got to the spot they often weren't square and they ran through the tackles.

I'm somewhat optimistic that our LB's have more speed and awareness this year. Reimer's a big step up in those areas already, but will be at a disadvantage against their big line as he needs a year more of S&C to fully match up, IMO

RBs have to run through the wash too, but it aint a wash if it aint movin, so to speak.
The problem was, just allowing your inside shoulder to be blocked, it starts there, and only takes a slight adjustment before engagement..
Losing your positioning is worse than losing your gap, as normally, you cant tackle through a block, and is why they werent coached that way, but showed tendencies which PJ obviously picked up on.

Not being aware where you are on the field has been a problem with this staff, on both D and O, but in each scenario, whether its going out of bounds running out a clock, sliding instead of staying up, allowing a blocker on your inside shoulder second level etc, those things need to be addressed, and lessons learned to move on.

 

[Brodeboy87]

I've been wrong about multiple things on here before. I remember telling people before the 2019 season that we would see a ton of 2 TE sets because we were inexperienced at WR and we had a lot of experience with Stoll and Allen/Rafdal. We proceed to barely do it and I look foolish. Fast forward to preseason 2020, I sit on HuskerMax proclaiming that with Austin as the run game coordinator and with the most starters returning on offense in the B1G, the most starts returning on the OL in the conference, a big downhill RB returning in Mills, and again needing to groom young WRs for the second year in a row, we would be running north/south on people all day long. Our OL has had 3 years with our strength staff and they know the scheme now.

To date, here are the guys listed as RB on the roster and their carries with yardage through five games:

Dedrick Mills 31 carries for 95 yards and 2 touchdowns
Marvin Scott 23 carries for 60 yards and 0 touchdowns
Rahmir Johnson 6 carries for 26 yards and 1 touchdown
Ronald Thompkins 5 carries for 24 yards and 0 touchdowns

I really have no idea what is going on, but to me this is the root of most our problems. I can sit here and talk penalties with you, special teams, but sticking with offense, if you are a play-caller, if you don't have a single RB over 100 yards after 5 games you are in serious trouble. Is it lack of a push and S/C? Is it lack of coaching/technique? Is it bad play calling? I don't know but we have to insert our QB as a +1 in the run game to get any sort of rushing yardage.

It seems crazy to type those things out when we quite literally at the beginning of the year could have started the exact same offensive line as we did in 2019 where Mills had success with over 5 ypc. One theme I would like to put to bed is "how young" our offensive line is, take a look with returning starts going against Ohio State:

Jaimes - 33
Wilson - 21
Jurgens - 12
Farniok - 28
Benhart - 0
TOTAL - 94
*feel free to add Hixson with 12 starts if you would like, but since he hasn't started this year I didn't want to skew the results

vs Ohio State, they only had 3 returning starters who compiled 54 returning starts
vs Northwestern they only had 3 returning starters who compiled 15 returning starts
vs Penn State they had 4 returning starters who compiled 78 returning starts
vs Illinois they had 3 returning starters who compiled 75 career starts
vs Iowa they had 3 returning starters who compiled 55 returning starts

I found this fascinating.... we had 106 starts returning that we could have used, so the "we were young on the offensive line" is a terrible excuse considering the fact that we didn't have to be young. Secondly, Illinois had one returning starter who switched over from DL in 2018 and then a new starter this year that moved to offense from defense. I understand people will say "but we ended up starting Piper" and again the counter would be that we still have 3 returning starters on the line, with returning starts still in the 70s. I also find it interesting that the team with more returning starters and the closest returning starts to us was the team we actually beat (Penn State) I also understand that Jurgens is new and that's where people would go too. But the long and short of it is we actually performed better in 2019 than we are in 2020 in the run game, and we quite literally could have every piece still here that we had in 2019. If we are young, if we are retuning less starters, if we are returning less starts, then it's based on a decision we made. We can't have the most veteran OL returning for the 2020 season then have our excuse be "but we are young."

But to summarize... what is going wrong? I still have no clue. Long thread to basically say I was wrong and have no idea where we have faltered and why we are worse now than we were last year. You literally have every single player back that started last year where we had much more success than this year.

1st off i'd like to start off by saying that I enjoy your posts on this forum....secondly i have gotten berated on this message board on being an "uneducated fan" for stating that WE STILL DO NOT HAVE AN IDENTITY on OFFENSE....i think that is exactly what is wrong with this Staff and team....we have to develop an identity and still cannot recruit to said identity. We annually out recruit IOWA, WISC, MINN, NW....but yet they seem to churn out wins against and send guys to the pros more frequently than we do. When i first joined this forum, my first post was our recruiting rankings versus guys being drafted in the last decade compared to IOWA/WISC...and we are sorely lacking...and my conclusion is lack of development and lack of identity. GBR

 

[NorthwoodHusker]

1st off i'd like to start off by saying that I enjoy your posts on this forum....secondly i have gotten berated on this message board on being an "uneducated fan" for stating that WE STILL DO NOT HAVE AN IDENTITY on OFFENSE....i think that is exactly what is wrong with this Staff and team....we have to develop an identity and still cannot recruit to said identity. We annually out recruit IOWA, WISC, MINN, NW....but yet they seem to churn out wins against and send guys to the pros more frequently than we do. When i first joined this forum, my first post was our recruiting rankings versus guys being drafted in the last decade compared to IOWA/WISC...and we are sorely lacking...and my conclusion is lack of development and lack of identity. GBR

Your idea we dont have an identity can be seen that way, but when true frosh wrs, a spot of grave need, get 'it', like Mr Betts is starting to, the identity thing in both recruiting and grasp fades.

Betts HS coaches only concern wiith Betts was his ability to grasp the system, on how long it would take.
Well, he's obviously getting there.

 

[Brodeboy87]

Your idea we dont have an identity can be seen that way, but when true frosh wrs, a spot of grave need, get 'it', like Mr Betts is starting to, the identity thing in both recruiting and grasp fades.

Betts HS coaches only concern wiith Betts was his ability to grasp the system, on how long it would take.
Well, he's obviously getting there.

While Betts is a bright spot on the season and i hope he receives more targets moving forward....the reason i say we dont have an identity is the fact that we have no idea what we are going to see from the offense on Saturdays...except for the swing pass...lol....but i see where you are coming from.

 

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

RBs have to run through the wash too, but it aint a wash if it aint movin, so to speak.
The problem was, just allowing your inside shoulder to be blocked, it starts there, and only takes a slight adjustment before engagement..
Losing your positioning is worse than losing your gap, as normally, you cant tackle through a block, and is why they werent coached that way, but showed tendencies which PJ obviously picked up on.

Not being aware where you are on the field has been a problem with this staff, on both D and O, but in each scenario, whether its going out of bounds running out a clock, sliding instead of staying up, allowing a blocker on your inside shoulder second level etc, those things need to be addressed, and lessons learned to move on.

At the risk of being accused of making excuses, I can testify that "good athletes" often don't make good football players because so much that you're describing as "awareness" is developed on playgrounds and backyards over years of playing, watching, and thinking about football. When Marc Munford came to Nebraska, he hung up a poster of Dick Butkus in his locker. THAT is the kind of guy I want playing LB. Alex Davis never played football until he was almost out of high school. How "instinctual" could he possibly be a few years later in his 2nd position under his 3rd DC? I've seen people criticize Frost and Chinander for playing him, but I assumed that they played him because he was the best that they had. That explains why Frost said things were worse than they thought before they arrived. That's why they keep talking about "kids who love football."