Very true.
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Biggest Problem: Defense
- Thread starter Crusty
- Start date
@ShortSideOption did players of the old (glory) days have that many snaps off? I honestly don’t remember if the blackshirts had backups come in often. Back in my day I played both ways in high school and didn’t get too tired in college granted it was D2 at UNO when it still existed. Maybe the up-tempo offense has changed reps? Maybe the day where “gridiron” type players is gone
in response to your last two questions. The answers are yes and yes.
Last 2 Q’s, self a
For sure the game has changed...still curious on the amount of reps Husker D greats got, even though amount of plays in TOP has changed. Did the starting D come out much, not counting blowouts?
ShortSideOption
Guest
Yes, but you have to remember at DE we were rolling in Wistrom as a true freshman, Kelsay as a true freshman, and Nebraska wasn’t skipping a beat. There was a slight drop off but the other guys out there were picking them up.
But up-tempo is changing things a ton. Also the offense in the 90s rested our defense way better than what we are doing now.
Thank you...makes sense. I love defense so it makes me a lil sick how much the new rules favor offense. I do like seeing a Husker offensive explosion like last week tho.
Not too bad a days when the freshman we were rolling in were Winstrom and Kelsey, huh?! If only we could be lucky enough to have that problem today!
ShortSideOption
Guest
Ya, and it’s interesting to me some of the true freshman playing for national championship teams were from Auburn or Tecumseh, Nebraska.
That can spark quite the debate on why we don’t have those kids available to play right away anymore.
During CD's early days, mid sixties, there were two teams, the Red and the White. I think the Red was the first team and they played 8 mins of a qtr and then the White team came in for 7 mins. The Coach rarely strayed from that format. Paul Dietzl, at LSU, was the first to platoon specialists, I believe. He took a bunch of kids that didn't play much and made them into the D specialists, the Chinese Bandits. Not sure of the year, maybe 66 or 67, things evolved from there.
On the flip side, you could ask why in the world did we have to start freshmen on defense?? Poor recruiting by Osborne and staff!!!
Great players can mask weaknesses of less talented players, and in fact make them look better than they actually are. If you're running a 4-3 with two all-American caliber linemen, the other two end up looking pretty good, too.
There's really no single answer to what's going on with the struggles on defense. Some of it is that we have a lot of good players but not enough great players. Some of it is guys being in position but not making plays (missed tackles). Some of it is still not being coached up enough to get into the right position (WRs running free).
It's clear that we struggle against the pass, and it's a catch-22 in some ways. We can't get pressure so we're asking DBs to cover longer. But if we try to bring extra bodies on the pass rush we risk exposing DBs that are struggling as it is (especially if the blitz fails to get home).
We'll get there. I'm trying to be patient.
IMO, it is hard to have a great D with the type of offense we run. 2 minute drives wears out your own D eventually. Again, JMO.
We won't be playing Bethune-Cookman type teams every week. Likely there won't be 2 minute TD drives most series.
I think it's possible to have a great defense with a high scoring offense. Osborne's offenses scored a ton of points, and they often scored them quickly. What team wouldn't want to score on every play if they could? The defense failing to get off the field on 3rd and long isn't the fault of the offense.
I liked Pat, he was old school. Good times on and off the field back then. It killed me when Trev cut my fave two sports at UNO, football and wrestling. It was good for the local kids like me that didn’t have the height/size for D1. I had some friends on the wrestling team when that happened and let’s just say Trev was less then cordial when it came to handling the news to them.
