How can we as Fans possibly evaluate Coordinators or Position Coaches?

[Colfax]

First only a select few fans are privy to the practices at Nebraska. That leaves most of us to do whatever evaluations of coaching staff based on the product we see on the field on game day Saturdays. It has become obvious the past few years fans cannot base these evaluations on the Nebraska press that covers the team. Coverage pre season and the weekly pre-game day hype is nothing but sunshine and moonbeams.

That leaves each of us to our own means to evaluate this staff but maybe more importantly this staff in conjunction with the players they were left to work with after somewhat of a first year and post first year house cleansing. Coupling the players retained and their potential ability to coaching capability makes this fan evaluation task more complex. A good example is the outside linebacker position. I will use an outside linebacker as an example. Does his play, considering what we fans see as athetic ability and football intellect or lack thereof in both, suggest Jovan Dewitt is a marginal OLB coach or is he a really good OLB coach and that is the best option he was left with to try and develop.

Considering the above, evaluating coaches this early in their experience at Nebraska is extremely dificult. Having said that on the defensive side I expected more from the defensive line suggested by many in the press to be one of the strengths of the team. I thought ILB would be servicable for big ten play. I thought the JC linebacker would be a bigger splash especially after watching his JC film. Obviously JC ball is not Big 10 ball ie Honas, Mills, Williams performance/contribution to date. Thus I have limited expectations for Green. I felt OLB's to be an issue especially against the run depending on size and football intellect in the game at the time a run or pass play was run. It seems somewhat of a hit or miss guessing game for the coaching staff in that regard. The defensive back field issue is what I expected relative to the passsing game with the exception of dealing with running backs making it to their level. Over running of plays, poor angles, arm tackling, not wrapping up and driving through runners with to much effort directed towards attempting taking down powerful runners by tackling around the shoulders or just throwing their bodies are issues. That surprised me and someone needs coach them up relative to those issues. Sadly that Wisconsin running back is over the horizon.

Offensively I am surprised by the regression in Martinez play, especially considering the hype from Frost and Verduzco. He seems slower and indecisive regardless of or in spite of critcism of offensive line play. The offensive line is an issue that has been discussed ad nauseum. Is it left over personal recruited by others or coaching? Do they understand leverage and pad level or can they intellectually or physically not grasp the concepts. Where is the receiving corp? If you have no one to coach it makes evaluation of that position difficult. Would you trade Speilman or Robinson for anyone in the Big 10. Someone is doing a good job with them but where are the other bodies? Tight ends seem well coached and under utilized in the passing game. Running backs size might work in the Pac 12/Mid America conference in space but banging 180/maybe suggested 190 pound running backs but looking more like 175 pounds into the middle of a Big10 defensive line/linebackers is asking for season ending injuries. We are seeing that 7 games into the season. They all seem to run with decisive purpose ie old school Nebraska when holes/creases are obvious but lack of those opportunities limit them.

Special Teams is limited by injuries and a Coach can only do the best he can with what is available.

Concluding, what is my opinion of the coaching staff? Don't know to early to tell. Think Frost "could be" the best Head Coach Nebraska has had since Osborne. Depends on how "he" evaluates his staff not me.

Just my thoughts. Oh and one other thing that might brighten a fans day. Bring up the Nebraska football roster, scroll down and review the youth i.e. Freshmen/Sophmores. Maybe their is method to this madness.

 

[CrabHusker]

I think evaluating the overall defensive performance last night and laying the blame on Chinander is fairly easy. When kids in specific position groups are consistently not doing their jobs, it's not a stretch to place blame on the position coach. I agree 100% with your comment about the youth on this roster, but upperclassmen made a lot of mistakes last night and the staff looked helpless to fix it. We can go position group by position group and find a target for finger pointing, but it's really the whole lot of them right now. Guys who made plays as sophomores on a Riley team now look lost as seniors. Who should answer for that? Two years with this staff, in the same system and were regressing. That largely belongs to the coaches.

 

[Mentally Red]

You make some excellent points. Most of us make a judgment with the info available, which is ratings of recruits and results on the field. But man, that gap seems the worst on the O-line, and for the life of me I can’t understand how their coach gets a raise to one of the highest salaries in the team. The results aren’t there and as a stockholder (albeit minor) I’d like to understand why.

 

[eyesonNU]

What I would like to see more of is evaluation of the play on the field from writers with good up-to-date football knowledge. Writings on this forum by *** and MABCoach are very helpful. Surely the papers with a budget could find ex-players or ex-coaches that could do the same. It is extremely frustrating as a fan to watch a disaster like last night and not understand what happened to our defensive line. Why are our WRs so bad? Why do the RBs continue to dance at the line of scrimmage and /or just run into the pile. With that type of analysis, the performance of the assistant coaches would be more clear. Does the same player make the same mistake all season long (sure seems like that so far)?
Most of us posters are just fans. We post with more emotion than knowledge. I would love to gain more knowledge.

 

[bilsker]

tldr but to answer the question posed in the thread title....sure.

We may not know WHY the offensive line sucks but we can see guys that basically don't block anyone...juniors who have double digit starts under their wing and a pocket full of recruiting stars. You can't tell me that Nebraska, over the course of two staffs, whiffed on 100% of the offensive linemen they recruited. 100%? That must be...because they don't have a single guy on that line that can do his job. I get that OL was an issue when Frost got here but this is beyond ridiculous. Austin needs to start facing some questions.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I can evaluate the coaches because I'm not blind and I just watched us get outcoached, out-efforted, out-schemed, out-worked, out-hustled, out-executed, and out-hearted by texasing minnesota

 

[BigRedAvenger]

By height.

 

[ramsker]

The bad effort, poor technique and blown assignments are either (1) coached or (2) allowed to continue by coaches. I knew this was a massive rebuild going into Frost's tenure, but there are a multitude of things that SHOULD be improving by now that are not. And that's deeply troubling.

My only hope is that the staff is preserving redshirts on a bunch of guys (especially the o-line) in the hopes of making the future better and that we'll see them get their 4 games in. But it's year 2 where we should be seeing growth/improvement and the o-line still sucks, a Scott Frost offense can't seem to score points, LBs blow assignments left and right, we can't tackle and we seem to NEVER be the team that comes out the most physical and determined to take it to the other team.

Recruiting? For all the success we seem to have had from an excitement perspective, how are we this thin/bad at WR/TE? How do we still not have enough LBs to run a 3-4 well on a consistent basis?

Frost HAS to fix it all. Might be some really tough decisions coming . . . but he's not going anywhere and if he fails, I may never see the Huskers good again in my lifetime. And it's already been an unbelievably dreadful run of suckage. Almost defies the laws of probability.

 

[HuskerNash]

We brought in an inexperienced coaching staff from a lower league that doesn’t play defense. I’m not sure we should be surprised when they get manhandled in the Big Ten.

 

[Colfax]

I think evaluating the overall defensive performance last night and laying the blame on Chinander is fairly easy. When kids in specific position groups are consistently not doing their jobs, it's not a stretch to place blame on the position coach. I agree 100% with your comment about the youth on this roster, but upperclassmen made a lot of mistakes last night and the staff looked helpless to fix it. We can go position group by position group and find a target for finger pointing, but it's really the whole lot of them right now. Guys who made plays as sophomores on a Riley team now look lost as seniors. Who should answer for that? Two years with this staff, in the same system and were regressing. That largely belongs to the coaches.

Relative to defensive performance I agree yesterdays performance left much to be desired at all 3 levels. Conceptually, however from early Frost comments, my impression of his game day football philosophy was to have an over powering, big play, dominant scoring explosion offensive coupled with a serviceable "turn over themed" defense. As with the shortcomings of the defense we are not seeing that kind of offense either. So now the question comes down to "is it coaching, personal available and their physical/intellectual ability to develop , or level of competition. It seems all three are contributing. One thing for sure across the board in the Big 10 with fan demand for winning programs and the funding available to support the effort, competition is going to get better. Players to develop comes down to recruiting ultimately the responsibility of the coaching staff. Here, though, are left overs from a previous staff some probably still with instilled marginal work ethic, those being unable to be removed/replaced due to Big 10 scholarship rules. . So there you go. Considering the mess in all three phases yesterday with what appeared to be across the board regression in all position groups it leaves a fan with serious questions relative to coordinator/position group abilities Add to that watching yesterdays performance raised questions relative to fundamental overall team psyche. Hopefully with the bye week a serious dynamic regrouping will occur across the board..

 

[winnerwinner]

I think Chris ash is available if they need a consultant well versed with the B1G.

The current defensive staff needs some changes. As with any professional job, firing subordinates shouldn’t always be the first option. At least not before attempting to train them and coach them on their responsibility with respect to the B1G. As the head coach said himself, this is big boy football. No gimmicks.

 

[HuskerNash]

I think Chris ash is available if they need a consultant well versed with the B1G.

The current defensive staff needs some changes. As with any professional job, firing subordinates shouldn’t always be the first option. At least not before attempting to train them and coach them on their responsibility with respect to the B1G. As the head coach said himself, this is big boy football. No gimmicks.

To that point you might say our head coach has a history of trying to outfinesse and outscheme the opposition with speed and innovation. Seems kind of contradictory from his roots with the 90s huskers when you just lined up and beat the crap out of the man in front of you with power and speed . Who on the staff including the head coach is familiar with that kind of football? Since we’ve joined the conference we have been getting our dose of big 10 football on a regular basis and for the most part got our nose bloodied.

 

[CrabHusker]

Relative to defensive performance I agree yesterdays performance left much to be desired at all 3 levels. Conceptually, however from early Frost comments, my impression of his game day football philosophy was to have an over powering, big play, dominant scoring explosion offensive coupled with a serviceable "turn over themed" defense. As with the shortcomings of the defense we are not seeing that kind of offense either. So now the question comes down to "is it coaching, personal available and their physical/intellectual ability to develop , or level of competition. It seems all three are contributing. One thing for sure across the board in the Big 10 with fan demand for winning programs and the funding available to support the effort, competition is going to get better. Players to develop comes down to recruiting ultimately the responsibility of the coaching staff. Here, though, are left overs from a previous staff some probably still with instilled marginal work ethic, those being unable to be removed/replaced due to Big 10 scholarship rules. . So there you go. Considering the mess in all three phases yesterday with what appeared to be across the board regression in all position groups it leaves a fan with serious questions relative to coordinator/position group abilities Add to that watching yesterdays performance raised questions relative to fundamental overall team psyche. Hopefully with the bye week a serious dynamic regrouping will occur across the board..

Conceptually we were supposed to be able to win shoot out style games with a fast paced, high octane offense that is moderately paced and needs an octane booster right now. Defense did have some take aways earlier in the year and has played a role in all the wins...just as it has played a role in all three losses. It's kind of s toss up there. As to 'why?', it is some of everything, but a lot of this comes down to coaching. You can want to do what you want to do, but if the kids you have on the roster can't do it.....that's coaching. You have to determine what is on and off the table and work to your strengths.

I think there is no doubt the team still has no true identity. When something goes sideways, they're still prone to turtle. There isn't the right kind of aggressiveness there, the snot bubble kind that Minnesota was laying on NU most of the night. With confidence usually comes faster reaction times and better play. The team in scarlet and cream didn't look like a very confident football team last night.