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Making Sense of the Year 2 Phenomenon: Ramblings of a bored fan drinking Spaten Optimator

JMO, while all this may well be true and speculative at this point, the deciding factor as to the win/loss column will be the defensive improvement. IMO, AM demonstrated that he could run the offense and score points. Stopping the opponents from scoring will be more significant.
 
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One very important aspect AM needs to improve is protecting the football. He had the second-most fumbles in the country with 12. Only Georgia Tech quarterback TaQuon Marshall had more. IMO mostly attributed to freshman mistakes which hopefully should be greatly reduced his 2nd year imo..........
 
I think our defense is in much more disarray when Chin got here compared to UCF. Too many coach and scheme changes in the last 5 years. This will be only the first time any of these players have had the same coach/scheme for two years in a row.
then you see teams Like Mn change at end of year and improve immediately it ain’t rocket science
 
What team on our schedule this season has the toughest defense?

That's a tough question because there are a few teams with quality defenses that match up differently against us. Ohio State clearly has the most talent, but they have a new DC, so there's a lot left to be determined. Frost is able to match up well against that type of defense, generally. Wisconsin will have an excellent secondary, a decent but dangerously thin D-line, and all-new LBs, so I don't expect them to be dominant. Minnesota has a lot back, and their defense was very good for the last few games of the year, but they've had injury issues, so also a wildcard. Northwestern has a lot back and might be the best defense against everyone else, but their defensive scheme is not particularly effective against Nebraska's style of offense, so a lot of it gets negated. Illinois' defense was awful, but Lovie Smith has now taken it over, so it should improve. Purdue's defense will be decent but not great. Maryland's is similar. Indiana's should be good but lacking depth. My choice for the defense that could pose the most problems for Nebraska this year in our conference schedule is Iowa's. Epenesa is as good as we'll see, and the rest of the D-line is also solid. Unless there are key injuries, they don't have any obvious issues, and they're always well coached and fundamentally sound.

According to SB Nation’s Total Returning Production (link attached below), these are the top 6 teams on Nebraska’s schedule with the top returning defense in terms of percentage:

Ohio St – 85%
Illinois – 81%
Indiana – 77%
Northern Illinois – 75%
Purdue – 72%
Northwestern – 71%
This is deceptive because it doesn't take into account how good last year's defense was. If--like Illinois--last year's defense was god-awful, so your Safeties had to make all of the tackles, and now those safeties are coming back--tada!--you're returning 81% of your production! On the other hand, Northwestern had a very efficient defense, but with a couple of players graduating, their defense is now less than everyone else listed? I don't think so. Ohio State was loaded last year, but underperformed against anyone not named "Michigan," and they've got almost everyone back apart from some great D-linemen who had/have highly rated backups.
 



If coach Chin can't have this Defense at least serviceable by year 3 I think he'll need to move on.
This isn't going to happen. Frost and Chinander are in absolute lock-step agreement about how to coach defense, and the entire staff works on scheme for game situations. Frost isn't going to fire Chinander or force him out.

Not only that, Chinander is a very good coach. A lot of people based their evaluation of the coaches on how the defense performed last year, but we were running a 3-4 defense without a true Noseguard, and our LBs as a group were less than inspiring. The best defensive coach in the world couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken s4!t. Give the man a chance with players that they've recruited. Three years from now he's likely to take a promotion elsewhere, and some of the same people who have been b!tching about him are going to be whining because he's leaving.
 
This isn't going to happen. Frost and Chinander are in absolute lock-step agreement about how to coach defense, and the entire staff works on scheme for game situations. Frost isn't going to fire Chinander or force him out.

Not only that, Chinander is a very good coach. A lot of people based their evaluation of the coaches on how the defense performed last year, but we were running a 3-4 defense without a true Noseguard, and our LBs as a group were less than inspiring. The best defensive coach in the world couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken s4!t. Give the man a chance with players that they've recruited. Three years from now he's likely to take a promotion elsewhere, and some of the same people who have been b!tching about him are going to be whining because he's leaving.
Fair enough, I hope to see his D turn the corner and Make the Blackshirts Great Again:Biggrin:
 
then you see teams Like Mn change at end of year and improve immediately it ain’t rocket science
Pretty uninformed statement. There are so many variables that go into a quick turnaround. For instance who did they play? Most of the teams they played after the change were run heavy teams. In the case of Wiscy it was a run heavy team with a depleted OLine. (See @Middle-aged_Ball_Coach posts on the lack of depth for Wiscy Oline) Then they beat Ga Tech. another run heavy team. Stopping the run is often about discipline more than talent. So were they really better then when they played NE/IL or was it really about match ups? It could be as simple as the players really did not like the previous DC. Thus they started playing with more effort once he was gone. Only Purdue is an outlier as a non running team. They had no film to watch of the D with the new coordinator. So maybe they changed schemes which confused the Purdue HC. So we will see now that teams have film if he truly is great or whether it was a flash in a pan.

Modern defenses can be on par with rocket science. The old adage that defense is only about effort is simply a wives tale. Now maybe this new DC really is a magician that waves his magic wand and the D is magically better. I would say that the sample size is too small to make that determination.
 
This isn't going to happen. Frost and Chinander are in absolute lock-step agreement about how to coach defense, and the entire staff works on scheme for game situations. Frost isn't going to fire Chinander or force him out.

Not only that, Chinander is a very good coach. A lot of people based their evaluation of the coaches on how the defense performed last year, but we were running a 3-4 defense without a true Noseguard, and our LBs as a group were less than inspiring. The best defensive coach in the world couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken s4!t. Give the man a chance with players that they've recruited. Three years from now he's likely to take a promotion elsewhere, and some of the same people who have been b!tching about him are going to be whining because he's leaving.
Can I add to this that sheer numbers are going to affect our ability to be a top ten D. If our O really gets moving like Scott wants it to the other teams will be getting the ball close to twice as many possessions as a "normal" game. So throw total yards, and points out the window in looking at the effectiveness of this D. Look to stats like yards per play and turnovers. If YPP are low and turnovers are high. That is what Scott wants. In other words if we score 6-7 TDs a game and the D holds other teams to less than 30 points a game... They will not be a top ten D but they will have done their job. For the record year two UCF scored the equivalent of 6.89 TDs a game in year two. No with tougher Ds in the B1G if that drops to an average of 5-6 TDs a game 30 points is still getting the job done.
 



Pretty uninformed statement. There are so many variables that go into a quick turnaround. For instance who did they play? Most of the teams they played after the change were run heavy teams. In the case of Wiscy it was a run heavy team with a depleted OLine. (See @Middle-aged_Ball_Coach posts on the lack of depth for Wiscy Oline) Then they beat Ga Tech. another run heavy team. Stopping the run is often about discipline more than talent. So were they really better then when they played NE/IL or was it really about match ups? It could be as simple as the players really did not like the previous DC. Thus they started playing with more effort once he was gone. Only Purdue is an outlier as a non running team. They had no film to watch of the D with the new coordinator. So maybe they changed schemes which confused the Purdue HC. So we will see now that teams have film if he truly is great or whether it was a flash in a pan.

Modern defenses can be on par with rocket science. The old adage that defense is only about effort is simply a wives tale. Now maybe this new DC really is a magician that waves his magic wand and the D is magically better. I would say that the sample size is too small to make that determination.
uninformed? all you have to do is look at the stats to inform yourself
 
uninformed? all you have to do is look at the stats to inform yourself
Yes when you say changing a defense is not "rocket science" that is uninformed. When you think 5 games is enough to prove your point that is uninformed.
 
Yes when you say changing a defense is not "rocket science" that is uninformed. When you think 5 games is enough to prove your point that is uninformed.
Ok so now i’ll think of football as rocket science.

The new D coach must have a degree in rocket science when they went against their main rival and beat them soundly. I’m just wondering if they planted the US flag on the field and yelled one small step for man.


Purdue coach will have to take a couple semesters of the science.

How long will we have to wait for Chin to finish his classes?
 
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Ok so now i’ll think of football as rocket science.

The new D coach must have a degree in rocket science when they went against their main rival and beat them soundly. I’m just wondering if they planted the US flag on the field and yelled one small step for man.


Purdue coach will have to take a couple semesters of the science.

How long will we have to wait for Chin to finish his classes?
good at sarcasm...light on facts.
 

good at sarcasm...light on facts.
no like i said the facts are in the stats you can ignore them all day and make any excuse you like but it doesn’t change they greatly improved. Now the question for this year is unanswered but it is something they will build on. Confidence is never a bad thing yet you want to dismiss that just cause we are told it takes years and defenses can not adjust on the fly.
 

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