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Another year another crappy defense

That’s cute. So no answer, just bitching. Got it.
I expect a scheme that allows our players to compete - we were so afraid of getting beat deep we virtually gave them 15 yards anytime they wanted - thats on Chinander play to win and not to lose. I also expect that given three years this DC should be able to make calls that allows us to win on 3rd and long or 4th and long. OSU knows Chin sucks so they just went for it even on their own 20 yard line.

The players played hard but that will not last after they get beat down by the Wisconsin QB next week - I think Frost needs to make a change and make it now
 
I expect a scheme that allows our players to compete - we were so afraid of getting beat deep we virtually gave them 15 yards anytime they wanted - thats on Chinander play to win and not to lose. I also expect that given three years this DC should be able to make calls that allows us to win on 3rd and long or 4th and long. OSU knows Chin sucks so they just went for it even on their own 20 yard line.

The players played hard but that will not last after they get beat down by the Wisconsin QB next week - I think Frost needs to make a change and make it now
At least that is an answer. I agree with some of your doubts about Chinander, I have my doubts too. I disagree that making a change after the first game of this weird season is a good move. If we need to move on we need to have someone good lined up and ready to go. I also disagree with the notion the players will quit. They won’t. They didn’t after the 0-6 start Frost first year and didn’t after last years challenges. They will play their balls off for this staff, I have no doubt about that.
 
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At least that is an answer. I agree with some of your doubts about Chinander, I have my doubts too. I disagree that making a change after the first game of this weird season is a good move. If we need to move on we need to have someone good lined up and ready to go. I also disagree with the notion the players will quit. They won’t. They didn’t after the 0-6 start Frost first year and didn’t after last years challenges. They will play their balls off for this staff, I have no doubt about that.
15 times since 2018 this defense has given up 30 or more points in a game. Over 50% of the time it's not just bad it's horrible. He did no better at Ucf.

Cut him loose what's it going to cost you
 
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Our defense today reminded me a lot of Illinois from last night - WR’s running wide open downfield all game.

Chinander is not the answer - Frost needs to make the necessary business decision and let his friend go. Then hire the absolute best D-Coordinator that money can buy, someone who has done it for a long time and has a PROVEN track record of putting dominant defenses on the field.
 
Our defense today reminded me a lot of Illinois from last night - WR’s running wide open downfield all game.

Chinander is not the answer - Frost needs to make the necessary business decision and let his friend go. Then hire the absolute best D-Coordinator that money can buy, someone who has done it for a long time and has a PROVEN track record of putting dominant defenses on the field.
That isn't going to happen.
 
Played the best team we're going to see right off the bat. Can we pretend to wait for once?

Beat Wiscy and nobody will care about this game and Frost’s inability to put a team on the field that doesn’t shoot itself in the foot.

But why would anybody at this point expect Frost to put a solid product on the field?
 
We needed a new DC last year. He sucks again this year. Same results every year. Do you think Nick Saban would keep the same terrible DC every year who gives up huge points every game?
 
After reading the comments, I will compare last years team with this years team, this years team played the whole game, didn’t care for the soft zone at all. Last years team would’ve given up right after losing the lead. show some patience it was better than most of the “experts” expected
 
Why don't we ever have great defensive ends any more? If not for the coverage against the great OSU receivers Fields could do whatever he wanted. The pass rush was nonexistent.
This could be one of the greatest OSU Offensive Lines ever. Easier said than done.
 
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Our defense today reminded me a lot of Illinois from last night - WR’s running wide open downfield all game.

Chinander is not the answer - Frost needs to make the necessary business decision and let his friend go. Then hire the absolute best D-Coordinator that money can buy, someone who has done it for a long time and has a PROVEN track record of putting dominant defenses on the field.


I won't try to convince you to change your mind about Nebraska's DC. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to hold that concern and wish.

However, if you truly believe Wisconsin's offensive success in the passing game vs Illinois was similar to what the most dynamic offense in the country did to Nebraska, then I have some mountain top property in Kansas to sell you.

Kendric Pryor, Danny Davis, and Jake Ferguson would never see the field for Ohio State, and Jake Hansen is the only defensive player from Illinois who would start for Nebraska. Ironically, Hansen went down with a concussion in the 1st quarter.

By the 2nd quarter vs Wiscy, Illinois only had 3 returning starters playing from their 2019 defense.

There is a massive talent gap between Nebraska and Illinois in 2020.
 
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I rewatched a long highlight video of the game. I'll focus on the defense and the main problems I saw. Ohio State looked like they knew exactly what our defense was running most of the time. Ohio State is probably the best team in the country at identifying defensive schemes and coverages and knowing how to exploit those coverages. Chinander doesn't do a good job of disguising our coverages and our guys always have the same responsibilities, so it's easy for a team like Ohio State to exploit. When we were in zone coverage, we were almost always in a cover 3, so if Ohio State identified we were in zone, they knew they could exploit the outside. If they identified man, they ran crossing routes and knew they had a good chance of beating their man to the inside.

On running plays, our linemen like to over pursue on reach blocks which is why we saw gaping holes on some of those inside runs. On zone read plays, we need to drop the scrape exchange completely. Our inside backers are horrible at completing that scrape exchange with the DE and accounting for the qb keep and have gotten killed with it the last 2 years. I think this also affects playaction passes where the defensive end will take the running back, but allow the qb to freely roll out without any contain and have a numbers advantage in the passing game. Again Ohio State is the best team in the country at exploiting this and they did today.
 
I won't try to convince you to change your mind about Nebraska's DC. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to hold that concern and wish.

However, if you truly believe Wisconsin's offensive success in the passing game vs Illinois was similar to what the most dynamic offense in the country did to Nebraska, then I have some mountain top property in Kansas to sell you.

Kendric Pryor, Danny Davis, and Jake Ferguson would never see the field for Ohio State, and Jake Hansen is the only defensive player from Illinois who would start for Nebraska. Ironically, Hansen went down with a concussion in the 1st quarter.

By the 2nd quarter vs Wiscy, Illinois only had 3 returning starters playing from their 2019 defense.

There is a massive talent gap between Nebraska and Illinois in 2020.
Since joining the B10 we have out-recruited every team in the West, and have landed somewhere around #4 overall in the conference every year. Why is it that other teams in the B10, who on-paper have inferior talent, do a MUCH better job defensively every single year? Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern and Michigan State are just a few examples for you to think about.

Because you’ve peaked my curiosity, and I’ve actually been looking to acquire some nice mountain-top property in Kansas, how much are you asking? Would you mind uploading some pics??
 
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Since joining the B10 we have out-recruited every team in the West, and have landed somewhere around #4 overall in the conference every year. Why is it that other teams in the B10, who on-paper have inferior talent, do a MUCH better job defensively every single year? Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern and Michigan State are just a few examples for you to think about.

Because you’ve peaked my curiosity, and I’ve actually been looking to acquire some nice mountain-top property in Kansas, how much are you asking? Would you mind uploading some pics??


If you go back and track signed defensive linemen, linebackers, and other signees who came as athletes, or offensive players but shifted to defense from the 2013 to 2017 classes, you will notice some staggering realities.

Iowa, Wisconsin, and Northwestern all signed full allotments in their defensive front 7s while retaining those players.

For instance, Wisconsin signed 37 defensive front 7 players during that time frame. All 37 of those players made it to campus and only 3 left the program early.

Nebraska signed 34 players for their defensive front 7 during that same time frame. 16 of those dudes never arrived in Lincoln or didn't last more than one fall semester.

Recruiting rankings are irrelevant when you're talking about the difference between 30 players and 15.

Pelini and Mike Riley both allowed the talent along the offensive and defensive lines and linebacker to fall well below Big Ten standards. Its not really a coincidence that Iowa, wiscy, and Northwestern have outclassed Nebraska in those areas.

Frost has done a good job of focusing on building depth and physicality at the point of attack.
 
If you go back and track signed defensive linemen, linebackers, and other signees who came as athletes, or offensive players but shifted to defense from the 2013 to 2017 classes, you will notice some staggering realities.

Iowa, Wisconsin, and Northwestern all signed full allotments in their defensive front 7s while retaining those players.

For instance, Wisconsin signed 37 defensive front 7 players during that time frame. All 37 of those players made it to campus and only 3 left the program early.

Nebraska signed 34 players for their defensive front 7 during that same time frame. 16 of those dudes never arrived in Lincoln or didn't last more than one fall semester.

Recruiting rankings are irrelevant when you're talking about the difference between 30 players and 15.

Pelini and Mike Riley both allowed the talent along the offensive and defensive lines and linebacker to fall well below Big Ten standards. Its not really a coincidence that Iowa, wiscy, and Northwestern have outclassed Nebraska in those areas.

Frost has done a good job of focusing on building depth and physicality at the point of attack.
This has been an issue for a long time around here - why can’t we keep our recruits at the same clip as everyone else? Are we simply recruiting mentally weak kids who can’t stand being away from their mommy’s for that long?? Or if they aren’t starting day1 the only option is to take their ball and go home???

It just doesn’t make sense to me why we’re even in this position.
 
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Want to know what is wrong with this program and what has been wrong with this program for many years?
We have not had good defensive coaching in over 10 years. We will suck until this changes

I actually thought the defense looked much improved vs one of the best, if not college footballs best offense. And I’m not the only one who thought and seen this. I’ll post a link at the bottom.

Our secondary needs to get it going, no doubt. But that was the best group of WRs and a first round draft pick at QB (maybe even a top 10 draft pick) and that’s not even counting the level of talent on their oline. Outside our secondary, I liked how our Dline and LBs faired against OSU. Not great but definitely improved and we will see much better defense this year.

 
Yes, for some reason- It looks like Scott Frost has no Idea what a good Defense is anymore. Hire a poor DC and this is what you get every year. New week will probably be the same result on Defense. Wisconsin Receivers will be wide open running free.
 
Yes, for some reason- It looks like Scott Frost has no Idea what a good Defense is anymore. Hire a poor DC and this is what you get every year. New week will probably be the same result on Defense. Wisconsin Receivers will be wide open running free.


I doubt it. They don’t have the WRs OSU has. The Badgers WRs aren’t exactly full of all Americans, let alone 1st to 3rd round draft picks. They may hit some passes but it won’t be anything like we faced against OSU.

Outside that, I hope that same run defense shows up vs Wisconsin. Mertz won’t be a runner like Fields so we can focus on just the RBs. Our LBs and Dline did fairly well against the OSU RBs.
 
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Want to know what is wrong with this program and what has been wrong with this program for many years?
We have not had good defensive coaching in over 10 years. We will suck until this changes
Nick Saban said that offense wins now, not defense. If Clemson, Alabama plays OSU they better plan to score more than 40...one reason was exemplified with the targeting penalties. OSU has better athletes, they are faster, they have a great system, a heisman qb and if you hit them hard you get thrown out of the game. Force turnovers and hope your offense doesn't give away points on turnovers...defense is dead. I think we will be pleasantly surprised at how decent our pass rush is as the season moves on...our run defense is decent, and I think we will force turnovers. We better score 40 in every game though and that goes for every team. We have to stop living in 2009...it is 2020 and the opponent is going to score 30+ every game...every new rule favors the offense and all of the best athletes are playing offense because it is wide open and there are a ton of positions to play. When I was growing up you were either a rb, or one of two WR and the QB....now you have 6 or 7 skill players on offense on every play.
 
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Yes, for some reason- It looks like Scott Frost has no Idea what a good Defense is anymore. Hire a poor DC and this is what you get every year. New week will probably be the same result on Defense. Wisconsin Receivers will be wide open running free.
It looks like you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years...defense is dead...nobody wins with defense anymore. The scary thing for Scott Frost is his wide open offense, opportunistic defense mentality has been copied already by better teams. The best talent is doing what we thought was proprietary to Frost or Oregon or UCF. This is the main reason it hasn't translated to wins. It might be time to consider ditching the oregon spread to a power option...slow the game down. I don't know...it looks like our 5 million a year guy isn't a special commodity anymore.
 
Reading through your message board I think you guys are being way too hard on your team's performance. From my perspective, I saw an improved Huskers team. Your defense is clearly more physical compared to past years. Your D-line is very stout and strong. I do think you are missing an edge rusher but Honas is the real deal.

On offense I think you will be very good. You were able to move the ball when you didn't commit penalties or when you found yourself behind the sticks. Your O-line is much stronger and bigger than in past years. Surprised you didn't run the ball much but OSU is a difficult team to run against. You also have 2 quality QB's and your TE play was good.

Overall I think Nebraska can compete for the West. Wisconsin has major question marks at the running back and wide receiver positions. Mertz looks good but that was against Illinois. On Defense we had 8-9 returning starters. We don't have the edge rushers like Zach Baun from last year and I think our overall speed at LB is slower than past years. I think the current line is 9 points but I personally think it is a 50/50 game based on what I saw from your team yesterday. If you shut our TE's down I don't think we have many other weapons on offense this year.
 
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Reading through your message board I think you guys are being way too hard on your team's performance. From my perspective, I saw an improved Huskers team. Your defense is clearly more physical compared to past years. Your D-line is very stout and strong. I do think you are missing an edge rusher but Honas is the real deal.

On offense I think you will be very good. You were able to move the ball when you didn't commit penalties or when you found yourself behind the sticks. Your O-line is much stronger and bigger than in past years. Surprised you didn't run the ball much but OSU is a difficult team to run against. You also have 2 quality QB's and your TE play was good.

Overall I think Nebraska can compete for the West. Wisconsin has major question marks at the running back and wide receiver positions. Mertz looks good but that was against Illinois. On Defense we had 8-9 returning starters. We don't have the edge rushers like Zach Baun from last year and I think our overall speed at LB is slower than past years. I think the current line is 9 points but I personally think it is a 50/50 game based on what I saw from your team yesterday. If you shut are TE's down I don't think we have many other weapons on offense this year.
Nice to see an objective fan of another team. We're used to seeing fans like the Purdue guy who is constantly telling us only how great Purdue will be this year.
 
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Reading through your message board I think you guys are being way too hard on your team's performance. From my perspective, I saw an improved Huskers team. Your defense is clearly more physical compared to past years. Your D-line is very stout and strong. I do think you are missing an edge rusher but Honas is the real deal.

On offense I think you will be very good. You were able to move the ball when you didn't commit penalties or when you found yourself behind the sticks. Your O-line is much stronger and bigger than in past years. Surprised you didn't run the ball much but OSU is a difficult team to run against. You also have 2 quality QB's and your TE play was good.

Overall I think Nebraska can compete for the West. Wisconsin has major question marks at the running back and wide receiver positions. Mertz looks good but that was against Illinois. On Defense we had 8-9 returning starters. We don't have the edge rushers like Zach Baun from last year and I think our overall speed at LB is slower than past years. I think the current line is 9 points but I personally think it is a 50/50 game based on what I saw from your team yesterday. If you shut are TE's down I don't think we have many other weapons on offense this year.
Great post, and thanks for being objective about things. We obviously have a few issues with both personnel and scheme still but the gap between our teams this year look to be much thinner than in previous years. Should be much more competitive between us for the foreseeable future.
 
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Great post, and thanks for being objective about things. We obviously have a few issues with both personnel and scheme still but the gap between our teams this year look to be much thinner than in previous years. Should be much more competitive between us for the foreseeable future.

I am not totally unbiased :>). My nephew looks to be down to Nebraska or Purdue for Engineering school next fall.
 
Being aggressive would help.

You are supposed to lose. Quit playing not to lose.
We were plenty aggressive yesterday as The D was aggressive, 2 targetting calls that shouldn't have been were called and Domann's earlier in the game was overturned and overall the Blackshirts were hitting OSU way harder than their D was hitting us by far. Our OL also got the better of their DL most of the day.
 
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Well, as usual, it seems the "opinions" of good or bad are all over the place.

First, we didn't run "cover three" all day long. I went back and watched some plays and we were either one high (one safety in the middle) or cover two (safeties split the field). Watch the first TD throw where we had cover two and the safety reads the TE coming up the middle and then can't get back over the middle to help with the WR. Cover three would be three safeties across the field in a prevent. We didn't run that.

Second of all, we don't have D ends. We have tackles and outside LB's. We may occasionally put someone in with their hand on the ground but we are still not a base 4-3 with designated D ends.

If good D's are thing of the past then we have a terrible O or they have the exception to the rule. We scored 17 points on O. You can't have it both ways. Saban is correct that the D's are not keeping up but somehow OSU's did against us. Either their young D is the exception of our O is not as good as advertised. Which is it?

When we had OSU pinned on their one yard line we had the classic Chins D that drives me up a wall. OSU knew exactly what to do. They split everyone out to each side and we matched up with corners, LB's and a safety to each side splitting the WR's. This leaves NO ONE in the middle of the field, absolutely no one. All you need is a combo block and once you get a small crease, it is clear sailing up the gut as there is no one home. That also creates a really bad angle for tackling because you are coming a long ways from the outside to make the tackle. Go back and watch the film around 3 minutes left in the 3rd. We have seen this over and over the last three years, it is there for the taking.

We tend to get really bad matchups and it is obvious where the opposing QB wants to go with the ball, If 31 is on the slot, he will get open due to a big difference in speed. If 7 is on a WR, go deep and to the outside, our safety help doesn't get there, it is generally more present in the middle. Watch the film and see which numbers of D players keep showing up.

When we were able to swarm on D, we are OK, I would still like to see much better technique in tackling. Square up and blast a guy, don't chicken wing, dip a shoulder, lower a head crap. We have done the same thing in the past, you see guys thinking they are going to light someone up and the next thing you know, he is down the field another 10 yards.

There were some good things done on D, our D line was good at times. I expect that will only get better. LB play was at least more consistent. We will see this week how things go. If we see the continuation of the same issues, we should be concerned.

I was mostly disappointed in the O. Aside from the one big opening drive that OSU was not ready for, we didn't show a great deal of consistency. Watch the film again and you will see OSU creeping everyone closer to the LOS because they had no fear of anyone getting by them or anything going over their head. We did not stretch the field vertically and then we throw our swing passes and wonder why they don't work. Mills is a good back, inside and out, he is plenty fast enough. Luke is not the answer at RB.

The O line started out great but then fell into bad habits of striking and not maintaining or what Farniok did - use a chicken wing block and get called for holding. Technique, technique, technique. That first drive was a piece of beauty when Jurgens put the hurt on a tackle and pancaked him flat. That was outstanding but there always seemed to be a little breakdown here and there.

My view, note I have not watched the entire game again as I rerun most plays 6-11 times to see which each player does on a given play.
 
Fields was 20/21 and we gave up 52 points. LMAO what are people watching? I get that Ohio St has the best or second best offense in the nation but we never had a chance. Light years behind them.

Chinander basically plays the same defense as Bob Diaco who was a travesty at Nebraska. Listen to Chins talk - the guy is CLUELESS.
 
Nick Saban said that offense wins now, not defense. If Clemson, Alabama plays OSU they better plan to score more than 40...one reason was exemplified with the targeting penalties. OSU has better athletes, they are faster, they have a great system, a heisman qb and if you hit them hard you get thrown out of the game. Force turnovers and hope your offense doesn't give away points on turnovers...defense is dead. I think we will be pleasantly surprised at how decent our pass rush is as the season moves on...our run defense is decent, and I think we will force turnovers. We better score 40 in every game though and that goes for every team. We have to stop living in 2009...it is 2020 and the opponent is going to score 30+ every game...every new rule favors the offense and all of the best athletes are playing offense because it is wide open and there are a ton of positions to play. When I was growing up you were either a rb, or one of two WR and the QB....now you have 6 or 7 skill players on offense on every play.
Nick Saban's would have a heart attack if his team gave up more than 30 points in a game. 9 of the 14 big10 team scored less than 30 points in regulation. If we had given up 30 points that would be a good effort 52 is not
 
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Well, as usual, it seems the "opinions" of good or bad are all over the place.

First, we didn't run "cover three" all day long. I went back and watched some plays and we were either one high (one safety in the middle) or cover two (safeties split the field). Watch the first TD throw where we had cover two and the safety reads the TE coming up the middle and then can't get back over the middle to help with the WR. Cover three would be three safeties across the field in a prevent. We didn't run that.

Second of all, we don't have D ends. We have tackles and outside LB's. We may occasionally put someone in with their hand on the ground but we are still not a base 4-3 with designated D ends.

If good D's are thing of the past then we have a terrible O or they have the exception to the rule. We scored 17 points on O. You can't have it both ways. Saban is correct that the D's are not keeping up but somehow OSU's did against us. Either their young D is the exception of our O is not as good as advertised. Which is it?

When we had OSU pinned on their one yard line we had the classic Chins D that drives me up a wall. OSU knew exactly what to do. They split everyone out to each side and we matched up with corners, LB's and a safety to each side splitting the WR's. This leaves NO ONE in the middle of the field, absolutely no one. All you need is a combo block and once you get a small crease, it is clear sailing up the gut as there is no one home. That also creates a really bad angle for tackling because you are coming a long ways from the outside to make the tackle. Go back and watch the film around 3 minutes left in the 3rd. We have seen this over and over the last three years, it is there for the taking.

We tend to get really bad matchups and it is obvious where the opposing QB wants to go with the ball, If 31 is on the slot, he will get open due to a big difference in speed. If 7 is on a WR, go deep and to the outside, our safety help doesn't get there, it is generally more present in the middle. Watch the film and see which numbers of D players keep showing up.

When we were able to swarm on D, we are OK, I would still like to see much better technique in tackling. Square up and blast a guy, don't chicken wing, dip a shoulder, lower a head crap. We have done the same thing in the past, you see guys thinking they are going to light someone up and the next thing you know, he is down the field another 10 yards.

There were some good things done on D, our D line was good at times. I expect that will only get better. LB play was at least more consistent. We will see this week how things go. If we see the continuation of the same issues, we should be concerned.

I was mostly disappointed in the O. Aside from the one big opening drive that OSU was not ready for, we didn't show a great deal of consistency. Watch the film again and you will see OSU creeping everyone closer to the LOS because they had no fear of anyone getting by them or anything going over their head. We did not stretch the field vertically and then we throw our swing passes and wonder why they don't work. Mills is a good back, inside and out, he is plenty fast enough. Luke is not the answer at RB.

The O line started out great but then fell into bad habits of striking and not maintaining or what Farniok did - use a chicken wing block and get called for holding. Technique, technique, technique. That first drive was a piece of beauty when Jurgens put the hurt on a tackle and pancaked him flat. That was outstanding but there always seemed to be a little breakdown here and there.

My view, note I have not watched the entire game again as I rerun most plays 6-11 times to see which each player does on a given play.
Cover 3 doesn't mean prevent. It means having one deep safety and the corners are in deep zones. We didn't run cover 2 much, probably because it's susceptible to deeper routes over the middle. But running cover 2 could have prevented those short to intermediate routes both in the middle and towards the sidelines that Ohio State was more than happy to take all day.
 
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I will gladly give Chin a mulligan for the showing against Ohio State due to their talent. I however will be watching for and expecting more of the same this week. While I hope I am wrong I do not feel the defense is going to fare any better against the Badgers.
 
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