Schemes or Dudes?

bob5150

Senior
Dec 30, 2004
1,327
485
0
Offensively, there were times when Frost could scheme around our lack of dudes. Then we just had too few dudes to cover up weaknesses.

This year, we have dudes, but these last couple of games, some dudes have been neutralized.

I hope we can scheme some holes for backs and routes for receivers, because they werent there tonight, obviously.
 

BroskiRed

Junior
Nov 14, 2016
577
309
36
Got exposed last week. I think Ty mentioned it in his press answers also, defense for two weeks in a row isn’t playing well or tackling well. When Northern Iowa can run on you Illinois sure can
Thought guys were out of position and had really bad discipline especially the first two levels of the defense
When this defensive scheme can’t stop the run it’s very average at best
That Jack/defensive end/linebacker combos really had a bad night.
Good teams will continue to exploit these guys on the first two levels until we get it figured out
 

Hford

Redshirt
Aug 11, 2020
1,959
3
0
White needs to get creative more like he did last year. We can't just play Cover 4 behind an OK front. He's capable but I think they got too cocky after Colorado.
 

SickOfPractice

Redshirt
Oct 10, 2021
2,997
1
0
I thought it was both for Illinois. BB came in with a good scheme and his dudes were good enough to execute it.
 
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Dean Pope

All-Conference
Oct 11, 2001
13,288
1,055
0
When this defensive scheme can’t stop the run it’s very average at best
There are times where I look out there and we've got Ty & Nash playing with a third "lineman" who's in a two point stance. A big, physical team is going to be able to push around a 3-3-5 scheme. It will be interesting to see what adjustments are made.
 

NikkiSixx_rivals269993

All-Conference
Sep 14, 2013
9,783
2,445
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run defense should have been the priority imo.. we are playing like a Pelini defense, when we needed to make Illinois 1 dimensional.
 

Man Woman & Child

All-Conference
Dec 31, 2003
3,261
1,122
113
I don't know if we have the dudes some of us thought we did. Our best dude, although great, is a true freshman and showed signs of that last night. Two of our other best dudes are rejects from other P2 programs. And our dude depth overall is razor thin at just about every position.

That said, our coaches did not call a good game and did not have us prepared last night. Again. So, the answer is both...scheme and dudes.
 

Redblood23

All-Conference
Jan 17, 2004
5,703
1,995
113
Completely out schemed last night and didn't have an answer for anything Illinois wanted to do offensively. White has to switch up his coverages and get more exotic with his blitz packages. Seems like we ran single high all game and it was either man with a robber or cover 3. Illinois knew exactly where to attack and exploit the weaknesses. QB didn't have to hesitate or hold the ball once everything was there.
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
Not one person on this defense could sniff pelinis best defense.....we are mr nice guy like
I don't know if we have the dudes some of us thought we did. Our best dude, although great, is a true freshman and showed signs of that last night. Two of our other best dudes are rejects from other P2 programs. And our dude depth overall is razor thin at just about every position.

That said, our coaches did not call a good game and did not have us prepared last night. Again. So, the answer is both...scheme and dudes.
We have ZERO......ZERO mean rotten nasty dudes in the trenches....we have mr Roger.
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
Completely out schemed last night and didn't have an answer for anything Illinois wanted to do offensively. White has to switch up his coverages and get more exotic with his blitz packages. Seems like we ran single high all game and it was either man with a robber or cover 3. Illinois knew exactly where to attack and exploit the weaknesses. QB didn't have to hesitate or hold the ball once everything was there.
Our 1.4 million dollar coach has been choking his chicken for 3 weeks
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
Completely out schemed last night and didn't have an answer for anything Illinois wanted to do offensively. White has to switch up his coverages and get more exotic with his blitz packages. Seems like we ran single high all game and it was either man with a robber or cover 3. Illinois knew exactly where to attack and exploit the weaknesses. QB didn't have to hesitate or hold the ball once everything was there.
Weak everywhere
 

Zeke2005

Redshirt
Nov 26, 2023
2,316
0
25
Big Boy Bielema has always been able to have great schemes against Nebraska. His offense murdered us by running the same few plays repeatedly and our defense never did catch on. It’s so bad how the TE was always wide open for a TD that even their 640 lb TD got 5 yards of separation.
 

huskerfan1414

Heisman
Oct 25, 2014
12,603
12,740
0
The problem is our "dudes" looked confused the entire time on defense. Hard to play well or fast when you are confused.
Offensively I can't fathom how a blitz is so completely open. They also got home on a simple twist stunt in overtime.

Singleton is a liability in the red zone.
 

Dean Pope

All-Conference
Oct 11, 2001
13,288
1,055
0
Big Boy Bielema has always been able to have great schemes against Nebraska. His offense murdered us by running the same few plays repeatedly and our defense never did catch on. It’s so bad how the TE was always wide open for a TD that even their 640 lb TD got 5 yards of separation.
What was worse was how simple it was to line a WR up at fullback and wind up completely wind open in the end zone. That play was genius in how simple and effective it was. And saving it until the fourth quarter. None of our defenders had a clue.
 

NECoach31BB

Senior
Mar 8, 2002
17,723
651
0
Guys need to play faster but that is from knowing the play and processing at instinct speed. Seems the staff needs to better prepare for the options in game for adjustments.
 

Dean Pope

All-Conference
Oct 11, 2001
13,288
1,055
0
Not one person on this defense could sniff pelinis best defense.....we are mr nice guy like our coach.
You'll have to refresh my memory on Pelini's best defense. I just remember Melvin Gordon running for over 400 yards and sitting out the 4th quarter or Bo giving up 70 points in the Big 10 championship game. Wonder who Bo was coaching against?
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
You'll have to refresh my memory on Pelini's best defense. I just remember Melvin Gordon running for over 400 yards and sitting out the 4th quarter or Bo giving up 70 points in the Big 10 championship game. Wonder who Bo was coaching against?
I said best defense......and I know who the same fat *** who beat us last night.
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
You'll have to refresh my memory on Pelini's best defense. I just remember Melvin Gordon running for over 400 yards and sitting out the 4th quarter or Bo giving up 70 points in the Big 10 championship game. Wonder who Bo was coaching against?
Probably the year Suh was a senior.
 

Man Woman & Child

All-Conference
Dec 31, 2003
3,261
1,122
113
Probably the year Suh was a senior.

Yeah and Suh almost single handedly carried that defense on his own. He was that dominant. If we had senior Suh last night, we win that game. Again, he was that good. Hell if we had just about anyone at any position on the team at that level, we win the game. The closest we have is Raiola but he's a freshman and it showed last night. Suh was a senior
 

oldjar07

All-Conference
Oct 25, 2009
9,459
2,000
113
Yeah and Suh almost single handedly carried that defense on his own. He was that dominant. If we had senior Suh last night, we win that game. Again, he was that good. Hell if we had just about anyone at any position on the team at that level, we win the game. The closest we have is Raiola but he's a freshman and it showed last night. Suh was a senior
Not even close. We had a great defense all around that year.
 

Mack In Motion

All-Conference
Jun 20, 2001
5,988
3,511
113
Did not expect our defense to take a big step back this season.

If anything, I thought they'd take a nice step forward with all the returning experience.

Should have believed my eyes when UNI was pushing around our D line in the first half.

A couple more clunkers like this last one and the Tony White hype train cools off.
 
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realHuskerDrew

All-Conference
Jun 12, 2001
13,138
3,690
81
Yeah and Suh almost single handedly carried that defense on his own. He was that dominant. If we had senior Suh last night, we win that game. Again, he was that good. Hell if we had just about anyone at any position on the team at that level, we win the game. The closest we have is Raiola but he's a freshman and it showed last night. Suh was a senior
On his own? Man you are dumb
 

Man Woman & Child

All-Conference
Dec 31, 2003
3,261
1,122
113
On his own? Man you are dumb

If we had Suh on this team you’re telling me we wouldn’t be light years better than we are now? He was a man among boys. By far the most dominant player on the field. That’s what I meant by carried the defense on his own. Of course there were other players but he was a generational talent. If you don’t know that, you’re the dumb one.
 

NikkiSixx_rivals269993

All-Conference
Sep 14, 2013
9,783
2,445
0
The basic system Pelini ran was a 4-3 (7 in the box) with one of those lb's being the Peso guy, who was a hybrid between run and pass and often acted as a 5th DB, and had to diagnose the play correctly each time, to put himself in the right position to make it work.

Tony is basically doing something similar, but in a 3-3-5, (6 in the box) so he needs one of the back 5 to assist in run support.. and I'm not certain if there is just one player who has this responsibility or if it is shared, or if there are even pre snap reads involved.

Against a team that can both run and pass, you have to try to shut down one of those options, and many times, coordinators like to shut down the pass, because a good passing team can score quickly on just a play or two.

This leads to the scenario where the running game eats you up and tires out your defense, and is what we saw against Illinois and what happened with Bo and Wisconsin too.

If you shut down the run game, they are going to have to throw, and you will get burned once or twice quickly, vs shutting down the pass and making the other team move the whole field and get first downs via the run. So intellectually it makes sense on paper, but in practice it doesn't always work out that way.
 

SLOHusker

Sophomore
Aug 7, 2001
2,740
123
0
The basic system Pelini ran was a 4-3 (7 in the box) with one of those lb's being the Peso guy, who was a hybrid between run and pass and often acted as a 5th DB, and had to diagnose the play correctly each time, to put himself in the right position to make it work.

Tony is basically doing something similar, but in a 3-3-5, (6 in the box) so he needs one of the back 5 to assist in run support.. and I'm not certain if there is just one player who has this responsibility or if it is shared, or if there are even pre snap reads involved.

Against a team that can both run and pass, you have to try to shut down one of those options, and many times, coordinators like to shut down the pass, because a good passing team can score quickly on just a play or two.

This leads to the scenario where the running game eats you up and tires out your defense, and is what we saw against Illinois and what happened with Bo and Wisconsin too.

If you shut down the run game, they are going to have to throw, and you will get burned once or twice quickly, vs shutting down the pass and making the other team move the whole field and get first downs via the run. So intellectually it makes sense on paper, but in practice it doesn't always work out that way.
Philosophically, in college you should focus on shutting down the run and using blitzes to break the timing of opposing QBs. College QBs typically aren't as accurate and savvy at responding to the mental challenge if picking up the blitzes from unknown spots and taking advantage of the open receiver. Even against Ill, when Altmeyer was pressured he missed seeing the open guy.
I honestly feel like the staff decided to change it's philosophy between the CU and UNI games and thought they had the dudes the use a three man rush to pressure the QB and stuff the run. Nash and Robinson are good but insufficient against better OLs. Our pursuit speed and tackling have also just looked subpar the last couple weeks and even CU had some guys breaking tackles. This is surprising after last season.
 

catch54

Senior
Feb 5, 2003
30,254
608
113
Offensively, there were times when Frost could scheme around our lack of dudes. Then we just had too few dudes to cover up weaknesses.

This year, we have dudes, but these last couple of games, some dudes have been neutralized.

I hope we can scheme some holes for backs and routes for receivers, because they werent there tonight, obviously.
I'll just say I would rather we not redshirt Riley Van Poppel this season. He's the guy to get some good reps while TY and NASH rest.
 

dinglefritz

Heisman
Jan 14, 2011
51,386
12,800
78
The problem is our "dudes" looked confused the entire time on defense. Hard to play well or fast when you are confused.
Offensively I can't fathom how a blitz is so completely open. They also got home on a simple twist stunt in overtime.

Singleton is a liability in the red zone.
Gottula and Lutovsky got abused.
 

dinglefritz

Heisman
Jan 14, 2011
51,386
12,800
78
Philosophically, in college you should focus on shutting down the run and using blitzes to break the timing of opposing QBs. College QBs typically aren't as accurate and savvy at responding to the mental challenge if picking up the blitzes from unknown spots and taking advantage of the open receiver. Even against Ill, when Altmeyer was pressured he missed seeing the open guy.
I honestly feel like the staff decided to change it's philosophy between the CU and UNI games and thought they had the dudes the use a three man rush to pressure the QB and stuff the run. Nash and Robinson are good but insufficient against better OLs. Our pursuit speed and tackling have also just looked subpar the last couple weeks and even CU had some guys breaking tackles. This is surprising after last season.
IMO we’re too small on the edge and at backer to match up against teams like Illinois. They were able to double Nash and Ty depending on their play call and they steamrolled us to the next level.
 

Headcard

Heisman
Feb 2, 2005
192,507
20,870
113
Their RPO had us all out of sorts.


Our talent level on defense isn’t as a good as many like to think, and I do think White is usually good. Most days his scheme makes our guys look better than they are. But Saturday Illinois offense out schemes us big time. Hope it was a one time deal and not the start of a new trend.

This kind of happened with Bo’s defense. It was ahead of the curve until Wisconsin and Minnesota exploited some things in the run game and then everyone had the blueprint and it was always just average after that .
 

Meanfarmer3160

Redshirt
Sep 29, 2022
1,781
0
0
If we had Suh on this team you’re telling me we wouldn’t be light years better than we are now? He was a man among boys. By far the most dominant player on the field. That’s what I meant by carried the defense on his own. Of course there were other players but he was a generational talent. If you don’t know that, you’re the dumb one.
That's just the thing we don't have a world champion *** kicker in the middle.
 

SLOHusker

Sophomore
Aug 7, 2001
2,740
123
0
That's just the thing we don't have a world champion *** kicker in the middle.
I think Nash is really pretty good and is that guy. He gets double-teamed for a reason. The problem is that we're not getting enough from around him other than Ty.