Nebraska Snowflakes: The Defense
September 30th, 2023 at 9:10 PM ^
It’s a bit crazy how vulnerable they’ve been to the slant. They need to figure that out.
September 30th, 2023 at 9:33 PM ^
Defense overall looked good except coverage was soft, lots of space given. The 3rd and 4th string secondary even worse.
September 30th, 2023 at 10:13 PM ^
MGoBlog gang told us to expect this by design: whole key was to stop QB draw & RB on option
September 30th, 2023 at 10:11 PM ^
Alex and Seth and Brian all warned us the secondary was going to play super soft with eyes in the backfield because stop QB draw and RB on option, and no way pass game was going to score much. It was a prescription for some annoyingly easy spurts of yards, but an easy victory and mostly stiffed opponent.
I’ll wait for the UFR to see if this was any worse than expected in that regard. Maybe a little? They didn’t warn us to expect two gashings. But I’m pretty sure I saw LBs and maybe DBs and definitely Josiah Stewart watching for the QB run on both plays when WR got loose.
End of day: another shutout when it mattered.
October 1st, 2023 at 12:25 AM ^
The 3rd string D has to start preserving our shut outs . Lol, I’d rather everyone get playing time!
October 1st, 2023 at 7:53 AM ^
Give up only seven points on the road. Would’ve loved the shutout but Nebraska hasn’t been shut out in nearly 30 years so that’s alright. Another standout performance.
It’s a first world problem, but I’m a smidge concerned about the secondary because Haarbarg (is that his name?) did seem like he was gaining some hay and definitely made a few more plays through the air than I thought he would. Don’t know how much of that was a product of already being up at least 14-21 points by the time he started to settle in and Minter possibly adjusting the defense, if at all, but it does seem like it’s taking some time for this secondary to re-acclimate.
Long way to go until the PSU/OSU games, but those are teams that’ll be able to take advantage of a secondary that isn’t firing on all cylinders. OSU especially.
October 1st, 2023 at 10:49 AM ^
Feels like it's just guys like Moore and Johnson needing to re-acclimate to game speed and contact.
However, that said, if it still feels like this in a few weeks I would be concerned.
October 1st, 2023 at 8:30 AM ^
Kenneth Grant rocking the Turnover Buffs for the first time💪🏾 MacGregor had a dominant game!!!
October 1st, 2023 at 1:32 PM ^
Sure wish he could have returned that a little bit. Unfortunately he was surrounded by Red jerseys
October 1st, 2023 at 10:38 AM ^
I was impressed with Nebraska’s QB. The first slant he hit to convert on 3rd he gave a nice pump fake to get Derrick Moore to bite inside to open up the window in the middle of the field.
That’s a tough ask of a 260-lb DE, but credit the QB for a good play.
Ive seen some people blaming Will on a couple of those slants, but I believe he’s in man only deep coverage on those. That means he’s only in man if the receiver goes deep, otherwise he’s in a cover 3 deep zone expecting help inside. It looked like on the really long pass Sabb had drifted too far to the field and wasn’t where Will expected help. Don’t think Will gets beat like that if they were in cover 1 or man.
The other thing is that on play action the LB’s covered grass instead of locating the receivers (though on that deep slant I’m not sure any LB could be reasonably expected to get deep enough to disrupt the throw). Still, I think it’s more scheme and playing a zone to take away QB run (combined with a couple of green safeties as Rod comes back) than personnel. We’ll see how they adjust