Whew
Every Husker fan has to admit that we had no business winning that game. If you look at every key performance indicator in a game, turnover margin (-1), third down conversions (3 for 15) and the ability to run the football (34 rushes for 115 yards), we should have not only lost, but lost handily. For me, this felt like a loss. Somehow we pulled it out. Thank you, Zack Bowman. But after acknowledging that Nebraska played poorly, it still counts as a win. We played a good opponent on the road. This team won the ACC last year, which included the championship game.
I think this is actually a good thing for a number of reasons. An easy win probably wouldn't have accomplished anything other than gaining false confidence and further escalating next week's ticket prices (still looking for a couple, by the way). We needed a jolt of reality, which is this - we have a LOT to work on. Our inexperience and lack of depth on the defensive line really hurt us today. The D-Line was getting dominated by the Wake O-Line, which allowed them to get into the second level and execute their blocking, which is why they were able to gash us with all of their outside and delayed runs. I think we have good linebackers, but they were being blocked on all of those plays and could not establish themselves. Everything on the outside was going for 10+ yards for them. Why they even ran running plays between the tackles is beyond me because Suh was a force. He made some big plays.
On the offensive side of the ball, I was a Keller supporter through the first fumble and some bad throws because I thought he was really hurt by the dropped balls. His second fumble is inexcusable. Thank god for Zack Bowman. Player of the week. We lose without that play.
Looking ahead, we will be home underdogs next week (probably around +6) I'm not sure we are to the point in the season when the team is playing like we will need to next week to win the game. An above average performance will get us beat by 14. We need to play extremely well to stay in the game, which will be critical early. USC will take advantage of every mistake. Bill better have a handful of tricks up his sleeve and have this team very well prepared to use them.
Go Big Red.
I think this is actually a good thing for a number of reasons. An easy win probably wouldn't have accomplished anything other than gaining false confidence and further escalating next week's ticket prices (still looking for a couple, by the way). We needed a jolt of reality, which is this - we have a LOT to work on. Our inexperience and lack of depth on the defensive line really hurt us today. The D-Line was getting dominated by the Wake O-Line, which allowed them to get into the second level and execute their blocking, which is why they were able to gash us with all of their outside and delayed runs. I think we have good linebackers, but they were being blocked on all of those plays and could not establish themselves. Everything on the outside was going for 10+ yards for them. Why they even ran running plays between the tackles is beyond me because Suh was a force. He made some big plays.
On the offensive side of the ball, I was a Keller supporter through the first fumble and some bad throws because I thought he was really hurt by the dropped balls. His second fumble is inexcusable. Thank god for Zack Bowman. Player of the week. We lose without that play.
Looking ahead, we will be home underdogs next week (probably around +6) I'm not sure we are to the point in the season when the team is playing like we will need to next week to win the game. An above average performance will get us beat by 14. We need to play extremely well to stay in the game, which will be critical early. USC will take advantage of every mistake. Bill better have a handful of tricks up his sleeve and have this team very well prepared to use them.
Go Big Red.
posted by Anonymous at 5:26 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent Take on the D-line, although I believe the Interior linemen played fairly well. The D-ends were nonexistent, similar to the kansas game last year. They never went up field and just allowed their assignments to zoom on by ... sad performance. Coz said he adjusted to the end arounds by staggering the safeties ... i'm not for sure how that really fixes the issue but he claims it works. The problem is it took him about 3 runs of 40 yards to finally adjust.
Post a Comment
<< Home