Nebraska 30 - Virginia Tech 35
Not to take anything away from Virginia Tech, but the Huskers were lacking tonight in the mental game. Too many missed assignments, too many instances of bad judgment and too many mistakes.
Joe Ganz looked too hesitant at times tonight, be it the pressure of the VT defense or a lack of confidence in what he was doing. After his interception, he looked defeated and didn’t seem to regain his composure the rest of the game - until late in the 4th quarter anyway.
The momentum turned, albeit slightly, after Swifts’s 88 yard punt return, but Suh’s late hit out-of-bounds renewed what should have been a 4th down decision, and VT put the game out of reach.
All-in-all, I was a bit disappointed in the game. Virginia Tech has been incompetent at best all season on offense and Nebraska should have been able to exploit the youth and inexperience at QB and the WR spots. They failed miserably in that regard.
Positives:
The defense, despite being very thin at most spots, showed a lot of character for most of the game and holding Virginia Tech to field goals in most of their red zone visits.
Nebraska didn’t quit. They played hard the entire game. That is something that can’t be said of the Callahan-era Huskers.
The coaching staff seemed to make numerous adjustments during the game which kept VT on their toes.
Negatives:
Terrible coverage in the secondary. I think a blind quarterback could have found open receivers.
Tackling continues to be an issue. Asante was a prime example of not wrapping up your oppenent and got dinged up in the process. Hit what you see and see what you hit. Keep your head up, hit hard, and wrap up the opponent.
No dominance at the offensive line. The Huskers will struggle from this point on if they cannot establish a running game. A one dimensional passing team will be shut down week in, week out.
Inability to create turnovers. This has been a problem the last few years. As long as Nebraska isn’t committing turnovers, you can give it a pass, but if you are giving up the ball, you damn well better be taking it back if you want to win.
The defensive side of special teams.
September 27th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
All-in-all, I was a bit disappointed in the game.
Ditto.
If we’d played better in the first half, we might have had a chance to win. But they jumped on us with that safety and it threw us off our game. The second half effort was there and I’m pleased that it was. We all know this team isn’t going to run the table, but I expect us to be in every game to the last whistle.
Next Saturday will be a huge test for us. I sincerely hope we are up to the task.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
A one dimensional passing team will be shut down week in, week out.
tell that to tech :p
September 28th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I have some positives. 1). Our D-line didn’t seem to tire, even though they didn’t get very many breaks. 2). My man Rickey Thenarse finally seen some game action and looked pretty good! 3). Roy Helu showed he should be playing more at the beginning of a game. He makes moves and decisions that Lucky has never showed he can make. 4). They never quit.
Now for my disappointments
1). Larry Assante and his poor decisions. I know it wasn’t just him all game long, but since his ballyhooed arrival in Lincoln, he has not shown me what was so heralded about him. His pass coverage skills stink, he let a guy go right by him for the safety, and he is CONSTANTLY lost in coverage, not knowing who and when to pick up a receiver. I must not be the only one to notice since the coaches pulled him after his 3rd blown assignment of the day. My call is to move him to LB. He should be able to cover a TE or RB. 2). This defense looks a lot better when it’s in man 2 man coverage. NU ran some zone coverage and that’s when VT converted. Our DB’s were lost on who was supposed to pick up who, often leaving wide open VT players. 3). POOR offensive play calling. I am no coach, but after 4 years I have learned that Marlon Lucky is NOT going to convert on 3rd and 2 with 10 guys in the box. If I was coaching I would’ve rolled Joe Ganz out of the pocket more because VT was getting pressure with their front 4 and sometimes with only 3 players. When Roy Helu came in and gave them some tough running, he was pulled back out. A lot of the plays they ran I was just thinking WTF? 4). VT was TERRIBLE on offense before this game. What does that say for our bend but don’t break defense? It says they are in for a long rest of the year! A better team wouldn’t have settled for 4 field goals. Mizzou won’t settle for that and TT surely won’t. Hell, maybe even Baylor won’t. I think we are all a little guilty of drinking the Big Red Kool-Aid and now, our record from last season looks pretty good to me! Ok maybe not, but I am very disappointed with how they performed on this stage.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
brad-
i have to agree with you. one positive i thought was that they were able to stop them in the red zone to field goals…but a negative is that they were in position to allow 4 field goals.
im still going with my original prediction of 7-5 or 8-4, however i think that 7-5 will be the end result. theyre not there yet…
September 28th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Marlon Luck is a great receiving running back. But he is not the guy that is going to get you 2 tuff yards when you need them. The holes are not always there but when they do open up it seems as if he sees them to late.
From my vantage point it appears that Helu should be the first and second down back. I believe that he would put NU in a more manageable 2nd and 3rd down situations.
If NU wants to establish a running game it will be with Helu and not Lucky.
If Bo doesnt take care of the secondary miscues the MU game could get ugly real fast.
September 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I was very pleased that we did not quit. Nate swift you proved me wrong with that long punt return, but I still believe we have better guys for that job. Marlon Lucky 8-17yds rushing 3-38 receiving. I am cofused that Marlon is still utilized in the rush game. I know you can’t let a defense key on personnel so you need to let him do both, or you could just not let him play at all and not worry about it. we could find his 50-80 yds a game elsewhere. I am going to sound fairly sadisitic with this next comment, but when Larry Asante when down I really hoped he was done so the young guys could develop and I wouldn’t have to watch him not block anyone on a puntblock or not cover the receiver streaking deep on a cb blitz or watch him buy a run fake and have the ball go where he should be, and that goes for Ohanlon as well. Our defense is giving up way to many yards per game, but has alot of heart in the redzone. They are better, but still a long ways from where they will be in the next few years. Now my final take yes because of this offense we are able to comeback when we are down by 18 but to only have 55 yards on the ground is crap. If we had a dominant run game we would have a better defense statistically and just energy wise and we would control the pace of the game. I hear alot of rumors about Watson being gone after this season, If this is true I am all for scrapping this weak ass finesse offense and going for a spread option type offense. I hate seeing our defense on the field with the lack of depth while our offense that has depth galore can’t pick up consistent first downs until they are down by three scores. We need to remove the last wort on the basterdized thing that is NU football. Please have a good argumnet why it wouldn’t work because Paul Johnson is a couple fumbles away from having Georgia Tech undefeated with a true option offense that rushed for almost three hundred yards against the hokies and Navy and there option beat Wake Forest. A big day against USC on the ground by jacquizzi rodgers led OSU to victory. How do you beat the spread control the clock and keep the other teams offense off the field. WE get Mizzou this week, and if our offense scores to fast or goes three and out consistently our defense will get smoked with depth thin as it is. What would beat MU a good old 3 yds and a cloud of dust keeping MU off the field and out of rythym. Oh thats right this teams has no clue how to pound the rock. I will be in the stands hoping for an Oregon State type miracle
September 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
@RED
I agree with Swifty returning that punt. When he was lined up back there I said “what the hell is he doing back there” and of course he took it to the house. So since I thought I had some sort of mind control the next time we had the ball on offense I said ( about Lucky ) “what the hell is he doing back there?” He must not have gotten the memo cause he was stopped behind the line. Oh well. We just looked shell shocked.
I say line up Lucky and Helu in the backfield and then have Lucky motion to the slot. This way the defense has to account for both.
Let’s not forget that the officiating crew was an ACC crew. That late hit penalty on Suh was BS, but that’s not what lost the game for us. It was many things leading up to that.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Red-
where are you hearing your rumors about watson? I’ve heard nothing through my channels that this is the case, in face from what i’ve been led to believe is that both osborne and pelini like watson.
also i have to disagree about the way to beat mizzou is 3 yards and a cloud of dust. the ideal way may be to run the ball and control the clock, realistically it may be a shootout and nu would need to get some breaks to go their way and mizzou committing some turnovers.
red, just out of curiousity (and dont take any offense) are you of the opinion that nebraska needs to go to a run heavy offense again (run 60 times pass 10-12), or do you want to see a balanced offense with a more effective running game?
September 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I haven’t heard anything on Watson either. My guess is that ff he were to leave, I think it would be of his own doing, not as a staff reshuffling.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:08 am
I took alot of positives out of this game. Cody Glenn for one, 14 tackles something like that. Also, I saw more gang tackling than I have in some time. The Huskers were also very tough in the red zone. This is good stuff.
There were alot of negatives as well. In my oppinion the blocked punt/safety was a killer. NU never really recovered from it from a field position stand point, they played with their backs to the wall the rest of the half. I’m not an Asante hater and don’t want to beat the kid up, but, man you have to be more than a spectator in punt protection.
The single biggest negative from my perspective was third downs. 2 for 11 on third downs isn’t going to get it done against anyone, anywhere, anytime.
As far as the ‘great Suh/Pelini/Suh show’ late in the game, meh…it was what it was. It certainly didn’t help a helluva lot, but I don’t think the game was decided on it. I have no idea what Coach said to warrant an unsportsmanlike call, but it must have been a doosey. He didn’t even mention it on his show Sunday night.
Overall, I think this is a much better team than it was last year, than it was against Western Mich., and than it was against SJS. It’s a work in progress and there are going to be growing pains, but there is a steady improvement here. It’s going to take time before we see just how good of a program Pelini and his staff can build.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
@aaron
Just rumors floated from rome show and big sports 590 on the Watson front. We all know he wants to have his own team. It is obvious he is well liked as Coach Osborne retained him and made Bo’s choice for O coordinator.
No offense on my offensive beliefs. I believe a 60-40 run to pass min. A run balnced offense that can get 2-3 yards on 3rd and short.
I disagree with you that we can beat them with balance because last time I checked we have no balance. We have no playmakers at wide receiver to make our West coast hybrid work. We could not block the three and four man fronts of V-tech and consistently had three and outs very similar to the SJSU. we have never had balance And never really went West Coast. A west coast offense has a staple of short throws to rb,fb,h-back. they eat you up short with dump off and short slants, ins, outs and hooks or curls. then when you tighten up they flex deep on post out and ups flags deep drags. the short passes are the balance for they act similarlly to the ground game, yet they still run the ball to keep the defense off balance and thus creating offensive balance ( the old yin-yang). We do not have or have not played a playmaking wr that accounts for portions of the field another West Coast must you need some holes in the zone and shifts, overs or doubles in man which pressure the other ares creating space short, flat deep and middle. Yet you also need the run. We were 7th in the country last year passing and our defense as bad as it was played the majority of those games due to no run game quick scores and consistent three and outs. A dominat run game and good defense will beat a dominant pass game and good defenseconsistently. you take the heart out of a team when you consistenly gut punch them. aaron I do not believe we can keep up in a shootout with that offense to many horses. I hope we shock the world, please football gods we need this. But i see a lopsided home loss 4 us unless we run the ball and keep them off the field. My last shot-if Watson leaves i hope this offense goes with year five and not much has changed big games big duds and we still can’t run the ball pass block, or find a go to wr. Bo is the right choice but Tom Osborne said it best last winter this will not be fixed overnight. i see the effort and no the defense will blosom, but we need a nastymakeover on offense a little less finnesse and a heck of lot more nasty. i will be in the stands yelling my lungs out for our team praying for a miracle from the ghost of huskers past or maybe pipelines past
September 30th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Red-
I can respect your point of view completely. I still find people who believe that nebraska should run 85-90 percent of the time period, which i think is just as bad as passing the same amount.
I agree with you on the short throws in the va tech game. the games before that they had success with that screen to swift but didnt seem to try that a whole lot, but i wasnt paying attention to see if it was there.
as far as the run game goes id like to see them start the game with helu running and see if he can set a tone for the run game. if he gets it going early, maybe that can set the tone for the o line.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
In Bo Pelini’s press conference today he was asked specifically about Roy Helu maybe jumping ahead of Marlon Lucky in the rotation. His response was ” Maybe” and something like we will just have to wait and see on Saturday.
Sounds like a more HELU for ME!!!!!