How Do Bo’s Teams Respond to Bad Defensive Outings?
With an effective Arkansas State offense coming to Lincoln this week, there's some concern about how well the Huskers will perform defensively against the Red Wolves. What does history tell us about how the Huskers will respond?
The answer depends a great deal on how you define the question. Is a bad outing about points? Is it about yards? If the Huskers win, can it be called a bad defensive outing? Should anything that happened early in his first year back at Nebraska count? You the reader can decide after we go through it.
Nebraska, part one
If you want to go all the way back to 2003, when Pelini was just a coordinator at NU he followed up a loss to Missouri where dual-threat quarterback Brad Smith exploded with a dominant performance in Lincoln over Texas A&M that Nebraska won 48-12. A&M 's quarterback it should be noted was dual-threat Reggie McNeal. Nebraska was pounded by a combination of Vince Young and Cedric Benson in Austin that year only to pitch a shutout the next week of Iowa State who featured something of a dual-threat quarterback in Austin Flynn. Probably the worst defensive outing of the year came in a home loss to Kansas State. Ell Roberson and Darren Sproles did a lot of damage with their legs. The next game saw NU beat Colorado 31-22.
Oklahoma
Pelini spent 2004 in Oklahoma, but the only loss was a bad one in the national championship game to USC. There were a couple of 35 point days in consecutive road games at Oklahoma State and at Texas A&M, but both were victories before a near shutout of Nebraska.
LSU
At LSU in 2005, the Tigers won an opener 35-31 on the road at Arizona State and then dropped a home game in overtime to Tennessee 30-27. The road game that followed at Mississippi State saw the Bulldogs score just 7 points. LSU gave up 34 points in a loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game, led by dual-threat quarterback D.J. Shockley. LSU followed that up with a near-shutout against Miami and their pro-style offense. I don't think you could say that LSU had a bad defensive performance in 2006. The high mark was just 26 points, in a game LSU won at #5 Arkansas. In the national championship season, LSU lost two triple-overtime games. So the scores were high, but much of the scoring took place in the fifth, sixth, and seventh periods of play. Outside of those games, LSU never yielded more than 24 points.
Nebraska, part two
This brings us to Pelini's return to Nebraska. The Huskers lost to Virginia Tech 35-30, but that included a safety, a touchdown after an interception set the Hokies up at the five yard line and a short field touchdown that required just 33 yards for for V-Tech to score. Tech was held to a reasonable 377 yards. It may not be fair to call that a bad outing. The Missouri game that followed was a disaster. Pelini blamed himself and said he got way too complicated and tried to force way too much on his kids. That was followed by a tough overtime loss at Texas Tech 37-31. Considering that was the best Red Raider team anyone can remember and that Tech used a bold fourth-down gamble to pull it out, that seems forgivable, especially in Year 1 back at Nebraska. The following week was a get-well game at Iowa State led by Austin Arnaud, that the Huskers won 35-7. Despite a dual-threat quarterback, ISU couldn't muster even 220 total yards. Things got way out of hand quickly at Norman that year, when OU seemed to be scoring 60 or more on everybody. Nebraska won every game that followed, but that included yielding 35 points to Kansas the following week, 28 to Kansas State in Manhattan, and 31 to Colorado before an outstanding defensive outing against Clemson in the Gator Bowl.
The 2009 season didn't really bring any bad defensive outings, just a number of bad offensive ones. The only really bad outing of 2010 was a 51-41 victory at #17 Oklahoma State. That was followed by a 31-17 victory over #7 Missouri at home. In 2011, the Huskers gave up 38 points to Washington led by the mobile Keith Price. Most of the Huskies points came after the game was pretty much in hand. NU followed that up by holding Wyoming to 14 points on the road. NU gave up 48 points at Wisconsin, they seemed to be on pace for a similar outing hosting Ohio State before Lavonte David turned the game with a defensive play and the Huskers went on to a 34-27 victory. The 28-25 home loss to Northwestern could be called a bad defensive effort, but turnovers and penalties certainly played a part. The Penn State game that followed saw the Nittany Lions score just 14 points. Michigan lit up NU for 45 points before the Huskers surrendered just one fairly meaningless late touchdown to Iowa in Lincoln. In terms of yards, the defense was fine against South Carolina. The Huskers botched an extra point that led to two points for the Gamecocks and a successful Hail Mary before halftime made this game seem more lopsided that it was. The opener this year obviously featured different personal but was a generally good defensive effort.
The Road Ahead
So what comes next? Whether it's regression to the mean or Bo's history in particular, his teams have tended to do better after bad defensive outings. So that would tell us that Arkansas State will likely score something less than 36 points. Thankfully, there have been times when that's even been true against dual-threat quarterbacks, which the Huskers will face this week. It seems unfair to place too much emphasis on yards when Pelini himself doesn't. His strategy is typically to try to take away big plays, even when that tends to allow opponents to mount drives. It all falls apart in cases where his team fails to stop the big plays. That puts NU in the position of giving up both the big play and sustained drives. That's what happened against the Bruins and could surely happen again this year.
Reviewing his body or work, you also are reminded that he's not bragging when he says he knows what he's doing defensively. Most years, his defenses have had some bad days. Generally speaking, they are few and far between.
9/12/2012
I find it very difficult to get excited for the rest of the season. I do think that Nebraska will bounce back and win a few games this year and maybe even shock a team or two. However, I could tell in our first game that the Nebraska defense is just not that good this year. I read all the responses to yesterday’s article about scheme this and scheme that and I just had to laugh. Bo knows defense. The D line generates no push. They are getting man handled at the point of attack. The linebackers are too slow and cannot even cover a running back out of the backfield. The secondary does not have much of a chance to show what they have because the front 7 is so weak. I hope and pray that Bo can get some younger players with some speed on the field soon, otherwise it is not going to be a fun year.
9/12/2012
As Nebraska fans, our hope for the season lies in making it to the B1G championship game. If things go well between now and then, we can hope to win it and go to the Rose Bowl. That’s the main goal.
Secondary goals are to see steady improvement by the defense (especially the D line), more consistency from the offense, and better play calling from Beck.
Speaking of Beck- Seriously? UCLA misses a field goal with 6 minutes left and instead of running it at them, sprinkling in play action and running the clock on a game winning drive, we throw three incomplete passes and put our defense right back on the field. Why do we get pass happy at the most critical moments? Did last year’s Wisconsin game teach us nothing? Beck has great potential as an OC but needs to learn from his mistakes! A rapid pace offense backfires big time when you can’t pick up first downs.
-Please excuse the rant.
9/12/2012
Bo knows defense? Are you kidding me? Bo couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag if his life depended on it. Last season we finished 65th with 3 NFL caliber guys. This year so far, we have the 96th overall defense. And everybody thinks Bo is a guru. Ha. What a joke. And now we’re the laughing stock of college football.
What does it say about a coach who can’t get his team ready to step out onto the field and play? What does it say about a coach whose players are beat time and again by players who want it more? What does it say about a coach whose teams are always inconsistant? What does it say about a coach whose teams are always undisciplined? What does it say about a defensive coach whose defensive players are timid and shy, anything but physical, non aggressive, slow, and don’t seem to know what to do when they’re out there? Certainly anything BUT a defensive guru. Or a Head coach. At this point I don’t even want to keep him on as DC…I say fire the lot of them and lets start over. Get experienced coaches in here who understand Nebraska football…or maybe just football in general. These guys don’t seem to even know the game. Not as well as the opposing coaches anyway…they get out coached ALL THE TIME! When is enough enough?
9/12/2012
No I will not excuse the rant, I will second it.
We go tearing up the field on three run plays for nearly 60 yards and then inexplicably fall in love with the pass again. Beck needs to learn that he is the OC for Nebraska. We run the ball, we run it well. I did not see Imani Cross in this game and it would have been helpfull to put him in at a fullback position on occasion to punch a hole in the UCLA D line or to take out the D Back so Quincy or Jamal could continue the dominance.
Also, WHAT THE HECK was with that fake hand off out of our own endzone? What, are you new, Beck? UCLA did stop our run, we stopped our own run. Again, it was like watching the Wisconsin game from last year. WE ARE NEBRASKA, WE RUN THE FREAKING BALL. Yeah we like to pass on ocassion but not three and outs. That is inexcuseable!
You put anyone’s defense on the field for 94 snaps and they will get tired. This isn’t rocket science, Beck, it is a tried and true tradition here in Big Red Country. Run the ball, maintain possession, tire out their defense, then you will OWN them in the 4th.
Dare I say our offensive players look like they know more about the game than thier own OC.
9/12/2012
Mr. Hanway, congratulations on the most obscure and totally meaningless article on Husker football I have ever read…have you been smoking one of those funny-looking cigarettes??? When your head clears up, please read the blogs of PE and Johnny Nebraska. Did you not notice the UCLA coaches smirking on the sidelines as though to say: “you say this is a ranked team? Are you kidding me?” Guess what? This @!$%^&* season is OVER! Bo and his merry band of newbies saw their defenseive (that’s spelled correctly) line unable to push around three freshman and one of the seven dwarfs for the entire game…now, you tell me sir, how in the hell do you turn that around?
California
9/13/2012
Well… Chase Rome is gone.
Is this an indication that we are switching to a 3-4 look?
9/13/2012
Bly ... “i before e except after c”
trying to be cute while ranting doesn’t always work.
9/13/2012
This Defensive scheme is absolutely to complicated when you get players telling people that there playbook is more difficult then their homework in college YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. Bo has several issues that he need to get worked out fast. Others have mentioned them. Get the speed on the field whether they are young or not. Did anyone else notice how many times our D players were looking at the sideline waiting on the call to come in while UCLA was snapping the ball? I lost count. Oh and this thing with trying to limit big plays just makes no sense to me. The idea of limiting big plays sounds great until you see how they do it. They let teams take those dink and dunk plays all the way down the field which both wears out and demoralizes our defensive players. Then to make matters worse we use this up tempo offense that has a tendency to sputter out and send our tired and demoralized D right back out there at which point they start giving up big plays also. I doubt it will happen but I’d really like to see us go back to a 1 gap style d line scheme and slow down the offensive tempo while running the ball. This team has to improve in almost every facet of the game if they want to have any shot at a big ten title. Bo saw all he needed to see of young talent trumping experience against UCLA(8 freshman starters) and if he didn’t get ready for a long year. Heres hoping something gets done GBR!!!
9/13/2012
PE,
Maybe they think Bo is a guru because their memory is longer than 13 months? You can call it 3 NFL caliber players last year, but Crick missed three of the losses with his torn pec and seven games overall, and Dennard also missed three games early. The UCLA game was awful, but what’s so bad about holding a team that went 12-2 a year ago, scoring a ton of points to just 13 offensive points and 260 yards in the opener? Especially when NU had to be prepared for absolutely anything. You speak as though that game never happened. PE, it is EXACTLY this kind of knee jerk response that you write that brought us Bill Callahan.
It astounds me how many fans can’t distinguish a winning coach from a losing one. Of the 8 head coaches hired by schools in 2008 that haven’t already left or been fired from their school (it was twenty at the time), no one has a better win-loss record than Pelini. Nobody. It’s not like he walked into an operation firing on all cylinders either. By any objective measure, we made the best hire that year. And your response is - fire him? Do we expect to do better than hiring the best candidate a second time? He’s such a fool and that’s why we’ve got other schools trying to hire him away every offseason?
There are at least ten games to go. If he wins eight of those, you don’t fire the guy even if you’d rather be somewhere other than the Outback Bowl. Even Tom Osborne had stretches where his team played in the Bluebonnet and Liberty Bowls.
9/13/2012
Steve, first off, your opening statement makes no sense. Your first paragraph needs editing big time. Your a better writer than that. I have a very good memory, much longer than 13 months…whatever that’s supposed to mean.
No I really don’t think Bo is some kind of defensive Guru. Not anymore. He had some good defensive teams with players that primarily weren’t his. I think they made him look good. His scheme is far too complex and needs SEC caliber players to execute it. We have none of those. He appearently needs someone to tell him to get the fastest, best players on the field. Has he recruited anyone of NFL level that’s on teh team now? Nope. The cuppboards bare. We have no beasts on either line. None. I’ll tell you what kind of defensive coach he is…his entire D line got pushed around all Saturday by 3 FRESHMEN! And the rest of his defense absolutly sucked - out of place, no tackling, no attitude. So much so that even he was embarrassed. Last year he had 3 NFL caliber players…only one contributed all season, granted; Crick wasn’t himself even in the first several games then was out, and Dennard wasn’t himself till after 3-4 games after he got back. And they still stunk up the joint. This year, they don’t even show up. The UCLA game was won by the team who wanted it the most. Period. Even our own players said that. How pitiful. What does that say about a coach when his team doesn’t show up to play to win, and what does it say about a coach, a defenseve minded coach no less, who players can’t even tackle? Who, by their own admission, after the whole off season of getting ready, are just now seeing the need to go back to the fundamentals? Are you kidding me? I’ll bet the coaches we’ll be facing got a good laugh out of that one. Ya…they’re laughing at us. How does that make you feel Steve? A coach whose new D line coach admits that maybe it’s time to start coaching? Whose teams are always inconsistant, undisciplined, don’t force many turnovers and commit a LOT of penalties? Not much of a coach I’m afraid. And you want to stick with this guy?
I’m all in favor of starting the season out full of promise, and after the first game I was all in…reading everything the national and local media had to say about the miricle that is Taylor Martinez and the rest of the teams play, even without Burkhead, and I was certainly thinking we’re a top 10 team finally and all of the past is behind us now so what the hell…onwards and upwards! Until they showed up at the Rose Bowl and embarrassed us all on National TV. This team, after all the military drills, all the words, all the focus on fixing what’s wrong, the attention to details and accountability, all the hope and positiveness coming out of camp…words words words. The fact is they reek. And I mean bad. What coach, after 5 years, doesn’t have anything of an offensive line to speak of, or anything of a defensive line to speak of? Not much of one. No I don’t think last Saturday was a fluke…I think Bo’s lack of program management, player development, and defensive prowess which we all thought he possesed, and horrible lack of recruiting skills is starting to catch up with him and his team was exposed for what they are…just a bit better than a high school team.
No I say fire the guy. And he can take the rest of these boobs with him. Unless of course it’s OK with everyone that he turns our program into the next Iowa. Which he’s doing at an alarming rate.
Now, you and I both know that’s not about to happen. But what if we win 8-9 games and it’s not enough for him to be fired over…what’s next? Another year of hoping and praying these guys learn their craft fast enough for us so we can have a top program once again? Right. I think we’re going to be waiting a long time….in fact, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. Not under Bo Pelini and his Marry Maids. They are just not National Championship caliber coaches. In my opinion, we need experienced coaches that are at the top levels already. The guy were playing this coming Saturday would be an excellent example. Gus Malzon. offensive genius. Wanted a HC gig. We could have got him and he could of went out and got a defensive coordinator that was as good as Pelini. At least he has an awesome reputation and everyone knows how good he is. We could of got Dana Holgerson. Everyone knows his prowess and now it’s proven. He wanted a HC gig and got one and now has one of the best teams in the country. Again, you can hire a good DC. Would Urban Meyer of came to Nebraska had we offered at the right time? Lets see…Meyer or Pelini? Meyer or Pelini? I know who I’d pick. That’s the level I’m talking about.
9/13/2012
PE,
Pelini’s begun his 10th year (including those as a coordinator) running defenses in college. I identified a number of ENTIRE YEARS where you can’t find a bad game by the defense. Who can match that? Maybe Stoops? Muschamp? Saban? Bud Foster? Anyone else? So yes, the guru label is an earned one.
Your “not anymore” statement here just underscores your emphasis on 2011 (and really just a subset of games that season) and 1 game this year. He showed up in Lincoln in 2003 and the defense instantly got better and so did the win-loss record. He returned in 2008 and the defense instantly got better and so did the win-loss record. Last year, he lost his star defensive tackle at a critical time in his first year in a new conference and his team took a step backward. He still won 9 games.
After one very bad game this year, it’s time to throw in the towel on this guy? That’s thinking with your heart rather than your head.
You don’t build a program by constantly tearing it down and starting over. That means understanding the difference between winning and losing. Pelini has a winning conference (and nonconference) record every season. A track record of performance like that may not please entitled fans, but players and parents appreciate the stability (oh yeah, he also graduates players). Programs that have stayed the course have been rewarded. Osborne had a number of unexciting seasons before finally putting it all together (and there were plenty of people screaming for his head after he was upset by a Pac-10 team early in his fifth season). How did that turn out?
I don’t think you’ve been playing close attention if you think Nebraska is going to get into bidding wars for the likes Meyer or Saban. Unless Warren Buffett decides to leave his fortune to the Athletic Department, that won’t happen any time soon. Nebraska is second only to Wisconsin (by 1 game) in the Big Ten for the most wins since Pelini returned and that’s with a coach making less than the guy at Iowa.
There are no quick fixes. No short cuts. We can’t outbid everyone. We need to support winners when we have them and give them a chance to build over the long term. That’s what we did with Devaney, that’s what we did with Osborne, that’s what we need to do now.
9/13/2012
PE: From your first paragraph in response to Steve, you know, the one where you say he needs to edit…it’s “you’re” (you are) not your.
Your first paragraph, by the way, is the only one I read. If you want your thoughts read, you need to shorten it up. Steve, same to you about length of post.
9/13/2012
Gee thanks. That’s helpful.
9/13/2012
Yes but all those teams in all those years were someone elses recruits. Right up until this year. Now we’re down to “his team” and guess what? No NFL talent and problems all over the place. Problems like these are either coaching or talent problems. We have both.
Again, what does it say about a coach whose players don’t show up to play, or to play to win? I could go on and on. 4 years plus a couple games is his tenure as HC. If he’s such a defensive genious, why is his defense this year so horrible? This “Guru’s” defense is #96th in the country right now.
There are many programs in the country that did choose to get new coaches and it panned out well…Alabame for one, Ohio State another. Look at the rise of Michigan after a new administration?
Our program makes $3 million a month…they can afford anyone.
We’ll see how much of a guru he is in the next few weeks with ‘his’ players won’t we?
9/14/2012
Don’t show up to play? Who scored 24 in the first half? Don’t play to win? That’s a meaningless unprovable statement. They had the ball with 3 minutes and a chance to win and threw a pick because we got greedy. If anything, that’s trying too hard.
You mean, why has his defense had one bad game (really one terrible half)? The D gave up 13 in the opener and 7 in the second half last week. I expect improvement on D because we’ve seen it time and again from Pelini on that side of the ball.
Ohio State was doing fine with Tressel, but were forced to dump him. Last year was a huge step backward. We’ve only seen two games with Meyer. We’ll see if he does any better than Tressel at tOSU. Mike Shula had three losing seasons in the SEC in four years at ‘Bama. That’s not analogous to Pelini. NU may make $3M but programs like Texas, tOSU, Florida, and on and on make more and will always make more. Read/watch moneyball, we have to use a different approach.
Michigan fans probably had the same hissy fit that you are after the loss to Alabama. Denard Robinson is a freakishly good athlete and Hoke walked onto a team with a loaded roster. He might be Larry Coker - North.
9/14/2012
In all of these comments, not one person mentioned the possibility of UCLA being a decent team this year with an All-American caliber running back in Franklin.
Knee jerk reactions are brainless. We will be in the running for the B1G title all season long. One loss does not mean we can’t finish the season strong.
9/14/2012
True. Maybe it’s best to look at the total success that was the first game and look at this like more of a fluke. They will get it together and be respectable again. They’ll bounce back this game for sure. I would be surprised if they didn’t. Had we had a bit more O line play last Saturday, and if that resulted in giving him more time, I think Taylor could have picked them apart. He did get a little bit flustered but then again, he had big dudes in his face all day. The running game would have been even better as well. We had 2, 100 yard runners Saturday, and we did see the old T Magic return in his 92 yard run. I absolutely ate that one up! And had we not gone to those late game bone head moves…also called Tim Becks play calling… like 3 straight pass plays late in the game, none of which were successful, and one of which resulting in an interception, and the option read in our own end zone, we could have won. And it does look like this UCLA team, with that runner especially, is a damn good football team, now a ranked team, and we played them in their house. Had we tackled better, we would have kept the yardage down and the points, so we would have won had we done better there as well. Had we played just a little better, we woud have won. Against a damn good team, in their house. A game of inches I guess.
So there are 2 things right there to be hopeful about. Fix any one of them and things get better automatically.
9/14/2012
PE,
If the powers that be back in the ‘70’s thought like you, Nebraska would not have three championships from the ‘90’s. The very same things were said about Osborne. People wanted him fired by ‘76. Had somebody, like you, been in charge, we wouldn’t have those trophies and would probably be worse than Colorado is now.
9/14/2012
PE,
I apologize if that sounded like an attack. I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t understand the “fire them, they lost a few games” idea. And again, it wasn’t directed only at you but at all that make that statement.
9/14/2012
The first defensive player that thumps his chest and throws the bones for making a stop on first down needs to go….. If you stuff them on 3rd… ok…throw the bones and head for the sidelines. And please don’t pat yourselves on the back until after we play Wisconsin.