Plan of Attack: Western Michigan
One of my favorite ways to examine a prospective opponent is by looking at how they won and lost game previously. That's not ideal with the first few games of the season as you're left looking at what happened last year and that's not necessarily a good indicator of what this year's squad will look or act like. That said, after looking at the Broncos' 2007 campaign there's good reason to be optimistic about the result on Saturday.
Nebraska's perceived strength lies with the offense. WMU's perceived strength is the defense. Classic match-up but the difference is the Huskers were much better at their strength than the Broncos were at theirs last season.
Even with all the huge deficit, one-dimensional, desperation passing Nebraska had to do last year they still ended the season as the #9 offense overall. Western Michigan, on the other hand, was just the 68th-best defense in 2007. Now the Broncos do return 10 starters from that group but you're still looking at what one year ago was a below-average defense going on the road against a Top 10 offense.
Of course, what most Nebraska fans are really aching to see is that new Pelini polished defense. I wouldn't expect it to be totally shiny right out of the gate but a good indicator of their success will be what junior Brandon West is able to do out of the backfield for Western Michigan. In their seven losses last year, the Broncos averaged 95.14 yards on the ground. In their five wins, they were over 80 yards better with a clip of 179.8 yards/game. Against their four BCS conference opponents last year they were even worse, rushing for a mere 79 yards/game.
Couple that with the fact that over the past four seasons Western Michigan has always thrown for more yards in losses than wins and the defensive strategy for Saturday may be as simple as all that coach speak makes it seem: Stop the run. I(t's worth noting here that even with Nebraska's forced pass happiness last season, the Huskers still averaged more passing yards in wins (333.0) than losses (317.1), albeit marginally so.) Western Michigan has experienced skill position players but last year, when forced to rely on the passing game, the Broncos struggled. If it's late in the second half before they approach 100 yards rushing you can likely feel pretty good about where Nebraska is at.
It's difficult to come up with a true plan of attack for the first game of the season as we have yet to see Watson's "Nebraska offense" or the new defense yet. Additionally, depending on your disposition towards watching MAC football, most of us probably haven't seen Western Michigan at all. So what angles will Nebraska try to exploit?
It's the same old song and dance. The strengths lie on the line and in the backfield and all the comments out of camp have focused on a physical running game. A heavy dose of the three-backs(?) seems likely and if its effective probably won't be abandoned out of sheer hubris. (Ahem.) And really, isn't the same old song and dance what so many in Husker Nation crave?
If asked to boil it down to two concrete thoughts, here's how it looks to me: 1) Nebraska's offense should be markedly better than Western Michigan's defense. 2) Even if we ask the defense to be merely average in their first game of the season, that still puts them in the same neighborhood as WMU's 57th-ranked offense from last year.
But, if we can reasonably expect Nebraska to make a huge improvement on defense from 07 to 08, I guess we could reasonably expect the same out of the Broncos on offense. I'm just not and that's the reason for being a fan, reasonableness comes and goes.
8/29/2008
Brandon, nice article…you guys always come up with good stuff. My question to you is, what are Bo Pelini’s goals as a defensive unit? Have you heard anything about that. The coaching staff usually sets a number of pts per game that they want to keep their opponent to.. along with a certain number of rushing yards, receiving yards, turnovers etc.
Kansas City, MO
8/29/2008
Bo Pelini only has one goal. 14-0.
8/29/2008
The thing that I really like about this matchup is how green WMU’s offensive line is. They lost three starters off last years team and the new guys haven’t had much experience (think Nebraska’s D line last year or our LB’s this year). There’s lots of potential as their line averages over 300 lbs, but I think NU wins the battle in the trenches all afternoon. Which should lead to a pretty one sided game. That’s just my prediction.
8/29/2008
Yeah, pound the ball at the SOB’s. Their defensive line gives up a fair amount of size to our offensive line, and as long as we don’t give up a bunch of turnovers, we should wear them down as the game goes on.
Gets the offensive line confidence, allows them to bash the Broncos (which OL dudes love), and gets the backs going. Swift and Peterson are there with experience to keep things off-balance.
The defense.. well, no major mistakes. Don’t give up big plays, which requires everybody staying in position. That’ll be the biggest task of the day for these guys in their first game under Pelini.
I thought about writing up a ‘keys to the game’ post at CN, but I think we’ve wrung this turnip for about every piece of juice we can at this point.
It’s a long way to tomorrow eve, ain’t it?
8/29/2008
I think our D Line should blow up their O Line and shut down the run. It will be interesting to see how much blitzing we do, or can we get a rush with the front four? They have a great tight end for a hot route and they like to use their running back for the screen pass. Our LB’s are going to have to be spot on with their assignments. Of course our DB’s will be tested with their talented recievers. Overall should be a great test for our Defense. I think we will miss a few assignments here and there and they will get a few big plays on us, but overall I think our D will play well.
8/29/2008
Great article Brandon.
What I hope to see out of this game is aggressiveness from Nebraska’s defense - which will risk some big plays but should also cause some turnovers. I want to see a key turnover or two break this game in the Husker’s favor early - but I’ll take anything positive here.
The scary part to me is whether our front four is ready and able to pressure the QB without blitzing. If they can’t do it to W. Mich, they’ll have a terrible time against the likes of Mizzou, Texas Tech & Oklahoma. And our secondary is going to need an effective pass rush to be effective.
On offense, I hope to see a much more physical run-based attack with plenty of carries for Lucky, Helu and Castille. By the 4th quarter I hope to see that Western Michigan defense back on their heels, unable to stop a still-fresh running attack. I’d rather see Joe Ganz pass for under 200 yards than over 300 in this game, while the Huskers re-establish the ground game with an exclamation point.
4/24/2012
Too bad the player’s are not peecrft like some Neb fans that bitch and moan about them. Most of those fans, if they played football at all, were not much of a player themselves. Very few peecrft football players come along and even then once in a while they fumble the ball. They are remembered based upon when they fumbled and lost the big game or made the big play that won the game.Why not just support them like a true Neb fan. Giving them hell isn’t going to help anyway. They are the best we got right now and they represent Neb. We as a fan should also hold ourselfs to the same high standards.I hope the kid comes to Nebraska