Sloppy Play Dooms Nebraska at UCLA

If you score 27 points you should win this game. The defense was slow, out of position, and lost pretty much the entire night. Bo got out coached again, like we’ve seen in the past.

It was pretty obvious that they couldn’t stop our run game…...yet we totally abandoned in most of the second half.

Very Disappointing… Not sure if we can fix the issues, this season.

Absolutly disappointing. Coaches and players. Defensive cordinator. But…..... Hats off to ucla we got outplayed but still shoulda won

beck, cotton, papuchis all need to go, recievers dropped passes that would have converted, we should not have even been in this game only haiving one third down conversion, these are coaching issues not all on pelini, but he needs to jump on some of his assistants after this embarrassment.  But hats off to UCLA, fyi I am a seattle seahawk fan, so I cant stand Mora, but he coached a good game something he could never do in the NFL

Defense was atrocious!  It’s that simple.

I have mixed emotions on this game.  Tackling was a shambles again.  The players never gave up though and continued to fight for a win till the end.  Johnathan Franklin is a stud RB.  That D Lineman from Compton is a bad man.  The Bruins definitely have talent and Mora has worked wonders with what was a sad sack team last year.  Up next is Mr Malzahn.  They cannot be overlooked.  Obviously there is plenty of room for improvement.  What happened to the mean Pelini defense NU showed a few years ago?  Are we really lacking talent on defense or is it coaching?

Im so beyond sick of this garbage these kids should be ashamed to wear those jerseys they are a disgrace to the university of Nebraska.
Bo pelini is anything but a defensive genious. This feels like the Callahan era all over again. The talent evalution is horrible in lincoln and they have done a crap job of coaching players up. The players from the 70’s 80’s and 90’s must watch this team and be sick to their stomachs the lack of effort and the taking plays off is pathetic.
Iv’e been fanatically following Husker football for 22 years and I just can’t stand watching pitful games like this and then listening to all the Bs excuses afterward. There are a ton of things wrong with this program. Bad coaching staff bad coaching schemes lack of real talent. But the biggest problem is that kids today are not willing to give up their life on the field. They are not willing it give it everything they have every down all the time. The formula for success is out there. But this program doesn’t seem to want to use it. It is a sad sad day to be a Husker fan and most likely this year will just get worse. So until this team is willing to give it everything they have on every play. Until they start actually caring about playing hard for 60 minutes a game for the team themselves and the fans I’m done. I’ll watch but there will be no expectations, there will be no belief by me in anything that is said about this program until some real proof is consistently put out there on the field. The days of the 90’s are dead and they may never come back. In the form of wins or effort they may never come back I hope im wrong but I just don’t know anymore. respond if you want tell me i’m an idiot of you want I don’t care I’ve had it with the BS from this program and I won’t be back to read a response anyway. Good luck to the rest of you.

Line play was horrid.  No pressure on Hundley and the defense was in Martinez face the entire 2nd half.

Nebraska, Colorado, Misery and A&M all losers today.  Congrats to their new conferences and continued good riddance.  Looks like the grass isn’t always greener.

We were exposed by the swing pass? Enough said.

Pathetic defense

Ugly Ugly Defense.  No tackling whatsoever.  Defense was flat footed.  Penalties.  Penalties.  Dropped Passes.  It’s 2011 all over again.  We better buckle down, it only goes uphill from here.

Can bo not handle the off n.def in same year? Seams its either our defense is great and bails our offense out or its our offense is great and bails our defense out. It’s a total coaching issue wat we saw today

first off, hats off to ucla. The qb and rb are studs.

Neb Offense was horrible in the second half. Maybe tmart should have worked on leadership in the offseason too. So many chances to step up, but he choked bad.  Abdula was good other than the fumble. Third down drops by wrs. Oline couldnt give tmart enough time. Maher missing another fg was big. Defense was bad all around. Neb failed in every aspect of the game. Very dissapointing. Gonna be a long season. Pelini has work to do.

Gave up 653 yds on D. Come back carl.

Coach Pelini was here in 2003 and he has now been here for this stretch of 5 years.  We hear that mobile QB’s give Coach Pelini problems, and goodness gracious they do.  Vince Young, Brad Smith in 2003 and every single subsequent one since has just torched his defenses. Why?  He simply does nothing to account for them.  No adjustments either in a game week preparation or in game.  And even worse, even worse was to watch a coaching staff (UCLA) who had been together for less than a year just thoroughly outcoach us in every way possible. . .

Did anyone wonder during this 648, yes a Cosgrovian 648 numerical total, what the heck Dennard Robinson and Braxton Miller will do to us?  Who do you like in a head to head matchup to make in-game adjustments? Urban Meyer or Papuchis?  If you are going to insist on using two lane read (yes, they are still using it) and ask the front 7 to clean up everything then you better have NFL talent.  Having a culture will not make up for the lack of athleticism up front.  Having a culture will not make up for the failure to even get within arm’s reach of a QB.  If you are going to ask your front four to engage blocks, get off, play with lane integrity, and get in the backfield with no pressure then you better have some NFL Prospects. . .

This UCLA team was 6-7 last year.  People talked about using this trip to take out program out to California to market it if you will.  Well you think it’s going to get easier to recruit California after this?  USC, Oregon and UCLA have some convinging reasons to sell kids to stay at home.  We are at a point where we are just stuck.  We cannot beat a good team, have never beaten a BCS-caliber team since Coach Pelini has been here, and we’re giving up yards in totals that got Callahan and Cosgrove packing.  The problem with our program at the moment is that there are some correctable problems that are just not being addressed at all let alone acknowledged. . .

I’ll pay a few compliments too because there are some people who deserve them.  Abdullah is a tough player with a lot of talent and moxie, Martinez has really worked on his game a lot and I’m happy for him right now (even today’s mistakes included), the secondary is vastly improved and has a chance to be the best overall unit in the conference at year’s end, and Coach Joseph is a good pickup for us. . .

How’s it possible to get out coached by UCLA(un-ranked team). I understand pre-season ranking is BS, but still, we should have played like a ranked team. I don’t blame the players, but our coaches have to be reprimanded for the debacle, so early in the season.
We have better talent than UCLA, period. It was ‘our - coaching’, ‘preparation’ and well coached UCLA players that beat us. Seeing a freshman QB playing Darts with Blackshirts was painful.

Plain n simple coaching. And Jason I bealive w facts we have beaten a bcs caliber team.

Everyone needs to shut up, get a night’s sleep and think about this in the morning. You want Bo and the staff to go? Do you remember what life was like before Bo????? You idiots posting negative are probably the same ones that wanted Frank’s head on a spike. Give it a rest. It’s one non conference game! Did anyone think we’d win every game this year. Seriously? The BIG is still wide open for the taking, but please let’s act like all is lost and the sun will not come up tomorrow. You wanna run Bo out? Let’s see what life is like without him and the coaching staff. Minimum 3 years playing catch up again. Do we remember how long it took Dr. Tom to turn it in to something after Bob retired? Seriously stop your negative posting and whining because if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, geniuses!

I along with many did not see this game coming. Some did. There were moments where you thought the Huskers just may have been able to pull out the win.
I feel this game, by years end will not be considered an upset, but a game played by two teams that will be in the hunt for their conference championships or may even win them. Like it or not folks, the Bruins are a damn good team.
As for the Huskers, this is a team loss from Bo to bottom. Just enough mistakes on offense, plenty of arm tackling by the defense, and special teams gimme’s to add up to a loss.
Out played? I honestly don’t think so. Out coached? Pappy and Beck both got humbled a bit. End of the year, fire everybody, oh my God this team is awful? Grow up, get up, and let’s get em next week. Like I said, 9 or 10 weeks from now, this Bruin team will be ranked and in the hunt and so will the Huskers. Bo and Co. said all week this was a well coached and pretty talented bunch, and he’s right.
As for the article. My only disagreement is the use of the term Blackshirts. I did not see one last night. Flashes of Husker D. But Blackshirts do NOT arm tackle. GBR

Oh I don’t know Jason in Iowa…seems like Mora did the job in way less than a year…they were ranked somewhere in the 50’s and we were ranked #16. And they flat out beat us. It’s as simple as that. They were better last night. A rookie freshman QB and a very good runner beat us…after beating us in the trenches on both sides of the ball! We lost that battle…Martinez didn’t have time and our D line got beat over and over by starting freshmen…I guess that’s what it’s like when you know how to recruit.
I couldn’t help wishing Tyler Moore hadn’t left…after seeing how slow and flat footed Qvale was, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to get people better than these guys. But they can’t. Not a nice morning to wake up to. I can’t imagine winningthe conference now, but Wisconsin got beat too, and Michigan isn’t very good this year either. I guess we better enjoy all the positive publicity we got in the last week, because there is going to be a mountain of negative now. We are so far away it seems, where just yesterday it seemed like we were a top 10 team. I guess not. Thanks guys.

Its morning now. I had nightmares of teams walking all over our D every week. Jk. But seriously i cant stop thinkin about how bad our D was. 653 yds allowed? Ouch! Can UCLA be that good?

T-Marts inability to lead his team under pressure. I live 15 miles south of BYU campus and riley nelson is the only qb i know to throw the ball worse than Tmart. Tmart is far better now this year but theres one thing riley nelson has that tmart doesnt. Leadership. The ability to perform under pressure lead his team to victory or die trying. cant stand the kid but hes got something not alot of qbs do. I wish Tmart had it. He looked pitiful on the sidelines and was noticeably rattled by the pressure.

As usual, agree with some of what has been said, vented frustrations aside.  It certainly was shades of last year at times.  There were the dropped passes, the penalties, the mental mistakes, in short…...the usual stuff we saw in 2011.  My favorite…...fair catching a kick on the 4-5 yard line…..huh?  And they wonder why they lost the field position battle.

The “arm tackling” wasn’t necessarily bad technique in many instances.  When the guy you’re chasing is faster than you are, sometimes reaching out and trying to grab him is about as close as you’re going to get. 

Martinez isn’t the problem.  There had to be times last night when he was thinking to himself…..“Geez, come on you guys”.  Seems like Martinez spent a good deal of the night fielding ground ball like snaps instead of using that split second extra to look down field.  The Big Red looked more like the Red Sea on that safety, except the UCLA linebacker was the one doing the parting not Moses.  When UCLA made their half-time defensive adjustments, Cotton was clueless, leaving Martinez to hope that if the O-line wasn’t going to block anyone, perhaps they could at least kind of get in their way a little.

Give Franklin some credit.  It wasn’t all about the NU D-line taking bad angles.  It was a lot about Franklin sliding through the creases and giving them nothing BUT bad tackling angles.  This guy is not a simple north/south runner, although it sure looked like the NU Lbackers were playing him that way.  The outside contain was abysmal.  The sidelines must have looked like an HOV lane to UCLA.  The kicking game….how did Maher just go from pre-season first to in-season worst?  Didn’t see that one coming.

And the coaching…....let’s face it, Mora’s got a bunch of ex-NFL guys, probably any one of which has more experience than Beck, Pap, and Bo have as co-ordinators or head coaches combined.  And it showed.

Saw someone’s comment about this being a non-conference game of little importance.  Ummmm…..college football doesn’t have a preseason.  They all count.  In closing, I think they could have won this game save and except a couple of plays.  No safety and Maher makes the short field goal…..there’s the win, warts and all.

It’s all ancient history now.  Go Big Red.

The game was brutal and near torture to watch. You could nearly count 2-4 missed tackles on every defensive play. High expectations fall every year to games like this. ” Nebraska doesn’t do well against a duel threat QB” Okay, we have heard this for years, change it!

Win some and lose some, but at least lose to teams that are clearly better.

Yeah…
Well, the one loss is now out of the way.
Too easy to “fake out” the D, if not run right at ‘em. Also too easy the overwhelm the offense, with pressures.
Since that’s what pretty much everyone is trying to do, my, it’s a bit overwhelming to consider the implications at the moment.
Ruined a great Nebraska run, by T-Magic and an amazing display of regained composure by Maher.
Definitely missed Superman, who doubtless would’ve helped with sustaining some drives and give the D, a moment.
The game was close to emblematic of the last 9 seasons of Nebraska history, with flaws just being blown wide open and everything.

Even now, my only big concern, is with the Senior class of “backers.” At this point, they’re experts in the system. They’re just not good enough and there’s not enough time for the youngsters, so, it’s gonna be a ride.

This is what happens when you keep cotton around and promote our offense and defense coordinators with zero experience at it. Leads 2 games like this. We need coaches that can get the jobs done right away and not wait for people like beck and papuchis 2 take years 2 learn how 2 coach and choose the write plays.

We have mediocre talent, mediocre coaching, means yiu have a mediocre team. The Nebraska football program has slipped into mediocrity. You have to take it for what it is worth and you won’t be let down as much. We don’t have a team that can hang with the big boys any more. For the talent level we have 7 to 9 wins a year should be a lofty goal.

Your defense looked pretty bad - but at least you had an offense.  Nebraska’s play was amazingly good when compared to Wisconsin.

Good:  Ameer, sans fumble.  Martinez long run, he should have went down on the one yard line, give the D a few more seconds to rest.  Generally the running was good.  First half receiving was good.  The D improved slightly in the second half, had key stops after getting in bad positions.

Bad: Don’t call plays that require time wasting fakes when you’re in your own end zone.  That safety play at first I thought was another zone read, but afterwards I thought it was play action pass - or Tmart would have handed off.  Tmart showed some amateur decision making again, with the interception, trying to flip the ball on his way down (lucky his knee hit first), had to see the guy on the safety.  Reed drop.  Turner drop.  Turner still tring to make every play a highlight instead of running north.  They should run some option pass plays off these Turner end runs.  Bend but don’t break oops it broke defense.  PJ, Reed and Turner, need catching lessons.

Tiredhuskerfan…..you said it baby!  Toro?...good ;point!...Mack?  Could not have said it better, and, you are not alone in that sentiment…Jason in Iowa?  Shut up fool…it is obvious you have been eating too much of the wrong corn…only a non-conference game?  guess what dumb one, they all count!!! As for this only being one game?  There have been four years of games like this!!! Do you remember Iowa freaking State ???Remember Texas?  Were you conscious when they blew a 17 point lead to Oklahoma?  Then there is Northwestern. Wissy, Michigan, Washington, South Carolina…and on, and on, and on…some of us fondly remember when we seemingly NEVER lost to teams we were favored to beat…we h ave a right to be upset with this mediocre coaching staff, so keep your church-going, turn the other cheek attitude to yourself.

Message to The powers that be at the university of Nebraska. Get some money together and go get a REAL college coach with a PROVEN track record in college. Bo Pelini is a pro coach and he needs Professional players for his defensive scheme. Bo Pelini is a failure in recruiting and his staff has been awful for the most part in coaching up players. NO MORE EXPERIMENTS with head coaches.
Even if you have to pay 5 or 6 million dollars a year get the very best coach out there that is willing to coach at NU. The status quo is completely unexceptable the program has become a disgrace to the former players, coaches and the fans. To many of these players show absolutely no passion and have no sense of urgency. It is not time for A change its time for THE change. Bring back the real Nebraska.

And in watching the game again you can’t help but look at the obvious. Five Offensive Linemen, 11 Spread with a dual-threat QB who operates in an offense where he must be accounted for as a running threat due to the zone read.  For good measure throw in ghost motion that was a feature of UCLA’s approach to spreading us out.  We counter with Four Linemen and Two Linebackers.  Now since not one DT can occupy two blockers we are down one man inside the box and there is no safety help due to the unique nature of our Matchup Zone.  Imagine the stress it puts on the Linebackers pre-snap?  They have to read, be ready to defend inside, run with TE’s on seam routes and possibly be concerned about the flat being abandoned. If you are going to ask the Line and Linebackers to do this, with no alley support whatsoever you better get NFL caliber players. . .

With hindsight, his 2003 Defense had 5 draft picks on it.  The 2009 and 2010 were anchored by NFL talent on the line and the best secondary we have had in 15 years (again with NFL talent) so it seems that for this system to be effective it needs talent.  And currently the talent is not in the program at Line and Linebacker. . .

I don’t know if I can even wrap my head around this one completely…two words though, tackling drills. On offense, I do not buy calling it poor o-line play. UCLA did what everyone will do now, send pressure and then some at Taylor and make him beat you with his decision making (or lack-thereof). Just like MSU against Michigan last year. And Taylor fell apart in the second half.  But a lot is on Beck too.  They sent blitzes and we did nothing to counter them, no misdirection…again.  No creativity…again.  No screens, no shovel passes (purposefully), no counters, no speed option, no trickery (Turner can pass too right?) nothing. The bottom line is that UCLA made adjustments at halftime and we didn’t. Abdullah looked good, but that fumble was reminiscent of Helu against Texas…absolutely worst possible timing, set the tone from there on, and you’d hope Rex doesn’t make that mistake if he’s in.

Our defense is atrocious looking, particularly the tackling. I think a lot of their overall problem is this pro-style scheme we run without pro-style players.  You have 2 or 3 starting NFL caliber players and it’s fine, but we don’t. And we run a nickle with Whaley and Compton, our two slowest LBs in coverage…on top of having to contain a mobile QB?  Are you kidding me? They ran the same play over and over and we couldn’t stop it…unbelievable.  My niece knew what they were running with the RB in motion before the snap in the second half, but our guys didn’t…wtf?  At least Green and Evans showed up.  The rest, well…I’d seriously give them pink shirts or flower shirts to practice in this week.  They stop playing like a bunch of pansies and they can wear their regular jerseys, but forget about black.

Two things really stuck out though, 1) Compton celebrating a stop before Franklin was even down - finish the $%&#ing; play first - show us you know how to tackle and pound him into the $%&#ing; turf first please - then act like you did something. 2) That receiver catching the ball over Jean-Baptiste, a pass that should have been intercepted ala Ohio State…total epitome of their team wanting it more, plain and simple.

I guess I will stop my posts after this but I read a quote from LSU Defensive Coordinator John Chavis which I could not help but notice:

“We play a lot of people. We don’t recruit guys to Redshirt.  If you’ve recruited the right kind of people they’re not going to be here four years anyways. . .”

LSU can do this and instill assignment oriented football.  And they recruit better players than we do at the moment.  Ultimately what is it that we want?  We don’t have what it takes athletically to play with the top teams.  We keep people here and as Redshirt Seniors they can’t execute assignments and the mental aspects of the game on a consistent basis.  Do we want to play better in games like this?  Do we want to win a conference championship?If we want to win a conference championship and show well for ourselves in a BCS Bowl we need to take a look at that comment and understand that we need to upgrade our speed at both Offensive & Defensive Line and Linebacker.  These problems are correctable but they must be ackowledged and then addressed over time.  The question is will Coach Pelini ackowledge and correct them?

This made me laugh a little when I saw somebody post this on another site:

“I don’t always hire new coordinators but when I do, I prefer that they have no experience.  Stay thirsty my friends. . .”

I’ve been to several blogs now reading comments about Pelini and there are alot of people saying this program is no longer worth spending their money on. If they don’t fix this debacle soon (hopefully by hiring a real coach) then the sell out streak may end up in big trouble. I’m not spending another dime on anything Nebraska related until the right changes are made. The fans have waited long enough for the mediocrity to end. Bring back the real Nebraska

I was at the game… and one thing stuck out to me more than anything else: Nebraska is SLOW at the second level on defense.

Why do you think those wheel routes were gouging us all night?

Now for the good news!
Michael Rose and Zaire Anderson will be seeing the field more and more as the season rolls along… and that will go a long way at increasing the ability of the defense to move laterally.

I hate calling out individual players, but Whaley just doesn’t have the athleticism to do the things required of him vs top-shelf talent. All of those missed tackles? That was a product of this disparity.

As for the offense, Beck certainly didn’t call a good game… but they were good enough to get a win.

The D is not very good overall and the play up front is amazing- if you are the opposing QB/RB. This is the second week in a row I have read an article that took the time to say something positive about Will Compton and it perplexes me.  I do not understand how a LB who routinely misses tackles, rarely if ever sheds blockers, and has some of the worst football instincts on the field at any given time is the starter AND getting good press. A handful of good plays a game does not make up for a veritable laugh track the rest of the game.

I agree with you all its all about the coaching it is a joke when the hell did the nebraska job become a on the job training program!!! You have 2 be kidding me right another bad hire like the last one many others have said we need a real coach with collage football exsperince. That is the understatment of the last decade!!!! Great coaches bring great players collage is difrent from the nfl time for the big red to get back to their roots COLLAGE FOOTBALL!! Tires of these nfl guys that could give a sh@# less about nebraska!!!!

^^ I see your point, but that was brutal to read.

A letter to Dr. Tom Osborne:  Dear Dr. Osborne…please read the comments set forth by one frustrated husker fan that blogs with the name blk shirts…you see Dr. Tom, he is merely speaking for many thousands of loyal, disheartened husker fans that have not forgotten what Nebraska football is (or supposed to be) about.  And, please don’t tell me you don’t have the money to hire a comparable Urban Meyer, Les Miles, or?.....did you not see the UCLA coaches smirking on the sidelines knowing they had Bo and his band of “wanna be” coaches right where they wanted them?  At first I wanted to punch one of them, but it dawned on me, the guy I really wanted to slap silly was our own head coach who shows more loyalty to his assistant oaches than to his own team.  Know what the underlying theme is with all of the negativity surrounding our program really is? iT’S SIMPLY THIS:  DO SOMETHING!!!

I guess I watched the same football game as the rest of the posters but, I thought the first pass interference call was clearly a face mask penalty on UCLA, not a penalty on NU.  I knew then we were in for a long night.  TM played a fair game and produced enough points to win, Abdullah played very well, though we certainly missed having rex available.  Our Defense needs a lot of work, and a healthy dose of attitude adjustment, they were not ready to play football on Saturday night. Our O line just gave up sometime in the middle of the 3rd qtr. and there were Bruins in the back field chasing TM on every play, usually just running free with no protection from our O line.  It appears that our receivers should have spent a little time learning how to catch footballs along with TM lesarning how to toss them.  What happened to the running game in the 2nd half?  Surely our backs are still able to run after 2 qtrs, maybe not.  One things for certain, TM needs a little help from the rest of this group if we’re going to play up to the NU standards we all grew up with.  I noticed that TM spent a whole lot of time picking up the snaps off the ground which takes his eye off the play that’s developing, thank God he has good hands. I knew that our center position was being overlooked by Cotton in pre season, and it sure showed in this game.  Bo still looks like he’s about to blow a head gasket all through the game, I can’t imagine playing for a guy with that demeanor, gotta be hard on a team’s morale and spirit.  TO never showed any unpleasantness during a game that I can remember, Solich neither.

MASE has a good point…that game ws won by the team that wanted it more. And that clearly was UCLA. We played aweful and I can’t understand with so much on the line, with all the family members present, how these guys can come out and stink the place up like that? The week before we saw a whole diffrerent Nebraska team, a damn good one, and it’s not because we played an inferior team. It’s the preperation of the players and getting them ready to play. And getting them motivated. In short, we saw the Saturday before this game what this team can be like, top 10 I’d say if they were to play like that all the time. It’s a weird problem, like something is sabatoging us or something.
But this is what happens when you go out and and hire a newby for your head coach, and he in turn hires newbies for his assistent coaches and coordinators. As it stands right now, both our DC and OC have a total of 1 year experience between them at their perspective jobs. And I know this may be harsh, but this is what you get when you hire inexperienced coaches. They simply don’t know what to do. They may have all the promise and potential in the world,but they still don’t have any experience. And it’s experience that flat out beat the pants off us last Saturday. It was coaching, flat out. They’re players aren’t any better than ours overall I don’t think. And if they are, were certainly had other things going for us that equate out to be advantages for us. We should have won that game.
I think UCLA is just one more example of what happens when you go out and hire experienced coaches. Granted, Mora hadn’t coached in college, but he has a LOT more experience in coaching in the NFL than Bo does. And his assistants are top notch too. They did it right. Hired proven talent. Unlike our approach.
We’re going to have to live with this level of performance for a few more years though, because unless it really gets bad, it’s not going to be bad enough to get Bo fired. Lets face it. Now, another 3 years of this high school/Callahan type of a team and he’ll be gone, but not before. Maybe we should hope for worse and worse football around here so we can have ANOTHER complete coaching change at our school! The Pelini era will be the third to go since TO left. 4th time lucky anyone?
But who could we get now? No one is available…we need a Saben type, a Les Miles , or an Urban Meyer. Problem is they all have jobs. Who else would be an out of the park score?

PE, having been at the game… I would have to disagree with you on one main point:

There was DEFINITELY a talent disparity between some of the N defense and the UCLA offense. Speed, speed & more speed.

It’s not that we don’t have speed though, it was just on the sidelines. I don’t understand why we completely went away from the hybrid position player just because we’re not in the Big 12…we see plenty of spread-style offenses both in and out of conference.  When I see Compton/Whaley split out to cover a RB/WR in the slot, I cringe…not because they’re bad players, they’re just not fast enough.  We simply need to get more speed on the field when we play spread offenses and if the scheme is too hard for certain guys, it needs to be simplified.  Lack of speed against mobile QB’s working spread offenses seems to be affecting our tackling too…it’s hard to tackle a guy when you can only get two finger tips on him as he’s running by or juking you.  We need our speed on the field!  It may be time to throw one of our younger LBs, who has some speed, into the fire…particularly in nickle formations.  Otherwise add another safety player in there…like moving Stafford up.  I see too many less talented teams play better defense…because they’re scheme is designed to fit the players they have. This is college; you can’t just plug in different guys to a complicated scheme and expect the same results. We cannot simply rely on a Suh or David to bail the team out every year.  David had to clean up the mess way too many times last year to not see this coming.

Precisely, Mase.
That’s what I am saying.

Rose and Anderson need to see the field.

While the offense showed some ability before UCLA adjustments were made, 1 for 11 on third downs meant we were just not getting it done and as the game went on, we were going to pay a real price.  Nebraska looked tired t/o the 4th quarter…maybe they were whipped.  I do think Rex would have made a difference maybe sustaining some drives.  Our defense looked just awful.  The comments about our being s l o w
were right on point.  What the heck does our coaching staff do during halftime?  coffee and donuts?

Unfortunately Nebraska can’t sell the “you will be on tv” anymore to recruits.  Every team is on tv.  Most high school recruits have to dig deep to find when Nebraska football was relevant even.  So saying anything about coaches is pointless.  Maybe they can’t get the 4 or 5 star recruits to visit let alone come to NU.  Calahan had a super bowl ring he could dangle at least even though he didn’t earn it.  Sorry to say it but i believe the glory days are over for a long time. There are too many good to better other programs.  no big time coach is gonna come either.  GBR since ‘78

I think you’re right BUZZ. I also think we are going to start running into kids that actually have NO IDEA about Nebraska’s past. I mean next years Freshman will be born in what 94/95? Since these kids have been ten years old, its been all about the SEC.

Neb better turn it around quick or we are going to falling down hill year after year. Maybe someone will pick up on the importance of actually hiring someone with experience?

Chill out everyone , well be ok . :Life goes on! GO BIG RED !!

Linebacker speed is reportedly on the way.
http://sports.omaha.com/2012/09/10/practice-report-910-defensive-changes/

UCLA looks like a potent team this year and they were fired up against the huskers so I wouldn’t take it as the end of the world even though it was a hard loss.  Our defense looked insecure before the plays even began for much of the game.

Let’s look on the bright side, we did hold them to 7 less yards total offense than lowly Rice did!

UCLA played better, harder and deserved to win.  That being said, NU was without their best offensive weapon.  It’s not the end of the world.  NU is a good team, and will hopefully improve.  Don’t take any team for granted though, and don’t forget what happened to NU in ‘72 after their loss to the Bruins in LA.