John Butler and Terry Bradden have their work cut out for themselves these next two weeks finding players who can actually back up the starters who were performing at a good level. When the second unit came in things starting to unravel which is very concerning but hopefully something that can be worked on and corrected. I'm really concerned about our NT Judy who is getting pushed around and pancaked, it was a weird game by him. I just hope some of the young kids are hungry enough for their shot at the spot light. GBR!
Nebraska defense
- Thread starter konaki
- Start date
Bottom line: we have not recruited well for big defensive tackles. No amount of “coaching up” players can mask the stark reality that we just don’t have any good players at the tackle position. Period. Full stop.
I need to see more before im ready to judge the defense. With the exception of their complete inability to contain Sorsby when the play broke down, they played a great game. Yes, the defensive line was definitely noticeably a step down from last year. That's to be expected. Hartzog struggling so much at nickle concerns me far more.
All in all; im not doomsday mode on the defense yet. Take away Sorbys legs, and the defende had a fine day.
The offense still being unwilling to throw more than 5 yards beyond the LOS, concerns me much more...
All in all; im not doomsday mode on the defense yet. Take away Sorbys legs, and the defende had a fine day.
The offense still being unwilling to throw more than 5 yards beyond the LOS, concerns me much more...
Agreed and in the current CFB environment with NIL and the transfer portal teams with the right spending, recruiting, and competent coaching can turn it around quite literally in one offseason. Colorado, Indiana, FSU this year it appears prove that. OSU spent like crazy last year and won a national championship.
Arguably Mike Ekeler is going to prove that with our special teams.
RVP was a complete bust on the line against Cincinnati. Got pushed around like a rag doll. He is a huge liability. I really thought he would be better. He sucked
The right starting combination against Cincy gave up three points in the first half. But the second half as we saw was a different story as we saw, and as I said John Butler and Terry Bradden better mix up the rotations better because some of these combinations just don't mesh. as the second half proved. I also believe we better get some of those young players ready to play the middle because we razer thin at NT which would force us to play two defensive linemen which we really don't have a ton of. Our coaches did a very poor job of paying players (NIL) on the DL and everyone know we should have. jmo
With George as his partner I agree they must be reassigned new partners you might have to put RVP with Lenhardt, and you might have to put George with Nwaneri not my thinking but someone with a better football IQ than mine.
I don’t know about that. I will leave it up to the coaches to make the best personnel packages. And I didn’t pay much attention to George. I focused on RVP when he was in because I thought he would be good. He wasn’t good at all. Very disappointing and does not give me much hope with regard to our depth
He doesn't lack confidence - at least in interviews:
“I just want to shock the world with our D-line unit, with our defense as a whole,” Van Poppel said. “People have a lot of things to say about us. People aren’t out there every day watching us go get after it. People don’t know who we have in our room.”
Nebraska’s D-line wants to ‘shock the world’ this season
There’s a reason they redshirted him last year. He needs to mature and get stronger. RVP I think is still only 19. He looked pretty damned good in limited action last year when paired with experienced DTs. Cinci had a big mature experienced O line and we didn’t handle it very well. I’m concerned about the D line as a whole but RVP I believe only played about 20 snaps. I expressed concern earlier this year about what losing Nash and Ty meant. I think we have a backup guard who could be a beast at nose tackle.
The thing that really gets me is they think they are the only team in the country working hard.
Of course as the head coach Matt gets to make any decision he wants. He tells them to move James Williams off the scout team on the big squad, he tells them to move Bullock from safety to LB, etc. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
I think overall, its to the detriment of the team because Matt is always an underdog kind of guy. He just has that emotional attachment to some guys who aren't really deserving of playing time, but he's willing to try to give them a chance to better themselves.
He's not gonna change.
Isn't it strange that people can judge players by one game and say they suck. I think all that's needed is some shuffling of players and assignments in games. I know that we had some players in the last game on the DL that seemed lost and outclassed for what ever reason and it was quite shocking but I'm not throwing in the towel after one game. My hope is that our DC and DL coach will make the appropriate adjustments going forward.
Tackling was the biggest concern to me. I haven’t seen that many missed tackles since Chinander was calling the defense.
We won. Let’s hope this game gives the team the proper dose of reality they need to get back to work. No one expects us to compete for a title this year. Keep getting better. Keep building. We have two easy games to work on things before Michigan. Let’s see what the guys can do before we **** on them.
Not as nearly as strange that people can judge a team based off of off-season hype. Hype that was mostly coming from a coach who has an over all losing record and barely a winning one at Nebraska. Hype even after old coach canceled the spring game. Makes you wonder why he did that now.
Some people have said RVP played better against the run when he was in. Did anyone see him play/notice any difference at NT when he was in.
I will add I expected our team to be at least 7 points worse this year on defense. I expected our team to be 7 - 14 points better on offense. Perhaps more since I was meh on Butler. I'm far more sad by our offense. People keep talking about the cover 3 shell. It's a good shell. But how do you beat it? Either dink and dunking all up and down the field or running the ball. We failed at both. Still plenty of time to improve though.
I will add I expected our team to be at least 7 points worse this year on defense. I expected our team to be 7 - 14 points better on offense. Perhaps more since I was meh on Butler. I'm far more sad by our offense. People keep talking about the cover 3 shell. It's a good shell. But how do you beat it? Either dink and dunking all up and down the field or running the ball. We failed at both. Still plenty of time to improve though.
How Concerned Should We Be About Nebraska's Defensive Line?
How concerned should we be with Nebraska's defense, and in particular, the defensive line? That's the question much of the Nebraska fan base and media contingen
www.si.com
Maybe the same reason other programs did?
Ohio State
Minny
Io_a
USC
Alabama
Misery
Texass
Ole Miss
Fl State
NC State
BYU
Arizona
Get one portal at the end of the season and the spring game comes back.
We didn't fail at both. We didn't excel at either but failure is a stretch. Football is funny, I'm not a tech guy but there were about 5 plays that cincy won (or we lost) that wrote different narratives. Dylan was 2 missed throws from going over 300 and another TD. It wasn't pretty or even good. But the sky isnt falling. We will dominate the next 2 weeks and then be in a dogfight with every other team no named Northwestern or Maryland. Hope they learned to win the close one, there will be a few more....
The talent level is low. Matt is a smooth talikng scam-artist. Dylan is not the talent we had thought. Dana is caught up in a dated offense that was relevant 15 years ago. Matt wants to hire (Butler lol) crappy assistant coaches, and whatever else crap, and people wonder why this program is in the position that it is in. Well, I just summed it up for everyone who is afraid to tell it like it is.
Compete for a title? The media led us to believe that this is a possible playoff team this year based on Matt's comments. C'mon now.
I would say 9 wins..
frost's last year 3 wins
rhule's first year 5 wins
rhule's second year 7 wins
rhule's third year, the trajectory says 9 wins...
mich, usc and penn state are probably loses...which would be 9 wins
if we beat one of them 3 then we will probably lose to someone we shouldn't,
9 wins.
dr. toms min was 9 wins, and he didn't take over the dumpster fire frost left...
9 wins is just 2 more then last year...I think we can do it
especially when you consider we didn't have any special teams or oc last year
the dl will just have to step up...it's that clear
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Many of us have been voicing concern in the off season about the defensive line. You and I were voicing those concerns a lot. And it seems those concerns were legit. I agree that RVP looked better last year when he was in for a few snaps and paired up with better players. The problem is we need to win this year. We can’t afford to have a weak defensive line. I like your suggestion of moving someone from the offensive line to nose tackle. But how feasible is that? And Rhule probably won’t do it anyway.
And why does Rhule overhype his players so much?? Referring to our line as “hell on wheels” is just silly
Oh believe me I'm not a sky is falling guy. Just believe the offense needs to be markedly better.
Agreed totally. Talent not there and coaching even worse. In modern day CFB you need A+ assistants. We hired an elite ST coach and low and behold our special teams looks competent. We swapped an elite D-coordinator for a mediocore at best one and low and behold our d-line looks awful and FSU's defense looked like their playing with their hair on fire. People are saying this is just the first game but watching Jeudy get blown off the ball 5 yards in the first quarter is not a week to week fix. It's obviously going to be a problem for the rest of the year just like it was in fall camp. It's a 7-8 win team right now who how has a chance to get embarrassed by more physical hard running teams. Michigan will run for 250+ yards on this d-line. We need to get real and hire elite assistants at every position.
Yeah I was not impressed with the defense at all. And I agree with the offense too we are and continue to be mediocre.
It's annoying when he does that l. Cause some players deserve hype like archie
Despite the few number of games, teams evolve during the season. Some players get better as they get experience. Some contributing players get injured. A backup becomes a pleasant surprise. Timing gets better between the OL, between QB and WRs. We figure out how to attack and defend our opponents. Our opponents do the same.
We have a couple cupcakes coming. A chance to improve on the basics. A chance to get backups a bigger taste.
Michigan will be the barometer for the rest of the season. I had that as a loss in my season prediction, and still do. As long as we don’t get dominated on the lines and/or blown out, I will feel good. But I am concerned that might happen.
We have a couple cupcakes coming. A chance to improve on the basics. A chance to get backups a bigger taste.
Michigan will be the barometer for the rest of the season. I had that as a loss in my season prediction, and still do. As long as we don’t get dominated on the lines and/or blown out, I will feel good. But I am concerned that might happen.
How much of the game did Davis miss? There is that, Jeudy and RVP adjusting to more reps, Nwaneri assuming starters reps for much of the game, figuring out how George will be used and figuring out how the Jack rotation meshes with the DL one.
Cincy completed 13 passes for 69 yards. How much could hartzog have struggled?
Did the Georgia Southern LB do anything? I realized after the game I never needed to look up his number, which isn't good for a LB.