Banker's D

From what we were told, Banker's D would look a lot like Michigan State's. Does that type of defense only work if you have great pass rushers on the front 4 and future NFLers in the secondary?

I will give the secondary a bit of a break, only because the front 4 didn't get much pressure, especially in the 1st half. I was worried all summer long about the lack of pass rush, especially by the defensive ends. I thought McMullen got too bulked up (310 lbs? really?) and Gangwish has just too many limitations. Gangwish gave a strong effort on Saturday, but he didn't make many plays, other than the spin/tackle on Hill on the 4th down in the 3rd quarter. It sure looks like we are missing Randy Gregory a lot right now, which a lot of people said we wouldn't miss him at all.

I hope that Banker will be able to come up with an answer on our lacking pass rush, because without it, QB's will pick our defense apart.
We've got real issues @ DE and LB. D Young looks like a possible up and comer, but @ those 2 positions we have nothing that can be called more than "servicable". We seriously need someone, anyone that can chase down a mobile QB and in general, though the DTs have been creating good pressure, it would be nice to see our ave sacks go up.

Secondary is young, looks pretty good, but again, I'm not seeing any lock down players there at this point.

 
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I don't think it was Bo's fault that Moss loved showing off his dong...

And I also wish we had LeRoy
Everything regarding to lack of depth and development of players this year is directly linked to Bo not doing his job in recruiting and development. This can't be argued.
Fair enough...just like everything regarding on the field play is directly linked to Riley.
What about SC? Cause, I didn't think they looked physically dominate...is that on Bo or the new SC coach?
Riley and his coaches and S & C staff have been coaching these players for only 9 months. Bo had 7 years to progressively f#*k it up.

On field play is definitely on Riley to a point. But when the cupboard isn't stocked, you will only squeeze out so much.

 
I don't think it was Bo's fault that Moss loved showing off his dong...

And I also wish we had LeRoy
Everything regarding to lack of depth and development of players this year is directly linked to Bo not doing his job in recruiting and development. This can't be argued.
Fair enough...just like everything regarding on the field play is directly linked to Riley.
What about SC? Cause, I didn't think they looked physically dominate...is that on Bo or the new SC coach?
A lot of it was technique and fundamentals. I was down on the field for a bit Saturday and my eye test gave a pretty significant nod to the Huskers. Alex Lewis is a beast down there on the field, but if you watched him play Saturday, his technique and execution wasn't solid which I think makes them look "weak" cause they're getting beat.

It's the same thing I'll always say about Dobson and the former staff. I really thought our guys were in pretty good shape to play football around here, for the most part. But, when your technique is inconsistent and you're making mistakes, you're gonna look bad out there.

 
I don't think it was Bo's fault that Moss loved showing off his dong...

And I also wish we had LeRoy
Everything regarding to lack of depth and development of players this year is directly linked to Bo not doing his job in recruiting and development. This can't be argued.
Fair enough...just like everything regarding on the field play is directly linked to Riley.
What about SC? Cause, I didn't think they looked physically dominate...is that on Bo or the new SC coach?
Riley and his coaches and S & C staff have been coaching these players for only 9 months. Bo had 7 years to progressively f#*k it up.
On field play is definitely on Riley to a point. But when the cupboard isn't stocked, you will only squeeze out so much.
I agree with that.

 
I don't think it was Bo's fault that Moss loved showing off his dong...

And I also wish we had LeRoy
Everything regarding to lack of depth and development of players this year is directly linked to Bo not doing his job in recruiting and development. This can't be argued.
Fair enough...just like everything regarding on the field play is directly linked to Riley.
What about SC? Cause, I didn't think they looked physically dominate...is that on Bo or the new SC coach?
A lot of it was technique and fundamentals. I was down on the field for a bit Saturday and my eye test gave a pretty significant nod to the Huskers. Alex Lewis is a beast down there on the field, but if you watched him play Saturday, his technique and execution wasn't solid which I think makes them look "weak" cause they're getting beat.
It's the same thing I'll always say about Dobson and the former staff. I really thought our guys were in pretty good shape to play football around here, for the most part. But, when your technique is inconsistent and you're making mistakes, you're gonna look bad out there.
Thanks for that info...I remember Gangwish saying that the coaches on D did not care as much about technique as long as you were going hard.

 
Taysom Hill and his sky high tall receivers are a tough group to defend, no doubt. Especially in your teams first real "live" test. Tough to really bring the heat all the time with such a running threat.

There's only so much you can learn from your team in fall practice. I expect some of those gap integrity issues to be fixed quickly, but I hope we find a way to still be aggressive. If the guys can't be aggressive and maintain field awareness, they'll the down the aggressiveness and it won't be as fun to watch.

 
Taysom Hill and his sky high tall receivers are a tough group to defend, no doubt. Especially in your teams first real "live" test. Tough to really bring the heat all the time with such a running threat.

There's only so much you can learn from your team in fall practice. I expect some of those gap integrity issues to be fixed quickly, but I hope we find a way to still be aggressive. If the guys can't be aggressive and maintain field awareness, they'll the down the aggressiveness and it won't be as fun to watch.
Totally agree!

 
T Hill was supposedly going to be in the running for the Heisman this year, so the guy is no slouch. Their frosh QB looked like a star as well. Good players, gotta give them credit. I think The U's Kaaya is going to give us big time problems this year too.

 
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T Hill was supposedly going to be in the running for the Heisman this year, so the guy is no slouch. Their frosh QB looked like a star as well. Good players, gotta give them credit. I think The U's Kaaya is going to give us big time problems this year too.
Agreed on both counts. Kaaya is going to be tougher to defend this year than last year. Hopefully their run game takes a step backward without Duke Johnson and they have to rely on Kaaya's arm. Nothing I've seen from Kaaya makes him look as good as a healthy Taysom Hill.

Tighten up our corners & get a decent pass rush on Kaaya and Miami doesn't score 33 points like BYU did.

 
T Hill was supposedly going to be in the running for the Heisman this year, so the guy is no slouch. Their frosh QB looked like a star as well. Good players, gotta give them credit. I think The U's Kaaya is going to give us big time problems this year too.
Agreed on both counts. Kaaya is going to be tougher to defend this year than last year. Hopefully their run game takes a step backward without Duke Johnson and they have to rely on Kaaya's arm. Nothing I've seen from Kaaya makes him look as good as a healthy Taysom Hill.

Tighten up our corners & get a decent pass rush on Kaaya and Miami doesn't score 33 points like BYU did.
Any reason in particular, or just the loss of Gregory? They lost many studs on the offensive side of the ball to the NFL Draft, including OT Flowers (1st round), WR Dorsett (1st), TE Walford (3rd), and OG Feliciano. C McDermott also signed with Dallas.

 
T Hill was supposedly going to be in the running for the Heisman this year, so the guy is no slouch. Their frosh QB looked like a star as well. Good players, gotta give them credit. I think The U's Kaaya is going to give us big time problems this year too.
Agreed on both counts. Kaaya is going to be tougher to defend this year than last year. Hopefully their run game takes a step backward without Duke Johnson and they have to rely on Kaaya's arm. Nothing I've seen from Kaaya makes him look as good as a healthy Taysom Hill.

Tighten up our corners & get a decent pass rush on Kaaya and Miami doesn't score 33 points like BYU did.
Any reason in particular, or just the loss of Gregory? They lost many studs on the offensive side of the ball to the NFL Draft, including OT Flowers (1st round), WR Dorsett (1st), TE Walford (3rd), and OG Feliciano. C McDermott also signed with Dallas.
He's had a year of seasoning, loss of Gregory, loss of Gangwish, etc. They did lose quite a few guys to graduation, but they've had Top 20 recruiting classes the last three years, so I presume their cupboard isn't bare.

 
I am concerned about gap integrity. While we heard Banker wanted to "spill" the offense wide, too many times Hill had multiple HUGE running lanes in the middle of the field. One of them, he walked in untouched and injured.
Some of that was good play design by BYU, spreading our defenders so in case none of them were open Hill could shoot up field. I thought NU did a decent job of containing him in the pocket at times, but even really good defenses have problems keeping him in the pocket.

Some of that may also fall on our linebackers though, too. Any time you're short on experience and depth in your linebacking corp it's going to show against a mobile QB. That's why it's pretty critical the defenders rushing the QB get to him and make a sound, fundamental tackle. Otherwise, like you mentioned, they leave running lanes open and that's very difficult to recover from.

Like BigRedBuster pointed out, any defense will look great when you have four good pass rushers and future NFL guys in the secondary. We do have "talent" on this team, but, a lot of it is inexperienced and undeveloped, especially at key areas like rush end and in the linebacking corp. This is where HCMR's reputation is going to come into play, being able to teach these guys through the season and get them to improve.
Riley mentioned today this is a fixable issue. Its about gap integrity as the DL gets vertical. If they don't stay "on line" as they get vertical, it allows a good QB to buy and extra second or 2 by moving into a gap not "aligned" with the other. This allowed for the big runs as well as one of the TD passes. Riley explains it much better here:

One of the issues Husker coach Mike Riley pointed out was that the Huskers weren't great on "lane integrity" all the time.

”When you don’t blitz, you’d love to have somebody win and put pressure on (the quarterback), but the other thing you want to do is just make the quarterback throw the ball on time," Riley said. "We can do better with that and not give him extra time or extra lanes to step-up in."

Riley then offered a pretty good breakdown of it in terms that are good for the laymen like me.

"So whether you’re stunting or not, there’s two phases to a four-man pass rush. There’s outside containment and there’s inside containment. And people don’t talk about the inside containment, but if the two inside guys, whoever they end up being, if they get out of kilter, then you’re leaving a lane wide open and we were guilty of that some the other day.



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"And when you do that with an active quarterback it can cause trouble. When you blitz, which we got killed on on a touchdown play, by not being in the right gap and not being balanced up in the rush, so we blitz a corner off the edge and we don’t get good movement toward the other side of the ball, and so they basically have a gap between the center and our defensive tackles on the other outside shade of the guard over there, so that’s a natural lane for the quarterback to step up in and because it’s basically a mistake by not having a balanced pass rush. So balance and lane integrity and our pass rush, whether it’s a blitz or not, is something we have to work on.”

http://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/life-in-the-red/riley-lane-integrity-important-in-pass-rush/article_9522c3fc-5645-11e5-b17a-33ad6cedf509.html
 
All defenses work much better with great pass rushers and NFLers in the secondary.

I think what we will need to do is more blitzing when we don't have a "Gregory" in the front 4. That can be done and the defensive coaches can make adjustments. Collins is still the stud he was before. He just had 2-3 blockers the entire time. If we can get pressure in other ways, it will free him up.

We also won't go against another team that has 3-4 receivers over 6'5" with a QB that can pass like him.
Yes, but why was Collins constantly double and triple teamed? It was because BYU knew the rush ends weren't going to put any real pressure on their QB.
LOL not as much as the fact they had 5 and 6 in to protect vs 4.

Yes they dbl teamed Collins, but I went back and it wasn't every single time. He was handled by single blockers as well. He was a complete non factor in that game. Something that shouldn't have happened with regard to what we heard all camp long.

Also, they knew that we wouldn't come screaming either because of the mobility of Hill.

It's the worst thing to do on a mobile QB. Open up lanes via hard rush upfield. C'mon. I know you hate our DE's but lets be real here. It was more about scheme and personnel than it was just the "inefficiency" of our DE's.

Gangwish didn't play amazing, no. But you make it sound like both DE's are a liability.

 
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Bando played well. Some good tackling, looked aggressive. Feeling bad for Gangwish, but I'm anxious to see Freedom Akinonmlakdunkado. (sp?)

 
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