Illinois - What Did We Learn

The handwringing over things that went wrong in the Illinois game have really subsided for me at this point. I think we were what, 3.5 point underdogs heading into that (road) game? And we won by 13. Should have been a 16 win if not for the missed field goal. We smashed the spread and made their offense look stupid all night. That's worth a lot.

I think the frustration is that we all know if a couple mistakes made by players not named Ricky Haarberg hadn't happened in the Minnesota game, we're 4-2 right now, looking at absolutely the best season we've had in 6 years.

Thing is...we're still probably looking at the best season in 6 years either way.     :)

I'm currently enjoying the ride and I like what Rhule has been doing in terms of actually coaching the team. Yeah, I wish we had gotten some magical Quinn Ewers or somebody like that out of the portal, but we didn't.

 
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Undone said:
The handwringing over things that went wrong in the Illinois game have really subsided for me at this point. I think we were what, 3.5 point underdogs heading into that (road) game? And we won by 13. Should have been a 16 win if not for the missed field goal. We smashed the spread and made their offense look stupid all night. That's worth a lot.

I think the frustration is that we all know if a couple mistakes made by players not named Ricky Haarberg hadn't happened in the Minnesota game, we're 4-2 right now, looking at absolutely the best season we've had in 6 years.

Thing is...we're still probably looking at the best season in 6 years either way.     :)

I'm currently enjoying the ride and I like what Rhule has been doing in terms of actually coaching the team. Yeah, I wish we had gotten some magical Quinn Ewers or somebody like that out of the portal, but we didn't.
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I agree with you. We are having a decent season, which in comparison to the last half decade or so, is GREAT.

My one glass is half empty comment is if our offense wasn’t such a turd,  that should have been a 42-7 blowout. 

The silver lining is IF they can dial in just a few things on offense they could be pretty proficient. 

First time in a long time I can say blackshirts with out any undertones of irony. I’m really excited to see how the rest of the season pans out. GBR!!

 
This checks out.  I don't think anyone would say our 2nd half offense vs Illinois was "successful".

(And Michigan is a machine.  Back to back domination.)


F8AFINVaoAAQNVT


 
I’m rewatching the game. Some things.

1. Prochazcha is keeping Corcoran on the field.

2. It was weird to watch another team get Nebraska’d. Bad decisions, bad bounces, weird calls. We certainly did our own stupid stuff but some of the hard luck stuff Illinois experienced is what we’ve been living in for years.
3 HH made some good passes on the first drive…and then returned to form.

4. Did Lenhart play? I thought he was gonna play but I didn’t see him.

5. D is gonna be pretty great as the young guys come into form. Seems like every week a different youngster pops. Prince was a beast.

6. Gotta make a change at kicker pretty soon, don’t we?

7. Without stupid penalties and fumbles we blow this game wide open.

8. Is there something in the water that makes our players dumb? Scott is new and his penalty was so dumb, and so typical for our teams of late.

9. I’m not the Tommy Hill fan this coaching staff is.

10. Love seeing Coleman get a catch. He also had a nice block on the Kemp play inside the 10.

11. HH running out of bounds to set up 3rd and 1 is so mini-Joe Daily ridiculous.

 I think that’s all.

 
Glad we have a dedicated special teams coach to get everything fixed.

#107 in punt returns
#34 in kick returns
#79 in punt coverage
#81 in punting
#132 in FG %
#23 in KO coverage (fortunate to have a TD called back)

 
Mavric said:
Glad we have a dedicated special teams coach to get everything fixed.

#107 in punt returns
#34 in kick returns
#79 in punt coverage
#81 in punting
#132 in FG %
#23 in KO coverage (fortunate to have a TD called back)
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I’ve actually thought our punt coverage has been pretty good. Wonder if the difference between #80 and # 30 is very small. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
I’ve actually thought our punt coverage has been pretty good. Wonder if the difference between #80 and # 30 is very small. 
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I thought we had done all right as well.  Looks like almost half the punt return yards we gave up were on two returns by Michigan (41 out of 92).  One was 30 yards after he muffed the punt.

We are giving up 8.36 yards per return.  #30 is giving up 3.50.  Without the one return against Michigan we'd be #53.

 
Mavric said:
I thought we had done all right as well.  Looks like almost half the punt return yards we gave up were on two returns by Michigan (41 out of 92).  One was 30 yards after he muffed the punt.

We are giving up 8.36 yards per return.  #30 is giving up 3.50.  Without the one return against Michigan we'd be #53.
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So, roughly 5 yards.  That doesn't seem like a lot.  But, we have room to improve.

 
BigRedBuster said:
But...he's a walk-on.  
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A local writer writing a story about Husker fan viagra?!?!?!  What are the chances!

With that said, they both probably played their best games ever vs Illinois.  Which probably means Tony White should be canned, since he was not starting Sanford from the get go.

 
BigRedBuster said:
So, roughly 5 yards.  That doesn't seem like a lot.  But, we have room to improve.
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Unfortunately, 5 yards of field position spread across 6-8 punts over the course of a game is 30-40 yards I don’t have the exact numbers, but I would expect if a team has 30-40 fewer yards per game to gain, that would result in more points for that team.

I would be curious on the average field position for NU’s opponent, but that could be skewed by turnovers. So, maybe the better figure would be average starting field position after a kickoff or punt. 

 
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ColoradoHusk said:
Unfortunately, 5 yards of field position spread across 10-12 drives is 50-60 yards over the course of a game. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I would expect if a team has 50-60 fewer yards per game to gain, that would result in more points for that team.

I would be curious on the average field position for NU’s opponent, but that could be skewed by turnovers. So, maybe the better figure would be average starting field position after a kickoff or punt. 
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Yeah, that would be interesting.

Our starting field position against Illinois was very good.  But not much of that had to do with our special teams actually making a play.

 
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