What did we learn? Mich St version

If we played like today in October, we lose at least one of those prior games. 
 

We caused zero turnovers, played our worst defensive game since Michigan, and our QB and OLine play was awful. 
 

Haarberg should not see a snap next year. Sartterfield should be on notice. And Raiola needs to go. 

 
gobiggergoredder said:
That “Next Big Hurdle” is 50 yards down the track.  They have been winning games for the team.  They didn’t do that yesterday.  I don’t know that I consider that “far from excellent”.

They have a phrase for an offense that can’t score 20+ points.  I think it’s “Brian Ferentzing”.  You have to score to have more points than the other team to win.  Allegedly.
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The defense was ok yesterday, but did give up some frustrating big plays to a Michigan State team that does not have a lot going for it right now. Going into the season, pocket pressure was the key after abysmal results in that regard the past several years. Now that we are finding success with that on occasion, and improved our tackling, the next logical step is building on that to force turnovers consistently. 

That said, they were not the reason we lost. 

 
DefenderAO said:
If we played like today in October, we lose at least one of those prior games. 
 

We caused zero turnovers, played our worst defensive game since Michigan, and our QB and OLine play was awful. 
 

Haarberg should not see a snap next year. Sartterfield should be on notice. And Raiola needs to go. 
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For the most part, Nebraska played very similarly against Michigan State to how they did against the teams in October.  The key differences against Michigan State were:

  • Secondary didn't play as sharp as they have earlier in the season, and let up a few big plays
  • Credit Michigan State's QB and WR's for making some big throw and catches which Illinois, Northwestern, and Purdue didn't
  • Michigan State added a couple of trick plays to play off NU"s tendencies to be aggressive to the ball, especially from the secondary, One of those worked, and one of them was broken up by a big play from Sanford
  • Michigan State scouted the G-Belly option pass and regularly kept a safety deep.  Against NW and Purdue, NU got a WR wide open behind the defense by the design of the play, and that didn't happen against Michigan State.
  • Finally, this game was on the road, where there wasn't a home crowd to boost the energy of the players.  Yes, Illinois was on the road, too, but that game was a week after Rhule laid down the gauntlet after playing so poorly against Michigan.  While that extra hard week of practice worked against Illinois, it's not something the coaches can do every week.

In these games against evenly matched teams, which the bulk of these middle to bottom half of the Big Ten are, the games come down to a handful of plays to determine the winner.  NU made (or the opponent didn't) those plays in October, and they didn't do that against Michigan State.

 
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Wistrom Disciple said:
The defense was ok yesterday, but did give up some frustrating big plays to a Michigan State team that does not have a lot going for it right now. Going into the season, pocket pressure was the key after abysmal results in that regard the past several years. Now that we are finding success with that on occasion, and improved our tackling, the next logical step is building on that to force turnovers consistently. 

That said, they were not the reason we lost. 
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After each of the prior 3 games, most of the fans said "the defense won those games, despite the offense".  However, many of those same people thought "the defense is going to have a game where they aren't as sharp, will the offense be able to do enough to win that game".  The good but not great defensive game came yesterday, and the offense didn't have enough to make up for it.

 
Heretic Husker said:
I actually think our OL played decent- our QB has no idea what to do if his first receiver is not open, in most cases he had plenty of time to throw- 75% of all the sacks he takes is on him- if there is even one person within 6 feet of him he seems to run right into that guy- straight line running no problem- pocket presence terrible
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Not even close.  MSU only blitzed one time on 37 drop backs.  HH was pressured on 21 out of the 37.  Hurried 10 times and 15 pressures (according to PFF, honestly not sure what the difference is there).

 
Undone said:
Haarberg with some seriously terrible numbers passing the ball. 42% completion and 2 INT's.

Alante Brown's pass was one of the key plays of the game.

Satterfield went away from the run a bit in the first half when it was working, that was frustrating. But ultimately Haarberg just threw the ball into coverage, overthrew guys, and just played bad for pretty much four straight quarters.

Now also our defense didn't have the kind of game they'd had in the past three. Michigan State probably came into that game as the best 2-6 team in the country. Not that that's saying very much, but at least their QB had some skill.
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Into coverage??  That's being awfully nice.  His first INT he literally threw it to a guy not covering anyone.  If he threw it near coverage it would have been closer to the WR.  

 
ColoradoHusk said:
For the most part, Nebraska played very similarly against Michigan State to how they did against the teams in October.  The key differences against Michigan State were:

  • Secondary didn't play as sharp as they have earlier in the season, and let up a few big plays
  • Credit Michigan State's QB and WR's for making some big throw and catches which Illinois, Northwestern, and Purdue didn't
  • Michigan State added a couple of trick plays to play off NU"s tendencies to be aggressive to the ball, especially from the secondary, One of those worked, and one of them was broken up by a big play from Sanford
  • Michigan State scouted the G-Belly option pass and regularly kept a safety deep.  Against NW and Purdue, NU got a WR wide open behind the defense by the design of the play, and that didn't happen against Michigan State.
  • Finally, this game was on the road, where there wasn't a home crowd to boost the energy of the players.  Yes, Illinois was on the road, too, but that game was a week after Rhule laid down the gauntlet after playing so poorly against Michigan.  While that extra hard week of practice worked against Illinois, it's not something the coaches can do every week.

In these games against evenly matched teams, which the bulk of these middle to bottom half of the Big Ten are, the games come down to a handful of plays to determine the winner.  NU made (or the opponent didn't) those plays in October, and they didn't do that against Michigan State.
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It seemed to me that Michigan State was intentionally playing underneath the receivers.  As in, they were pretty much allowing themselves to "get beat" such that the primary coverage guy was underneath the routes with safety help over the top.  Which means there was less area to try to complete the passes.

I didn't think we did a very good job trying to adjust to that.  We were still trying to throw deep a lot and the safety was there waiting.  When we tried to throw the quicker slants we had decent success (Fidone's long play, for example) but we didn't do it enough.  Also could have used some dig routes and things like that that would be easier throws and the safeties couldn't help on as much.

 
It's also pretty mind-boggling that our Special Teams coach specifically said this week he didn't like where we were with punt returns.  And our plan to fix it was apparently to fair catch everything.

I know Rhule said they were trying for blocks.  But after you don't really get all that close on the first few - and run into the kicker once - perhaps a different strategy was in order.  Especially with how returnable many of those kicks were.

 
huskerfan74 said:
May be our women’s volleyball team can have a meeting with our loser football team and teach them about husker pride and what it takes to come from behind and win.
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It might be easier if you just found a new team to support. Georgia still letting people on their wagon. Despite this you’d probably still find a way to criticize them if they didn’t win 70-3 each week 

 
Mavric said:
It seemed to me that Michigan State was intentionally playing underneath the receivers.  As in, they were pretty much allowing themselves to "get beat" such that the primary coverage guy was underneath the routes with safety help over the top.  Which means there was less area to try to complete the passes.

I didn't think we did a very good job trying to adjust to that.  We were still trying to throw deep a lot and the safety was there waiting.  When we tried to throw the quicker slants we had decent success (Fidone's long play, for example) but we didn't do it enough.  Also could have used some dig routes and things like that that would be easier throws and the safeties couldn't help on as much.
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 the problem with the routes you outlined is we don’t have a qb to execute those routes. HH release point coupled with the velocity he throws with is a main reason why he’s sailing a lot of his out throws and quick hits over the middle.

my guess is the coaching staff has zero confidence in him to make those plays without a high risk of turnover.  Something also tells me that HH’s passing IQ is terribly low, I don’t know how else to explain why he’s still missing receivers wide open by design. You need a qb who can quickly go through designed progressions- something HH has shown incapable of for 2 months now.

 
We are vulnerable to any team with a competent passing game. I do not like our changes against Maryland, in fact I have a suspicion it will be ugly. Not sure what to think about Wisconsin overall, but the Iowa game may be our best/only chance to become bowl eligible. 

 
HH=Joe Bauserman. See https://www.espn.com/college-football/boxscore/_/gameId/312810158

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Caveman said:
We are vulnerable to any team with a competent passing game. I do not like our changes against Maryland, in fact I have a suspicion it will be ugly. Not sure what to think about Wisconsin overall, but the Iowa game may be our best/only chance to become bowl eligible. 
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We only have 1 game left where we can use Sims. Look for him in that Iowa game. No doubt in my mind Rhule and him have an eligiblity saving agreement in the works now. Which is cute because it allows Sims to make his 1.5 amigos bucks without ever having to sacrifice anything!

 
Mavric said:
Not even close.  MSU only blitzed one time on 37 drop backs.  HH was pressured on 21 out of the 37.  Hurried 10 times and 15 pressures (according to PFF, honestly not sure what the difference is there).
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MSU blitzed at least three different times in the first half alone, so I'm not sure the PFF stats are quite right. 

The line played well enough for us to win yesterday. Wasn't pretty, but they were not the reason for the loss. Several of those hurries seemed to be HH being unaware of where the pocket in front of him was and didn't trust his eyes & feet while being in there. The 4:26 mark is a perfect example where the line creates a decent pocket, but by the time HH completes his dropback, he's already thinking scramble and he runs right into a sack. 

 
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