What did we learn? Mich St version

Mavric said:
Eh ... there's a bit of semantics to that one.  The MLB shoots but he's following the back who is flaring out to the right side.  He only redirects back towards the QB once he sees the RB isn't going to get the ball.  So it ends up being kind of a delayed blitz but it really didn't end up having much of anything to do with the pressure. 
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Umm no.  He’s coming from the get go and so does the safety. 

 
The defense did their job.  Good enough to win most football games. 

It's not their fault that they didn't save the day, once again, week after week.  Their job is to defend, the best they can, and be supportive of their own offense.  

The game was tied 10-10 at halftime.  

All Husker scoring drives in 2nd half by the offense:

2nd half - All Husker possesions/drives...
Huskers - 6 plays 29 yards, PUNT
Huskers - 3 plays, -4 yards, PUNT
Huskers - 3 plays, 1 yard, PUNT
Huskers - 3 plays, 3 yards, PUNT
Huskers - 6 plays, 41 yards, INTERCEPTION
Huskers - 4 plays, 65 yards, TOUCHDOWN
Huskers - 3 plays, 6 yards, FUMBLE
Huskers - 3 plays, 1 yard, FUMBLE, END OF GAME
 

Yeah, That's what the offense did.  With the players on the field.  

The Huskers defense allowed 295 yards and 2 touchdowns.
MSU was 3-14 on third downs
MSU had 63 rush yards on 31 attempts
MSU had 7 penalties for 70 yards
MSU had 232 pass yards on 24 attempts - 46 yards on ONE trick-pass play.  The MSU QBs threw for just 186 yards in 4 quarters.  

I will note that the special teams units were also bad and gave up hidden yardage and put lost the field position battle.  Which is ultimately key in the Big Ten for helping to get wins. 

Husker's punter did his typical subpar performance:  

5 punts for 35.4 yard average. 

The Huskers were forced to punt from their own 21 yard line, and our punter kicked it 28 yards, giving MSU 1st and 10 at the Huskers 49.  He does this nearly every game (short punt when you need a big leg boot to flip the field).  Fortunately the defense stuffed MSU and forced them to punt it away too.

Meawhile, MSU's punter kicked 7 punts for 48.3 average.  Of course.  

And the fair catch calls on 6 out of 7 punts also put the offense into bad field position.  Several of those punts should not have been caught because they might have bounced into the end zone.  And a few punts should have been returned with so much room to catch and run.  

We just couldn't throw a catchable pass enough times.  We couldn't make immediate decisions where to pass to.  We got sacked and felt pressure and struggled to scramble, as if the pocket was filled with sand.  Would have gotten one obvious touchdown on the long pass to Bullock if it was read right by the QB.  Would have gotten a blatant pass-interference call going our way if the pass was at least 5 yards from the target (Coleman got blasted by a defender).   Threw a pick into the endzone that was overturned by a defensive penalty away from the play.  I think we eventually scored a TD on that drive, or was it a FG?

Running the ball wasn't too bad with a loaded box.

It was bad passing, poor, slow decisions and bad QB play.  With turnovers.  Oh well though.  Guys gave it their best.  Just came up short in the end.  

 
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Mavric said:
Yes, he is coming from the get go.  But he's going after the running back, not the quarterback.  And so is the safety
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Nope.   Both blitzers are shading their blitz to the outside because HH has the fake option semi rollout before a straight drop back thing going on.  His movement directs the angle of the blitz.   
 

 
knapplc said:
As bad as we are, we easily could be 7-2 right now. We lost to Minnesota and Michigan State due to our own mistakes. 

None of our wins were really that close. The defense seemed in control of those games for the most part. The offense did enough.
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I have thought this same thing. Minny and Sparty were very winnable games.  Shame we didn’t get at least one of those.

I saw USC let Grinch go. Lots of noise for awhile that you have a playoff offense but your defense is letting you down.  They did the right thing.  I draw parallels to us with Raiola as the OL has been the weak link for awhile.  This will be one of the first signs if Rhule knows what time it is. With a halfway decent OL we probably are 7-2 and leading the west.  Without one we may lose out and not go bowling. 

 
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Going to throw some numbers out to put everything in perspective.  Our opponents total offensive ranking are an average of 87.5. out of 130 teams.  The best offense we played so far was Michigan who is only ranked at 42 in total offense.  Northwestern is rated at 126.  Average of total offense of those teams we beat 90.6.  Michigan St was rated at 111 best offense in the country!  So what I m trying to say is our defense has done what it had to do versus some of the worst offenses in college football.  We will see going forward.  Maryland is 57th best offense in the country.  Wisky is 74th and Iowa is last at 130.  Just a reminder that our defense may not be any better than last years team considering the horrible teams we have played this far.  In other words for those who think this team would hang with Ohio ST or USC or Washington because we have a stout D, think again.  We played the bottom feeders for offensive production and have won 5 games against those.  I think we are still in full on rebuild mode for the foreseeable future.  Adding Oregon and Washington alone should scare almost every Big 10 team, let alone anyone coming from the West division.  

 
I know some of these numbers can be skewed based on schedule and which conference.  I also know that La Tech since starting conference play is scoring more and has more yardage and are still rated at 69th.  NIU is horrible on offense, but are rated ahead of most of the West division at 83.

I wonder when its all said and done if Rhule shouldn't have just scrapped the roster and recruited all freshmen and played them this season like he mostly did at Baylor in year one.  If we do not make a bowl game, then I will say he should have taken a different approach and recruited and played more underclassmen.  His Baylor days were also pre-NIL, so we will see if he can sell ice to eskimos, because that's what it takes in high bidder takes all.

 
That things feel better than previous years. Instead of waiting for us to crash and burn to lose it, I had hope to still pull it out near the end. And despite all of the crap before the last couple of drives we still had a couple of shots near the end. 
 

I miss the I-formation triple option that starts with the fullback up the gut. 

I’m still going to watch next week because I’ve been surprised at results all year so far, that maybe I’ll get surprised again. I was surprised this past weekend but in a bad way.

 
I’m sure this is an eye-rolling idea - like lining up the swinging gate for an extra point - but would anyone else line up to onside kick every kickoff just to kick it deep, pooch-it to at least the 25yd line, mix in a squib, or perhaps find a soft space to run down a loose ball?

 
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Archy1221 said:
Nope.   Both blitzers are shading their blitz to the outside because HH has the fake option semi rollout before a straight drop back thing going on.  His movement directs the angle of the blitz.   
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I mean ... it wasn't even really a semi rollout.  We snapped the ball from the hash.

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HH takes about two steps.  Both the MLB and the safety are coming.  But they're not even looking at the QB .  They're tracking the RB on the arc release.

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And they are both going so hard after the RB that the MLB almost runs past HH and has to stop and redirect back to him.  The Saftey also has to basically stop to change direction.

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The safety runs himself so far out of the play that no one even blocks him but he never gets to HH.  The MLB barely gets brushed and is still five yards from HH when he gets tackled.

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So, if it was a blitz, it was the most poorly designed and poorly executed blitz there could possibly be.  And it didn't put any pressure on HH nor get in on the sack. 

But if it makes you feel better to call it a blitz, it can be a blitz.

 
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