Huskers Looking to be a Top 3 in the B1G Defense

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
“You’ve got to be in the top five and preferably the top three to win a championship,” Riley told The World-Herald in late April. “Historically, that’s probably true. You have to be up there in the turnover margin, you have to be better running the ball and you have to be better in total defense. You can’t hide from history.”


In March, Banker echoed Riley’s goal.

“What we’ll probably do is take the average of the top three defenses,” Banker said.

Defense is measured over many categories, making it possible for a unit to be top three in some categories and not in others but still have an overall profile that lends itself to conference championship-caliber football. Nebraska’s defense played this brand of ball in 2006, 2009 and 2010. All three years, NU advanced to the Big 12 title game. The Huskers lost all three games, in part because the offenses produced seven, 12 and 20 points in those games.
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OWH

 
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Read the article. NU has been pretty dismal on D. Bankers history the past five years, even worse. I'm hoping better talent will equate to better results.

On another note, if our 2009 team had an offensive pulse............

 
As much flack as Banker gets (and probably deserves) for our defensive struggles his first year, you can definitely see the decline in performance that happened during Bo's tenure. We had some good starters, but Banker was left with pretty minimal depth at most positions.

PPG

2009 - 1st

2010 - 2nd

2011 - 7th

2012 - 9th

2013 - 6th

2014 - 9th

 
2009 team with even slightly above ave. offense would have been NC. If they could have produced an average of 21 pts. they would have been NC.

 
JJkinz said:
As much flack as Banker gets (and probably deserves) for our defensive struggles his first year, you can definitely see the decline in performance that happened during Bo's tenure. We had some good starters, but Banker was left with pretty minimal depth at most positions.

PPG

2009 - 1st

2010 - 2nd

2011 - 7th

2012 - 9th

2013 - 6th

2014 - 9th
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Respecfully, in those later years Pelini wasn't commanding the defense as he had been prior. (2003,2008,2009,) I could tell that elements of the 2014 defense were getting mixed messages from Pelini and Pap. I think Pelini was trying to put more on Paps so that he could ascend to more of a HC role and be involved with both O and D. If Pelini had just been fully committed to the D I think the numbers would have been better. One wierd thing: while Pelini came from the Big 10 as a player, he was much more adept at shutting down Big 12 style offenses. We were really built for that.

 
When Nebraska football coach Mike Riley talks about how his 2016 team will improve on its 6-7 record from 2015, he consistently indicates a desire for the offense to run the ball better and throw fewer interceptions.

Riley also wants more from the defense, coordinated by close friend and longtime confidant Mark Banker.


In fact, Riley wants the Huskers to be a top-three defense in the Big Ten.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/numbers-don-t-lie-huskers-have-struggled-to-stop-foes/article_1ffca455-c6bf-55b3-9925-15e7fc4f8e1e.html

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IMO, the biggest thing holding us back is the defense. Our offense was fine last year, we averaged 33 points/game (roughly the same as the last 5 or so years). Run the ball, pass the ball, whatever.

But the defense needs to drastically improve before we can even start thinking about winning a B1G title.

Against BYU, Illinois, and Wisconsin the D had chances to put the game away in the final minute, but couldn't get a stop. Against NW, we needed a stop in the final 4 minutes to get the ball back down 2, but couldn't get it.

Looking at last year, we need to be much better against the pass, both in coverage and finding a pass rush.

 
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