Secondary play...

I'm sure there are some things going on that we don't notice. But I'm talking about big-picture scheme. Our DBs - and especially our safeties - would be doing something completely different in coverage if we were running any type of zone look. When all of our DBs (save one safety, usually)- and often our LBs - are locking on to one receiver and following them wherever they go on a pass route, we are obviously running a man-to-man scheme.

If the safeties were running a zone look, they would only cover whatever player came into their area. When a player left their area, they'd pass them off to the next defender. Corners may have similar coverage responsibilities on both man and zone looks because their "zone" would often include the outside receiver running deep. But it is most obvious with our Nickel and Dime defenders. They rarely have Safety help over the top. They have to cover man-to-man wherever they go. If you have any sort of zone scheme, your "inside" DBs would have help over the top so they can be more aggressive on the shorter routes.

Thus, it's pretty easy to tell what coverage we are running most of the time. I honestly haven't seen any coverage in any game that looked like overall zone coverage (except for the Hail Mary). We usually have one Safety playing zone - and some LBs depending on what their guy does - but the rest of our DB are all locked up man-to-man. This is not hard to tell from watching the replays.

 
Again, I can't really speak to this. The best guess I have is that they're trying to make adjustments within their scheme to help the players be successful. Some of those may be obvious, perhaps in the way they align or a way they try to blitz. Some of it also may not be so obvious to us. I really don't know. But, at this point, I don't think there's much they can do in terms of wholesale schematic changes, even in terms of coverage. They probably have an overall concept and then different coverages to fit it. I'm sure they're also trying to explore ways to utilize this concept even if it doesn't fit with what they wanted to do pre-season.

What my eyes tell me is that regardless of what they have tried none of it has seemed to work very well over the course of four quarters. But, what's the appropriate response? Outside of completely scrapping what they've taught the players over the last several months, the only other option is to implement something completely new, and I don't think that's realistic. They're probably going to keep the general concept and continue to find ways to tweak it.

 
Mavric said:
knapplc said:
How long would it take, in theory, to install a new defense if it turns out this one simply doesn't work? A week? A month? An offseason? Doesn't seem like something you could do quickly, not with game-planning for a new opponent each week, and while dealing with injuries to starters.
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It's not a new defense. It's a new coverage. If you pay attention to other teams around the coverage, they often change coverages play-to-play based on any number of things including down-and-distance and what the score is.
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As I was going through the game last night, I noticed that we did go to a different coverage look on USM's last drive. We went to what I would call a true Cover 4 - two safeties and two corners covering the deep zones with linebackers in zone coverage underneath. The weren't running with a specific receiver, they were looking for whoever came into their area.

So we obviously have other coverage options in the playbook that don't require totally re-teaching the entire scheme. They didn't work all that well either but you can change your coverage on the fly if you want to (assuming you have another option installed, which we obviously do).

 
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Gerry Dinardo on 1620 today said Nebraska has a "Talent Deficit" in the secondary!

Posted earlier, 408 left us in this predicament, It is NOT Bankers Fault ! He has what he has to work with until he can recruit better. Realize it and accept it.

Cockrell: MTSU, Northern Colorado, Southern Miss (garbage offers)
Davie: KU, North Dakota St., Ohio (garbage offers)
Gerry: ASU, Iowa, ISU, Michigan St., Minnesota (legit offers)
Chris Jones: Florida A&M, Florida International, Indiana, UMass, Middle Tennessee St., Presbyterian, South Florida, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan.
Kalu: Arkansas St., CU, Duke, Houston, Louisiana Lafayette, SMU, Texas St., Texas-San Antonio, Wake, Washington St.
Mosley: Baylor, Oklahoma, SMU, Texas St. (2 good offers)
K. Williams: BYU, California, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana-Monroe, Tulsa.

 
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Ha! I'm pretty sure our secondary looked a lot better last year with most of the same players. In fact, we've had good to great pass defenses for the last seven years.

On the other hand, Banker and Riley have had consistently bad defenses at OSU.

Suddenly we have a horrific defense. Hmmm....what conclusion can we draw from these facts?

Must be the players
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dylan said:
Ha! I'm pretty sure our secondary looked a lot better last year with most of the same players. In fact, we've had good to great pass defenses for the last seven years.

On the other hand, Banker and Riley have had consistently bad defenses at OSU.

Suddenly we have a horrific defense. Hmmm....what conclusion can we draw from these facts?

Must be the players
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Wisconsin was impressed with our pass defense last year also. ask Melvin Gordon if you don't believe me.

 
I think it's obvious that our defensive system had som flaws under the last staff. Flaws that really good running teams could exploit. However, we seem to have traded that for a defense that anyone can exploit through the air.

There's a difference between getting dusted by the best running back in the country playing behind a great line and having a team that almost lost to Texas State make Swiss cheese out of your defense.

I'm not saying things were perfect before, but they sure don't look better so far and blaming the players or a lack of talent is a cop out.

 
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dylan said:
I think it's obvious that our defensive system had som flaws under the last staff. Flaws that really good running teams could exploit. However, we seem to have traded that for a defense that anyone can exploit through the air.
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Right, it's the same story. This is a defense prone to miscues, lacking trust and confidence, and flat out falling apart. That's been, weirdly, the defensive identity under Pelini. Could not have imagined this in 2009/10.

The way Bo ran the defense, it was one area that was being exploited. Now, it's another.

There's a lot of work to be done. Can Banker do it this year? Can he do it ever? It'll be a challenge, that's for sure.

I'm not sure secondary recruiting was the weakest thing ever under Bo, but I do feel especially this offseason it was extremely overhyped. Yeah, Bo's fielded some elite secondaries in his time -- none of the recent editions have been close. Yes, we have a couple of ... well, we have Gerry. There's a whole lot of players yet to really make the mark, although they have promise still.

(The WRs were also hyped up pretty hard -- but they've lived up to it so far, somewhat surprisingly! Coaching? Players? Luck? Some combination?...)

 
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We had the 6th best pass efficiency defense last year, so I wouldn't say the secondary has been all that weak lately. Davie, Cockrell and Kalu all looked significantly better in 2014.

I fully recognize that trading coaches changed the emphasis of the defense. However, it's still shocking how much worse things look so far against the pass, particularly when we have almost all of the same players.

Like I said, I just don't like seeing the drop off in play blamed on a lack of talent. It's always easy to say that coaches need more talent to work with. Give any coach enough talent and eventually they'll win. The test of a coach is using what he's got to the best of their ability, and we've got a lot of players back from a 9 win team (that almost won two others). Let's not start acting like the new staff are working with scraps.

 
saunders45 said:
We now have the worst secondary in the country. Indiana was 128th last week, but since they held Wake Forest to 245 yards, we passed them.

We are giving up 380 passing yards per game.

Worst in the nation. We're worst in the nation at plays over 20 yards passing (hint, not the LB's).

But please, tell me how it's not the scheme, and it's the players.
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It's both. Banker doesn't have the players he wants to run his scheme & he also will not adjust his scheme to help out the DB's. Everyone noticed a difference when Davie went out of the Miami game.

You have to be a little patient. If things look the same next year, then its time to hit the panic botton. This may also shed some light into why Banker was going so heavy on DB's. Maybe he new he had the wrong type of player for his scheme.

 
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RADAR said:
Gerry Dinardo on 1620 today said Nebraska has a "Talent Deficit" in the secondary!
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Gerry in the preseason said we had easily the most talent in our division, and top 3 or 4 in the conference.

So...........

 
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