Secondary play

zoogs

zoogs

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It's often stated that a good pass rush is going to make a secondary look better. And by extension, an unusually subpar pass rush is going to make the secondary's job much more difficult.

Our secondary has struggled for other reasons, too. But their heads are still in it, which is kind of amazing to see. They are still competing all game, flying to the ball and delivering the hits. There's scheme questions and individual struggles, too, but you gotta wonder how much of the negative results is just giving an opposing QB clean pockets and time, far too often.

Nebraska coaches are hunting for pass rushers now. I'm not certain how quickly, or if, that can ever get turned around, but it'd be pretty sweet if they could do it. A good pass game will get theirs ... unless they're constantly facing disruption at the point of delivery.

Of course, you are always juggling strengths and weaknesses. A team can't simply upgrade one spot and count on other strengths remaining constant. Some of those -- like DT, notably -- may not be as strong in years to come. That will be something to deal with then, scheme wise. Hopefully there will be less weaknesses overall to try and deal with. That needs to be a starting point.

 
MSU was the first game that I didn't see receivers completing catches with no NU defender in the tv shot. Also saw blackshirts flying to the ball for the first time all season. Also saw much improved open field tackling. The scheme still sucks, but within the confines of craptastic scheming they played the best I have seen all year.

 
How many sacks have we had this year by the defensive ends? Answer http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/team/463/sack/index.html

How long has Freedom Akinmoladun been hurt? It doesn't look good when your D line and ends are barely above your defensive backs in sack totals. It shows me two things. No consistent D Line penetration coupled with no effective blitzing.

When Cook had 5 seconds in the backfield they completed passes, when they got some pressure on him, it forced him to clutch the ball and burn up the clock at the end.

 
coupled with no effective blitzing.
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The blitzing this year has been particularly depressing to watch. They are slow to take off, and several times they have inexplicably slowed down when they have a clear path to the QB, almost as if they are afraid to commit or are scared they are going to miss. I saw that in the BYU game and I saw in the MSU game.

 
From my own perspective, I think there are certainly pass rush concerns, but I've been more worried about the coverage than the pass rush. We've had guys in just about every game this season consistently get out of position, not make plays on the ball and not turn their heads around. A more consistent pass rush would without question improve the overall defense. Fairly significantly.

However, I've seen QB's sit in the pocket for 2-3 seconds and hit wide open guys. If QB's have 4-5 seconds that's on the line to get a good rush. I've seen just bad, bad coverage and bad plays on the ball. So, while I do think there's a balance of problems on the defense, I personally think the secondary is a tad more at fault for why the defense is so poor over the front seven.

Scheme, players, coaching, whatever, I think the secondary is lacking more than the lines.

 
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The secondary has improved throughout the year, Though I would say it has only been a few steps. They actually did pretty well against MSU IMO.

 
NUinID said:
The secondary has improved throughout the year, Though I would say it has only been a few steps. They actually did pretty well against MSU IMO.
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Yeah, the secondary looked much better against Sparty than against some lesser teams we've played. Maybe due to more pressure on the QB?

Also, we had pretty good coverage on a couple of those long passes they completed. Connor Cook threaded the needle on a couple of those. But there were even more plays when our coverage wasn't so good and the ball fell incomplete. Sparty WRs dropped a lot of balls on Saturday.

 
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I actually believe our secondary play has been steadily improving. There are far fewer receivers running wide open. The DBs are in position to make plays on the vast majority of plays. They just aren't being able to prevent great throws from the QB and great catches by the WR. I believe that will come with being more and more comfortable in the system.

 
BigRedBuster said:
I actually believe our secondary play has been steadily improving. There are far fewer receivers running wide open. The DBs are in position to make plays on the vast majority of plays. They just aren't being able to prevent great throws from the QB and great catches by the WR. I believe that will come with being more and more comfortable in the system.
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I would have to agree.

 
NUance said:
NUinID said:
The secondary has improved throughout the year, Though I would say it has only been a few steps. They actually did pretty well against MSU IMO.
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Yeah, the secondary looked much better against Sparty than against some lesser teams we've played. Maybe due to more pressure on the QB?

Also, we had pretty good coverage on a couple of those long passes they completed. Connor Cook threaded the needle on a couple of those. But there were even more plays when our coverage wasn't so good and the ball fell incomplete. Sparty WRs dropped a lot of balls on Saturday.
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The pass rush was bad overall against MSU. The came out blazing in the first but then seemed to tire and for the rest of the game until the last drive were completely ineffective. In the second half we started seeing some blitzing which I think was the right thing to try but it didn't work. Our blitz packages were far to slow and the end result was no pressure AND a shorthanded secondary that couldn't cover at all.

There was some better coverage at times in the game though. Cook unfortunately made the throws more often then not. If I was an MSU fan my biggest gripe would be at Dantonio for not turning cook loose on their possession after our TD trimmed the lead to 5. He was passing with ease in the second half and I'm not sure the extra 30 secs they ate by running three times was worth it.

Bottom line is that this scheme is very hard to be successful with unless you have studs at DE AND CB. That's why the MSU defense is struggling this year. It's a defense that is much better suited to the pro game where you can retain the key positions and the talent level is consistently high

 
Saturday, I thought the secondary played their best game of the year. But lack of pass rush and Cook putting throws right on the money took away from that. Chris Jones is playing some really good ball it seems, and Kalu I think has a lot of confidence. Kalu defended the long pass on MSU's last TD drive really well, but the combination of great throw and great catch overshadowed that.

 
Connor Cook is a great QB, but to say we played great wouldn't be correct if we watched the same game.

He still had 335 yards and 4 TDs - Along with some great catches on good defense I do remember a few open drops they had as well

 
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