The Mobile QB Conundrum

Undone

Undone

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Going to put out a few thoughts on this. A lot of it is probably just being discouraged after the crushing blow of defeat.

Last year, Bo did something fairly rare - he made an excuse. He blamed poor defensive play on not being "prepared" for the transition from defending spread offenses to the style of play in the B1G. I'm going to call BS on this.

There were at least three decent B1G teams on our schedule last year with mobile QBs: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Northwestern. Consistently, as we saw tonight, these teams were able to maintain offensive drives by merely having their QB scramble when their receivers are covered. So this is to say that while there are some boring, big, slow, power offense teams in the B1G that fit that stereotype (see: Iowa, Penn State), on average it's no excuse. UCLA completely shredded us by having a QB be able to extremely easily scramble for significant yardage when receivers were covered down field.

There is no transitional problem here. Our defensive team speed is woeful. Without Bo admitting this and "shifting paradigms," as they say, it's like we start out in the negative against mobile QBs.

Ohio State...that game is going to be an embarrassment of embarrassments.

 
I believe that our problem with containing mobile QBs can be sourced to the fact that we haven't had good defensive line play since 2009.... the last year we were effective against mobile QBs.

 
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Hard to contain a mobile QB when you get 0 pressure or either get blow away or can't tackle when you actually manage to get within 10 feet of them.

 
Our DL and LB group need to reduce scrambling time from 30 seconds to 20 seconds. :violin

Used to be Blackshirts gang. Now Keystone Cops.

 
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I agree with both of you. But maybe the point that I didn't make clear above is this: Pelini's stubbornness is going to absolutely screw us this season. If you intentionally play a scheme where your line doesn't penetrate, then get constantly KILLED with that particular game plan, where do you go from there?

To me, the answer is to corner blitz. Something that Bo is clearly opposed to doing, roughly 90% of the time.

Bottom line, in my humble opinion: Even though our defensive team speed and talent is severely lacking, with a shift in scheme, we could definitely be better. And it seems fairly obvious that it starts with forcing a mobile QB to:

A) Make decisions quicker

B) Not allowing the outside to be wide open space

Corners blitz. Linebackers shift out. Safeties stay home. Whydoweneverseethisman.

 
Undone said:
I agree with both of you. But maybe the point that I didn't make clear above is this: Pelini's stubbornness is going to absolutely screw us this season. If you intentionally play a scheme where your line doesn't penetrate, then get constantly KILLED with that particular game plan, where do you go from there?

To me, the answer is to corner blitz. Something that Bo is clearly opposed to doing, roughly 90% of the time.

Bottom line, in my humble opinion: Even though our defensive team speed and talent is severely lacking, with a shift in scheme, we could definitely be better. And it seems fairly obvious that it starts with forcing a mobile QB to:

A) Make decisions quicker

B) Not allowing the outside to be wide open space

Corners blitz. Linebackers shift out. Safeties stay home. Whydoweneverseethisman.
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I hear you man. I know Bo and gang know a whole lot more about football than me, but watching the same thing every game for the past 2 years is baffling. The only time the defense shows up is against a non-mobile quarterback (Penn State/Michigan State/Iowa). We don't have Suh and Crick destroying double teams and wreaking havoc anymore, where is the adjustment?

 
I think to combat this, we should turn the offside penalty off, and move our D line up to right in front of the QB. 100% of the time, it'll work 100% of the time.

In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.

It's not the scheme, it's the execution.

 
Bye Bye Big XII said:
I think to combat this, we should turn the offside penalty off, and move our D line up to right in front of the QB. 100% of the time, it'll work 100% of the time.

In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.

It's not the scheme, it's the execution.
Click to expand...
We don't have the players to execute the scheme. We have the least physical and slowest defensive line I can remember in the last 20 years at Nebraska.

 
beanman said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
I think to combat this, we should turn the offside penalty off, and move our D line up to right in front of the QB. 100% of the time, it'll work 100% of the time.

In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.

It's not the scheme, it's the execution.
Click to expand...
We don't have the players to execute the scheme. We have the least physical and slowest defensive line I can remember in the last 20 years at Nebraska.
Click to expand...
maybe changed from traditional 4-3-4 scheme to 0-0-11 :koolaid2:

 
Bye Bye Big XII said:
In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.
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Again, I'm going to push back on this. Even when our defensive line does get into the back field, a mobile QB merely has to sweep to the outside, and it's a jailbreak.

Pelini's defensive rhythm is the following: "Eh, we'll just take what the offense gives us. Our linemen will shift to the angle the play is heading." But it seriously fails every time against mobile QBs. Using a corner blitz is practically nonexistent for us.

There's no variety in what we do defensively. Our defensive line stands straight up. Their quarterback has 5-7 seconds to think about what he wants to do. Play develops according to the opponent's every whim. We get beaten to the outside. Repeat.

 
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beanman said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
I think to combat this, we should turn the offside penalty off, and move our D line up to right in front of the QB. 100% of the time, it'll work 100% of the time.

In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.

It's not the scheme, it's the execution.
Click to expand...
We don't have the players to execute the scheme. We have the least physical and slowest defensive line I can remember in the last 20 years at Nebraska.
Click to expand...
Aha! We should install the scheme for a slow, unphysical DL!

 
zoogies said:
beanman said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
I think to combat this, we should turn the offside penalty off, and move our D line up to right in front of the QB. 100% of the time, it'll work 100% of the time.

In all seriousness though, numerous times tonight we got pressure. Numerous times we weren't able to make the play.

It's not the scheme, it's the execution.
Click to expand...
We don't have the players to execute the scheme. We have the least physical and slowest defensive line I can remember in the last 20 years at Nebraska.
Click to expand...
Aha! We should install the scheme for a slow, unphysical DL!
Click to expand...
Well, based on the caliber of players we have we sure as hell shouldn't be running this scheme. I'm guessing if you got McBride's honest opinion he'd probably tell you that we don't have the horses up front to be running the defense we run.

http://hailvarsity.com/2012/08/mcbride-talks-two-gap/

“(The two-gap player) has to be able to have great strength,” he told Hail Varsity Radio earlier this week. “You have to have good hand strength, good position and you have to be ready to play both of those gaps. The thing is with it, you can’t make a mistake.”

“When you’re playing two-gap, of course, you’re a team that reads,” McBride said. “You’re really not a terrific attacking team. The strength factor is huge. You have to be a really strong person to do that.”

 
But every scheme requires players with strengths. I guess what I'm wondering is, if you are advocating another kind of scheme, what do you need those DL to be? Super fast? Super quick? etc.

 
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