What did we learn South Alabama?

I learned that, no matter how many “skill players” a team has -  football success still starts on the offensive & defensive LINES. (Particularly in the B1G). If SF doesn’t know that yet, hopefully he figures it out pretty darn quick.

 
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lo country said:
I always thought that. For the past like 15 years.  I finally realized that what we showed was what we were.  We had no secret awesome sauce, no hell to unleash.  Vanilla and crappy was the best we had to offer.  Now with Frost's comments above, I'd say he went in as vanilla  and bare bones as possible. By design to add as we go along and not show our hand too soon.  He put nothing useful on film for anyone except for our own guys to see blown plays and missed assignments.  The OL getting beat like  a drum, Martinez playing far below his abilities and miscues ie TO's, high snaps, issues with Mo etc caused some issues that I am sure he didn't anticipate.  Not having the complete game plan, you go with what you have.  The D stepped up and did nothing different save actually play much better and get the TO's. No exotic blitzes or formations.  They just made plays.  IMHO, had we made half of the tackles we missed, a lot of the discussions become moot.  The game isn't close.  

IMHO, Frost felt the O had enough in the tank to win.  It didn't and the D did what it was built to do.  Got the TO's and made the stops.  

I still think Martinez has something going on.  I used the word earlier in this thread that he looked apathetic when playing today.  Unusual for him.  Like he didn't have that competitive drive going.  Just my .02
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I have no idea of course, but you never know with 18-22 year old college kids.  Part of what makes college sports so much more entertaining to me.  Could have just been in a mellow mood lately, or just a lil warn out from all the hype around him.  Or having a relationship issue with a lady, etc etc.  Or none of that, and he just didnt play well.  He never seems to show a lot of emotion even when he clearly is driven and playing his a$$ off.  Not to mention the offense barely played the entire second half, and the defense was confusing him a little bit.  

He did miss some wide open targets a few times, so i agree that he appeared less driven/focused.  But as to if he really was, or why, we have no way to know other than those who are very close to him.  Frost even looked the same way, but he is the same as Martinez in that he really doesnt get too high or too low, and as Frost said Martinez will be fine, the bigger concern is the lack of physicality and blocking.

On a positive, the Defense played with a ton of fire.  I was a lil dissapointed in the D Line, but the whole defense played with a lot of passion.  That was fun to watch.

 
It's too early to question everything but I do wonder, for example, what Greg Austin was talking about when he said there's 12 offensive linemen ready to go.  I'm not sure if there's 5 at this point.

Also what was all that talk from the broadcasters about Verduzco overhauling Martinez's throwing mechanics this offseason?  If that's true he needs to go hack to what he was doing when he strolled on campus.

 
HuskermanMike said:
I learned that we have a lot to work on.

No deep throws at all and bad offense. 

We showed we have improved forcing turnovers on defense. 

Martinez was overhyped going into this game. Not sure if the hype got to him or what. We need more receivers to step up. 

We still don't have our starting center figured out. 
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We found out that we still lack physical play in the offensive line play.  If that continues, it will be another long, disappointing season.

 
I learned what I already knew.  Husker fans hype the fun out of the opening game every year.  Predictions of scores like 70-14, really?  I have been a Husker fan since I was a toddler, but the preseason hype that Husker fans put out there just gets worse every year.  This isn't the Big 8, or even the Big 12, and with rule changes the average teams or the not so good teams always have a chance to play competitive against teams better than them on paper.  I wish Husker fans would just be more realistic.  Every year is a new year.  We don't really know what we have for a team until the 3rd or 4th game.  Just be real. 

Trash me if it makes you feel better, I am just telling it like I see it.

 
Undone said:
This is just totally inaccurate. In terms of high school recruiting rankings, there's probably more talent at the skill positions on this team than any team since either '99 or '01. 

Our problem in this game was at center and left guard. Both of those spots got blown up the entire game. South Alabama comes in and knows the only chance they have at winning is stacking the box with 8 guys all game. In turn, Frost wants to try to get some practice time in on the inside zone running plays but we just didn't have the push on the offensive line to make it work.

This offense was at its best last season when Frost called the wide receiver screens from the very first offensive series; it spreads the defense out and softens up the interior for the run game. But that just wasn't going to be the game plan in this one.

As our left guard & center spots get more reps this offense is going to be just as good or better than last year. Book it. Wan'dale already has me convinced that he pretty much fills in for Morgan - teams have to decide whether they're going to double team him or JD. Pick your poison because our offense is going to be great this season.
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This team has issues on both sides of the lines. Linebackers and safeties are questionable. They are not athletic as a team and will show in conference play. The record will bear that out. It will take a few years to clean up the mess Frost inherited. Remember this was a cupcake and they pushed NU. 

 
PaulCrewe said:
That the interior Oline  play that many are calling out did indeed play like a group of guys with a combined 6 starts prior to today
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Many forget, or don't realize, we're near the bottom of returning starts of all on college football. Sure they played bad but between Hixon, Jurgens, Wilson and Will there wasn't a lot of experience.

 
I learned the following:

(1) We still do not have good special teams. Other than the individual effort of a very special athlete, i.e. Spielman, the special teams were as unspecial as they have been over the last six years at least.

(2) We still make unnecessary stupid penalties at key moments on the game that swing the momentum to the opponent.

(3) Our offense was horrendous today, and that is sugar coating it. Frost was extremely nice to keep Adrian Martinez in the game. He should have tried someone else and may be that would have awaken the REAL Adrian Martinez. What we saw today was Adrian Martinez sleepwalking.

(4) Our defense played very good, especially in the second half and they were for sure the reason we won the game. However, we still have up 315 yards to a 3-9 team last year.

(5) Our center needs to stop snapping the ball 10 feet high. I understand doing it once in a while but he did that all game long.

(6) We were for sure the least impressive team of the big ten this weekend. If we want to compete with the likes of Ohio state, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan, and Iowa, we need to take it up a few notches.

(7) It was a disappointing performance after all the hype.

 
The Dude said:
It's too early to question everything but I do wonder, for example, what Greg Austin was talking about when he said there's 12 offensive linemen ready to go.  I'm not sure if there's 5 at this point.

Also what was all that talk from the broadcasters about Verduzco overhauling Martinez's throwing mechanics this offseason?  If that's true he needs to go hack to what he was doing when he strolled on campus.
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Agree 100%. If it's not "technically" correct, but still get 60+% completion rate, why try to fix it.  It's like a golfer/batter/marksman etc trying fine tune the minutia, to improve you can get in a circle "chasing zero" and mess up......Grip it and rip it.  Too much thinking slows you down.  High snaps slows you down.  

I'm hoping the OL is guys who individually can play, but collectively might be lacking.  As someone mentioned earlier you have 2 Rfr centers, one who has never played, trying to make calls for an inexperienced OL....Against a D, that tried and succeeded in confusing the crap out of the guy in charge of making adjustments.  

 
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huskerfan74 said:
I learned the following:

(1) We still do not have good special teams. Other than the individual effort of a very special athlete, i.e. Spielman, the special teams were as unspecial as they have been over the last six years at least.

(2) We still make unnecessary stupid penalties at key moments on the game that swing the momentum to the opponent.

(3) Our offense was horrendous today, and that is sugar coating it. Frost was extremely nice to keep Adrian Martinez in the game. He should have tried someone else and may be that would have awaken the REAL Adrian Martinez. What we saw today was Adrian Martinez sleepwalking.

(4) Our defense played very good, especially in the second half and they were for sure the reason we won the game. However, we still have up 315 yards to a 3-9 team last year.

(5) Our center needs to stop snapping the ball 10 feet high. I understand doing it once in a while but he did that all game long.

(6) We were for sure the least impressive team of the big ten this weekend. If we want to compete with the likes of Ohio state, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan, and Iowa, we need to take it up a few notches.

(7) It was a disappointing performance after all the hype.
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1) Other than the missed FG by a backup kicker, the special teams were solid. Wandale had a couple nice kickoff returns, the kickoff coverage team didn’t let up any big returns, and Armstrong averaged 45 yards per punt (flipping the field once, and pinning them deep another time or two).

2. Other than Deontei’s penalty in the first quarter, I didn’t think there were super costly penalties which changed the momentum of the game. Maybe Wandale’s illegal motion (which was questionable) which negated a long catch and run.

3. Not sure if you have watched many other Big Ten games this weekend. Purdue lost to Nevada. Minnesota went down to the wire against a FCS school. Northwestern couldn’t do anything on offense against Stanford. Currently, Iowa is only up 10-7 at half against Miami (OH). NU is far from the only conference team struggling this weekend. 

 
The Dude said:
  I'm not sure if there's 5 at this point.
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Their NG dominated us, no question there. Almost from first snap to last. We were often running into 8 man boxes where they had 3 LBs stacked behind 3 DL and then 2 overhang defenders. A lot of times they had all 11 defenders within 8 yards of the LOS. You’re just not running against that. When we had lighter boxes, our backs didn’t do a good enough job finding holes.

I’m not worried much about adjustments, generally coaches don’t gameplan much for these cash games and Frost alluded to a small set of plays for this game. But they did us a huge favor putting a lot of problem looks on tape. 

 
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