[Husker] My Take On The Game and the Defense

[Kenneth McKillip]

The QB gets too much credit when we win and too much blame when we lose.
Zac was put in a bad position due injuries and to play calling being one
dimensional.  It was a team loss.  Including the defense giving up a 99 yard
drive with the game on the line when we had them 3rd and long on their one.

I commented during them game (down 14-7 3rd Q) that TO would have taken the
4 yard four runs that were there until OU shut them down.  I still think
that approach would have won this game and took pressure off of the defense.

-----Original Message-----
From: husker-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:husker-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of
3aoo-cvfd at dea.spamcon.org
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 3:38 PM
To: 29f1-o5eq at dea.spamcon.org
Cc: Husker List
Subject: Re: [Husker] My Take On The Game and the Defense

Jeff Volk wrote:
>
> The defense actually played pretty solid 

Our defense played great!  They held Oklahoma to just 
42 yards on the ground.  It was a tremendous effort.

> I love Zac Taylor, but fact is he didn't have his best
> game. 

Let's not mince words.  It was Zac's worst game this year.
He played eight games without an interception.  He played 
four games with just 1 interception.  Then in this game he 
throws 3 interceptions?  Please.  

> Some of it was related to sub par and inconsistent o-line 
> play 

Don't blame the o-line.  They gave up more sacks against
Oklahoma State and Zac threw no interceptions.  They gave
up just as many sacks against Kansas State and Zac threw
no interceptions.

> but mostly he just didn't have a sharp game. 

Not sharp?  Not sharp?  Zac was not sharp against USC
(50% completions) and threw no interceptions.  Zac was 
not sharp against Kansas (45% completions) and threw no 
interceptions.  Against Oklahoma Zac had a meltdown.

Think about it.  Would Joe Ganz have been any worse?

> As for the defense, the focus was clearly to stop the run 

And they did a wonderful job.

> and make Thompson win with the pass. 

It was a winning strategy.  The defense held Oklahoma to
just 14 points.  Surely, we could have expected the Husker 
offense to beat that.

> Based on the number of throws they had attempted in most 
> of their games it was a game plan that made a lot of sense 
> going into the game. 

It still made a lot of sense after the game.

> You can say what you will about in game adjustments

We didn't need any defensive adjustments, we needed an
effective offense.

> but the bottom line is that Thompson just played big 
> and made big plays. 

Yeah, he scored 14 points.  No big deal.  Our offense
should have surpassed that.

> The bottom line is that the injury to Bowman put the 
> Husker's defense at more of a disadvantage this year 
> than people really believe. 

Not just Bowman.  We have had a number of injuries this
year in the defensive backfield.  It hurt.  Nevertheless
I can't understand why critics are focussing on our defense
when it is the offense that lost us the game.

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