[personal] [Husker] Cousin Rich, the sequel

Mon Dec 11 17:52:59 CST 2006

Hello Husker Fans,

First let me say Bill, it's good to see you back.

I remember the days when you were often criticized for your dissenting
opinion, but I always appreciated  your willingness to be unpopular if
it was how you felt.

I'll post my responses to you after each point, sorry I'm long winded
(everyone knows this already).

wjc> Bill: I don't know how you can stand to read what some of these
wjc> [geniuses] have to say !!

Are you trying to say I'm not a genius!  My mother would disagree! :)

wjc> -What kind of [person] thinks we played our best defensive game??  Yes,
wjc> we stopped the run . . . and gave up 265 yards thru the air to the 2nd
wjc> worst passing attack in the Big 12!

Yes, I do maintain that.  First of all, 265 passing is really not that
much.  Granted, it's above their average, but it's still not a bad
day.  Especially when combined with the two other major factors, we
held the 2nd best running team in the Big XII to 42 yards rushing AND
we essentially held them to 14 points.  It's tough to count the first
one against the defense.

THAT's why I think it was one of their best games. (Plus, we outyarded
them all over the field, did THEY have a bad game?)

wjc> -Also, I don't think Zac Taylor calls the plays and forgets about running
wjc> the ball the last 25 minutes of the game.

Very true, and I had also wished they had ran a little more,
especially at the end of the 2nd, early 3rd.

wjc> -The FACT is, our defense is something like 70th in the nation (much
wjc> worse against the pass 89th(?).  Our offense is 9th(?).  Enuff said.

I don't disagree!  I said repeatedly that the offense has been clearly
better all season.  I said there are PLENTY of opportunity to
criticize this defense.  I just don't think the Big XII champ was the
game to do it.

wjc> -Zac Taylor admitted that he was confused by OU's defense.  That is
wjc> coaching and scheming.

True and not true.  Preparing your QB is obviously part of coaching.
Isn't it partially Zac's responsibility to watch film too?  It's not
like this was early in the season, this is game 13, some of being
prepared has to be left on the QB.

wjc> - Grixby was not lined up on the line of scrimmage all night long.  If he
wjc> would have been playing press coverage, they would have gone deep all
wjc> night.

He wasn't on every play, but he was for a lot of them.  MUCH more than
he ever has.  I'm not the first to notice it, he played a good portion
of the night right up on the line.

wjc> - Zac underthrew one ball that was picked, but it wasn't against
wjc> man-to-man coverage.  He had to throw it between the corner and the
wjc> safety.  Something that other QB's never have to do against us.  The one
wjc> in the end zone should have been thrown with more zip, but it was not
wjc> underthrown.  Again, against our defense, it would have been 6, because
wjc> the safety would not have been around to make the int.

I said the two to the endzone were underthrown and they were. Plain
and simple. You say, "should have been thrown with more zip", I say
underthrown. To me, one and the same, underthrow = not thrown hard
enough whether it's distance or speed. And yes, against our defense,
it would have been 6.

wjc> - According to him we blitzed 20+ times, all linebacker blitzes except
wjc> the ONE that worked.  What does that tell you?  He said their strategy to
wjc> roll out was pretty simple.  Again, what does that tell you?  It tells
wjc> you how [ridiculous] our defensive coaching is!  The one blitz that works
wjc> and he only runs it ONCE?  [*%$#@ !!!]

Couldn't agree more.  I said that when I wrote about the blitzing.
Our up the middle blitz did work once or twice, but I was upset that
we didn't blitz off the corners a little more.

wjc> - Tight end gets open for a TD.  Was that brilliant coaching?  I would
wjc> say it was pretty damn good, since that was the ONLY score that we had.

I never said Stoops didn't have a good gameplan.  I simply said they
were being given a little more credit than they deserved.  We had
chances to make plays and didn't, you need not look further than that.

wjc> - all of the verbage about coverages . . . and we don't have
wjc> safeties . . . I have one question for him: Does he think
wjc> Bullocks and Bullocks were above-average safeties? Well, with
wjc> Bullocks AND Bullocks AND Fabian Washington, this great coaching
wjc> staff managed to be 107th in pass defense with their great
wjc> scheming and coaching. The year before, with Pelini, it was "Top
wjc> 10." So quit [complaining] about the players and focus on the
wjc> real problem - coaching!

Again, I said there are plenty of reasons to complain about Cosgrove,
I just think if you're going to argue that the Big XII championship
proves that, I strongly disagree.

The thing that is most infuriating to me about Cosgrove is the
inconsistency.  There are some games when our defense plays extremely
well (Big XII champ, UT, Troy, KSU) and then there's games where they
look absolutely lost (KU, OSU).   In almost every game they had a let
down in the second half.

Remember last year when our defense was holding people to basically
nothing and outscoring our offense? We LIVED last year on our defense
the first few games. We beat Wake Forest 31-3 and scored 3 defensive
touchdowns! We beat what turned out to be a decent Pitt team on a
blocked field goal 7-6!  Then later that year we got stomped by KU
40-15?  Maalox please ;)

My 2nd most infuriating moment as a Husker fan (CU 62-26 was the
worst) was when Cos decided that the best way to play one of the most
prolific passing offenses in the country (TT) was to run 3 down
lineman all night?  Not only could we not stop the pass, but we
couldn't stop the run either!  70-10 to Texas Freakin Tech!!!

As you can see, I'm not a big Cos supporter, but don't tell me he let
us down in Kansas City.  It's just not true.

Finally, Bo Pelini has proven he's one of the top defensive minds in
college football.  You can say whatever you want about his maturity or
his head coaching potential, but the man flat out knows how to create
a mean in your face defense.  I don't think it's fair to compare Cos
to Bo because I don't think very many other people compare either.  I
feel like I can say with confidence that nobody in the Big XII is as
good.

Cos is a decent d-coordinator, but he's a long ways from a good or
great one.  He'll give you 85% good games and then he'll turn out some
atrocious ones.

I'm going to reserve my 'run him out of town' speech for now for one
simple reason.  The focus of recruiting for the past 3 years has been
pretty much all offense (and it needed to be to make this transition
work).  We've finally got a class that has some big defense recruits.
We've gone a little bare, IMHO, in the defensive backfield and that
was the difference between us at 9-4 and 11-2 (I still don't think we
beat USC, and as previously stated, I don't think the defense let us
down in the Big XII Champ).  I'm not a Cos apologist by ANY stretch.
I think he's the weakness of the coaching staff right now.  Next year
our defensive backfield should be much improved, we'll see how much.

wjc> Guess we will just have to get back into that newly-comfortable "rut"
wjc> (for some) of  saying "wait until next year."

I understand your frustration, but I just don't buy it.  I think next
year's team will be better than this years and with some of the young
talented recruits / freshman we have, I think they'll be good for a
while.

We still might be a DC away from an MNC, but I really do think they're
going to be competitive regardless.

BC has proven he can coach an offense, the entire staff has proven
they can recruit with the best of them.  Both BC and KC have shown
that they can be good at times, but they've also shown that they still
have some learning to do to be a top coach in Div I NCAA football.

-- 
Go Skers,
 Skylar                            mailto:Sklarbodds at cox.net

wjc> Bill Laughlin
wjc> Wichita, KS

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