[Husker] My Husker thoughts

[Mike Nolan]

> A solid point made by Dick Karre about the need to teach fundamentals in the
> middle of the season (or even three games in to respond to another post as
> well). What's worse is that we hear this same excuse after nearly every
> loss. It seems to me that whatever the problem (fundamentals, technique,
> scheme) after the first offensive series, the defensive coaches should be
> able to gather the players and say you are doing X wrong, or you forgot to
> do Y. Focus and do it right the next series.

In other words, you can't teach fundamentals on game day, at best what
you can do is remind people of them.  

The scheme is the coaches' domain, and thus it's largely up to the coaches 
to modify the scheme if it isn't working.  However, sometimes it doesn't 
work because the players cannot execute it (either because of their own 
skills or the superior skills of their opponent), and that's when a game 
plan starts to look really bad.  

How many times did Osborne make statements to the effect that if the
running game was working, he planned to keep on doing it until the
opponent du jour figured out how to stop it?  USC kept running at 
Nebraska, Nebraska never did figure out how to stop it.  

However, I completely disagree with the notion that you don't teach 
fundamentals at the college level.  You do, but mostly what you're doing
is refining and enhancing those fundamentals, not teaching them in the 
first place.  Teaching of fundamentals never stops.  (Read Jerry Kramer's 
book about his days with the Packers, Lombardi started with the fundamentals 
in summer camp year after year.)

Someone who doesn't know how to tackle AT ALL would never have been
recruited, at least not for a position where tackling is something he 
is routinely expected to do.  But there is a significant difference 
between tackling a high school player and tackling a player several years 
older (and bigger and faster) than that.  And that's where you start 
to cross the line between fundamentals and technique.