[Husker] Blame and blitz

[Steve Schmadeke]

I don't believe that particular play was a blitz by the defense,  
unless it was a zone blitz.

Unfortunately, I've since deleted the Sportscenter highlights that  
allowed me to see the replay, but I did run that one back in slow-mo  
to show my youngest son what I was seeing in the stands at the time.   
Quite a few times during this game, Ball State got mismatches between  
its slot receivers and our linebackers as well as against Tierre  
Green.  In this particular play, it looked like Ruud was going to  
have the responsibility for the slot receiver and I was pointing it  
out in the stands at the time that they were going to go after Ruud.

However, we actually dropped back into zone, so it turned out that  
the receiver was not Ruud's man-to-man responsibility.  He released  
him to Green and stayed short.  This still left the receiver pretty  
open down the seam, but this was one of the plays where we were  
getting pressure on the quarterback rolling to his right and we did  
it only rushing four players.  I don't know if they were the four  
defensive linemen, but we only rushed four.  Under pressure, the QB  
tried to drop the pass in to the underneath receiver.  The ball  
sailed long and right to Ruud, who showed that deceptive Ruud speed  
in his TD return.  If we don't get the pressure on the QB in that  
play, I believe he would have picked up on the open slot receiver  
deep for another 20-30 yard gain.

We were struggling mightily to get pressure on the QB as the rollouts  
and runs were beating us badly all game.  Our linebackers and  
secondary continuously were taking bad angles and failing to make the  
tackles.  I believe they are playing with desperation instead of  
confidence and so they are not under control in the open field.   
Unfortunately, each overrun tackle and each bad read of the hole is  
making the players that much more desperate to make it up on the next  
play, leading to more of the same problems.

I hope a solid performance against Iowa State can help bring things  
back to a more even keel before we face the offense down in  
Columbia.  I don't know if we have the defensive line to be a really  
good defense this year, but I do believe that we are better than what  
we've shown the last two and a half games.

On Sep 23, 2007, at 12:16 AM, Alan Siporin wrote:

> As soon as I post that Cosgrove is the one person who never  
> shoulders any
> responsibility on himself I see him quoted as saying the blackshirt  
> woes
> begin with him. Okay, Coach, that's a start.
>
> I wasn't able to see the game, on TV or in person, but I surmised  
> from the
> internet radio broadcast combined with OWH and Lincoln Journal  
> articles that
> one of the few times the Huskers blitzed was the interception play.
> Apparently, they scrapped the blitz packages, early on, when they  
> saw all
> the rollouts from Davis. Until late in the game, that is, when  
> someone must
> have figured out blitzing couldn't possibly make things worse. SO they
> blitzed, and won the game. Hmmmm. Blitzes, anyone.
>
> Alan Siporin
>
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