[Husker] Defense

[Don Mares]

I have to start by saying I'm not educated when it comes to football
knowledge either.  I played a little football growing up.  I watched a lot
more.  Total and complete love for the game.  Full disclosure, I was born
the same year Coach Osborne became head coach.  Growing up, I never missed
a game until I moved away after college.  When I was about 10, I went down
to line the walk to and from the field to the locker room.  This was long
before the "tunnel walk" and Coach Osborne slapped my hand once coming in
from the field to the locker room.  I literally never took a bath for a
week after that until my parents had a reckoning with me.  True story.  I
met Osborne a handful of times after that but never had the guts to play
for him although I might have had the ability.  Missed my time and the
thing he told me then was there is more to life than football.  One hell of
a guy.

That said, its my opinion we got out coached in this game.  This thread is
on the defense so I will try to contain my thoughts there.  I think if the
offense would have held onto the ball we played well enough on offense to
win this game.  That is only assuming we had held onto the ball.  Turning
it over lost the game for us.  If you recall, Ohio State didn't have a
first down in the first quarter.  We dominated them defensively.  Offense
was getting some big plays when we weren't turning the ball over.  Early in
the second quarter, Braxton Miller broke a trap run and it went all down
hill from then.

My feeling is the husker defensive coaches wanted to take some risks early
to get some hits on Miller.  Play aggressive and get some stops.  But they
know how vulnerable that leaves you and if we didn't have a couple shoe
string tackles early, those guys would still be running.  You don't want a
play a full game like that.  That's always a vulnerability but our goal was
to contain miller and not get out of our lanes.  For the most part, I felt
we stayed in our lanes but Miller still got away and made plays.  He's a
great player.  I think Urban Meyer and Ohio State have some good coaches.
My feeling is they made some adjustments on offense to our defense.  I
don't know what those adjustments were specifically but Osborne wasn't
lying when he said the game is a chess match and its my opinion the coaches
are constantly pulling the strings out there.  Ohio State made their
adjustments and we didn't adjust back.  I really think its as simple as
that. Why?  I don't know because I consider that a hallmark of Pelini
defenses.

I also believe defense is more about passion and relentless abandon and
getting off the blocks and making the play and it doesn't matter what the
guy blocking you does because you can't be stopped.  You won't be stopped.
Great defense is more a mentality and effort and passion than a scheme.  In
the first half, Ohio State came out a little timid and we came out strong
and it showed.  We were flying all over the field.  Running guys down from
the backside.  That stopped in the second quarter.  But they put some
pressure on us with the turnovers and were able to gut our defense a couple
times.  By the third quarter, I felt we got behind by 18 and our defense in
some ways quit.  The guys were playing hard but they were getting blocked
out of position and not spilling it and putting it all out there like they
are capable.  We over pursued and ran ourselves out of position at times.
In some cases were were too timid and not aggressive too.  I think its a
combination of getting out coached and losing the mental edge.  They made
adjustments to our scheme and for whatever reason we never responded.  But
in the second half, the guys out there lost their fire.  At that point
anything the coaches do doesn't matter and ultimately its up to the players
to make plays.  Anyone can make plays.  The strongest, fastest most
talented will do it more often than the less gifted but anyone can make
plays.  In my opinion we got down in a hostile environment and we lost our
fire and it snowballed on us.  At the end of the day, they made plays and
we didn't.

I do not believe Ohio State is stronger or faster or more talented than we
are.  When we lined up on them they didn't necessarily move our defensive
guys.  If we tried to block them on offense, we did an ok job.  That said,
I don't think we were any stronger than they were either.  It was really
pretty even I thought.  But we gave a close game away with easy turnovers.
Nevertheless, later in the game, I didn't think our defense did a good job
getting off blocks.  I think it was more mental than physical.  We were
down and defeated.  Rex was defeated.  There was no energy.  Our offense
failed to block and even touch too many guys.  The coaches know more than I
do.  But we got whipped and everyone knows that.  Would it happen the same
way if we played again?  I highly doubt it.  But that doesn't matter.

The coach who shouldn't be named took something away from me.  I identified
myself with the huskers.  They were always competitive, they may not win
every game but we won more than we lost and we were always competitive.
That guy came in and we were no longer competitive and I was crushed
emotionally and physically and every way imaginable.  We were soft and
weak.  I knew we couldn't fix it for the next game.  It used to ruin me for
the rest of the night and parts of the next day to lose a game.
Emotionally I was defeated.  After so many lifeless defeats you become numb
and no longer identify yourself with them.  I'm still a fan but I will
never again bleed for them like I once did.  My innocense is lost forever.
Or maybe I just got older.  But I don't feel like we cannot respond from
this.  We beat ourselves more than Ohio state beat us.  The season is a
long journey, our goals are still in place out there for us.  We just have
less room for error now and made it a little harder on ourselves.  We can
still win the B1G this year.  Nobody said it would be easy.  Suck it up and
get er done.

Don



On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Mike Nolan <nolan at tssi.com> wrote:

> > I can't buy into the defense being too complicated given that this is
> year
> > 5.
>
> Yeah, but year 1 under the current defensive coordinator.  I think that
> says something about whether Carl Pelini was just a figurehead in that
> job.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>
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