17 points and under 250 yards of total offense, kept it a one score game despite absolutely horrendous play by thee offense on all but a couple drives, and got the ball back for our O twice in like the last 5 minutes. The Cardiac Cats of old would have driven down for a tying score. Yet was anyone in doubt that our last drive would more than likely end in a sack. As I said in another thread, a pick six was the only hope we had of scoring a TD.
How about that defense
- Thread starter FanatiCat
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Exponentially better than last year with less talent but the bar was set really low. O’Neil may have been the worst coordinator I have ever seen. Braun has the team playing fast and fundamentally sound but there is not a lot of high end talent on that side of the ball and we were playing a pretty pathetic offense.
What kind of coach hires a DC like JON
Bajakian is a close second. I don’t know where to begin, but in the fourth quarter, when time was against us, why in heck were we doing a bunch of one-player substitutions, which cause the refs to hold the play, run clock, and then lean Sullivan only three or four seconds to get the play off. Horrible coaching. Keep the same players out there and use tempo. Absolutely awful for an experienced coordinator.
Night and day. They play fast, confident, fill gaps, hit hard. David Braun has made a massive impact on that side of the ball, there is a lot to build on moving forward.
There was something weird about that. I never see them hold off the snap count for substitutions when the play clock is winding down under 10 seconds. I’m sure it threw off the offense somewhat.
And after the last first down we got with like 2:40, I don’t think they even stopped the clock at all. We lost several seconds there.
It doesn’t stop on the first down until 2 mins left in the half. That was a rule change this year.
I don’t see it. Looks like the same Northwestern I’ve been watching for years. Subpar performance against a bad team.
There was one play where the ref held the play until there was one second left on the play clock.
ONE.
Is the ref obligated to move out of the way before the clock runs out, or can they just stand there until there's a delay of game? I don't remember the refs holding the play THIS much in previous seasons.
I believe you . You are not alone. Most of the posters on this board have no idea what they are watching on game days.
I believe it was the lady ref. This is not intended as a sexist post. I think on the whole she has done a good job. However, I have noticed she is becoming more assertive as her experience has grown - to be expected - and wonder if she feels extra pressure like any new ref - and in particular a groundbreaking female ref - to follow the rules to the letter of the law. It would be interesting to hear what the coaches think.
She is vigilant and consistent about holding up the snap when there are substitutions.
Yeah…that Howard game was really impressive. Everyone was raving.
It’s the same team as always. We need a full re-boot. A new guy with new assistants so we can start recruiting for real.
Now, a question to board...do you think Fitz was forced to fire JON or his decision? We will never know, but the fact he kept that guy for a second year is a complete failure.
Hey buddy, this thread is specific to our defensive unit. If you can't tell the difference between this year's defensive unit and last year's unit from the standpoint of organization, alignment, playing fundamentally sound football, then you are just wasting your time watching the games because you have no idea what's going on. The equivalent of me watching a Russian opera while blindfolded.
She’s not the one making the call. Notice she was looking directly at the white hat, who’s the one who declares ready for play.
So aggressive when someone disagrees. Sorry, haughty your act won’t work on me. We’ve pulled some really dumb sh*t on defense this year too. I’m not going to eternally judge our defense from a performance against a piss poor Nebraska team.
Then white hat guy is responsible. Honestly although I am just a fan with no experience, in decades of watching I don’t remember a game with multiple instances of the official running in under 10 seconds on the play clock to hold up the snap count and letting it run down to only 1-2 seconds. Was it late substitutions on our part or the defense? Something unusual was going on either with the substitution or the officials.
I am not just judging the results, I am judging the scheme, the alignment, the speed at which the players are playing. Unlike under O"Neil, this defense knows their assignments, plays fast which means they are confident in their responsibilities, and almost always there are multiple players around the ball in a position to make plays. The previous two years you saw guys confused about where they should be pre snap, opposing players running completely free because a defender was lined up in the wrong place and players thinking rather than reacting after the snap. None of that means players this year are not missing on opportunities to make plays. That is obvious and partly due to the fact that this team is much less talented, experienced and deep than even the teams in the previous couple of years. Coaches can't make the plays for the players but it is their responsibility to make sure the players understand their responsibilities in the scheme and that the scheme puts players in a position to make plays. That is happening this year on defense to a degree that was not even fathomable the previous two years. That should be obvious to even the most novice observer. If you can't see it, I don't know what to tell you.
I agree with you. There was a lot of late substituting on our part that I think contributed to that. Once the offense subs, the refs are required to let the defense respond to the substitution before letting the offense snap the ball.
Imagine how good they would be if Braun was focusing solely on defense and Lewis was still on the team.
OK, but can games be played by the opposing team by being slow to substitute? Really puts an incredible amount of pressure on the offense.
That would be obvious. The refs always have the option to reset the play clock if there are extenuating circumstances.
Yes. Teams are starting to use it to slow down offenses. Utah was doing it to USC all game last night.
Say what you want about him as a person, but for my money Whittingham at Utah is easily one of the top ten coaches in college football. Increasingly I think the most impressive win in Fitz's head coaching career was beating that very good Utah team in the Holiday Bowl.
I think Fitz even realized that the defense was hopeless and that his team had stopped caring as a result. It soon him 18 games instead of one Kenneth Walker run.
As I said, I just don't remember it being this noticeable in previous seasons. Have they tweaked the rules or are the refs now being instructed to enforce the rule this way?
Or maybe defenses never figured out this tactic until this season. I don't know; it just seems different this season somehow.
I think DCs and savvy HCs have just figured out how to exploit it.
If defenses are slow-walking on purpose to cause the play clock to run out, maybe the defense should be called for delay of game.
Or else put an explicit limit on the rules and take it out of the ref's discretion, so that both the offense and the defense know what's allowed. If 10 seconds is considered a fair amount of time for a substitution, for example, then the ref can hold the play for 10 seconds, not as long as the defense decides to take.
Don’t disagree. The rule clearly needs tweaking, but defenses are technically playing by letter of the law.
So we held a mediocre team low enough to win? The defense generated points off of turnovers to offset a bad O a beat a lesss than good team? A JON team never put up a better than the other team performance during his whole tenure resulting in a winless career at NU?
A lot of things would suggest otherwise including points against and seeing guys in position
I think the rule is that if the O substitutes the D has to be given the opportunity to substitute
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