UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, VOL 1

by Orson on Apr 15, 2008 12:14 PM EDT

In anticipation of Bruce Feldman coming on EDSBS Live tonight and helping us figure out the grand mysteries of life and spring practice, we will be covering them today, Unsolved Mysteries-style. If you need a soundtrack, please add ascending and descending synthesizer notes, at any point. It worked for Robert Stack, at least.

Unsolved Mysteries, Volume 1: The Nebraska Defense: Gone, in a week: the Nebraska defense was last seen playing on the field against the Nevada Wolfpack on September 1st, 2007. Then they disappeared completely, replaced instead by eleven palsied men who appeared to be either a.) in the process of being consumed by invisible flame, or b.) test subjects for the Air Force's new "pain cannon."

Nebraska's point per game average for 2007: 37.9 a game, a total that if read again by an elderly gentlemen scanning this piece in Lincoln, Nebraska, would cause a fatal defibrillation of his heart rate in seconds. Fortunately, old people fear computers just as they fear robots and goats. (They have the devil's eyes!) Particularly troubling about Nebraska's defensive collapse--and by this we mean something more troubling than allowing 40 points to Ball State--was the seniority of their defense. Three seniors across the middle at linebacker and half the defensive backfield were seniors.

Experience and senior leadership, both nostrums of "what a good team is" per coachspeak, did not help the Huskers, who were uniformly bad at pass defense (84th in the nation) and rush defense (116th. We'll type that again: 116th in the nation. The Blackshirts.) Apocalyptic doesn't approximate the sadness and completeness of their badness. Crap in a baking pan and place in your oven for three hours at 350 degrees, then open the oven while simultaneously shooting yourself in the face with pepper spray. You have just experienced one-eighth of how bad this defense was last year.

Mysteries: with many of the same players coming back on the defensive line and a new crew shuffling at linebacker, can they improve? Or is it a matter of physical law that they improve, because they simply could not be any worse? Or will they simply present a different, more blitz-y philosophy of disaster with Bo Pelini at the wheel, sucking this time on pass defense instead of rush defense, and thus doing Nebraska fans the favor of presenting a new flavor of misery?

Insert scary recreations of the Kansas game! Add smoky filter and us narrating this in a trenchcoat? And that's a wrap!

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Comments

so does this make notre dame the bloop sound?

by kleph on Apr 15, 2008 12:17 PM EDT reply actions

nice Orson…

back-to-back posts that had me all aquiver with laughter.

you are on fire today Orson.

by CincySooner on Apr 15, 2008 12:37 PM EDT reply actions

Why would Nebraska proclaim its defense the Blackshirts? Historically, this is not a good idea, as evidenced by Germany (notwithstanding an impressive blitz scheme) and, even more so, Italy (which got beat by Ethiopia, the I-AA equivalent of its day).

by Allaha on Apr 15, 2008 12:49 PM EDT reply actions

In all fairness to Italy: fighting a vaguely defined war in a territory with some of the most stunning women on the planet would diminish anyone’s focus.

by Orson Swindle on Apr 15, 2008 12:51 PM EDT reply actions

Allaha:

The reason they’re called the Blackshirts is here:

https://www.huskersnside.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=440&SPID=22&DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=4435

And if the ’95 Nebraska Blackshirts were Germany, I guess ’95 Florida was Poland.\

Also — Nebraska fan will take some “suck against the pass” if it means not getting kicked in the face by everyone this year. One can generally infer that being bad against the pass but good against the run means that you’re winning games, forcing teams to abandon the running game.

by Albino Tornado on Apr 15, 2008 1:00 PM EDT reply actions

Good point, although one would think that practices on your home campus of Italy would have prepared you for game conditions with stunning women.

by Allaha on Apr 15, 2008 1:01 PM EDT reply actions

#6…one would think so, wouldn’t one? I have found that the game translates well between all cultures and easily crosses political and religious lines…but that’s just me…

by sb on Apr 15, 2008 1:57 PM EDT reply actions

And to think… someone once used that defense as an example as to why USC was so good on offense:
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2007/09/18/warm-up-the-truck/
and again why they wouldn’t have any problem with the likes of Stanford with a back-up QB:
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2007/10/03/usc-continues-boring-humdrum-perfection/

OK… I can’t blame anybody for #2. Nobody saw that coming. Excessive drooling for beating an obviously not-very-good Nebraska team = bad.

by ChemE93 on Apr 15, 2008 2:58 PM EDT reply actions

Honestly would really have hurt Nebraksa to offer Trev another few years? Things really couldn’t get worse, for their defense or his career.

by Billy in Baton Rouge on Apr 15, 2008 3:16 PM EDT reply actions

Chem—We had no idea! How could we?

by Orson Swindle on Apr 15, 2008 3:18 PM EDT reply actions

Bill Callahan thinks you’re a crusty old fuck

by Last Dragon on Apr 15, 2008 4:50 PM EDT reply actions

There’s no mystery here, dammit!

Our former defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove understood the spread offense as well as King George III understood there were guys in the colonies hiding behind trees and shooting at his guys standing in straight lines and wearing bright red.

Who can withstand the onslaught you’re supposed to do is follow orders and those orders make no sense?

As evidence, the Texas game, where the Huskers played rather well (relatively speaking) until Colt McCoy came out for a play after suffering an injury. On the next play, Chiles came in, ran a zone read, gained a bunch of yards and the light bulbs went on. Apparently the Texas coaches aren’t exactly the smartest guys in football – what the hell were they watching when they scouted Nebraska’s defense – film from 1987? Rip Van Winkle was their offensive coordinator?

Texas went on to run for 1,236 yards in the fourth quarter and won the game and oh screw it.

2007 never happened. I’m working on a giant Men In Black discombobulator at this moment. If you have any good memories from 2007, best have written them down, taken pictures or stuck ‘em on you tube because you’re about to lose them.

by corn blight on Apr 15, 2008 5:36 PM EDT reply actions

Oh, yeah, and you can kiss my ass for bringing this up you of low moral fiber who would kick a guy when he’s down, hit a guy with glasses, and after becoming a brain-eating zombie would eat the children’s brains first because they’re the freshest.
May aliens kidnap you, probe you, and then drop you in San Francisco dazed at a NAMBLA convention, you snotty-faced SFB.

by corn blight on Apr 15, 2008 5:39 PM EDT reply actions

Poland put up a better fight than Florida did. That game was more like the invasion of Denmark.

In fairness, that Nebraska team was probably the best team of the last few decades.

by snowcrash on Apr 15, 2008 6:22 PM EDT reply actions

The origins of the defensive suckitude of my beloved Huskers last year is a mystery so deep and inscrutable that surpasses the powers of any epistemological framework. We shall never know the cuase. If we did, it might sear our Husker lovin’ brains and we’d end up drilling out the offending lump of gray matter like that dude in the movie Pi.

by John Sterling on Apr 16, 2008 8:04 AM EDT reply actions

I had a pithy remark, but the 2007 Husker Defensive team isn’t worthy of such fine sarcasm. There isn’t a rats ass in hell chance that they would understand it. and most of you have already thought the same thing.

Aknowledge…………………..move on!

Go Big Red!

Bob

by bnahusker on Apr 16, 2008 4:56 PM EDT reply actions