The Blackskirts are back???

I'm sick and tired of this crap about Nebraska's "mighty" defense for the coming year. I'm sick of hearing about how many "outstanding" players they have coming back, despite the fact that some (3) haevn't played a game in more than a year and some others ran up numbers against crappy teams to balloon their stats.

What's that you say? How can you say such a thing?

Observe.

Let's look at Nebraska's defensive numbers.

Overall, they gave up 332 yards par game, good for 26th best in the nation. Sounds pretty good...especially if they return some players. But is it? Take a look at some other numbers.

10th Nationally defense against the Pass (105 ypg)
26th Nationally against the run (124 ypg)
25th Nationally in scoring defense (21ppg)

Take a look at that last stat....25th in the nation scoring defense. Now, take into account just who NU played. In 3 non-conference games against offensive powerhouses Maine (barley .500 in 1-AA), Wake Forest (71st in scoring offense) and Pitt (73rd in scoring offense.) Also throw in the mix mighty Baylor (91st in scoring offense) and powerful Kansas (83rd in scoring offense). For good measure, let's throw in Colorado, who completely quit on a lame-duck coach, who scored a whopping 6 points in their final 120 minutes of football.

1..2..3..4..5..6.

Now, how did Nebraska fare against these teams? 33 points against all but Kansas...who I'm leaving out because they ass-pounded the Blackskirts for 40 points.

But who is left? How did NU do against "good" offenses?
Iowa State (50th total offense)
Texas Tech (4th total offense)
Mizzou (34th total offense)
Oklahoma (56th total offense, despite playing with Adrian Pederson for only the last few games)
Kansas State (only 62nd total offense, but still top 1/2)
Michigan (45th in total offense)

Despite these remaining teams...only ONE was in the top 33 offenses in the country. That means that even with the barely mediocre defensive numbers Nebraska put up in 2005.....they were done so by playing teams that were...on average.....68th best in the country. That's right at .500.

So how did Nebraska do against those mediocre teams? as compared to the bottom of the barrel teams I mentioned at the beginning?

Try 6.6 points per game against the crappy 5 teams.
Try 31.2 points per game allowed against the reasonably good other 6. In other words, anytime Convict U lined up against an offense of ANY sort of caliber worth mentioning on the other side of the ball.....they got slapped around, badly.

The bottom line is this:
DO NOT come at me with how great this defense is because of inflated numbers and POTENTIAL of guys who are returning from injury. Anytime I hear a commentator talk about how INCREDIBLE this Husker defense is going to be has got to have his lips wrapped around a crack pipe 24/7. So you see...I'm just not buying it. And despite what some of you say...despite how many death threats you throw at me...

This time, I have the stats to prove it.

Join us next week when we investigate Nebraska's phantom running game (107th in the nation in 2005) that is supposedly going to "come alive" this year, despite losing a starting senior and the only true decent runner on the team.