Seeing the orange bowl in person is different than seeing it on tape which I finally did. I am concerned about how our defense plays in the secondary. I remember the old oakland raiders defenses played by George Atkinson and Lester Hayes and others called bump and run. Hit the receiver at the line of scrimmage and stay very close to him during his pass route. The florida state players did that with huskie receivers very well giving very little room for Lynch to throw the ball. In contrast our defensive backs right at the line of scrimmage were giving 7 yards of space right from the get go, and consequently FSU had no problem completing the majority of passes. Is it talent or philosophy that giving space like that is what our coaches teach? I am sure if I looked at mac games our defense plays like that even against lesser teams than FSU. I am hoping that they might change that and start learning to play as close to the receivers as they can starting right at the line of scrimmage. I remember so clearly being at the 1984 Rose bowl and seeing pass after pass being easily completed against Illinois who also played this very loose coverage and so Neuheisel probably in the 3 passes he did not complete against the 28 he threw were drops or too high not because the receivers were wide open. So here is hoping NIU adopts an agressive pass defense where they start looking like FSU more than Eastern Michigan.

(02-14-2013 10:49 AM)harem Wrote:  Seeing the orange bowl in person is different than seeing it on tape which I finally did. I am concerned about how our defense plays in the secondary. I remember the old oakland raiders defenses played by George Atkinson and Lester Hayes and others called bump and run. Hit the receiver at the line of scrimmage and stay very close to him during his pass route. The florida state players did that with huskie receivers very well giving very little room for Lynch to throw the ball. In contrast our defensive backs right at the line of scrimmage were giving 7 yards of space right from the get go, and consequently FSU had no problem completing the majority of passes. Is it talent or philosophy that giving space like that is what our coaches teach? I am sure if I looked at mac games our defense plays like that even against lesser teams than FSU. I am hoping that they might change that and start learning to play as close to the receivers as they can starting right at the line of scrimmage. I remember so clearly being at the 1984 Rose bowl and seeing pass after pass being easily completed against Illinois who also played this very loose coverage and so Neuheisel probably in the 3 passes he did not complete against the 28 he threw were drops or too high not because the receivers were wide open. So here is hoping NIU adopts an agressive pass defense where they start looking like FSU more than Eastern Michigan.

i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

(02-14-2013 11:13 AM)GCD70 Wrote:  i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

+1. D played their asses off. We were trying not to give up the big plays. I suspect our coaches were hoping Manuel, who isn't very good, in my opinion, wouldn't be able to sustain drives, go the length of the field and play error-free. Unfortunately for us, he had a good game.

(02-14-2013 11:56 AM)DiehardHuskie Wrote:  

(02-14-2013 11:13 AM)GCD70 Wrote:  i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

+1. D played their asses off. We were trying not to give up the big plays. I suspect our coaches were hoping Manuel, who isn't very good, in my opinion, wouldn't be able to sustain drives, go the length of the field and play error-free. Unfortunately for us, he had a good game.

Unfortunately for us, their fullback had a great game.

(02-14-2013 11:13 AM)GCD70 Wrote:  

(02-14-2013 10:49 AM)harem Wrote:  Seeing the orange bowl in person is different than seeing it on tape which I finally did. I am concerned about how our defense plays in the secondary. I remember the old oakland raiders defenses played by George Atkinson and Lester Hayes and others called bump and run. Hit the receiver at the line of scrimmage and stay very close to him during his pass route. The florida state players did that with huskie receivers very well giving very little room for Lynch to throw the ball. In contrast our defensive backs right at the line of scrimmage were giving 7 yards of space right from the get go, and consequently FSU had no problem completing the majority of passes. Is it talent or philosophy that giving space like that is what our coaches teach? I am sure if I looked at mac games our defense plays like that even against lesser teams than FSU. I am hoping that they might change that and start learning to play as close to the receivers as they can starting right at the line of scrimmage. I remember so clearly being at the 1984 Rose bowl and seeing pass after pass being easily completed against Illinois who also played this very loose coverage and so Neuheisel probably in the 3 passes he did not complete against the 28 he threw were drops or too high not because the receivers were wide open. So here is hoping NIU adopts an agressive pass defense where they start looking like FSU more than Eastern Michigan.

i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

You can man up and run with teams when you're sure you're faster than they are (the Raiders in the old days were always faster than their opponents). We do this with a lot of the teams in the MAC and they can't do a damn thing about it. FSU was a different animal. The defensive gameplan put us in a position to win the game, but we had no answer for their defensive front seven.

For us to win the Orange Bowl, our All-American had to play like an All-American. Unfortunately, he didn't. You're not going to beat a good team completing 40% of your passes.

The coverages were fine.

(02-14-2013 11:56 AM)DiehardHuskie Wrote:  

(02-14-2013 11:13 AM)GCD70 Wrote:  i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

+1. D played their asses off. We were trying not to give up the big plays. I suspect our coaches were hoping Manuel, who isn't very good, in my opinion, wouldn't be able to sustain drives, go the length of the field and play error-free. Unfortunately for us, he had a good game.

Yep a much better game than the ACC title game. FSU darned near gave that away to GaTech. If the YellowJackets would have been the opponent NIU would have been favored against a 6 loss team.

(02-14-2013 11:56 AM)DiehardHuskie Wrote:  

(02-14-2013 11:13 AM)GCD70 Wrote:  i think that was the strategy and it worked pretty well. Play a little loose in the middle of the field and tighten up as the field shrank. FSU was too athletic to play tight all game. I have little to argue about with the D in that game

+1. D played their asses off. We were trying not to give up the big plays. I suspect our coaches were hoping Manuel, who isn't very good, in my opinion, wouldn't be able to sustain drives, go the length of the field and play error-free. Unfortunately for us, he had a good game.

Isn't Manuel fairly high up on the list on NFL QB prospects? Thought I saw that somewhere, which was surprising considering FSU fans' complaints about him. In any case, if you're assuming that Manuel wouldn't be able to march them down the field when you're giving up that much room to the WRs, AND you don't get pressure on him (a big question mark considering FSUs offensive line) I think that's kind of a pipe dream.

(02-14-2013 10:49 AM)harem Wrote:  Seeing the orange bowl in person is different than seeing it on tape which I finally did. I am concerned about how our defense plays in the secondary. I remember the old oakland raiders defenses played by George Atkinson and Lester Hayes and others called bump and run. Hit the receiver at the line of scrimmage and stay very close to him during his pass route. The florida state players did that with huskie receivers very well giving very little room for Lynch to throw the ball. In contrast our defensive backs right at the line of scrimmage were giving 7 yards of space right from the get go, and consequently FSU had no problem completing the majority of passes. Is it talent or philosophy that giving space like that is what our coaches teach? I am sure if I looked at mac games our defense plays like that even against lesser teams than FSU. I am hoping that they might change that and start learning to play as close to the receivers as they can starting right at the line of scrimmage. I remember so clearly being at the 1984 Rose bowl and seeing pass after pass being easily completed against Illinois who also played this very loose coverage and so Neuheisel probably in the 3 passes he did not complete against the 28 he threw were drops or too high not because the receivers were wide open. So here is hoping NIU adopts an agressive pass defense where they start looking like FSU more than Eastern Michigan.

The defense played good enough to win that was not the problem at all. The reason NIU played soft was becuase of a lack of confidence of getting to Manuel on the dline. That was an issue, but I thought even the defensive line played pretty well. That seems to be where we are the lightest with the latest recruiting class, I hope our dline holds up over the next few years thats my only worry. At least the Huskies are stacked at the skilled positions now.

What you saw was all scheme and it was the right one. Not ripe for the ego fan who wants to see their team dominate. The scheme was to play a loose shell, bring DB's down hill in run support and make them take the intermediate to short pass. Your hope was that would keep them from pounding the rock and eventually Manuel would get antsy and make a mistake or not execute in a few 3rd down situation. The defensive staff was well ok giving up a lot of yards as long as they could contain the big play and get a few breaks.

Minus a couple of big runs, the defensive game plan was fantastic and worked really well.

As others have pointed out, we lost that game on the other side of the ball. The D kept us in the game and gave Lynch and crew plenty of chances.