2024 INDIANA RECAP: Misreads

A defensive gameplan backfiring and a QB struggling to parse out concepts leads to uncertainty about Nebraska’s progress and future

Thomas Fidone had several nice run-after-catch moments Saturday. Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics.

Saturday’s 56-7 loss to Indiana seemed like a compounding series of poor evaluations.

The entire Husker team seemed to come out unready for a major fight against the Hoosiers, despite Indiana having a literal Top 25 ranking and a top 15 ranking in most efficiency metrics. NU’s defensive staff’s gameplan chose to prioritize the pass — thinking it could use light boxes to stop the Indiana rushing attack — only to be run over for 200 yards. On offense, true freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola struggled with decision making and countering Indiana’s numerous blitzes, doubling his interception total with a three-pick game.

But does that mean the optimism Husker fans had found early in the season was also a poor evaluation?

On one hand, no. Even falling 10 spots in the rankings after the shellacking, NU is still 32nd in SP+, which is higher than it’s been in years and a clear improvement from last season. The advanced analytics still view this as a borderline top 25 team, even if the aesthetics of Saturday’s loss said otherwise. Outside of Ohio State this upcoming weekend, Nebraska will be a favorite or play in a toss-up game in its remaining five contests.

On the other … I can’t say I expected that performance in the slightest. Entering, I thought the Indiana offense was very good, but I also thought Nebraska’s defense was very good. I thought NU might give up some points, but I thought that might mean 28-35 on the scoreboard. Not 56 that felt like it could have been 70 if Indiana had wanted to keep its foot on the gas. Some of that is just feelings, but can these not guys not stop an RPO?

On the other side of the ball, Indiana’s defense had good underlying numbers. But I also felt like they hadn’t played an offense that could challenge them down the field in the way Nebraska could. Instead, the Hoosiers looked completely unphased by NU’s passing attack and blew up the run game.

Now, I’m not sure what I feel. And with the top 5 Buckeyes on the schedule this week, I don’t think these questions are getting answered this upcoming Saturday, either.

It might be a long two weeks.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: I released the midseason tendencies posts last week, taking a big-picture look into what Nebraska's offense and defense have run in the first six games of the season and how effective each of those elements has been. The offense post can be found here, and the defense post here. The defense post is free to read, but the offense is behind the paywall.

This week’s sections are:

• Defensive Autopsy

• RPOs Don’t Work If You Can’t Read Them 

• Other Defensive Data

• Soapbox Of The Week: Assigning Blame For The Offense¹

• Unsung Play Of The Week

• Turnover Margin Tracker

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A Defensive Autopsy

The numbers for the defense’s performance were so bad they were borderline not believable: a season-worst 34.1% overall success rate in non-garbage time, with the previously low being almost 20 percentage better at 53.1% against Illinois. No other performance outside of those two had been below 64%. Other bottom marks included yards per play allowed (9.4, with previous worst of 5.0 against Illinois) and explosive plays allowed rate (22.7%, with a previous worst of 11.3% against Colorado). The defense’s performance was not only bad by Nebraska’s standards under Tony White but would have been bad in a vacuum for any team in the country.

For a unit that had risen to No. 1 nationally in SP+ defensive rating entering this game, it was a pretty baffling showing, even against what we can say at this point is one of the best offenses in the country.

Beyond poor tackling throughout, there wasn’t necessarily one smoking gun: At times, the coverage held up and then would later give up a bust; at times, the front clogged lanes or generated rush and then a snap later would be out of position. Nebraska never really got the front and the back-end working in conjunction at any point Saturday, which was some of the issue. White tried various adjustments to even slow down Indiana, none of which had even marginal success. I think it’s instructive to go through what White tried Saturday.

How White chose to defend played out in four phases, the first phase was the initial gameplan. 

I believe White’s general approach before kickoff was to prioritize downfield pass defense while hoping his front four with an occasional edge blitz and heavy pre-snap box movement could limit Indiana’s running game. On the first two drives, Nebraska operated a player down in the box on 6 of its 7 standard down plays and also played a deep zone coverage on 6 of those 7 plays. It also used a pre-snap shift, either with a defensive lineman or linebacker moving to a different gap just before the snap, on 10 of the 14 total plays on the first two drives.

When you play an elite offense, you usually can’t take away everything it does well, so one common tactic from DCs is to take away its best thing in an attempt to make it play left-handed. I think entering the game White summarized Indiana’s downfield passing game was the biggest threat and driver of its offense and elected to allocate resources to limiting that, while trusting his elite players on his front would be able handle — or at least contain — the run. In hindsight, that clearly backfired, but entering the game, I think that was a pretty reasonable approach based on both the statistical profile of Indiana and where the strengths of Nebraska’s defense reside.  

Early on, the film shows the plan and execution wasn’t totally unsound. In this opening two-drive salvo, Indiana comes out pass heavy and trying to throw down the field, with eight true dropback passes and two more RPOs in its first 14 plays. In it’s light/deep zone look, NU largely stymies all of them. Three times on the opening drive, Indiana tried to hit a medium-depth or shot play and Nebraska gloves it up downfield, forcing Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke to get all the way through his progressions and hit a checkdown or underneath route:

With Nebraska in deep zones, these short outlet passes end up going for 6, 10, and 10 yards, including a particularly annoying one on a third-and-11 where he seems to be flailing but finds the back just before the rush gets home:

Rourke is a good quarterback who can move in the pocket and get through his progressions, and you credit him for making good plays, but giving up three checkdowns for 26 yards on well-defended passes on one drive while forcing no negative plays of your own is also probably what I’d classify as more of a tough break than bad defense.

The concerns start to show up early, though: While the downfield coverage was good in these first two drive, the front four at no point seem to be winning their matchups, and NU gets hit for a big play in this opening stretch on a 43-yard run on a third-and-1 on the third snap of the game:

NU is in its only heavy box of the first 14 plays here for the short-yardage play, with Cover 1 on the back end. It defends the point of attack well here on the toss play but loses cutback contain when MJ Sherman on the line gets his feet tangled with the offensive lineman and allows himself to get sealed, and John Bullock overpursues from the second level and then gets shoved from behind out of the play. The Indiana back has good vision to see the opening and hits it.

DeShon Singleton playing as the deep safety has a chance to make the tackle to keep this at just a marginal gain, but he takes a bad angle and makes a diving attempt, and we’re off to the races. Zone-puller toss is not exactly a play you’d expect a cutback on, but Sherman and Bullock both make errors and the IU back is good enough to make them pay. Both these cutback runs and missed tackles from the second level — especially from Singleton — will be common themes here.

One other factor in the opening portion of the game is that Nebraska was rotating several backups in along the defensive line. In these first 20 or so plays, Nash Hutmacher and Ty Robinson only were on the field together for a handful of snaps, with Elijah Jeudy, Cameron Lenhardt, Vincent Jackson and Keona Davis all getting extended stretches of play. Hutmacher especially was taken off the field for about half of these opening plays. 

I’m not sure if this was a matchup-based decision to play less with a true nose and more speed, or if it was an injury/availability thing, or if it was a, “These backups looked great in bye week practices, so let’s get them more game reps,” thing. But it also doesn’t really work — Jeudy and Lenhardt are fine rotational players but not the disruptors Hutmacher and Robinson are, and Jackson and Davis have been nothing more than bit players this year and get pushed around by Indiana. NU goes back to playing Robinson and Hutmacher together per usual after the first quarter. Nebraska as a defense wants to play a lot of guys, and I get the need for depth development, but I also don’t really understand why the staff decided early in a matchup against a top-15 offense was the best time to rotate in two first-year pieces in Jackson and Davis. A little baffled there.

The front four’s lack of chaos creation is concerning, but outside of the big run the defense is largely operating soundly over this opening stretch and catching some tough luck and good plays by an elite offense. NU gets three of its six havoc plays for the game in these first 14 snaps, including a couple free rushers on nicely designed blitzes on the second drive to get off the field on a fourth down:

Things start to shift on the third drive, though, as Indiana switches up how it’s attacking and Nebraska has to change how it responds, entering the second playcalling phase of the game for both teams. 

Indiana, after the two negative plays on the second drive on the blitzes, starts running fewer true dropbacks over the next two series and starts attacking with RPOs; after just running two RPOs on its first 14 snaps, IU would use an RPO on 6 of its next 9 plays. 

After the long run and general lack of front-four rush in the first two series — and as two straight RPO handoffs pick up a first down to open this third series — White seems to recognize what is happening and comes out of his light box/deep zone setup to bring more players down to stop the run. After the second series, NU would run a light box on just two of its next 16 plays, using matching or heavy looks on the other 14.

But more players in the box means less resources devoted to pass coverage over the top and more one-on-one coverage for corners on the outside. In this same 16-play stretch where Nebraska matches the box, it would use man coverage — either Cover 1 with one safety over the top or Cover 0, with no deep help — on 10 of the plays.(Four of these plays were inside the 10, inflating the numbers a bit as everyone plays man on the goalline. But the man rate was still elevated)

Now seeing these one-on-ones on the outside, Indiana starts doing this:

With NU now using one-on-one pass-coverage matchups across the board and limited safety help, IU just starts spamming these outside-the-numbers throws downfield, hitting three pretty wild throw-and-catch plays into tight coverage for chunks over the next two drives. 

The game sort of just progresses like this for a while, with NU having to stay in the matching boxes inside to slow the RPO handoffs — which are still getting chunk gains on the runs, even with the increase in box numbers — and Indiana making god-tier one-on-one throws to the outside. IU mixes and matches these RPOs and outside throws down the field to score on both of these drives, cashing each in on a triple option concept after NU sells out in one direction. On the first of these possessions, NU brings a corner blitz — something it’s barely done this season — which is about as unlucky of a call as you could have on against this offensive play: (and when the lone defender to that side is subject to a pretty clear uncalled block in the back?)

To this point, the play up front is an obvious concern, and the gameplan’s out the window. But White is also taking sensible steps to triage, putting more defenders in the box, gambling that Indiana won’t be able to consistently hit those one-on-one throws to the outside. And NU covers the passes mostly well in this whole stretch.

Unfortunately, Indiana just does hit those passes. I think Rourke is a good player and Indiana has receiving weapons, but to hit three throws like the above within a handful of snaps of each other is pretty absurd. Being able to put a safety over the top of these routes would have taken away the access for IU on these throws, but for the coverage in the moment, I don’t know how Nebraska’s defenders are supposed to play those passes better. Sometimes, you’ve just got to tip your cap and move on.

The third phase of White’s playcalling comes on the next two Indiana drives, a sequence that starts with around two minutes left in the half. In a pass-likely situation, and after getting torched by those one-on-ones down the field, White goes back to the light boxes and deep zone coverage he opened the game with, and he also puts his lighter pass-rush bodies on the field.