While the Nebraska football team’s defense played well, especially against the run, last week against Michigan State, defensive coordinator Rob Aurich still wants to fix one area.
Aurich knows the Huskers struggled most when the Spartans started to go up tempo. That’s especially a problem because this week’s opponent, the Maryland Terrapins, love to go rather quickly. Aurich believes that will be a problem, even if the Terps’ offense was so abysmal last week in a 54-3 loss to UCLA that some thought Mike Locksley would be fired on Sunday.
Aurich doesn’t believe an awful performance, especially from quarterback Malik Washington, who threw four interceptions, should hint to anyone that Nebraska will have an easy time this weekend.
“You kind of flush it, to be honest with you, you kind of flush it,” Aurich said Tuesday. “It’s an abnormality. I’m not a science guy, but it’s outside the mean.”
Rob Aurich warns Nebraska football about Maryland football quarterback Malik Washington despite recent struggles
Why does Aurich think that Washington will still be a big problem for Nebraska? “His sack avoidance rate is off the charts,” Aurich said. “We have to do a great job, if we’re able to get a hand on him, to get him down.”
Washington also had a very good season before he faced UCLA. Through the team’s first three games, Washington completed 72% of his passes. He threw 6 touchdowns, threw zero interceptions, and took just 3 sacks. In a 35-26 loss to Virginia Tech, he threw for 359 yards and three scores.
Granted, that also means that Aurich should take notes from what UCLA did to Maryland’s offense, considering he was just 18 of 38 for 142 yards and those 4 interceptions. Two were returned for touchdowns. On back-to-back drives.
Aurich and head coach Matt Rhule know that after seeing how Nebraska struggled against tempo versus Michigan State, Washington will try to pair his escapability with a fast pace.
Rhule said associate head coach Phil Snow, in preparation for Michigan State, suggested Nebraska’s defense get in practice some against a quicker tempo, so NU added some extra prep to its MSU plan. They still had their worst defensive outings when the Spartans went quicker.
This week, Aurich said Nebraska will work against a quicker tempo by having the scout team run a faster tempo in its script. Coaches will also ask starters, at times, to turn their back from the scout offense, wait for a delayed call, turn around, identify the formation, and play the down.
The routine, Aurich said, helps players acclimate to processing what they see the offense trying to do and adjust to teams snapping the ball with 25-30 seconds on the play clock.
If this is the magic bullet against tempo, it will be interesting to watch, considering that other teams will almost certainly run a faster attack if Nebraska struggles again. The good news is that Aurich spent last year in the Mountain West, where offense was the name of the game for most teams.
“We’ve seen tempo almost every game last year at San Diego State,” Aurich said of his previous stop, “and we see it from our offense all the time. We’ve just got to execute better.”
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