Carriker Chronicles: Addressing Concerns About Nebraska's Defense After Game One

Adam Carriker shares his honest concerns with Nebraska’s Blackshirt defense in this latest edition of the Carriker Chronicles.

Adam breaks down the run defense, pass rush and overall defense after the Huskers' narrow win Thursday night against Cincinnati. He also shares why he’s encouraged by some of the things he sees. Finally, the former Blackshirt and team captain addresses how important some of these things are and how quickly Matt Rhule and John Butler can improve these issues.

Are there indications they may be solved sooner rather than later? Don’t miss this unique breakdown! Hit the play button below to watch, and scroll down for a few transcribed experts from the show.

"There have been some concerning things brought up about Nebraska's defense after Game One, and that's fair. But I'm going to tell you right now, there's some encouraging things I saw as well. So the first half of this video, I'm going to tell you what I liked, what encouraged me, and then we’ve got to dive into what needs to be improved and addressed sooner rather than later."

"Now, I don't know how good Cincinnati is or is not. ... I have no idea what they're going to do after this, but every NFL team defense and meeting room that I was in, our goal was to hold the opponent to 17 points or less. Nebraska did that, and to 275 yards of total offense or less, and Nebraska did that, holding Cincinnati to 271 total yards of offense."

"Some leaky defense, so to speak ... but not a lot of big plays. In fact, they only allowed one rushing play of over 15 yards. It was a 29-yard run by quarterback Brendan Soresby, who was their leading rusher of the game. He averaged 7.4 yards per carry for 96 total rush yards. Can't have that from quarterbacks going forward, but we're going to address that a little bit later in the video. But they gave up zero pass plays of over 15 yards, so one play of the entire game of over 15 yards, and that was it."

"We only had two tackles for loss in the game ... but if you don't quite get there, it can leave creases in the defense too, so you've got to execute the stunts really well so you don't have any creases in the defense. Just keep an eye on that going forward. Young front, going to get better, going to improve, bright future."

Cincinnati running back Tawee Walker is stopped for no gain by Nebraska defensive linemen Keona Davis and Cameron Lenhardt. — Cincinnati running back Tawee Walker is stopped for no gain by Nebraska defensive linemen Keona Davis and Cam Lenhardt. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

"The Michigan game may be perfectly timed because we got three weeks essentially to improve in these areas. And they're probably going to make their biggest leaps and bounds of improvement from game one to two, then possibly two to three and four. We also might be a little bit fresher than Michigan going into that game, with all due respect to Akron and Houston Christian, but hopefully we're able to get other guys on the depth chart into the game so they can get more reps, get more experience, build more depth in the second half of these games. And maybe our starters would be a little bit fresher going into that Michigan game because Michigan's got to play a team like Oklahoma before they play us. ... There's going to be a learning curve with the youth on this defense, and that's okay, it's part of it."

"Best quote I've heard is, I'll take an ugly win over a pretty loss. Couldn't have said it better."

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