Near the middle of the 2007 season the Nebraska Cornhuskers' defensive unit literally took off its Blackshirts, refusing to don the shirts that the first-string defensive unit wears in practice, feeling that they weren't living up to the nickname. About a year later Bo Pelini decided to bring the black shirts back. But the team still gave up 371 points in 2008. Though the black shirts were back, the Blackshirts weren't really back.
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Jump ahead to last week. When Iowa beat Arkansas State last week, you wouldn't think it would give Nebraska any boost in a power rating. It meant that Red Wolves fell to 1-3, joining 0-4 FAU and 2-2 ULM on the unimpressive list of Cornhusker victims. As a result, in power ratings based on winning and losing only—margin of victory not used—Nebraska doesn't look so hot, ranking just 41st in SportsRatings' Success power rating.
But if you use margin of victory, Nebraska shines, and Iowa's narrow 24-21 home win helped the Cornhuskers immensely—by re-evaluating the Red Wolves upward considerably and making Nebraska's 38-9 win look like more than just a Big Twelve team beating up on a helpless Sun Belt foe.
Combined with their narrow road loss to highly-rated Virginia Tech and two big blowouts, Nebraska currently ranks second to Florida in the SportsRatings' Strength power rating, and is even #1 in the 727-team cross-division power rating, both of which use margin of victory only (the former includes only games with FBS teams).
While this result—Nebraska as one of the top two teams in the country—is almost certainly premature given that they've only played four games, what's most interesting is where their strength is coming from: defense. It's an area that's been a sore spot for Nebraska for countless seasons. Just last year they finished #70 in scoring defense when adjusted for opposition, and in 2007 Nebraska gave up 455 points, nearly twice the high for any year in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Some time in the middle of this decade, lopsided losses stopped being a shock, with 07's 76-39 loss to Kansas being the low point for the defense.
But now Nebraska's defense is leading the way. The team ranks #1 in adjusted scoring allowed so far this year; the offense is doing well, too, ranking 10th. All of this is based on four games and still early in the season, but the performance is probably real: holding any three teams to single digits and keeping Virginia Tech to 16 at home is indicative of a strong defense.
I haven't run the adjusted numbers this year for rushing and passing yardage yet; in raw figures Nebraska ranks 23rd overall in yardage allowed, with their #10 red zone defense helping to keep the scoring down. When the team starts playing tougher competition regularly, we'll see if their stinginess in allowed scoring continues but based on the evidence so far it's probably not a fluke. They might not be #1, but there's no doubt the unit is far tougher than it's been in the recent past. This of course was one of the reasons Nebraska hired Pelini, a defensive specialist, to head the team.
The 2009 season is 1/3 over for Nebraska, and though most of the schedule has been light, the point count is only at 28. Perhaps the Blackshirts are really back for good?
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