The 2006 Defensive Line

May 23, 2007 by Steve Hanway

Before we jump into the present, we’ll take one more look backward at the 2006 defensive line. On the one hand, that unit will be a tough act to follow. Last season, the Huskers featured a pair of defensive ends that both were drafted into the NFL and two defensive tackles that signed NFL contracts as undrafted free agents. That’s a fair amount of talent. On paper, however, the statistics are not earth shattering.

Here’s a look at some key stats for the starting defensive lineman:

Name	Tack Loss	Hurries	Forced Fumbles
Adam Carriker	16	11	0
Jay Moore	17	5	0
Ola Dagunduro	9	3	0
Barry Cryer	10	1	1
Total	52	20	1

And for the top reserves (who all return):

Name	Tack Loss	Hurries	Forced Fumbles
Ty Steinkuhler	3	0	1
Ndamukong Suh	8	2	1
Barry Turner	4	6	0
Andy Poulosky	1	1	0
Total	16	9	2

There are a couple of ways to view these numbers. First, we could be pleased that a Ndamokong Suh produced like a starter in a reserve role. It’s hard to see him as a dropoff from either Barry Cryer or Ola Dagunduro. Likewise it’s good to see Barry Turner as second only to Jay Moore in QB hurries. On the other hand, neither of the other two starters have made a lot of noise.

For context, let’s compare these totals to what we saw in 2005:

Unit	Tack Loss	Hurries	Forced Fumbles
2005 Starters	49	43	3
2005 Reserves	23	26	1

And in 2004:

Unit	Tack Loss	Hurries	Forced Fumbles
2004 Starters	37	35	1
2004 Reserves	18	28	3

On the one hand, we might discouraged that the Huskers got more production out of past reserve units, which might suggest that we’ll get less out of the 2007 starting unit. On the other hand, we also see that overall production of the 2006 unit was not the best we’ve seen under Callahan nor even light years better than 2004. That tells me that the bar was not set so high in 2006 that it cannot be matched, even with some new personnel in 2007.

The other thing that jumps out at me is that the defensive line hasn’t forced more than 4 fumbles in any of the last 3 years. I’d think that that’s an area where things can improve as well, especially with a new defensive line coach on board.

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