It’s back to the basics for the Nebraska Blackshirts.

After three consecutive embarrassing losses on the road to Colorado, Miami and Penn State, the Cornhusker defense spent its week off before taking on No. 19 Iowa State Saturday, going back to the basics and simplifying its game plan a little.

“I think any time you go through a defeat like we did against Penn State, you gotta go back a look and see what we did,” Nebraska defensive coordinator Craig Bohl said. “What you got to do as a coaching staff, as a coach, you go back through and you look and say ‘Hey, what things are you doing well, what things aren’t you doing well and why aren’t you doing them well.'”

The Nebraska defense gave up 476 yards of total offense in the 40-7 loss against Penn State. Penn State was 9-for-15 on third-down conversions and continually frustrated the Husker defense.

Linebacker Scott Shanle said the re-evaluation was the focus throughout much of the off-week as the Blackshirts tried to fix some of the problems that crept up in the Penn State game.

“We have smart players on this defense and through the first few games we were just running so many things,” he said.

“The coaches looked at what we do well and what we were having mental breakdowns on. The things that were giving us troubles, if [the coaches] wanted to keep them, we’ve gone over them in practice to help us, but there’s been some things we’ve said, ‘hey, we’ve gotta run what we do well.’ And I think that’s what we’re going to do this Saturday.”

Bohl said the Blackshirts have begun to add things back into the defense.

“That was a starting point,” he said. “But I think if you begin to get too off what your philosophy is then you going to begin to have some problems. So we addressed those problems then we began to look at Iowa State. What Iowa State does well, what we do well and how those things matched up.”

Shanle said the important thing for the team is to hold each other accountable.

“We’re not pointing fingers on this team,” he said. “If the offense gets it done and the defense doesn’t, we’re not going to point fingers. We’re all accountable to one another and that’s the approach we’ve gotta take.”

Mike Nichols is currently a student at Iowa State and a visiting student at the University of Nebraska.He is employed by the Daily Nebraskan.