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After the MSU game, I've got 3 main concerns with this team that will be key factors in how the rest of season plays out. The first is a concern that I've had for a while, and really showed itself Saturday. #1 - Receiver route combinations Too many times in the past few years under Tim Beck's offense, we've seen 2 receivers running routes and ending up in the same area (Late throw to Moore in the endzone that was nearly a TD). There also seem to be a lot of routes that don't quite complement each other (Final throw by Tommy that was intercepted). I'm not an offensive guru by any means, but these route combos seem like a problem. I can understand if there are young receivers in the game and they aren't running them correctly, which was the case on that last drive, but it has happened with our passing game for years now. Wasn't Beck the passing game coordinator at Kansas? You'd think these types of things wouldn't happen. #2 - Offensive line - Bad push and too many penalties Against Fresno, Miami, and Illinois, our line looked possessed. They controlled the line even though teams were loading the box. Saturday against MSU, they looked like absolute dog crap. They got absolutely tooled by MSU's front 7 (which I acknowledge is very good), and that factor alone held us back from winning the ballgame. I'd love to see a stat as well on penalties, as Alex Lewis and Jake Cotton have to be two of the most penalized offensive linemen in CFB. And at times on Saturday, Sterup looked like a Jr. High kid trying to block Calhoun and Rush. Totally tooled. This is the one thing that I'd give Beck some leeway on. I've heard a lot of bitching about how we kept trying to do the same thing over and over even though it wasn't working. Let's be honest - If Beck would have tried to run early on and just aired it out the rest of the game, people would be complaining about that too. Ameer Abdullah is the best playmaker on the team, and we had to continually try to get him the ball. Unfortunately, when your OL can't block and is continually whiffing on LBs and DL all game long, it's hard for your All-American RB to find space to run. #3 - Depth in the secondary Losing Daniel Davie hurt. Bad. He's been doing a pretty good job this year and was holding his own early on in the game. Then the first play Jonathon Rose came in, MSU went right after him with a double move and threw a 55 yard TD to Lippett. Kalu shows major promise, he's just young and pretty green. He will be a different person next year after an off season in the weight room. Josh Mitchell, while I love his heart and his leadership, just isn't a guy who is going to make us feel comfortable on an island against a quality receiver. I really hope our young CBs and Charles Jackson can step in next year and make that unit much improved, because lack of depth and ability there right now is pretty concerning. I know someone is bound to post that Connor Cook was just held to 11/29, so here would be my response to that: Our best form of pass coverage right now is our stellar front 4. Cook didn't have all day to sit in the pocket and make throws because RG4, McMullen, Collins, and Valentine are freakin' amazing! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - With that said, I truly believe that there is something special about this team. The leadership that is present is different than years' past, and our defense plays with attitude. I fully expect this team to run the table and face MSU in the B1G CCG with an 11-1 record. And the way things are playing out this year, I'd venture to say that the winner of that game could be looking at the 4th spot in the playoff. GBR!!!

An article from Hail Varsity re: Tim Beck's media comments post-McNeese State debacle: Also They go further down the rabbit hole here. I don't care if you're a position coach, head coach, coordinator, the Weinerslinger(sp) operator--you don't *hope* that what your responsible for works, you put work and due diligence in so you trust that it will work correctly. If you're hoping it works, then IMO I'm not sure you're going about things the right way...

Pass attempts Looking back at the 2013 regular season, which we can all agree was largely disappointing, I've decided to take a look to see just where things went wrong in our wins and losses. Let's start with pass attempts. Was Beck philosophically different during our wins and during our losses. In our wins, we averaged about 28.5 passes per game whereas in our losses we averaged about 33.5 passes per game. Now, the argument that can be made that we had to pass more because we were behind and you need to preserve clock if you are to come back. The running game doesn't preserve clock, so you must pass. But the difference was not significant, so I'll statistically conclude that Beck was not philosophically different in our losses than in our wins but rather that his hand was forced in some cases. Examining the difference between the games Taylor played and games Taylor did not play reveals that we averaged about 28.75 passes per game with Taylor under center and about 30.87 passes per game with Tommy Armstrong or Ron Kellogg III under center. The argument can be made that we were behind more when Taylor wasn't under center, but remember that Taylor played in the UCLA and Minnesota games, whereas Ron Kellogg and Tommy Armstrong played in the Michigan State and Iowa games. So both groups were under center in 2 losing efforts. Regardless, the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. Let's take a look at each game and how much more or less we passed it in those games. Our average is 30.2 pass attempts per game. Wyoming: -8.2 Southern Miss: -2.2 UCLA: +4.8 South Dakota State: -4.2 Illinois: -10.2 Purdue: +0.8 Minnesota: -0.2 Northwestern: +11.8 Michigan: -7.2 Michigan State: +1.8 Penn State: +5.8 Iowa: +6.8 Opponent's Pass Attempts The teams that we beat averaged about 32.25 passes per game whereas teams that beat us averaged 22.75 passes per game. Again, the question remains as to how much of this difference should be credited to teams just having to pass more because they are behind and pass less because they are ahead. The difference between these two numbers was statistically significant. Let's take a look at each team and just how many fewer passes they attempted against us: Wyoming—Average: 39.5—Against NU: 44—Difference: +4.5 Southern Miss—Average: 40.7—Against NU: 37—Difference: -3.7 Illinois—Average: 37.9—Against NU: 31—Difference: -6.9 Purdue—Average: 35.5—Against NU: 36—Difference: +0.5 Northwestern—Average: 31.8—Against NU: 21—Difference: -10.8 Michigan—Average: 29.8—Against NU: 27—Difference: -2.8 Penn State—Average: 34.1—Against NU: 33—Difference: -1.1 UCLA—Average: 30.2—Against NU: 25—Difference: -5.2 Minnesota—Average: 19.8—Against NU: 17—Difference: -2.8 Michigan State—Average: 30.4—Against NU: 32—Difference: +1.6 Iowa—Average: 28.8—Against NU: 17—Difference: -11.8 So, only one team in the games we won went into desperation mode. That was Wyoming. Two of the games we lost started to pack it in and chew clock early. And conveniently enough those were the games in which we lost by the most, 20 to UCLA and 21 to Iowa. Rush Attempts In games that we won we ran the ball about 50 times per game and in games we lost we ran the ball about 35.25 times per game. I'll mention the concern with looking at just the attempts without regards to how far ahead or behind we were. But, looking back on the season, there wasn't really a point where we had to resort to the passing game and abandon the running game earlier than midway through the 4th quarter. The only exception is the Iowa game. So if there's a fault I'll place on Beck is that I think he gets a little panicky and resorts to the huck-it-chuck-it football a little to quickly when we get behind. The difference between these numbers was statistically significant. In addition, we also ran the ball an equal amount of times when Taylor played and when Taylor was sidelined with his many injuries. So, in order to get a more complete picture of how Tim Beck decided to call the game and how adequate of a job he did, let's take a look at the difference between how much we ran compared to our average. Our average for 2013 was 45.1. Wyoming: 63, +17.9 Southern Miss: 46, +0.9 UCLA: 42, -3.1 South Dakota State: 51, +5.9 Illinois: 50, +4.9 Purdue: 56, +10.9 Minnesota: 30, -15.1 Northwestern: 50, +4.9 Michigan: 43, -2.1 Michigan State: 32, -13.1 Penn State: 41, -4.1 Iowa: 37, -8.1 From a pass-run distribution standpoint, I don't think Beck had a bad game until Minnesota which was his worst play calling came this season. Michigan State wasn't good either. We were in those games until the very end, so passing to preserve clock shouldn't have been the reason. And as I think we'll see later (tomorrow's post), I don't think we were running the ball terribly against Minnesota or the Spartans either. His best play calling games, I believe came against Wyoming and Illinois. Opponent's Rush Attempts In games we lost, we faced a lot more runs than we did passes. We faced 36.87 rushing attempts per game in the games we won and faced 49.75 rushing attempts per game in the games we lost. Again, that could be due to the fact that teams wanted to chew clock. But let's take a look at the difference between the teams' average rushing attempts and how many they attempted against NU. Wyoming—Average: 37.3—Against NU: 30—Difference: -7.3 Southern Miss—Average: 28.2—Against NU: 27—Difference: -1.2 Illinois—Average: 34.3—Against NU: 48—Difference: +13.7 Purdue—Average: 26.6—Against NU: 25—Difference: -1.6 Northwestern—Average: 42.3—Against NU: 47—Difference: +4.7 Michigan—Average: 40.8—Against NU: 36—Difference: -4.8 Penn State—Average: 41.8—Against NU: 44—Difference: +2.2 UCLA—Average: 44.2—Against NU: 42—Difference: -2.2 Minnesota—Average: 45.7—Against NU: 54—Difference: +8.3 Michigan State—Average: 41.1—Against NU: 48—Difference: +6.9 Iowa—Average: 43.3—Against NU: 44—Difference: +0.7 The teams we lost to were simply just teams who liked to run the ball more. And all but one of them ran at least their average rushing attempts against Nebraska's front seven.

Definitely agree with the bold. He's had a couple of poorly-called games. A few, actually. But overall, I think he's doing very well for a guy running a new scheme as a first-time OC. It'll be interesting to see what this offense does next year. If it improves much, and the defense rounds into form earlier, we should be a pretty formidable team. But most of the way through Year One of the Tim Beck Experiment, I'm cautiously optimistic about where we're headed.