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You can't change the nature of an OC


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I've seen a lot of posts complaining about the pass-first calling of the offense. That is exactly what Riley-Langsdorf have done virtually their entire careers. Their offensive belief system is to use the bubble screens, HB flat, slant, short passing game as the main point of the offense and sprinkle in some run and deep throws to mix it up. That is their inherent being, it's who they are, who they've always been, and mindset is extremely unlikely to change. It's why they want to pass on 3rd and 1 instead of run straight at the D.

 

Urban Meyer is a spread run guy, Saban and Harbaugh are power run guys, Paul Johnson is an option guy, Briles and Leach are chuck it all over guys. If you play a video game, you'll likely have your nature too. Everyone does and it's hard to change. One of the few examples of a true adapter is Don Shula when he ran power with Czonka and co., then switched to pass happy to let Marino loose. Very few coaches are able to truly adapt to the skillsets of the players.

 

Many Nebraskans have developed an appreciation and preference for a tough, in-your-face OLine and run game with some option. To hope for us to run over any defense is hoping for MR-DL to change their true self. It's just not gonna happen. They are like Shawn Watson, just naturally want to sling it around. DL himself said something like it's hard to run 3 times in a row.

 

Guess my point is, if you are among those who feel that Nebraska should have a hard-nosed, outwork you, smash mouth style, don't get your hopes up. You can't change the nature of the beast :)

 

 

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I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you. I think that is a little oversimplified, though. I love and miss the smashmouth style of the Osborne offense but there was a lot of finesse and misdirection in that offense, not just power. I don't see why this staff would object to having an effective run game with a tough physical line. They seemed very willing to use the fullback recently. Milt Tenopir and Charlie McBride both comment that this staff went above and beyond to include them and seek their advice.

 

They have the program and support to recruit good running backs, I don't know why they would avoid that. Time will tell, I suppose. But I'm ready to give this staff time to make their case. They've embraced the Nebraska culture and history. As long as they do that, I'm going to be patient and see how this plays out.

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Nebraska under Mike Riley:

  • 51.5% Passing plays
  • 48.5% Rushing plays

Fairly indicative of a pass first system, actually. I don't think we got too far away from this during most of the Callahan era, 2007 excepted.

 

An offense like this strives for balance and probably will bend to go with the flow of the game, what the defenses are giving, etc. A smashmouth offense runs a lot more by design. It's probably not what we are going to see here. It's kind of what we saw in recent years ... which was neat, except it wasn't that awesome, either.

 

Whatever scheme you run, just do it well.

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I've seen a lot of posts complaining about the pass-first calling of the offense. That is exactly what Riley-Langsdorf have done virtually their entire careers. Their offensive belief system is to use the bubble screens, HB flat, slant, short passing game as the main point of the offense and sprinkle in some run and deep throws to mix it up. That is their inherent being, it's who they are, who they've always been, and mindset is extremely unlikely to change. It's why they want to pass on 3rd and 1 instead of run straight at the D.

 

Urban Meyer is a spread run guy, Saban and Harbaugh are power run guys, Paul Johnson is an option guy, Briles and Leach are chuck it all over guys. If you play a video game, you'll likely have your nature too. Everyone does and it's hard to change. One of the few examples of a true adapter is Don Shula when he ran power with Czonka and co., then switched to pass happy to let Marino loose. Very few coaches are able to truly adapt to the skillsets of the players.

 

Many Nebraskans have developed an appreciation and preference for a tough, in-your-face OLine and run game with some option. To hope for us to run over any defense is hoping for MR-DL to change their true self. It's just not gonna happen. They are like Shawn Watson, just naturally want to sling it around. DL himself said something like it's hard to run 3 times in a row.

 

Guess my point is, if you are among those who feel that Nebraska should have a hard-nosed, outwork you, smash mouth style, don't get your hopes up. You can't change the nature of the beast :)

 

 

Baylor is actually a run first team.

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Nebraska under Mike Riley:

  • 51.5% Passing plays
  • 48.5% Rushing plays

Fairly indicative of a pass first system, actually. I don't think we got too far away from this during most of the Callahan era, 2007 excepted.

 

An offense like this strives for balance and probably will bend to go with the flow of the game, what the defenses are giving, etc. A smashmouth offense runs a lot more by design. It's probably not what we are going to see here. It's kind of what we saw in recent years ... which was neat, except it wasn't that awesome, either.

 

Whatever scheme you run, just do it well.

 

I am willing to give the coaches a chance and see what they can do over the next couple of years but I do agree that this pass first mentality isn't going to cut it. I went and looked at the top 10 teams in the AP poll and this is what they average with run/pass selection.

 

41.8% Pass

58.2% Run

 

The only team in the top 10 that has a higher pass percentage then running is Ole Miss at 51% pass and 49% run. Baylor and LSU have the highest rushing percentage with 62% and 75% respectively.

 

We NEED to run the ball!!!

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Look no further than Ohio State's struggles with new OC Tim Beck and you will see that OC's don't change much.

 

Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN Radio was interviewing Kirk Herbstreit on Monday and they asked him what was going on with Ohio State's offense.

 

Herbstreit said they were struggling to find an identity. Sound familiar?

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The title in this thread is flat out wrong. It's even been mentioned in this thread that TO changed almost his entire offensive philosophy and even his offense from 1983 looked different than his offense from 1997.

 

Offenses evolve even with the same guy calling the plays or as HC. Oregon State even has had run heavy offenses and pass heavy offenses under Riley.

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I got no problem with Langsdorf's offensive strategy. But I do think he needs to improve at adapting to game conditions. Both weather and the other team. Against Illinois how many times did Tommy throw the deep ball? It was windy with a little drizzle, and time after time the ball would sail over the receivers head. Sometimes Tommy put the ball four or five yards in front of his target. For whatever reason the long ball wasn't working last Saturday. But we stubbornly stuck with it. Or maybe Langsdorf thought we couldn't possibly lose against Illinois. And he was just trying to get Tommy some long ball practice in. :dunno:

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I sometimes think the numbers (raw stats that is) don't quite tell the whole story as it is not just how many plays are counted as runs vs passes but also the time during the game and the circumstances of each play. In my view, you are a a run oriented team when you run the ball significantly more times during the course of a game when the winner of the game is clearly not yet decided and the majority of your pass plays are called on obvious passing downs (are those of 2nd and very long and 3rd and more than 4).

 

I think almost everyone would agree that Riley is operating under a pass oriented attack and even thought the numbers may show about a 50/50 balance between runs and passes, those numbers are not truly reflective of Riley's play preferences as a number of QB scrambles on designed pass plays became runs in the statistics. In addition, we also know that Riley will and has run more at the end of games or as half time approaches to simply run out the clock, etc. Those plays arguably should be deleted from the numbers altogether as waste downs much as a spike of the ball to stop the clock is counted as a pass but does not indicate either a run or pass tendency. Of course, a team that faces lots of extra long yardage down and distance situations after penalties, QB sacks, etc will tend to throw whether or not they are a run or pass oriented team.

 

Going by the 'feel' of the games, I would say that I feel like we pass about 2/3rds of the time and run about a 1/3rd. I feel like the pass is our fprimary weapon and the run is the change up. In fairness, Riley is trying to install his system into a whole new team and program. We are only five games into season one and the players are learning a new approach, etc. However it can be argued that Beck was a pass oriented OC as well and threw the ball more. Beck seemed so random to me that one had no idea often whether he would run or pass. That CAN be good and hard to defend but then one never gets the defense off balance as in the end the defense simply waits to react to each play. They play you 'too honest' in such games and you never get the defense leaning one way while you run the other as you might say. Riley so far seems to have some play designs and offensive rhythm and 'gotcha' modus operandi that will get a defense anticipating run and hit them with a pass and vice versa. But I believe our execution has been so erratic and inconsistent at times as to not be as effective as it can be. We also have the issue of new opponents and new coaches for Riley. He will get better at setting up plays as he becomes more familiar with opposing teams and coaches tendencies, arguably.

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I got no problem with Langsdorf's offensive strategy. But I do think he needs to improve at adapting to game conditions. Both weather and the other team. Against Illinois how many times did Tommy throw the deep ball? It was windy with a little drizzle, and time after time the ball would sail over the receivers head. Sometimes Tommy put the ball four or five yards in front of his target. For whatever reason the long ball wasn't working last Saturday. But we stubbornly stuck with it. Or maybe Langsdorf thought we couldn't possibly lose against Illinois. And he was just trying to get Tommy some long ball practice in. :dunno:

How many of those passes were just Tommy reading the one receiver and that was it. I have mentioned it before but I would like to see the routes the receivers ran during the long balls that Tommy threw. I know of one instance that we had 4 receivers run verticals and he chucked it down there. I thought when Riley and Langs was hired, they mentioned that they like to have receivers running routes at different levels during a play.

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.... I went and looked at the top 10 teams in the AP poll and this is what they average with run/pass selection.

 

 

 

41.8% Pass

58.2% Run

 

 

I sometimes think the numbers (raw stats that is) don't quite tell the whole story as it is not just how many plays are counted as runs vs passes but also the time during the game and the circumstances of each play. In my view, you are a a run oriented team when you run the ball significantly more times during the course of a game when the winner of the game is clearly not yet decided and the majority of your pass plays are called on obvious passing downs (are those of 2nd and very long and 3rd and more than 4).

 

Looking at both of these post makes me wonder if a lot of top teams are running it more in garbage time? Not that I want to do the legwork of determining this.

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I got no problem with Langsdorf's offensive strategy. But I do think he needs to improve at adapting to game conditions. Both weather and the other team. Against Illinois how many times did Tommy throw the deep ball? It was windy with a little drizzle, and time after time the ball would sail over the receivers head. Sometimes Tommy put the ball four or five yards in front of his target. For whatever reason the long ball wasn't working last Saturday. But we stubbornly stuck with it. Or maybe Langsdorf thought we couldn't possibly lose against Illinois. And he was just trying to get Tommy some long ball practice in. :dunno:

 

Then you *DO* have a problem with Langsdorf's offensive strategy, because it should be determined by, among other factors, game conditions, player performance, and what the other team is doing to try and stop ours--none of which appeared to enter into Langsdorf's strategy against Illinois.

 

Now, I get that you may be good with Langsdorf's offensive philosophy and overall style of offense...but I don't really understand that either, considering we've already seen this philosophy crash and burn in Lincoln once before. That, coupled with the lack of strategy employed during the Illinois game...

 

Look, I'm sorry, but there's no defending the guy, IMO. Especially when the staff came out and said they would employ strategy conducive to the talents of the kids they had on hand. It's like the spirit of Cosgrove's ineptitude possessed Langsdorf's body.

 

---

 

As for the original topic...sorry, that's manure. How many times have we seen articles or heard about coaches visiting with other coaches to pick up new systems, new ideas, and learn how to expand or evolve their systems? The name of this game *IS* change, and if our coordinators are incapable or unwilling to evolve, then they need to be jettisoned for someone that will.

 

Langsdorf could still run his WCO if he wants--but why not ensure that there's a punishing, hard-nosed running game to accompany it? Because as we saw in the Southern Miss game...when you don't have one, or you try to be cute and pass a yard out for a TD, you generally have to settle for FGs or nothing. We have the kids, including the O-Line, to do this, but Langsdorf refuses to use it or help it gain any traction.

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I had no complaints with Langsdorf's offense this season. They have actually exceeded my expectations, except in the Illinois game. I know you don't want to let weather dictate your play, but when your QB and receivers start out something like 2-10 in the first quarter you may want to back up and get a little more selective in your passing game and try to run the ball a little more.

 

I am sure that if you listened to Langsdorf and Riley's discussion on the plain ride home you heard them discuss how they really blew that game. They stuck way too long with their game plan. That is the problem with too many OC not just DL. They trust their game plan and scheme too much even through their eyes are telling them something else. The film they watched on Illinois told them the deep ball was there because of the way the safeties play in Illinois defense. There were shorter routes open, but I am sure DL discussed with TA all week to look deep it should be there. I doubt you see nearly as many deep balls this week. That is not the way Wisconsin plays defense.

 

IMO this is the one big flaw in the WCO. It tries too hard to exploit the weakness of the opposing defense instead of playing to its strengths. Every OC wants to exploit weaknesses in a defense, but you also have to play to your strengths. You have to have a core game plan that you adhere to. Power run, screen game, option, uptempo, WR screens, zone read, outside zone there has too be something that you want to be able to come back to when nothing else is working. The outside zone was working OK. They needed to come back to it sooner.

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