Tracking the Offense - Purdue

[Mavric]

Started this last week but didn't get very far.

 

I think we did a much better job getting TA easy throws in the passing game - which is why it's odd that he was still under 55% completions.

 

But we're stuck in a rut calling running plays. Waaaay too many are straight-ahead runs with no misdirection. When you're trying to do that into an 8+ man box, you're not going to get very far, no matter how good your OL is. This was a lot of the problem last year. It's been somewhat better this year but came back to the forefront yesterday.

 

Here are Newby's 22 carries in order (via Huskers.com):

 

1-10 NEB 46 Newby, Terrell rush over left end for loss of 1 yard to the NEB45

1-10 PUR 43 Newby, Terrell rush over right end for 11 yards to the PUR32, 1ST DOWN NEB

1-10 PUR 32 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 3 yards to the PUR29

1-10 PUR 15 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 2 yards to the PUR13

1-10 NEB 43 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 2 yards to the NEB45

1-10 PUR 41 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for no gain to the PUR41

2-10 PUR 41 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for no gain to the PUR41

1-10 NEB 32 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 3 yards to the NEB35

2-7 NEB 35 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for loss of 2 yards to the NEB33

1-10 PUR 39 Newby, Terrell rush over left tackle for loss of 1 yard to the PUR40

1-10 PUR 40 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for loss of 4 yards to the PUR44

1-10 PUR 29 Newby, Terrell rush over left tackle for 4 yards to the PUR25

1-10 PUR 29 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 19 yards to the PUR10, 1ST DOWN NEB

1-10 NEB 21 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 13 yards to the NEB34, 1ST DOWN NEB

1-10 NEB 34 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 1 yard to the NEB35

2-9 NEB 35 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 1 yard to the NEB36

1-10 PUR 36 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for loss of 1 yard to the PUR37

1-10 PUR 26 Newby, Terrell rush over left tackle for loss of 2 yards to the PUR28

1-15 NEB 32 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 25 yards to the PUR43, 1ST DOWN NEB.

1-10 PUR 43 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 2 yards to the PUR41

2-8 PUR 41 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 5 yards to the PUR36

3-18 NEB 49 Newby, Terrell rush up middle for 2 yards to the PUR49

 

So out of those 22 rushing attempts, 17 of them were "up middle". It seems to me that calling 77% of your running plays right up the center's butt is too much. Now, this isn't a perfect way to look at it. On a couple of those we at least had a jet sweep fake so it had a misdirection element to it - those were generally the plays that worked better - but you are simply not going to have success running directly into an eight man box that much. Only one of those carries was truely to the outside, despite other plays having success getting to the outside - TA's touchdown run and Alonzo Moore on the jet sweep for example.

 

Plus, if the excuse is "our line is injured" wouldn't it make more sense to run to the outside where they only have to get in someone's way for a minute and let Newby outrun the rest rather than put it entirely on the line to generate a push straight ahead?

 

If I have some time later tonight, I'll start in on the play-by-play reviews. But I don't understand what kind of thinking goes in to calling this type of a running game. I really can't come up with any reason why it makes sense. And it particularly doesn't make sense when we have a beat up line and a RB who is much better in space.

[Mavric]

Another part of this is we are extremely predictable. Of those 22 carries, 17 of them are on 1st Down. And 12 of those were up middle.

 

Quick math (hopefully correct math) says we had 31 first down plays (not counting the kneel down at the end). So about 55% of the time on first down, we run Newby and don't run him very often on other downs (only five times all game). When we ran something different on first down we had a lot of success - TA's TD, TA had another 20ish yard run and Alonzo Moore had a 24 yards run.

 

But our opponents would be smart to stack the box and look for Newby to run it on first down. Which is probably what Purdue was doing. And when we help them out by mainly running it straight ahead almost 80% of the time, it's not that tough to stop.

[HuskermanMike]

Yea I think one time Tommy handed the ball off and the Purdue D lineman was in the backfield in an instant and hit Newby right away. If Tommy kept it he probably was gonna run for a first down, but that obviously wasn't the play call so the line needed to block better. It seemed the O-line struggled on the interior and I think Sam Hahn struggled throughout this game. Wisconsin has a really good defense but I believe we should be able to throw on them. They will stack the box on us I presume, so it will be interesting to see what adjustments Langsdorf makes in the future games.