Tempo and Speed (or lack thereof so far)

[Decoy73]

I know It's probably way too early for this topic, but has anyone else noticed our tempo isn''t even close to what Frost did at UCF.  No big surprise here as the team clearly isn't quite ready for WOT just yet, especially with the QB situation.  Speed however is an area that is an absolute must for this offense and IMO we are somewhat deficient there.  Not counting QBs, I only see 2 or 3 current skill position players who have the speed and skillset needed to optimize what this offense can do.  Maybe it can be chalked up to the newness of the offense or players still playing tentative, but I noticed this as a glaring issue against Troy.  

 

I'm not worried because these will come with time, experience and the right recruits, but until then, the potential of this offense and therefore Frost's ability to show his true play calling talents will be quite limited.  

 

What say you?

[Nebfanatic]

I thought tempo was great at times vs Troy

[NebraskaHarry]

IMO Nebraska had it's best series on offense when it went the fastest during the end of the 1st half when they scored. 

[Hunter94]

overall, we are playing nowhere near as fast as i imagined we would........

[BIG ERN]

Not quite the speed, but more importantly we aren't using ANY vertical routes, which is really depressing. I thought for sure Stanley would already be used like Smith was for them last year. The runs will come when we get Martinez back to open that up because he can pull it and makes playing defense way tougher. I get you can't air it out with Bunch, but man we have to keep the defense honest with Stanley, JD, or Williams. 

[Undone]

34 minutes ago, BIG ERN said:

Not quite the speed, but more importantly we aren't using ANY vertical routes, which is really depressing. I thought for sure Stanley would already be used like Smith was for them last year. The runs will come when we get Martinez back to open that up because he can pull it and makes playing defense way tougher. I get you can't air it out with Bunch, but man we have to keep the defense honest with Stanley, JD, or Williams. 

 

Good thoughts.

 

And though it's only been two games, our tight ends have been pretty absent from the game plans so far in my opinion. It's possible that this is because Frost sees the need to establish the run in a new playbook/blocking schemes, which I'd totally understand.

[BoNeyard]

I think to get to the tempo Frost would want we 1.) need a quarterback who is very comfortable with the system. and 2.) Offensive Line needs to understand it and do their job. Otherwise the tempo doesn't work. Just looking at his years at Oregon and UCF, it looks like for the QB's to really get running with this tempo/system they are within the program for at least a year. As for the WR's not running more vertical, we need a QB in there that can throw vertical.

[ColoradoHusk]

I think a lot of people were going off what UCF was running at the end of 2017. NU isn’t anywhere near there with the understanding of the offense by the players. Also, remember how slow Riley , and Langsdorf ran things. Any speed faster than that is going to an adjustment for the players. I know I’ve said this numerous times this weekend, but I think Frost has installed about 80% of the offense so far, and that was with Martinez at QB. I would think that the amount of uptempo that Frost is ready to go at is about the same percentage. 

[southernoregonhusker]

You gotta learn to walk before you can run.  These kids have to learn the offense first.  Having the backup QB in there who didn't get a lot of reps in the offseason didn't help either.  

[ColoradoHusk]

57 minutes ago, southernoregonhusker said:

You gotta learn to walk before you can run.  These kids have to learn the offense first.  Having the backup QB in there who didn't get a lot of reps in the offseason didn't help either.  

I think the thing that pissed off Frost the most about Gebbia transferring when he did was all the reps they “wasted” on him. Martinez could have gotten more reps with the 1’s and Bunch would have gotten more reps as the backup. 

[chamrocck]

25 minutes ago, ColoradoHusk said:

I think the thing that pissed off Frost the most about Gebbia transferring when he did was all the reps they “wasted” on him. Martinez could have gotten more reps with the 1’s and Bunch would have gotten more reps as the backup. 

Gebbia is from my high school.  I really wanted him to succeed here and really wanted to like him.  I understand the decision he made but he left us in a terrible position and thus I'll never pull for the guy again.  This dude "wasted" all of our time and it is biting us in the worst of ways.  He should have played here this year, no doubt.  If at the end of the year he wanted to leave I would be fine with that.  But to leave days before the first game and leave your team high and dry is chicken bleep.  

[JJ Husker]

You mean we have not played as fast as UCF did when we have had two different freshmen starting quarterbacks in our first two games. Shocked! I am shocked.

 

 

[BigRedBuster]

Is there an actual statistic somewhere showing the average time on the clock when ball is snapped for teams?

It would be interesting to see this for UCF last year, compared to Nebraska this year.

 

I don't expect Nebraska to be playing at UCF last year level.  It would be more of an interest in knowing how much faster we can expect them to get over the next few years.

[StPaulHusker]

It's difficult to have sustained tempo when the QB is too slow to run said tempo and the OL doesn't give the slow QB time to run said tempo.

[Xmas32]

I think the most apt comparison on things like tempo, vertical routes, etc would be to watch UCF's 2016 offense and see how it progressed over the year as they transitioned from O'Leary's offense.  I admittedly didn't watch too much UCF outside of the Bortles BCS bowl season but I though O'Leary ran a similar offense as Riley (I could be completely wrong obviously).  If we try to use the 2017 offense as a benchmark, we're in for a whole lotta disappointment.