Reducing turnovers....with a new ball

I dont care if we've used a worn ball for a few years now. I dont care if it was choice even BEFORE Taylor Martinez. All I know is, the balls we've been using have been worn in and slick. They have had less grip. And we've seemed to have a consistent problem with drops and fumbles throughout Bo's entire tenure. It's not speculation that the worn balls are to blame. It's frickin common sense. Less grip equals more possibility of fumbles and drops. I've been saying it for a while now watching games. Damn it, get a new ball out with some grip so we get this show on the road already. Enough of the shenanigans.

 
The Dude said:
We had pretty bad fumbling issues most of the years represented in your big post up there, Landlord.

I mean, Cody Green? That's not helping your cause any.
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2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 were just fine.

2009 sucked, but Zac Lee didn't, and Cody Green has gone on to be a fumble machine at Tulsa as well.

 
PaulCrewe said:
Just so we can all put the worn pigskin Taylor preferred, as do many QBs elsewhere, to rest. The game balls were balls that were used all week in practice. The worn ball did not just show up on Saturday and surprise everyone else on the team.
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I always thought a worn ball has a little better grip once sweat or moisture got on it.

What I always wondered w the game/practice balls that TM preferred was the shape.

I even thought this before this whole controversy got rolling a whole back.

Looking at pictures of the footballs in pictures it always seemed they were so worn in they were a little rounded at the tips, less of a cone point.

I always felt like the ball was easier to carry when it had a point on the end you could split fingers around. Also, the ball in flight has a tighter spiral when it's more pointed.

I don't think the worn footballs tackiness was such an issue, but it's oblong shape.

Just my 2 cents.

 
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I want to point out that this "Tom's fumbles vs. Bo's fumbles" thing is a boondoggle because the game is so different now as opposed to then based on recruiting, the sheer scope of the money involved... dozens of reasons, so I'm not responding to anyone trying to make an issue of my correction here. This is specifically about that point.

BrayWyatt said:
They ran the option....leads to higher fumble rates.
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Tom didn't turn to the Option as a primary offensive scheme until the early 80s, so the "first six years" thing doesn't apply to Tom's Option years. Prior to that Tom's teams had basically mirrored what Devaney did, which was a pretty even run/pass attack out of a relatively common Pro set.

We also didn't exclusively run the Option - this is a bit of revisionist history by Husker Nation. It's the most well-known of the Osborne-Era plays, but not by any means the most-used play. Tom's offense for the last 20 or so years was heavily run-based, but we ran Iso, traps, dives, bap bap bap. A myriad of plays, including the Option, out of very similar sets. That's why his offense was so hard to defend.

 
knapplc said:
I want to point out that this "Tom's fumbles vs. Bo's fumbles" thing is a boondoggle because the game is so different now as opposed to then based on recruiting, the sheer scope of the money involved... dozens of reasons, so I'm not responding to anyone trying to make an issue of my correction here. This is specifically about that point.

BrayWyatt said:
They ran the option....leads to higher fumble rates.
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Tom didn't turn to the Option as a primary offensive scheme until the early 80s, so the "first six years" thing doesn't apply to Tom's Option years. Prior to that Tom's teams had basically mirrored what Devaney did, which was a pretty even run/pass attack out of a relatively common Pro set.

We also didn't exclusively run the Option - this is a bit of revisionist history by Husker Nation. It's the most well-known of the Osborne-Era plays, but not by any means the most-used play. Tom's offense for the last 20 or so years was heavily run-based, but we ran Iso, traps, dives, bap bap bap. A myriad of plays, including the Option, out of very similar sets. That's why his offense was so hard to defend.
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Solich and Crouch is what pretty much turned Nebraska into a damn near option/qb run exclusive offense. So Knapps right about the offenses under TO post-'81 revolution.

 
I read a list the other day of 'Top 10 QBs who had no business winning a Super Bowl' and #1 on that list was Joe Namath. They looked at his career stats and added that he had no business being in the Hall of Fame with those numbers. History probably has a very different view of him as a trailblazer for the passing-era NFL. You wouldn't know it by just plopping his 1970s-era numbers down next to modern NFL stats, though.

What we do know is that the propensity for mistakes and turnovers throughout Bo's tenure has been unusually high compared to other teams around the country, and it has been to our detriment. And I don't think there's any comparison or stats work that can do more than try to obfuscate that reality.

 
zoogies said:
What we do know is that the propensity for mistakes and turnovers throughout Bo's tenure has been unusually high compared to other teams around the country, and it has been to our detriment. And I don't think there's any comparison or stats work that can do more than try to obfuscate that reality.
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This is true. I'm always posting stats about this or that, but even if our turnover stats are comparable to this or that team, the reality is that our turnovers are typically the reason we lose games. Whether we have more or less turnovers than other teams/eras really doesn't matter, it's what our turnovers do to our team.

 
Old balls work just fine (just ask knapplc, bah dum tss). Here's proof:

johnny-rodgers_display_image.jpg


Johnny Rodgers isn't fumbling in this picture and that ball is over 40 years old. Thank you for your considerations.

 
Please read.

http://www.nytimes.c...aking.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.c...ball.html?fta=y

"When Tony Banks was a quarterback with the Houston Texans, he once told his teammate David Carr that Brady liked the balls so broken in that it looked as if he had been using them since junior high school."

"I relate it to an old baseball glove,” Brady said in a telephone interview. “If you have a glove, when you get it right from the store, the leather is very stiff and very difficult to break in. The preservative on the football, when you get it off, it’s easier to get a grip. It’s having a ball that doesn’t slip out of your hands.”

 
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