An analysis of OC Tim Beck.

[Count 'Bility]

This just smells like a WIFI hack job.

... I'm not sure I get what you mean by this...

Well, for one. It's just a joke. Beins you dont get it, you wont be offended by it.

2nd. As Zoogs said, it is a pretty good read. Nice job.

 

[admo]

About this offense, I think it comes down to the players mental and physical effort most of the time. Turnovers, penalties, missed blocks, good blocks, good runs, good routes, good throws, bad throws, bad routes, good/bad decisions, etc. When they get rattled and situations break down a few times, they take awhile to get back into rhythm. Even the coaches get rattled when it happens. I think Beck is intelligent with concepts and he understands plays. However there are times when he gets out of synch with the play calls, and that interrupts the game flow as well.

But when it all comes together, the players effort with the proper play calls to execute, this team can really, really excel on offense.

 

[EmeraldIngot]

About this offense, I think it comes down to the players mental and physical effort most of the time. Turnovers, penalties, missed blocks, good blocks, good runs, good routes, good throws, bad throws, bad routes, good/bad decisions, etc. When they get rattled and situations break down a few times, they take awhile to get back into rhythm. Even the coaches get rattled when it happens. I think Beck is intelligent with concepts and he understands plays. However there are times when he gets out of synch with the play calls, and that interrupts the game flow as well.

But when it all comes together, the players effort with the proper play calls to execute, this team can really, really excel on offense.

You are absolutely right. Mental and physical preparation are key to any game, for both players and coaches. I didn't touch on this issue because I was analyzing things from a scheme perspective for the most part. But I totally agree with you. I also think that there are some tweaks to Beck's schemes that could be make to make this easier for the players to physically and mentally prepare.

 

[True2tRA]

There are two major keys to coaching. It seems one of those major keys to coaching is often overlooked.

Key 1. A great coach knows the ins and outs, the up and downs, and the sides to sides of his profession.

Key 2. He knows how to pass that knowledge on to his team in a way in which they understand and can execute the brilliance flowing through this coaches mind.

I don't care what you know, how great you think you are, how long you've been doing what you do, or whatever guru genius stuff is swirling inside your brain all day long. If you can't teach it and your team can't put it on the field on game day, it's useless to anyone but yourself.

This isn't an indictment of any particular coach on this staff or any other. It's purely the facts as I see them.

 

[True2tRA]

Great read by the way EmeraldIngot. Hope you keep spreading some knowledge here. It helps us understand exactly what is and isn't a problem. There's a lot of blame thrown around anytime something doesn't go the way we think it should. Of course, that's mostly human nature, so we as adults learn to live with that side of things.

 

[EmeraldIngot]

There are two major keys to coaching. It seems one of those major keys to coaching is often overlooked.

Key 1. A great coach knows the ins and outs, the up and downs, and the sides to sides of his profession.

Key 2. He knows how to pass that knowledge on to his team in a way in which they understand and can execute the brilliance flowing through this coaches mind.

I don't care what you know, how great you think you are, how long you've been doing what you do, or whatever guru genius stuff is swirling inside your brain all day long. If you can't teach it and your team can't put it on the field on game day, it's useless to anyone but yourself.

This isn't an indictment of any particular coach on this staff or any other. It's purely the facts as I see them.

That is correct. I would like to point out that a coach doesn't have to teach each player everything he knows about the nits and bolts of football in order for the team to be successfull. Really, a coach just needs to teach each player two things: how to play a position with skill in the coach's scheme, and why they play that position the way it's played.

An o-lineman doesn't need to know the inns and outs of reading the DBs like a quarterback, just how to block well in the system and why he has to block the way be blocks. Now, if this o-lineman wants to learn the nuts and bolts, there's nothing wrong with that, and the coach should teach that player everything. But it's not necessary for each player to know everything.

All that said, yes, each player needs to know the ins and outs of his position, and why the ins are the ins and the outs are the outs.

 

[EmeraldIngot]

So, you guys liked this kind of post, then? If you want to learn more about the behind the scenes aspect of football, there are some great scheme oriented websites, like Football Outsider, that have all sorts of good articles. If you just liked how I analyzed the Huskers in particular, I'd be happy to do my best to try and analyze Bo Pelini and John Papuchis' defense... but I'll put it in a different topic so as not to disrupt this one's focus on the offense. If you guys want me to.

 

[True2tRA]

There are two major keys to coaching. It seems one of those major keys to coaching is often overlooked.

Key 1. A great coach knows the ins and outs, the up and downs, and the sides to sides of his profession.

Key 2. He knows how to pass that knowledge on to his team in a way in which they understand and can execute the brilliance flowing through this coaches mind.

I don't care what you know, how great you think you are, how long you've been doing what you do, or whatever guru genius stuff is swirling inside your brain all day long. If you can't teach it and your team can't put it on the field on game day, it's useless to anyone but yourself.

This isn't an indictment of any particular coach on this staff or any other. It's purely the facts as I see them.

That is correct. I would like to point out that a coach doesn't have to teach each player everything he knows about the nits and bolts of football in order for the team to be successfull. Really, a coach just needs to teach each player two things: how to play a position with skill in the coach's scheme, and why they play that position the way it's played. An o-lineman doesn't need to know the inns and outs of reading the DBs like a quarterback, just how to block well in the system and why he has to block the way be blocks. Now, if this o-lineman wants to learn the nuts and bolts, there's nothing wrong with that, and the coach should teach that player everything. But it's not necessary for each player to know everything.

All that said, yes, each player needs to know the ins and outs of his position, and why the ins are the ins and the outs are the outs.

Good point. We don't hear a lot about the 'why' we do what we do on offense so much, but I think it's important. we do hear defensively that the coaches expect players to understand the scheme as a whole. Understanding your job and the guy besides you as well helps you understand why you do what you do and also helps you know your duty as far as when to pick up or release coverage based on zone and man responsibilities. I think we still see confusion on this part of things. Kind of understandable, it's a complicated thing. Offensively though, it can also be important to understand the flow of the play not only for yourself, but your teammates. Understanding the plays development, who is doing what, helps with timing and understanding where openings will develop.
This is where I think simplifying and repetition come into play. It's hard for either side of the ball to understand how a play works or is supposed to work one, if the play is overly complicated and two if each individual is not executing it properly. It's vital that time is taken to repeat and teach until all eleven understand their role in everything we are doing. Even if it means repeating and repeating multiple times. Yes it might limit the number of things you do, but you do what you do very well in the end.

Do you believe there is a foundation of those basic things we do well? If so, what would ou say tose things are, especially on the offensive front? This zone blocking thing seems complicated as hell and from where I sit it looks like we struggle with it. I am not exactly sure what I'm looking at all the time tough.

 

[Bball1091]

There is absolutely no reason our offense shouldn't revolve around ameer...he should be involved in 70% of our plays whether is be an inside/outside run or a screen/check down....how do you fail to utilize this kind of talent? I know many are calling for Bo's head, but I think Beck needs replaced. I like Bo and think he's a good coach, but If is unwilling to let go of Beck, then he must go too. There is absolutely no reason that Ameer doesn't get more than 10 carries in that second half (i.e. assuming its not a blow out already). Furthermore, if Ameer won a heisman because we gave him the ball 70% of the time, then think about the advantages that publicity would give our program. It would give us a recruiting advantage, improve team morale, etc.

 

[Bob Dole Jr]

Just a few quick things before I'll be able to post the next analysis later on today: First, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a football player in any college team, nor am I a coach and/or other staff member at any college or professional team. It is my dream to someday be a coach, on any level, but I am not a coach right now. Also, I wished I was Scott Frost. OC for oregon, former Husker, won a national championship... that was my dream. Unfortuntely, I wasn't able to make it on a college team.

As for doing an analysis of the defense? Well, I am much more of an offensive kind of mind, but I could try!

So, you guys liked this kind of post, then? If you want to learn more about the behind the scenes aspect of football, there are some great scheme oriented websites, like Football Outsider, that have all sorts of good articles. If you just liked how I analyzed the Huskers in particular, I'd be happy to do my best to try and analyze Bo Pelini and John Papuchis' defense... but I'll put it in a different topic so as not to disrupt this one's focus on the offense. If you guys want me to.

Yes but are you now, or have you ever been employed by football outsider? Haha

 

[Hunter94]

There is absolutely no reason our offense shouldn't revolve around ameer...he should be involved in 70% of our plays whether is be an inside/outside run or a screen/check down....how do you fail to utilize this kind of talent? I know many are calling for Bo's head, but I think Beck needs replaced. I like Bo and think he's a good coach, but If is unwilling to let go of Beck, then he must go too. There is absolutely no reason that Ameer doesn't get more than 10 carries in that second half (i.e. assuming its not a blow out already). Furthermore, if Ameer won a heisman because we gave him the ball 70% of the time, then think about the advantages that publicity would give our program. It would give us a recruiting advantage, improve team morale, etc.

70% is a little over the top, but when you need a score badly, he should obviously be featured...basic sh#t that escapes Beck blows me away!

 

[EmeraldIngot]

There are two major keys to coaching. It seems one of those major keys to coaching is often overlooked.

Key 1. A great coach knows the ins and outs, the up and downs, and the sides to sides of his profession.

Key 2. He knows how to pass that knowledge on to his team in a way in which they understand and can execute the brilliance flowing through this coaches mind.

I don't care what you know, how great you think you are, how long you've been doing what you do, or whatever guru genius stuff is swirling inside your brain all day long. If you can't teach it and your team can't put it on the field on game day, it's useless to anyone but yourself.

This isn't an indictment of any particular coach on this staff or any other. It's purely the facts as I see them.

That is correct. I would like to point out that a coach doesn't have to teach each player everything he knows about the nits and bolts of football in order for the team to be successfull. Really, a coach just needs to teach each player two things: how to play a position with skill in the coach's scheme, and why they play that position the way it's played.An o-lineman doesn't need to know the inns and outs of reading the DBs like a quarterback, just how to block well in the system and why he has to block the way be blocks. Now, if this o-lineman wants to learn the nuts and bolts, there's nothing wrong with that, and the coach should teach that player everything. But it's not necessary for each player to know everything.

All that said, yes, each player needs to know the ins and outs of his position, and why the ins are the ins and the outs are the outs.

Good point. We don't hear a lot about the 'why' we do what we do on offense so much, but I think it's important. we do hear defensively that the coaches expect players to understand the scheme as a whole. Understanding your job and the guy besides you as well helps you understand why you do what you do and also helps you know your duty as far as when to pick up or release coverage based on zone and man responsibilities. I think we still see confusion on this part of things. Kind of understandable, it's a complicated thing. Offensively though, it can also be important to understand the flow of the play not only for yourself, but your teammates. Understanding the plays development, who is doing what, helps with timing and understanding where openings will develop.
This is where I think simplifying and repetition come into play. It's hard for either side of the ball to understand how a play works or is supposed to work one, if the play is,overly complicated and two if each individual is not executing it properly. It's vital that time is taken to repeat and teach until all eleven understand their role in everything we are doing. Even if it means repeating and repeating multiple times. Yes it might limit the number of things you do, but you do what you do very well in the end.

Do you believe there is a foundation of those basic things we do well? If so, what would ou say tose things are, especially on the offensive front? This zone blocking thing seems complicated as hell and from where I sit it looks like we struggle with it. I am not exactly sure what I'm looking at all the time tough.

You've made some good points here, and yes, part of the why is so that your teammates will know what you're going to do before you do it. Understanding your role in a particular play or scheme is as important as knowing the play as a whole, or of the specific skills you'll have to use to carry out your role.

I think that this year, I've seen much better cohesion early on in the season than I have seen since '09. That preseason talk about paring down the playbook has led to a smaller playbook, but what we are doing, we are doing well. For the most part. There were still a few mistakes here and there, but it was much cleaner this year than it has been for a long time. In fact, if you watched all the B1G season openers like I did, you'd notice that the two teams that looked the most sharp, the most crisp, that played more smoothly than the others were Michigan State and Nebraska. That why I truly believe that it'll be those two in Indy this year unless some of the other teams have a dramatic improvement come conference play.

As far as a foundation? This year there is a better foundation of basic plays, with more repetitions per play but fewer plays than it has been for a long time. There's an old saying: A warrior practices a thousand cuts, but a Samurai practices a single cut a thousand times. That should be the philosophy for our team, or rather, only about 50 plays, but practice each play 100 times or something like that. Lots of reps, lots of practice, and those 50 plays will be executed perfectly almost every single time. I think our 'base' plays are a B-gap dive, A-gap dive, Off tackle, off tackle read option, inverted veer, speed option, three verticals, roll out flood strong side, play action B-gap dive, middle RB draw, middle QB draw, and possibly a few others that I can't think of off the top of my head. Maybe smash corners? i dunno.

Now, zone blocking is actually much more simple in theory than assignment blocking, but more complicated in practice. In zone blocking (and most pass blocking is zone blocking, by the way) each o-lineman tries to stay approximately the same distance from the nearest o-line teammate, and just blocks whoever comes at them. You can see this in some running plays (especially by Oregon) where the whole O-line flows to one side, stays approximately the same distance from the other o-linemen, and just blocks whoever is in front of them.

In assignment blocking, each lineman is assigned one defender to block each play. This is more commonly used in run plays. For example, the center takes the weak side DT, the strong side guard takes the strong side DT, and the tackles take their respective DE's, while the weak side guard pulls and leads the fullback through the strong side B-gap (between OG and OT). the pulling guard will usually seal off the strong side OLB while the FB will block the MLB. If all these blocks are successful, the RB has a straight shot through the gap into the secondary, and hopefully the TE's and WR's can get hats on those guys too, leading to a touchdown. That play is the standard strong side dive in the good old I-formation.

I've seen our O-line do both zone and assignment blocking well at time this year, and poorly at time this year. Usually a busted play is just one or two missed blocks.

Hope this answers your questions.

 

[EmeraldIngot]

Just a few quick things before I'll be able to post the next analysis later on today: First, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a football player in any college team, nor am I a coach and/or other staff member at any college or professional team. It is my dream to someday be a coach, on any level, but I am not a coach right now. Also, I wished I was Scott Frost. OC for oregon, former Husker, won a national championship... that was my dream. Unfortuntely, I wasn't able to make it on a college team.

As for doing an analysis of the defense? Well, I am much more of an offensive kind of mind, but I could try!

So, you guys liked this kind of post, then? If you want to learn more about the behind the scenes aspect of football, there are some great scheme oriented websites, like Football Outsider, that have all sorts of good articles. If you just liked how I analyzed the Huskers in particular, I'd be happy to do my best to try and analyze Bo Pelini and John Papuchis' defense... but I'll put it in a different topic so as not to disrupt this one's focus on the offense. If you guys want me to.

Yes but are you now, or have you ever been employed by football outsider? Haha

Haha! no. I actually only stumbled over the site a few weeks ago. it's got a great article on the differences between 3-4 and 4-3 defense, as well as a good breakdown on the D-line play for each of those two defensive formations.

 

[EmeraldIngot]

There is absolutely no reason our offense shouldn't revolve around ameer...he should be involved in 70% of our plays whether is be an inside/outside run or a screen/check down....how do you fail to utilize this kind of talent? I know many are calling for Bo's head, but I think Beck needs replaced. I like Bo and think he's a good coach, but If is unwilling to let go of Beck, then he must go too. There is absolutely no reason that Ameer doesn't get more than 10 carries in that second half (i.e. assuming its not a blow out already). Furthermore, if Ameer won a heisman because we gave him the ball 70% of the time, then think about the advantages that publicity would give our program. It would give us a recruiting advantage, improve team morale, etc.

70% is a little over the top, but when you need a score badly, he should obviously be featured...basic sh#t that escapes Beck blows me away!

Honestly, I'm not upset with the number of carries AA is getting. Rather, I agree that he needs to spend more time in the screen/check down situations. That would net him some nice all purpose yards without sacrificing his on the ground running totals. But, on the other hand, centering 70% of your offense around a single player is bad for the team. Just look at tOSU. Miller went down, and their season with him. If anything, I'd like to give AA ~25 carries per game, and hopefully another 8-10 passes/screens, and split another 10-15 carries between Armstrong (on the read option) and the backup RB's. This is assuming about 75 plays per game. That's a pretty balanced offense, and keeps Abdullah adding to his yards. Then again, if we keep pounding Ameer up the middle and they aren't stopping him... well, maybe just rotate Cross in every once in a while to give Ameer a breather, but otherwise keep at it.

 

[JJ Husker]

Strictly objective? I think it's pretty amazing you banged that out on a smart phone.

Let's just say....

(Puts on sunglasses)

it's easy, for ol' E........

That was also my first thought. But if it is ole E...... he must be heavily medicated. Let's see if the pompous shows up.