An analysis of OC Tim Beck.

[Thanks_Tom RR]

Second half we seemed more sharp. Dont know if it was execution or frasno just starting to pack it in. But in the first half, if you took away the two long touchdowns we only had 130 yards. Thats not to impresive.

We only punted twice in 9 possessions during the first half. Of course, both times we had to punt were due to two 3-n-outs. The other drives were 5 scores, a missed FG, and a safety. When it comes down to it, it's about points, not yards. From that perspective, seems like solid productivity.Anyway, I know it is tempting to throw out big plays to evaluate productivity because it can screw the data, sometimes. However, the point of my previous post is that the big plays against Fresno seems frequent enough that they are not outliners and should not be overlooked.

Technically the safety was not on the offense. We only scored three times on the first half. 2 tds and a fg. Two LONG tds. The third was the punt return. Yes we did miss a field goal. So if we scored on only 3 possesions and missed a fg on the fourth, what happened on the other 5? two plays produced 130 of our 260 yards. That means we gained 130 yards pn 7 other possesions.
Now if we make it about points thats fine. But the offense was still only responsible for 17 points-20 if we make a field goal- in 9 possesions. To me that is pretty poor production esp against a defense that we all know is bad. What will happen against mich st wiscy and so on when we wont have receivers runnin free down the seam or safeties so out of place that even our thumper back can get to the next level and be gone from 50+?

To me the consistency issue is still a problem and it needs to be fixed. We need to be able to sustain drives when the big play isnt there. Right now this offense feels so all-or-nothin like 2010. And we remember well what happened that year in games where the big play didnt show up.

1st Half Offensive Possessions (Plays; Yards)

1st: TD (4; 82)

2nd: TD (1; 57)

3rd: Missed FG (6; 33)

4th: Punt (3; 3)

5th: FG (10; 59)

6th: FG (5; 22)

7th: Punt (3; 8)

We score on 4 of the 7 offensive possession. The other 3 are a missed FG (don't know you count that against the offense completely) and two punts. Unless you expect us to score on every possession, I see having a chance to score on 5 of 7 possession (taking advantage of 4 of them) as a win.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Second half we seemed more sharp. Dont know if it was execution or frasno just starting to pack it in. But in the first half, if you took away the two long touchdowns we only had 130 yards. Thats not to impresive.

Here is the issue with this. Fresno sold out to stop the run and Ameer. They had almost everyone close to the line and the blitzed the gaps to stop him. That works out all fine and dandy on defense until the offense gets behind you. So...Ameer was getting stuffed in the gaps by blitzing LBs and safeties. BUT, once he or a WR was behind that defense, it was clear sailing.

That is the main reason why we saw not much steady production but big plays.

We have many weapons on this offense and we saw them perform very well on Saturday night (and Sunday morning). Defenses have to start respecting what we can do other than just Ameer. That is going to then spring Ameer for more production.

I guess we could have coached Ameer and Westerkamp to just go 20 yards and drop to the ground so we could continue having more steady production instead of just long TDs.

 

[iowahuskers]

Great analysis, I think you are completely correct with what you said.

However, I think we haven't opened up our playbook very much yet. As we saw against Georgia we used some jet sweeps. My bet is that Beck is saving these plays for Miami to give them something they haven't seen us do yet. We need to run these jetsweeps to get our athletes in open field and also freezes linebackers which opens up the middle for amber, imani.

 

[Count 'Bility]

So what happens when we play mich st and wiscy and they sell out to stop Ameer and the run game, and their DB's are considerably better than Fresno's so Westerkamp wont be running free down the seam and Abdullah and Cross wont simply be gashin right through the middle turning a typical 5-10 yard gain into a 60+ yard TD run. My complaint are not centered around this Fresno St game. It's lookin to the future. No I dont expect to score on every possession....

Thanks_Tom RR

1st Half Offensive Possessions (Plays; Yards)

1st: TD (4; 82)

2nd: TD (1; 57)

3rd: Missed FG (6; 33)

4th: Punt (3; 3)

5th: FG (10; 59)

6th: FG (5; 22)

7th: Punt (3; 8)

We score on 4 of the 7 offensive possession. The other 3 are a missed FG (don't know you count that against the offense completely) and two punts. Unless you expect us to score on every possession, I see have a chance to score on 5 of 7 possession (taking advantage of 4 of them) as a win.

I was responding to someone saying we had 9 possesions. Only 7 possessions, yes, the look improves dramatically. But looking at those drives, only one was a good sustained drive. Obviously I'll take the big plays. I'm not asking for Westerkamp or Abdulla to slide down after 20 yards for the sake of generating 3 more plays on the drive. I'm just lookin at it from a "what-if" standpoint, that if we dont get those big plays on those first two drives, do we drive 82 and 57 yards for touchdown? The data clearly suggests no. I just wanna see the offense be able to string together first downs to the goal line when the big play isnt there. Thus far, we havent done that yet this year on a consistent basis. And that disturbs me because it's been against overmatched defenses from a talent and depth standpoint. I understand the selling out to stop this and that, and that the offense hasnt been "bad", I just think there's room for a lot of improvement. Improvement that we're gonna need.

 

[TheSker]

So what happens when we play mich st and wiscy and they sell out to stop Ameer and the run game, and their DB's are considerably better than Fresno's so Westerkamp wont be running free down the seam and Abdullah and Cross wont simply be gashin right through the middle turning a typical 5-10 yard gain into a 60+ yard TD run. My complaint are not centered around this Fresno St game. It's lookin to the future. No I dont expect to score on every possession....

Thanks_Tom RR

1st Half Offensive Possessions (Plays; Yards)

1st: TD (4; 82)

2nd: TD (1; 57)

3rd: Missed FG (6; 33)

4th: Punt (3; 3)

5th: FG (10; 59)

6th: FG (5; 22)

7th: Punt (3; 8)

We score on 4 of the 7 offensive possession. The other 3 are a missed FG (don't know you count that against the offense completely) and two punts. Unless you expect us to score on every possession, I see have a chance to score on 5 of 7 possession (taking advantage of 4 of them) as a win.

I was responding to someone saying we had 9 possesions. Only 7 possessions, yes, the look improves dramatically. But looking at those drives, only one was a good sustained drive. Obviously I'll take the big plays. I'm not asking for Westerkamp or Abdulla to slide down after 20 yards for the sake of generating 3 more plays on the drive. I'm just lookin at it from a "what-if" standpoint, that if we dont get those big plays on those first two drives, do we drive 82 and 57 yards for touchdown? The data clearly suggests no. I just wanna see the offense be able to string together first downs to the goal line when the big play isnt there. Thus far, we havent done that yet this year on a consistent basis. And that disturbs me because it's been against overmatched defenses from a talent and depth standpoint. I understand the selling out to stop this and that, and that the offense hasnt been "bad", I just think there's room for a lot of improvement. Improvement that we're gonna need.

Room for improvement, of course. But I would have little concern that we are scoring consistently on big plays......because we are doing it consistently. Michigan State's defense has been excellent recently and our offense hasn't struggled to move the ball. It has struggled to not turn it over. Our offense has as many play makers as it has in some time. Lots of teams might "stack the box", but there's risk in doing that too. In my opinion the biggest difference between this year and the past couple of seasons is......while our quarterback hasn't been a threat to take it to the house every time, we have more playmakers.....and those play makers aren't turning the ball over. And now that it appears DPE may be coming into his own on special teams, we put a lot of pressure on opposing defenses.

 

[Count 'Bility]

Well that's why I'm not too down and negative about it, even if it seems like it. I'm not. But i'm trying to look at it with proper perspective. On a possession by possession, play by play basis, there's nothing wrong with saying that we do have some issues on offense that need to be fixed. Things like consistently hitting checkdown routes and short/underneath routes as opposed to going for the big plays. It's a legit concern because we havent seen it done yet. But we're not necessarily sure it's lack of ability. It may just be ignorance becuase the deep routes and big plays ARE available. So that leaves me with some concern that the physical and/or mental ability to consistenly move the ball is not there. That old "I'll believe it when I see it" type of deal.

 

[Thanks_Tom RR]

So what happens when we play mich st and wiscy and they sell out to stop Ameer and the run game, and their DB's are considerably better than Fresno's so Westerkamp wont be running free down the seam and Abdullah and Cross wont simply be gashin right through the middle turning a typical 5-10 yard gain into a 60+ yard TD run. My complaint are not centered around this Fresno St game. It's lookin to the future. No I dont expect to score on every possession....

Thanks_Tom RR

1st Half Offensive Possessions (Plays; Yards)

1st: TD (4; 82)

2nd: TD (1; 57)

3rd: Missed FG (6; 33)

4th: Punt (3; 3)

5th: FG (10; 59)

6th: FG (5; 22)

7th: Punt (3; 8)

We score on 4 of the 7 offensive possession. The other 3 are a missed FG (don't know you count that against the offense completely) and two punts. Unless you expect us to score on every possession, I see have a chance to score on 5 of 7 possession (taking advantage of 4 of them) as a win.

I was responding to someone saying we had 9 possesions. Only 7 possessions, yes, the look improves dramatically. But looking at those drives, only one was a good sustained drive. Obviously I'll take the big plays. I'm not asking for Westerkamp or Abdulla to slide down after 20 yards for the sake of generating 3 more plays on the drive. I'm just lookin at it from a "what-if" standpoint, that if we dont get those big plays on those first two drives, do we drive 82 and 57 yards for touchdown? The data clearly suggests no. I just wanna see the offense be able to string together first downs to the goal line when the big play isnt there. Thus far, we havent done that yet this year on a consistent basis. And that disturbs me because it's been against overmatched defenses from a talent and depth standpoint. I understand the selling out to stop this and that, and that the offense hasnt been "bad", I just think there's room for a lot of improvement. Improvement that we're gonna need.

I agree the offensive needs improvement, just not in the sense that their 'big play potential' is a bad thing or suggests limited success. We ran well against Michigan St last year because we got push from our OL into their LB. Our OL is good in pass pro, but run blocking is were our offense needs to improve and be more consistent to strengthen the run game (even if teams key in on it). Third down conversion also needs to be better. Beck was calling passing plays often in 3rd & short in the Fresno game (5 of 8 plays), not sure if that is his preference or because of suspect run blocking.

 

[Thanks_Tom RR]

Well that's why I'm not too down and negative about it, even if it seems like it. I'm not. But i'm trying to look at it with proper perspective. On a possession by possession, play by play basis, there's nothing wrong with saying that we do have some issues on offense that need to be fixed. Things like consistently hitting checkdown routes and short/underneath routes as opposed to going for the big plays. It's a legit concern because we havent seen it done yet. But we're not necessarily sure it's lack of ability. It may just be ignorance because the deep routes and big plays ARE available. So that leaves me with some concern that the physical and/or mental ability to consistenly move the ball is not there. That old "I'll believe it when I see it" type of deal.

This is my opinion as well. TA is seeing the big throws open downfield and our RB and TA are finding the running lanes open on specific plays and capitalizing. Like I already said, I think our OL run blocking needs to be better, and that should allow for more consistent, sustained drives (or more opportunities for big plays

).

 

[Scratchtown]

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.

Agree 100 percent. The one that gets left out most of the time is the "why". It's easy to tell the team to do something but they won't understand it till you explain why. May take some time away from reps when explaining and talking but the reps they do get will be much more efficient after they know "why".

I'm more or less referring to my group of high school boys

 

[Scratchtown]

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.

Also. Check out coachhuey.Com

It revolves around scheme mostly but there are TONS of resources on that sight. Mostly coaches on that board if not all.

 

[BigRedBuster]

So what happens when we play mich st and wiscy and they sell out to stop Ameer and the run game, and their DB's are considerably better than Fresno's so Westerkamp wont be running free down the seam and Abdullah and Cross wont simply be gashin right through the middle turning a typical 5-10 yard gain into a 60+ yard TD run. My complaint are not centered around this Fresno St game. It's lookin to the future. No I dont expect to score on every possession....

Thanks_Tom RR

1st Half Offensive Possessions (Plays; Yards)

1st: TD (4; 82)

2nd: TD (1; 57)

3rd: Missed FG (6; 33)

4th: Punt (3; 3)

5th: FG (10; 59)

6th: FG (5; 22)

7th: Punt (3; 8)

We score on 4 of the 7 offensive possession. The other 3 are a missed FG (don't know you count that against the offense completely) and two punts. Unless you expect us to score on every possession, I see have a chance to score on 5 of 7 possession (taking advantage of 4 of them) as a win.

I was responding to someone saying we had 9 possesions. Only 7 possessions, yes, the look improves dramatically. But looking at those drives, only one was a good sustained drive. Obviously I'll take the big plays. I'm not asking for Westerkamp or Abdulla to slide down after 20 yards for the sake of generating 3 more plays on the drive. I'm just lookin at it from a "what-if" standpoint, that if we dont get those big plays on those first two drives, do we drive 82 and 57 yards for touchdown? The data clearly suggests no. I just wanna see the offense be able to string together first downs to the goal line when the big play isnt there. Thus far, we havent done that yet this year on a consistent basis. And that disturbs me because it's been against overmatched defenses from a talent and depth standpoint. I understand the selling out to stop this and that, and that the offense hasnt been "bad", I just think there's room for a lot of improvement. Improvement that we're gonna need.

That's why they play the game.

In this game, we faked a lot of jet sweeps. At some point, Bell is going to get that. I would be surprised if that's not this week. That causes the LBs to have to account for that. Get burned on that a couple times and they have to back off blitzing the gaps to stop the run.

Another very good thing about this game is the adjustment we saw in the passing game to account for this. McNeese State did the same thing Fresno did. However, we didn't exploit the middle of the field that is left open by doing so. At Fresno, we did exploit that and that is why the TEs got the ball and a couple other receivers caught balls in that mid range across the middle.

Now, we have proven to opposing defenses that we can beat you deep. We can beat you mid range and....if you back off to stop that, we can beat you by pounding it on the ground.

Just because you don't see one of those facets of the game being successful in a particular game, doesn't mean it's not there.

A good thing I saw differently on the O line this game was that against McNeese State, our O line was missing blocks off the ball because they were acting rushed to get to the second level. That caused the D line to cause problems. In this game, it appeared to me that they did a better job of making sure that D lineman is blocked before they head to the second level. I know it sounds small. But, it's not. Against McNeese State, even if the LBs backed off to cover the middle, the DL was getting the tackle. Against Fresno, the D needed to keep blitzing the gaps because the DL was getting blocked.

This game this week is huge for us. I know Miami isn't ranked. But, they are the marque team we will play in the non-con. This is what the rest of the country is going to look at. AND....Miami might be better than what their 2-1 record shows. They have taken care of business pretty well since that first game.

We need to come out and execute the plays. I firmly believe we have the talent at just about every position on our offense to beat their defense. I also think our defense will cause them to have problems scoring.

Another way to look at stats is that we had 562 yards of offense on 16 drives (I think). That's 35 yards per drive. Now, let's say we don't have the punt return for the TD and we don't have the safety (which wasn't on the offense). That gives us 18 drives. That would possible make us 632 total yards. 563 yards is pretty dang good. 630 yards is DANG good.

 

[HUSKER FREAK]

I think Beck needs to clean up his game plan some, but I am not sure what he can do if we cant pick up people blitzing. Our Oline does not suck. I think they can be very good, but the blocking schemes need to be fixed. I don't care if they load 8 in the box. Its not like teams don't do that against other running teams or our past teams. Its not the talents fault it is the schemes fault. Attention Garrison

 

[NUinID]

I said this on another thread 2 things to keep in mind about the O-line.

1. FSU and McNeese St blitz a lot and sold out to stop the run. This allowed for the big plays in the run and pass game. It is tough for 5 guys to block 6-7 guys when the sell out. They are going to guess right some times. Miami will most likely not sell out to stop the run. They are going to think they have the athletes to compete straight up.

2. NU has rotated lineman very liberally. At least 10 and probably 12 guys have played a lot. Run blocking is very intricate and requires you know not only what, but how the guys next to you is going to do on a play. They are building a lot of depth that will really help down the line. You may only see 7-8 guys play in the regular rotation against Miami..

 

[Mavric]

I said this on another thread 2 things to keep in mind about the O-line.

1. FSU and McNeese St blitz a lot and sold out to stop the run. This allowed for the big plays in the run and pass game. It is tough for 5 guys to block 6-7 guys when the sell out. They are going to guess right some times. Miami will most likely not sell out to stop the run. They are going to think they have the athletes to compete straight up.

This is a lot of it. Pelini just said in his press conference that we've seen looks the last two weeks that we probably won't see the rest of the year. This is where it would be nice to be a little more consistent in the short passing game to combat them loading the box.

 

[Mavric]

Samuel McKewon ‏@swmckewonOWH 5h
41.2 percent of Nebraska's first-down plays have been an Ameer Abdullah run. He's gained 391 yards on those runs. #huskers