RUN THE BALL!!!

[BRV920]

Sure his 90's teams were loaded with talent but he still managed to win 10 games a year for his entire career and didn't have superior talent in a lot of those years.

 

[BigRedBuster]

I like the running plays that are in the playbook. I agree they could have been used differently at various times.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Sure his 90's teams were loaded with talent but he still managed to win 10 games a year for his entire career and didn't have superior talent in a lot of those years.

He won at least 9 games a year.

And, yes, our team was more talented and stronger than almost everyone else.

Thanks to Epley.

 

[hskrpwr13]

I think the issue is more situational play calling instead of run/pass ratio, especially considering the strengths/weaknesses of some of key personnel.

Its maddening to see a 3rd and 1 pass, especially once they've established a consistently successful run game. Its silly to create much creativity in the pass game, but shirk that responsibility with the run game, especially when you know that weather may be a factor that forces you into a running game plan even if the opponent is more suited to stop the run, and you have a QB that struggles at times to make the simplest passes in the best of scenarios.

Absolutely, a team can win a lot with a predominate passing game, but first, you better have the necessary personnel to do it, and second, based on our location, you still have to put the necessary effort into developing a creative running game to counter balance the creative pass attack for days when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate.

Personally, I think the coaches failed miserably most of the season on equally developing a creative run scheme as they did the pass, especially considering where our personnel's talent seemed strongest, and there seemed to be an unfair amount of situational play calls that seemed to kill game/drive momentum (usually it seemed to be a pass play).

 

[hskrpwr13]

Running, just like passing is an art form. Running more for the simple fat of running more won't make us successful. It is calling the proper run against the D. Running off tackle into Bama's DL won't work. Calling running plays that will make them "pay" for "running down hill" is a better idea i.e. counters, read option (option variants) etc... Running plays might be called "less", but would be more successful.

IMO, Langs simply calls running plays to call running plays. Not really ones with a high probability of success i.e. Cross outside, Newby inside etc..... Just like really looking at what TA can do in the passing game needs to be done in the running game. Examine your backs (not every back is a bruiser, speed guy, shifty etc) Call plays to their strengths. Try and define what type of running game we want. Option, spread, power, power from spread sets (Houston), inverted veer (OSU), 2 back etc..... Get this figured out and recruit for it. More of this or more of that doesn't matter if we fail to execute or continue to pound the square peg into the round hole......

Exactly

Its interesting that a staff with this amount of experience SEEMS to not already understand this concept.

 

[BRV920]

Averaged 10 wins year for his career is what I should have said. Do you really think he would have been that consistent for all those years throwing the ball over 50% of the time?

 

[BigRedBuster]

You keep changing what you say.

I'm not going to look it up.

What was his run pass ratio when he ran a pro style offense? I'll let you find that.

He won two NCs with that type of offense.

 

[cm husker]

I would say we had 4 games this year where weather was a factor in our passing game. Since you seem so fixated on the numbers Big Red Buster lets just talk about running percentage. How many teams are consistently successful up north that throw the ball more than they run?

You seem fixated on the ambient temperature. Sure, that's one factor. But do you think the quality of the rush defense that an OC faces has anything to do with his play calling?Let's take a look at Alabama as a point of reference. Last night Bama had 286 passing yards and 154 rushing yards. LINK Why would Bama pass more than rush? Well, maybe Sparty having the #12 rushing defense in the country had something to do with Bama's play calling. This year we played four teams with rushing defenses in the top 13 in the country. That might have had something to do with out run/pass mix. Am I saying we should keep passing the ball as much as we did this season? No. I'm not. Instead I think we need a balanced run/pass game. And we should be able to emphasize whichever part of the game the other team is weakest in. Like when we played Michigan State. Or UCLA.

Exactly.
Pretty basic concept. We're just not going to be able to have as much success running the ball 75% of the time against a team that is far better than UCLA at defending the run. Find a team's weakness and exploit it....

This line of thinking sounds logical but ignores the difficulties of preparing an offense to do both things well.

 

[cm husker]

Sure his 90's teams were loaded with talent but he still managed to win 10 games a year for his entire career and didn't have superior talent in a lot of those years.

He won at least 9 games a year.
And, yes, our team was more talented and stronger than almost everyone else.

Thanks to Epley.

Don't oversell epleys influence.

I go back to the navy example. Few are going to trade for that OL yet they continually put up rushing yards against superior athletes. Why? Scheme and execution. That's the same reason NU made it look so "easy" all of those years.

 

[BRV920]

25 years as head coach. 255 carreer wins. That's 10 wins a year average correct? Ill look up the 70/71 stats. See what I can find.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Sure his 90's teams were loaded with talent but he still managed to win 10 games a year for his entire career and didn't have superior talent in a lot of those years.

He won at least 9 games a year.
And, yes, our team was more talented and stronger than almost everyone else.

Thanks to Epley.

Don't oversell epleys influence.
I go back to the navy example. Few are going to trade for that OL yet they continually put up rushing yards against superior athletes. Why? Scheme and execution. That's the same reason NU made it look so "easy" all of those years.

What?????

It's very well documented the affect Epley had on our program when BD allowed him to have our players build muscle. No other program was going it along with the nutrition and we dominated most other teams.

We could take a lineman that other programs didn't want and make him a monster compared to the guy across the line.

I'm absolutely shocked you are down playing him importance.

 

[BigRedBuster]

25 years as head coach. 255 carreer wins. That's 10 wins a year average correct? Ill look up the 70/71 stats. See what I can find.

At first you did not say "averaged". Thanks for the clarification.
Please include all years he ran a pro style offense.

 

[quesadilla]

The coaches deserve a lot of blame this year but given the issues with the OL and the steep drop-off from our Heisman contender last year, I think we were going to struggle to run consistently this year no matter the coaching staff or scheme. I also think not having a back separate himself as "the guy" early was a big part of the problem with consistency throughout the year. The staff was clearly trying different packages all year; TA's foot injuries maybe were a bigger part of the troubles than they were willing to admit too. Having him running free in the bowl game clearly added another dimension to the entire offense that was missing all season.

To be fair, this staff did find a way to get Cross and Janovich a lot more touches than they ever had in the past. With those two graduating, I was happy to see Ozigbo step up in the bowl game. With his progression and a healthy TA and DPL I hope we'll see a better balanced and more successful (and better executed) scheme next year.

 

[BRV920]

Here's the info I found for 70 and 71 football teams. 1970 team ran 960 plays on the season 275 pass attempts (29%) and 685 rushing attempts (71%). The 71 team ran 1042 plays. 300 pass attempts(29%) and 742 rushing attempts (71%)

 

[BigRedBuster]

Interesting. I honestly didn't know.