Line thrives on Beck's scheme, more depth

[zoogs]

And perhaps most important, Cotton loves coordinator Tim Beck's new offense. It's almost, well, like he would have designed it. Like he has designed it in his previous stops as offensive coordinator at Nebraska, Iowa State and New Mexico State.

This is my least favorite line of the article so far. Yikes, I hope Tim Beck's new offense is not like that.

But it's OK. With this rhetoric, Barney has run himself out of excuses. "I love the offense *now*, so I'm gonna start bringin' it."

By the way, Mike Smith's injury hurt a LOT last year.

But wasn't he going to be a key backup at all positions on the line, not a starter?

I think that was Gill talking about learning BC's offense in year one. But there is no excuse why Cotton is still trying to learn it 3 years later. Not to mention Milt learned the concepts in a matter of days and was asked to come in and find a way to make things easier between Watson's stuff and the new direction Bo wanted to go. Barney just didn't have the time to meet with Milt and have it explained to him because he "already knew everything".

Its a Cotton issue, not a player injury issue, offense "too hard" issue, or I didn't have any help issue. I think those are the three he's given interviews about since spring listing the reasons he can't put it all together. All three should be fixed...if they don't play well this year Cotton need to take a hard look in the mirror, break it and then slit his wrists with it. The guy just isn't much more than an average coach at best and was by far Bo's worst hire from day one.

I think I remember the "I didn't have any help" article you are talking about. I was floored by that one.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

I'd agree with that. The offense was definitely not on the same page last year. It was a common criticism of the staff I can't fault: you had guys with different styles and different strengths thrown together, instead of a group of guys all with the same mindset as the DC - which is what Bo has always had here on defense.

What does Turner Gill mean when saying he is one day ahead of the players? Was that in 2004 or something?

You say it is common, but it sounds like a very undesirable common.

I don't know for sure what HE meant but just from my coaching experience I can tell you that to me it means something like this:

When you are starting practice you go over the basics, tons and tons of reps on basics, when you start to install things you generally start with one concept. Lets say we are talking about playing defense against the option.

As a coach of the OLB's you will know that is scheduled for day two of practice, so if you are new to that team or if the system is new, you are going to make sure you know that part really really well for that day, so that you can present the material, rep it and drill it over and over. The next day, you will cover that for about 10 minutes and then install something new, such as certain zone drops on pass plays. So the night before that practice, since it is a new defense or new team you are coaching at, you learn that over and over.

Sometimes you really are one day ahead of the players.

Then you will have a scrimmage in a few days, its filmed. All the plays are charted, so when you see one of your position guys mess up you can see what the play call was/formation/down and distance and go back and see, did the kid mess up, did I teach him something wrong, did we not teach that yet and he was confused on what to do.

You then go back and try to correct it.

 

[Scarlet Overkill]

...snip...

Its a Cotton issue, not a player injury issue, offense "too hard" issue, or I didn't have any help issue. I think those are the three he's given interviews about since spring listing the reasons he can't put it all together. All three should be fixed...if they don't play well this year Cotton need to take a hard look in the mirror, break it and then slit his wrists with it. The guy just isn't much more than an average coach at best and was by far Bo's worst hire from day one.

Amen. The question becomes - if this year is underwhelming yet again, does Bo do anything about it? Seems to me like Bo is trying to give him another chance, with the new assistants. If it doesn't work, how long does he last at Nebraska and does Bo let him continue collecting a paycheck because he's a friend?

 

[n.e.husker]

http://huskerextra.com/sports/football/article_f8bdc473-fbde-5841-8af8-022423e93291.html

An open mind when it comes to O-line
Nebraska offensive line coach Barney Cotton is keeping an open mind this month about which players will end up as regular contributors more open than he did last August, he says.

 

[bshirt]

Cotton is going to be this years Watson for a lot of fans. There is a bit of a difference because often times Watson was disliked by the fans that hated BC, while Cotton was disliked at first by the fans that loved BC.

Now that Watson is gone, Cotton will get pounded on a bit more by most fans if there is bad play.

100% correct.

The closet Clownahan fans will rip him to shreds at every opportunity. Heh....but as others have said, right or wrong he's gonna have to show improvement this year. I'm on board with that as coaching at NU isn't working for the Post Office. With bigtime cfb you gotta show results.

I'm also on board with Bo giving him a chance to shine without an OC that simply didn't work here. He deserved this shot and now he's got to hack it.

 

[redblooded]

I hope he gets them playing consistently well and not making stupid penalties. I don't think that is too much to ask by year four. If you cant do number #2 in four years, it's definitely on you as a position coach.

 

[MCAT800]

Maybe Brenden Stai can light a fire under this groups a$$ and finally get something done on the O-Line.

I am tired of the :cry :cry from Cotton. As a former HS and college O-lineman and HS O-line coach I can understand the injuries and depth issues he had but it's time to put up or shut-up. Playing O-line with bad, necks, shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles is part of the job. Or at least it used to be.........

 

[Stumpy1]

We were a few hundred yards away from having 3-1000 yard rushers in a season? To me, that says our line was doing what they were suppose to be doing. It might not have been pretty but it worked.

 

[Hunter94]

against some decent defenses our offensive line looked pathetic.......and then there was SDSU. :facepalm:

 

[Scarlet Overkill]

We were a few hundred yards away from having 3-1000 yard rushers in a season? To me, that says our line was doing what they were suppose to be doing. It might not have been pretty but it worked.

Here's another stat: 2.07 sacks allowed per game, that's good enough for 70th nationally. The only B1G team worse than that was Northwestern.

 

[The Dude]

We were a few hundred yards away from having 3-1000 yard rushers in a season? To me, that says our line was doing what they were suppose to be doing. It might not have been pretty but it worked.

Here's another stat: 2.07 sacks allowed per game, that's good enough for 70th nationally. The only B1G team worse than that was Northwestern.

To be fair, a lot of those were Martinez's fault. A lot.

 

[Marf]

The line played well last year... Simple as that. Had a bad few games, but the improvement was fantastic.

If we show equal improvement this year, as we should with depth issue shored up, the offensive line is the least of my concerns.

Give Barney some credit, I was very happy with last year. You're all quick to jump on him about not being ahead of the playbook or whatever else. Put yourself in his shoes. Did you understand what the hell was going on with Watson at OC? I certainly didn't. I don't even think Watson knew. Get off the guy's back. Very close to 3 1000 yard rushers... Who else did that? Nevada was the first I believe... So we would have been the second team EVER to do that, if I remember correctly. Yeah. We did fine.

 

[bshirt]

The line played well last year... Simple as that. Had a bad few games, but the improvement was fantastic.

If we show equal improvement this year, as we should with depth issue shored up, the offensive line is the least of my concerns.

Give Barney some credit, I was very happy with last year. You're all quick to jump on him about not being ahead of the playbook or whatever else. Put yourself in his shoes. Did you understand what the hell was going on with Watson at OC? I certainly didn't. I don't even think Watson knew. Get off the guy's back. Very close to 3 1000 yard rushers... Who else did that? Nevada was the first I believe... So we would have been the second team EVER to do that, if I remember correctly. Yeah. We did fine.

That's right. Rex/Roy/Tmart rushed for over 3,000 yds last year. Good chance there was some blocking somewhere?

Also totally agree taking marching orders from Callawats couldn't have been easy (to say the very least). Add to that our recent recruiting priorities of bringing in vicious linemen by the boatload and I'll think we're gonna be ok.

 

[irafreak]

Yeah I haven't been one of those to attack cotton. My complaints were always the play calling from Watson. I don't understand why everyone was so anti-cotton from day 1. He spent one year as OC in Lincoln with a quarterback that couldn't get the ball within 10 yards of a wide open tight end 45 yards down field. I thought he did the best with what we had that year. Wasn't pretty but you remember us grinding out over a dozen straight runs to score against Penn St early that year.

Cotton has been feeling a lot of heat. He's probably a little tired of it. So put his comments into the proper context.

 

[talaricohusker]

Barney has got exactly one season to make a line perform before the entire fan base picks up pitchforks. Fair or unfair, injuries or not, it's put up or shut up time.

You say that but i bet u would take that back if you were in his shoes dealing with all the injuries and lack of depth and the fan base coming after your head year after year. I know he has not impressed me much either but look its the fourth year and so i hope things gel alot better this year. I have a feeling alot of pepole will be eating crow this season with the o line and cotton.