cg_8

Better blocking. Better technique from DB's. 100 yard rusher. Less penalties.

So coming back after being down 10 at half time and being in position to the win the game with a team in their first year of a new offensive scheme and new defensive scheme against some decent competition that also is playing well is meaningless? (I'd really like to hear an answer on this, because that was my biggest take away from the game, I refuse to lump this loss in with 2012 Big Ten championship game, and 2006 Texas, as well as all of those other ones) I didn't say the come back was meaningless. But, Bo's teams also had some decent comebacks in his tenure. Let's not like every time NU got behind under Bo, they folded up the tents. Also, BYU was a couple plays from being ahead by 3 TD's. They missed plays that NU had no bearing on. Where my biggest concern came in, was even after the comeback (which did impress me), was the way the 4th quarter unfolded. When I was watching the 4th quarter, I thought "Oh crap, Riley is going to go all NFL on us". I do give Langsdorf/Riley credit for coming up with that nice pass play call to Brandon Reilly that took NU down to the BYU 30. That big gain should have sewn up the game. But, the clock was mismanaged when the ball was snapped with a number of seconds left on the clock, the 3rd down fly-sweep to the short side was a terrible play call, and Riley should have wound the play clock down to zero and called a timeout before Brown attempted the FG (please don't tell me he would have been icing his own kicker). All of that stuff happened to create a situation that left the door open for BYU. So your concern is with game management. Which is understandable. I was actually impressed by the fact that we still had timeouts left. But why not start a thread regarding game management? Which, I think is better than starting one that generally lumps this loss with all the other ones? Game management was just one reason that NU lost. Here are the negatives that I saw from the game: poor O-line play, poor running game (other than jet sweeps), too many penalties, terrible D in the first half (although adjustments were made in the 2nd half), poor game management (from a VETERAN coaching staff), no pass rush generated. You missed two missed kicks, too.

So coming back after being down 10 at half time and being in position to the win the game with a team in their first year of a new offensive scheme and new defensive scheme against some decent competition that also is playing well is meaningless? (I'd really like to hear an answer on this, because that was my biggest take away from the game, I refuse to lump this loss in with 2012 Big Ten championship game, and 2006 Texas, as well as all of those other ones) I didn't say the come back was meaningless. But, Bo's teams also had some decent comebacks in his tenure. Let's not like every time NU got behind under Bo, they folded up the tents. Also, BYU was a couple plays from being ahead by 3 TD's. They missed plays that NU had no bearing on. Where my biggest concern came in, was even after the comeback (which did impress me), was the way the 4th quarter unfolded. When I was watching the 4th quarter, I thought "Oh crap, Riley is going to go all NFL on us". I do give Langsdorf/Riley credit for coming up with that nice pass play call to Brandon Reilly that took NU down to the BYU 30. That big gain should have sewn up the game. But, the clock was mismanaged when the ball was snapped with a number of seconds left on the clock, the 3rd down fly-sweep to the short side was a terrible play call, and Riley should have wound the play clock down to zero and called a timeout before Brown attempted the FG (please don't tell me he would have been icing his own kicker). All of that stuff happened to create a situation that left the door open for BYU. So your concern is with game management. Which is understandable. I was actually impressed by the fact that we still had timeouts left. But why not start a thread regarding game management? Which, I think is better than starting one that generally lumps this loss with all the other ones?

I liked the gif's better than the scribbled images. Also, didn't they talk to a football coach to help them break it down? Honestly, I wish we had a guy like War Room Eagle. (Here's a breakdown of a basic inside zone) He does some awesome stuff for Auburn. If I had the know how to make those gifs, and the time to do that, I'd love to. But with a family I love, and a career that I love, there's no way. (That's no knock, props to guys like War Room Eagle who take the time to do that. Props to Mav on the play by play too. I can't get enough of stuff like that.)

So coming back after being down 10 at half time and being in position to the win the game with a team in their first year of a new offensive scheme and new defensive scheme against some decent competition that also is playing well is meaningless? (I'd really like to hear an answer on this, because that was my biggest take away from the game, I refuse to lump this loss in with 2012 Big Ten championship game, and 2006 Texas, as well as all of those other ones)

That sounds waaaaayyy too sensible. You can't bring that crap here!

So one completion that went for 27 yards is not a "Power5 QB" throw makes TA automatically "not a Power5 QB". However, his timing throughout the game utilizing Langsdorf excellent use of the Triangle concept through coverage reads gets completely ignored? Not all "Power5 QB"s are capable of making those pre-snap reads, then reading coverage and making a good throw to a guy who hasn't turned his head.

What should we think about the former Husker OC being replaced with former Husker OC as playcaller at Texas? I seriously don't know what to make of it... #extremelyconfused

That is a very nice way of leaving out the difference between 7.0 yards per carry and 0.2. One defense also had one of the worst secondaries in the nation, the other did not. Tommy also had two elementary school intentional groundings that were costly. Elementary school? One was due to the fact that it didn't reach the LOS, but it was the correct decision. We are also leaving out the fact that some BYU DL's made it into the backfield unblocked. Also, how our RB's seriously need to work on their pass pro. To me, those two things are a lot more worrisome than Tommy being forced to throw a ball away awkwardly.

Tremendous improvement from TA. I can seriously go into specifics, but for some of you guys. You will never be happy with TA. After watching our competition in the Big Ten West, we should be glad we have a guy with TA's skillset. He's not going to win awards, but he's a gamer. If you can't see that, than watch guys like Leidner and Stave, and tell me you'd rather have them at QB for us.

Day after a loss is always interesting. I was worried at the end of the 2nd quarter. After Brown's (first) missed fg, I didn't feel a comeback. I didn't feel like they could do it. But they did it. Despite the fact that there are issues, the fact that a comeback occurred on the first game of a first year in all new schemes against a team that definitely isn't a pushover. That's BIG. It sounds to me like Mike Riley might have never had a team capable of a comeback the way that we came back. Which is why he might have sounded so optimistic. (I don't know if that's a true statement or not, don't know is OSU made comebacks or not).

How'd we do in the second half opening drives. That'd be an interesting stat. I know this game particularly was not one of our best. Bo must've had the handcuffs extra tight on Tim Beck that second half. We didn't score after halftime. If I remember correctly, we didn't have any turnovers to start out the second half, so I'm guessing it was just several punts in a row. Last season was pretty consistently successful early on in games, but still interesting too. Possibly our fastest start of the season was when we were up 17-3 against Wisconsin. Yea, I was at that UCLA game, it was horrible. My daughters first game too. That Wisconsin game is another good example as to why our second half starts migh be an interesting look. Simply because you hear a lot about our inability to adjust as a coaching staff. Clearly Wisconsin adjusted something. I wonder if there's definitive evidence that puts that "no adjustment" argument to rest. Or maybe it doesn't. Our possessions UCLA 2013: 3rd Quarter Punt Punt (3 and out) Punt (3 and out) Failed fake punt 4th Quarter Fumble Punt (3 and out) Ran out of time

OOOOOOOHHH.... Duh...

It's gone...

I agree with you completely. Anyway, it doesn't look like a homerun play though. They were bringing 6 on the play, so it was meant to take advantage of that, and conceptually it did. With 4 of their 5 guys deeper than the route, it was meant as just a completion and moving the chains, because he would have been tackled by the guy who eventually intercepted the ball. Had we run the ball... On that play, like I said, MSU blitzed 6 on the play. It wouldn't have turned out well, also, with only 30 seconds on the clock, best general practice in that situation is to throw the ball. It makes sense to throw the ball. The play call makes sense. It was just the personnel, and that just came down to Bell being out, and Moore running two deep routes in a row. I cannot place the blame on the players, they were inexperienced. The coaching staff knew that.

You're asking why Tommy is throwing a specific pass play on a 2nd and 10 situation with 30 (+/-) seconds left in the game on a crucial and potential game winning drive after throwing two great balls to Moore the two plays previous? Honestly, I have no idea how to answer that question. If I'm not mistaken, you're questioning the play call. Which is understandable. I don't understand why Beck would want that pass play, dependent on good timing to be run by two inexperienced guys. DPE and Hovey may not be your best candidates for that play in the crucial of a situation, and it showed.

I always liked part of Beck's scheme. He utilized some creative stuff in the running game. He might be a passing game wiz, but I liked the bones of his running game. The problem I always felt was that he needed someone to massage the system. Someone other than Bo to tell him how to make it better. I think he's getting that from Meyer. And you can bet that Meyer is getting something from Beck, too. I remember Meyer was calling the game against Michigan in 2011. And we ran that inverted veer with a speed option attached (TM hands off to Burkhead, who then runs speed option with Ameer, Ameer scored). Anyway, I remember Meyer said something of the effect of "I might have to steal that play..." I think that play stuck with him, and I think he's "stealing" the play now that he's got the guy who used it. Maybe I'm looking too much into some dumb commentary about how much he liked the play though. Either way, I think there's merit to each part of the argument. There were a lot of things I liked about Beck, but a lot of other things that I didn't like about Beck. I almost wished someone else had his playbook and called the plays for him (Me, with a controller on my couch, with some Cool Rand Doritos and a bottle of Pepsi close by to help me think...).

Could always use a drone.

Timing. Tommy used to Bell most likely in that situation. He throws where Bell most likely would have been, as he probably had been in practice. Hovey, ran it maybe once before. Maybe... Let's break it down like this. Let's subtract ourselves from a passing play and into a buck sweep. Look at the play below. Two pulling guards. If that second pulling guard (#63) runs into another lineman, or trips over one of their foot, the timing and play is blown. Because his block on the inside second level is essential to creating that running lane. If he isn't there, due to not moving fast enough or tripping/running into a fellow player, this play is broken because the RB couldn't run passed a slower LB. OR The WR doesn't crack block the first LB. A potential TD turns into a disaster because one guy, for one reason or another, doesn't execute. The RB isn't going to stop running because he's ran the play numerous times, and knows what he should expect. It comes down to timing and execution. Tommy was expecting one thing, but it didn't end up happening. If nothing else, this is just an excuse to watch the buck sweep...

Just say you don't like Tommy and move on. Either way, your questions have been good ones, and valuable too. There's actually football discussion! I can tell it's almost football season!

The problem was that Hovey didn't know the route like the back of his hand. Bell would have. That is where the problem stems. Tommy probably has that timing with Bell down. But Bell wasn't in the play, Hovey was. The issue was timing and Tommy probably didn't spend too much time getting timing down with Hovey. Keep in mind that Hovey, probably ran that play once (if that) before he had to do it in a "comeback in the 4th quarter" situation. To me, Tommy made the correct read, and put the ball where it needed to be. However, timing was off due to Hovey just plain being inexperienced. It's on both QB and WR. Every passing play has a high potential to be picked off. From what I saw, it seemed like a good play call for the coverage and it would've gotten us a first down. But that's not what happened.

Writer's annoy me to the point of it being incredibly unreasonable on my part. I totally get it, it's their job. But I can tell you that they know no more than you and I at this point. I'd believe the writer who said "Watch out for Auburn this year, they are really going to turn it around" back in 2013. Or the one who said "Texas is really going to blow this year" back in 2010. All pre-season of course. Other than that, right now, it's just all overgeneralized statements. "Nebraska could be 3-4..." is stupid. If Nebraska is 3-4, than they probably end up going 6-6, losing to MSU, as well as Northwestern. Because that 3-4 team probably isn't good enough to beat Northwestern, who has generally played decent against us. Look at the schedule and understand what a true 3-4 Nebraska team will be. Don't just generally state "3-4, then loss to MSU, end of story". 9-3 seems to be the safe bet. I'm feeling this myself, but we don't know. As I said, writers drive me nuts. Pre-season crap drives me even more nuts. And it's unreasonable on my part. I should love the fact that writers cover college football! I should eat it up! And I probably do more often than I'd like to admit, but that doesn't mean I want to punch these guys sometimes.

Kick me off of HB too, I'm with you on Wilbon. No ideas on defense. Could be premature but WTH . An occasional bump could be interesting as the season progresses. We're jinxin' it as we speak, but screw it! I'm with ya buddy!

Yes, Tommy had to stare the WR down in some cases, in order to determine that the WR is making the same read as himself. Otherwise, you get issues like the pick 6 against McNeese St. Tommy threw what looked like a wheel, or a fade. But Westerkamp ran a quick out.

Some route combo's have built in reads depending on coverage. The simplest to explain is the 4 verts. A team (Texas Tech in the Leach days) could run "4 verts" numerous times in a drive and it could look different every time. To us 4 verts just sounds like all guys just run seams and streaks/fades! Go! But actually, only one guy (Y) runs a seam every time. He owns the hash he is on. The other inside guy (Z) attacks the safeties, taking advantage of the way they move. Depending on the coverage it could be a seam, a long post, a short post, or a "pop" pass depending on if there's a blitz (he's told to look back when he passes the LB's in this case). The outside guys run a streak or fade depending on coverage, or if they can beat their guy. If not, they run a comeback. Sometimes, it can be pre-determined depending on coverage. For example, in a Cover 3, you can run the comeback to an outside WR with ease. Which is why you see a comeback sometimes and you weren't thinking "That was 4 verts". That's where quarters comes in. Quarters is decent against 4 verts. Bo's "pattern match zone" (or whatever you want to call it) was good against 4 verts. So of course, we didn't see a lot of 4 verts during some of the games against Texas Tech while Leach was there. So Leach had a different game plan for Nebraska. Which is where we see Leach's crossing pattern routes, also known as "Mesh". Which Leach favored against us. In other words, some of these concepts have reads built in. I know we ran the 4 verts numerous times while Beck was here. I saw once during the USC game that we ran it, and Westerkamp ran the seam despite the fact that the safety was already where the seam was going. Tommy threw the obvious post, since it was open. In the end, Tommy looked inaccurate despite the fact that he made the correct read. There's more than a couple times I can think of where the issue was due to bad reads by either QB or WR, or both.