Wistrom Disciple

*Bill Callahan* enters the chat

Wishful thinking! I don't think Austin is getting as much influence as his title would suggest.

Would like to see us just line up and go straight ahead for a drive, less sliding to the side.

Congrats to your kid. I don't buy the "recruits are more excited about getting offers from SDSU than Nebraska" bit. I cannot think of a single recruit Nebraska has lost to SDSU outside of preferred walk-ons. For which congrats to those kids for getting SDSU to pay for their schooling. Yes, SDSU has had more success in the Mo Valley than Nebraska has had in the Big Ten. That said, there is quite a difference from Ohio State & Michigan to NDSU & Northern Iowa. We made the right decision at the time to switch to the Big Ten. We should not be looking backwards.

Noah leaving was a big hole to fill. I'm happy for him at Rutgers as he's gotten a chance to shine there and taken full advantage. I don't think his transfer should be considered a knock on the staff as he knew it would be difficult to be "the guy" here in the current situation. Adrian coming back as a two year starter, Luke coming off a redshirt year with plenty of fan hype. He saw a chance at Rutgers and thankfully, he's played his way into being a stud for them. Also happy for Gebbia, he wouldn't have fit in with what Frost asks of the QB position so good for him to get a chance to lead the Beavs. Same goes for O'Brien at CSU. Nice kids, just not the fit for them.

I think you're missing the point. The plan is not to play surrender defense (s/o Bob Diaco) but to have an aggressive defense with high pressure in hopes of securing turnovers. The structure and philosophy is the same as Alabama. Defend between the tackles well, forcing runs out and try to prevent deep passes. In order for it to work, they need a high scoring offense that controls the game. Failure on the offensive side almost assuredly will lead to defensive failure as more plays and possessions lead to more risk or defensive miscues. But to your question, yes the plan was for Frost's offense to explode and make games high scoring affairs. At UCF they were able to succeed offensively and put pressure on other teams to keep up. When opponents couldn't keep up, they would start forcing things and errors would lead to turnovers. In 2017, UCF was 1st in offense and 53rd in defense. They were 105th in Time of Possession but 2nd in Turnovers caused. They never scored less than 30 points in 2017. As a head coach, Frost has never lost when scoring at least 35 points. We have scored 35 points or more just six times the past two and a half years. You can dislike Chins to your heart's content but until our offense figures out how to break the seal on scoring, we're going to struggle quite a bit.

I'm curious who would be a better fit at this stage should the offensive philosophy remain unchanged. They finally are getting more of the body types they want on defense to fit the aggressive scheme they run. It is actually sound in theory... An aggressive, pressure heavy defense paired with a fast pace, high scoring offense (*need this last part to finally kick in*). The defensive philosophy matches what Saban's concept of the defense (defend inside out, avoid being beat deep, high pressure) only we don't quite have the same horses as Bama yet. Instead of a staff overhaul at this point, i'd prefer to keep the staff together and the offense start establishing an identity. I think that starts with keeping Adrian as our starter, mixing Luke in as a hybrid, giving our running backs & offensive line opportunities to establish themselves and some testing of deep routes. Less QB scrambles, less screens and more straight forward good ole Husker Power from the pipeline.

A few thoughts: 1. Runningbacks haven't been used properly this year (1/3 of total carries, 2/3 by QBs + Wandale) 2. Chins has actually improved the defense though last game was not good. The improvement is noticeable in the gang tackling, better fits into gaps and relatively few successful deep passes after Ohio State. 3. The bolded part is the key to it all. Chins' defense is supposed to be aggressive, blitz heavy with lots of pressure. The crux of that relies on the offense scoring points and controlling the ball so as to save the legs of defenders for four quarters. If the defense is on the field for 60+ plays a game, the aggressiveness is limited. If the offense isn't controlling the game, the defense naturally must dial back some blitzing to more of a bend but don't break stance while trying to bow up when it matters most... Example being the last four minutes of the Penn State game. The key to our success is offense figuring things out. We will not win many games if we're scoring under 20-30 points. Frost hasn't lost when we score 35+. Once the team can figure out ways to consistently reach that mark, then we can reevaluate whether the defensive side is holding us back.

No but you can't win without a Quarterback and Tommy was the last QB we had to win with any consistency. There was quite a drop off from Tommy to Ryker Fyfe. Our runningbacks also have 1/3 of the total carries on the year. I'd be surprised if any other program in the country has such a disparity. Hard for the backs to get any sense of flow or rhythm if they know that they might max out a 5-6 carries in a game.

I agree, I would rather have a stout defense too but the system Frost lives by is not one that leads to a top 10 defense unfortunately. It is no coincidence that of the Top 30 defenses (based on yards/game), 24 of those teams are in the Top 30 of Time of Possession in the country. I think the game will be much closer than most are predicting. I believe we're going to play much better and pull out a victory. I thought we would've won against Illinois by 7-10 so take my prediction with a grain of salt as I'm pretty optimistic about Big Red. Hopefully they can prove it this weekend.

Agreed! Which is why it is concerning that both QBs are under 65% when they have so many swing and screen passes in their favor. We have to be able to run the ball and not just scramble and screen our way to wins.

Defense wasn't good against Illinois. No question they did not play well. Beyond the most recent game, they have appeared to improve over last year. Here is the more important question: When was the last time the offense was good? Maryland last year sure... but before then? Frost needs 35 points to win games. We have scored 35 in six games the past two and a half years and we won each of those games. We are 3-18 when we don't score 35. If we are to expect the defense to win us games, we need to overhaul the offense and become the T-Magic 2.0 years where the offense just has to hold the ball long enough for the defense to rest and maybe score 1-2 touchdowns a game.

Armstrong also had to play in two different offensive systems and played to his strengths. He was not the pocket passer Riley wanted and struggled at times as he wasn't recruited for that style of offense. And yet he was still able to lead us to wins. As for the easy layups and inflated passing stats, Frost has called for dozens more screen passes and short passes within five yards of the line of scrimmage so I wouldn't get too focused on the stats alone. Adrian did have a good finish to his freshman year, played through injuries all last season and is not as bad of a quarterback as the record indicates. That being said, he needs his coaches to take some heat off of him and start utilizing the runningback room the way they were intended. We have no business in having our QBs and hybrid wide receiver taking 2/3 of our total rushing attempts on the season. All the talk and hype about Husker Power and the guys killing it in the weight room is dandy but we need to get to bulldozing to give the hype and talk any substance.

I think @Husker in WI provided solid reasoning above. In addition, yards don't matter to this staff as they gave up outrageous stats at UCF. The key difference between then and now is that our offense couldn't hold a candle to the way UCF was able to score points.

I don't know how to judge quality experience. Either you've played in games before or you haven't. The talent argument I agree with you. AM's problem is mental and also I would argue play calling. I thought it was wrong to change starters and unfortunately, the past two games have done nothing to prove that the change was a good one. I hope Frost goes back to Adrian and starts using RBs to run the ball. That should hopefully take some heat off the QB. Also wouldn't hurt to unleash a deep ball a few times a game towards one of our receivers that can fly.

The way Frost wants to play offense, I would be shocked if we have a Top 10 defense at any point. Their philosophy on football is to score fast and score often which is great if you accomplish that goal. They were able to at UCF and could put up with giving up 30+ points because their offense could get 35+. In Frost's tenure, we have reached 35 or more points in a game just six times (three times in both 2018 & 2019). We won each of those games. When we don't score 35 or more, we are a combined 3-18. Chins is not going to be Charlie McBride. He gets Frost's philosophy and has been recruiting to have the talent to fit the profiles to match their desired aggressive approach (lengthy bodies in the secondary, hulking lineman to tie up multiple guys on the o-line and backers that are good tacklers). That approach focuses on an aggressive defense with blitzes and guys that disrupt plays. That aggressiveness gets to be less effective the more time the defense has to be out on the field and the more plays they face. If the offense isn't scoring or controlling the clock, the defensive philosophy will get burned more often than we can handle. The improvement for our team needs to come on the offensive side of the ball if we hope to get the ship righted and start winning again.

They had five returning starting linemen, three returning tight ends, two returning receivers, the QB and RB. Experience isn't the argument here. Talent level could be as the coaches have correctly identified some young guys to step up in place of some of those returning starters.

Sure, that has happened a few times. Happens in the NFL each week as well. The reasons for our losses are quite a few, I can't point to the receivers being the root cause based on what I've seen. Not with QBs short hopping five yard tosses or airmailing receivers down the sideline even though the QB has time to set his feet and no defender within five yards. Or running our smallest receiver in as a running back 3-4 times in a row to the core of a defense with highly regarded running backs sitting on the sidelines. Are the receivers messing up? Yes. Are the QBs messing up? Yes. Are our coaches messing up? Zero doubt in my mind. If we want to start winning, we need to start playing team football and not hero ball. Our QBs and Wandale account for 2/3 of all carries (107) this season. Our runningbacks combined account for 55 carries total. Wandale accounts for 21 catches while the rest of the receiver room accounts for 21 receptions combined. The coaches need to start finding ways to get the ball distributed better because whatever this offense is, it doesn't work at this level.

Agreed on the internal accountability. I don't want to say those three were lying but it just felt like a weak excuse as outside of Warner dropping a couple passes, I don't recall the receivers making many boneheaded plays so far this year when given the opportunity. Maybe they are screwing around in practice but based on how they've been used so far this year, it wouldn't surprise me if they're bored with the screen passes or five yard slants into coverage. Would be really nice to have an Omar Manning sighting this week. His size alone would give a defense something different to think about. Agreed 100%. They use the receivers to block quite a bit but those screens only work if we are a threat to go vertical. Otherwise our blockers just become dummies with downhill DBs hunting for the ball.

How much of that goes back to coaching and the Riley/Langsdorf experiment? TA was a winner and the team was actually poised to do quite well going into the 2015 season before Harvey & Eichorst fired Pelini and went with Riley. Riley & Langsdorf failed to utilize the talent they had as the best players in their time or after were all Pelini recruits. Ozigbo was 3rd/4th on the depth chart for a lot of his career until injuries & Tre Bryant's retirement gave him an opportunity. No, TA was not the best QB in our history but for the changes his class endured, I think he handled it pretty well.

I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the numbers or comparing too much on this one. You have to remember that TA had a coaching change mid-career and still was able to perform fairly well all things considered. The stats that matter (wins, touchdowns) still are better than what we currently have produced.

That's fair, I thought Allen or Rafdal in a jump ball situation wouldn't be the worst thing for us to try. Those dudes are hard to get higher than

I'm not sure I buy the receivers not going hard quote. Feels like a quote to take heat off QBs and coaches. Receivers have been making some good blocks and were open fairly often during the course of the game. Luke being able to get them the ball was a different story however. His miss of Wandale being wide open 15-20 yards down the sideline was especially frustrating as he even had set his feet and was not touched in throwing the ball. Just missed him by a good 10 yards. Agreed that the coaches are too quick to go back to using Wandale and Luke exclusively. This last game it was obvious that Luke didn't trust his arm/eyes and would scramble at first blink. Martinez seems to be able to find different receivers in his one drive and actually looked pretty composed. Really hoping they start Martinez and use Luke like we did against Ohio State in various situations but not taking the bulk of the snaps at QB.

Yes, Martinez threw one to Wandale this past game. First time I recall us throwing more than 20 yards this season. Agreed with the last sentence, we have to throw deep every once in awhile. Either run a speed receiver on a GO route and try to outrun a player or get a taller option and make it a jump ball. Hard to get some of the 5-15 yard throws completed with the entire defense within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Bingo! Luke is talented but I don't see him as a QB1 for us yet and both QBs have suffered from some head scratching play calls so far this year.