J-MAGIC

JoJo was also one of the most heady college slot zone defenders I've ever seen and Kolaravic routinely got abused last year while covering running backs and tight ends over the middle of the field. Without him having some massive improvement this offseason I think him playing nickel would be a big liability.

I find it weird people are acting like WanDale was our main running back during his time here and we were pummeling him into the ground or something? We used him at RB like 5-10 snaps per game to get him the ball more, and a decent percentage of those were passing plays and screens. The rest of the time he was at wide receiver. He was more successful at UK because they had the offensive line protection and quarterback play to be able to throw him the ball down the field instead of underneath constantly like we were forced to do. While I'm sure it played some role it didn't seem like there was some seismic shift in his usage when he moved to UK; they were just a better football team than NU. If he didn't want to play any running back then that's totally his choice and I'm glad things worked out for him. But I am having a hard time pummelling our staff for trying to get our best skill player the ball as much as possible, especially if he wasn't voicing to them that he didn't want to be a ball carrier.

And you guys are acting like no one will improve and everybody's just going to play exactly like they did last year, when we've seen defensive lineman consistently get better every offseason. Robinson is already starter level. Rogers wouldn't have transferred had he been a starter, which would tell me coaches view either Hutmacher or Fiest as a starter. So then we need to find two depth pieces either through the portal or through younger guys improving. It would have been nice to keep Riley and Rogers but I'm confident guys of their caliber can be found in the portal. Chill out.

While this isn't the best thing ever, some of you guys are being melodramatic. We play nickel like 70 percent of the time now. We need two starters and three depth guys. We can find a Casey Rogers in the portal.

I saw Whipple staple concepts we didn't run much of last year like Levels, Shallow Cross and Drive mixed in with a little bit of the option stuff we ran last year. I also saw his main formations like trey and spread flex and that weird tackle over thing. There was plenty of new stuff we were doing.

I would say our spring game offense was like 70 percent pure Whipple stuff from Pitt and 30 percent Frost stuff from last year. I don't know what "new offense" stuff people think we didn't run. It was base concepts and not designer plays but no one runs designer stuff in a scrimmage.

I thought the interior of our offensive line was fine after we switched to Nouili last season and it seemed fine in the spring game. The two tackles got abused on the edge Saturday but those two guys hopefully will not be seeing the field much when Corcoran and Prochazka get back, so I don't think this should be setting off warning bells to put 40 offensive linemen on our roster or whatever. If Corcoran and Prochazka had gotten whipped all day I'd feel a lot more worried.

Aren't we missing both of our starting tackles?

Think people are overreacting to the defensive line a little bit. That and secondary are the two areas we've seen players make improvements each offseason under Frost. If Robinson/Fiest/Rodgers/Hutch can progress from backup level to starter level and some of the young guys like Weaver can come along to provide depth, then I think it will be fine. And we've seen evidence of that happening every year imo. Keep in mind that we were in nickel on like 70 percent of our snaps last season, which only uses two linemen. Not saying it's going to be the strength of the team or that we shouldn't go try to grab a couple guys for depth/insurance out of the portal, but when we talk about player development and "cooking" guys behind the scenes for years like Iowa and Wisconsin, this is where that shows up. And if that hasn't been happening for the last four years, then I think the staff doesn't have any reason to keep their jobs.

I do not have the time or desire to answer all of your questions, and frankly even if I did I'm sure you'd come up with some other justification to support our offense going in the opposite direction that every other successful coach has been going for the last decade. But if you'd like to view the charting for yourself and answer your own questions, you can find them here: https://black41flashreverse.substack.com/archive

If i recall he is one of our highest rated offensive skill signees so I think we would all be pretty bummed it didn't work out, even if he weren't local. Regardless, P5 college football is incredibly demanding and if his heart isn't in it it's understandable for him to want to go find what he's passionate about.

Per my charting last year we called a designed run play on 42.5% of our plays, a designed pass play on 47.8% of our plays, and an RPO (a run or pass dictated by the defense) on 9.7 % of our plays. Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin were the only teams that called more designed run plays than us, but Iowa and Wisconsin never use RPOs. So in terms of when we actually ran the ball (our designed run calls plus our RPOs that were runs) we were ahead of Iowa and Wisconsin and trailed only Michigan and Minnesota in terms of when we were actually running the ball (Minnesota doesn't call many designed runs and uses a ton of RPOs that ended up being runs). Also keep in mind that in most of our games we were playing from behind, which is going to inflate our passing numbers even further. Additionally, of our explosive plays (traditionally defined as a pass or scramble of 16 or more yards or a run of 12 or more yards) 64 percent were passes and only 35 percent were runs. So (a) we already run the ball more than almost anyone in the freaking BIG TEN, and (b) our runs were not delivering a lot for our offense. And you're complaining that we didn't run MORE?? I imagine if we had been running for 7 yards on three plays every series and punting you'd be pretty upset, but that's what you're advocating for. Some of you guys want to be Iowa so badly and it's disgusting haha.

We ran more called run plays last year than any other Big Ten team besides Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin, and that's despite our pass game being vastly more productive and efficient than our run game. Frost wants to run the ball and has done it probably far more than was advisable given what we were actually good at last year. The "pass the ball" guys aren't the wrong or causing the divide. The issue is some people here act like we aren't prioritizing the run if we use any system that's not the flexbone or something.

i hope adrian does well and he will probably function better in a more controlled offense, but i will never be capable of rooting for kansas state haha. also, as someone who watches a lot of big 12 ball, klieman has been getting by on relying on a lot of snyder's guys who are now gone, and they've also had some pretty insanely fortunate close game luck. outside of deuce vaughn, the guys he's brought into the program have not looked particularly good, so i wouldn't be shocked if the talent around adrian took a large step back from where its been in the past few years.

1. Bringing up a team's cumulative record to discuss their offensive performance: Very dumb! We had at least a top 40 offense by every schedule-adjusted metric. Our record was bad because we had the worst special teams in the nation and played an insane schedule. 2. The service academies play in the AAC and Mountain West. When they play better teams with speed and NFL talent they almost always get blown away. 3. Mike Leach turned an awful Washington State team into a near-Pac-12 champion, which you're conveniently ignoring. 4. Do not seriously quote the 2001 college football landscape as comparable to 2022 and expect anyone to take you seriously.

Well if you're less skeptical of that number, then what do you want. For us to go from rushing the ball at the third-highest rate in the Big Ten to the first? Is that changing much? You are misunderstanding the broader point. Alabama and Ohio State, traditionally power rushing teams, looked at the landscape and future of where football was going and said, 'We should stop doing this and throw a lot more." Think about Nick Saban doing that. Every piece of data we have say rushing more than passing, no matter the talent, is the vastly less efficient way to play.

Excluding the Iowa and Wisconsin games (because I haven't charted them) and the Fordham game (because FCS games don't count): We called a designed run on 49.125 percent of our plays (this doesn't include any sacks, scrambles, and kneels -- just straight-up designed runs. It also doesn't include any RPO calls so the percentage of plays where we're actually running a run play is a bit higher.) Our opponents called designed runs on 44.2 percent of their plays (same methodology), and the only two teams we played that ran the ball in any game higher than our season average were Michigan (63% run) and Minnesota (62% run). So we already run the ball more than almost anyone in the Big Ten. In a 2021 world where Alabama and Ohio State have gravitated away from run-heavy schemes to offenses where they throw 40 times a game, a 50-50 run-pass balance is probably about as run-heavy as is advisable in the Power 5 if you actually want to try to be good and not just drag games into the mud and hope you get lucky on defense/special teams (the Iowa/Wisconsin model). I think you are deeply incorrect!

Here's my preview for the game, looking at OU's counter trey play and Alex Grinch's defensive philosophy! https://black41flashreverse.substack.com/p/oklahoma-preview-blasts-from-the

Been off the board for a couple weeks (a) because I'm trying to move across the country for work and (b) was pissed about the loss, but I was able to get some time to put together a recap of the game looking at the offense and the defense, if anyone is interested. Looked at some of the key stats, why we might have used nickel so much, Adrian's play and the gameplan controversy and broke down one cool concept each from the offense and the defense. https://black41flashreverse.substack.com/p/illinois-recap-fumbled-opportunity

The Martinez scramble was a boundary corner blitz that the secondary rotated over to cover. It wasn't prevent defense, Illinois was being very aggressive and for one of the few times we picked it up. It wasn't a fluke, it was Illinois being very stupid.

Tannor and Daniels both graded out by PFF with the highest pass rush grades of their careers. Just one game but if they can generate an organic pass rush for the defense that helps out quite a bit

He can say whatever he wants to but unless one back is significantly better than the rest this is still going to be a committee.

We actually do run a decent amount of straight draw on top of the other QB run stuff. 10 times during the Iowa, Purdue and Rutgers games. They have an RPO off it with a swing route on box numbers they ran a lot last year, especially with McCaffrey in the game. Gif of the play below and I explain it more in the post.

Quarterback run game is probably the best thing the offense was doing last season and Frost is really good at scheming it up so I don't think we should be trying to get rid of it. But you're right on both points. We've got to find a good non-QB running game so that those Martinez designed carries are happening 5-10 times a game and not 15-20. It needs to be the off-speed pitch and not the fastball.

Here's a more specific breakdown looking at a handful of Nebraska's core concepts ahead of the 2021 season, if anyone is interested: https://black41flashreverse.substack.com/p/5-plays-nebraska-will-run-against