J-MAGIC

3 hours ago, BIG ERN said:

I don't see why people see it this way. JoJo and Kolaravic are the same height, weight, and athleticism. You think Gifford is faster than Kolaravic? 

 

For reference JoJo ran a 4.63 at the combine. 

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.

17 hours ago, Decked said:

It’s a problem because we have terrible depth & mediocre starters. We lost almost everyone worth a crap minus Ty. 

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.

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

They didn’t show hardly anything as far as the offense. They just ran very basic plays that probably 90% of programs run. 

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.

3 hours ago, BIG ERN said:

The starting line will be fine IMO once Teddy and Turner return. Overall the depth isn't the best so a few extra bodies couldn't hurt. There will be some kids hitting the portal soon. Voke will basically be an extra blocker many times on run downs which will also help. 

 

The spring game was so worthless it was hard to get a good read on anything - also the coaches didn't show any new offense that we will see come fall. Get Mathis and we have a good front 7 to compete. The DBs will be the question mark this year on the defense, but being in the B10 West that is my least concern. 

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.

9 minutes ago, lo country said:

It was very watered down spring game, but the DL looked better than I thought they would have.  But then again, our OL looked rough.

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. 

On 3/29/2022 at 11:37 AM, 84HuskerLaw said:

Ok Jeremy, let’s assume your charting is fairly accurate for the sake of discussion.  Without the ability to go back and watch the games and make play by play judgements as to the intent and design of plays, I can’t easily debate your figures. 
 

How many of the designed run plays had two or more RBs in the back field at the snap?

How many designed runs didn’t involve 4 or more receivers on the field?

How many designed runs involved the QB keeping the ball ?

How many designed run plays involved O line blocking with power forward / push the LOS type blocking methods?  
Why is the offense purportedly a predominantly RPO based system if that is so rarely used?   
What real benefit is the RPO ‘option’ if the run vs pass decision is made before the snap?

How many called / designed pass plays became QB runs because the passer did not throw the ball?

Do you have the pass vs run play breakdown for just the conference games (excluding the non-conference)?

 

I really want to understand the Frost offense and its defenders that seem to almost complain we have run the ball too much!  For me, it’s more about moving the chains, sustaining drives, winning the time of possession, and scoring TDs. We average only about 3 TDs and a FG per game out of about 13 possessions and roughly 20 first downs.
 

We lose possession time by 3 minutes a game when we should win it by a couple minutes. And that’s without Frost using his ‘tempo’ offense.  Our average drive time is at or under 3 minutes.   These are reasonable targets for our defense, not the offense.  
We average about 35 yards per possession which is not bad but when we give opponents more time to pressure our defense, our 4th qtrs become tough. 

I also might add that sometimes raw - unadjusted - stats don’t match the eye test or give a good indication of the which team is physically ‘winning’ the game, irrespective of the scoreboard. 
 

For example, I prefer to deduct sacks and sack yards lost from passing yards. And those attempts be added to pass attempts. Those are pass plays, not runs.  Imo. 
So, I tend to believe our run game, even as poorly executed and designed as it may be, is more like 4 yards and a cloud of Astro turf. Not very good, but it’s not as bad as seems.   If we improve it some and do it more, it can lead to more first downs and TDs quite frequently, while opening up the passing game.  We get quite a few completions but not so many TDs because teams over cover the pass.   

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

On 3/26/2022 at 10:42 PM, admo said:

Thanks, I'm sure Sean has a pretty decent feel on the situation.

 

I also think if the player wasn't a local kid, this wouldn't be as much of a story.  Either way I don't really care.  It's like, ok, ok...

 

I like Mickey and the guys he has right now (and the new guys coming in the fall). I'm not even worried.

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.

2 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

I’m not sure it’s quite accurate to say Huskers fans fixate on the FB position but it is true that many of the fans are fixated on the losing year after year and find the lack of success largely related to the inability to run the dam ball.   The pass the dam ball guys seem focused on getting rid of the power run game equally as much.  Most of us see the need for both but it doesn’t seem like the pass the dam ballers can come to accept this.  But this is the great divide that parts the Big Red Sea.  

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. 

40 minutes ago, Jeremy said:

It would appear that you can NOT be successful doing what we're doing. Once again, 3-9. (After a 3-5 season the year prior.)

 

Yeah, I know, we 'fired the coaches responsible for the shortcomings.' Sure. I seriously doubt that passing MORE is the answer, but with Whipple, the great offensive mastermind, maybe we'll be Pitt 2.0.

 

How do you explain the success that that the service academies have had in recent years? Winning WAY more games than we have? They alone prove you wrong. Navy won 11 games and beat a good Kansas State squad in Liberty Bowl in 2019. ELEVEN. WINS. 

 

Air Force won 11 games in 2019, too, beating Mike Leach, the Air Raid guru in the Cheez-It Bowl. 

 

The Falcons just finished with 10 wins this year, Army with 9. 

 

The last time we won 11 games in a season? 2001. Guess what our run/pass percentages were. 71.4% run to 29.6% pass. 

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. 

3 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

If we can get the same quality of athletes as Ohio State and Alabama, then yes.  Otherwise I'll believe it when I see it.

3 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

I'm less skeptical of that number than I am the 55-60% people have been trying push.

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.

4 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

It's kind of funny that we only get to that 55% because were were so bad at passing (sacks and scrambles count as running plays even though they're just broken pass plays).  We had lots of sacks and scrambles. 

 

In terms of playcalling, Frost's offense is, without question, a pass heavy offense.  That's easy enough to see if you watch the games.  I don't know how one would define "pass happy", especially since it's such a sad sight.

 

One thing that Frost and Whipple's offense have in common is they're very lackluster offenses until you have a QB that's playing at a very high level (Milton for Frost, Pickett for Whipple).   The next time Nebraska has a QB passing the ball at that level will be the first time Nebraska has a QB passing the ball at that level.  I don't see why it's so difficult to comprehend that going back to being a run heavy smashmouth team could benefit Nebraska. 

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

1 hour ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

The touchdown was a bit of a fluke, a broken play when Illinois was essentially in a prevent defense with a 21 point lead. 

 

If we had seen more designed QB keepers -- or even more successful scrambles after holding the ball too long -- I think you could respect AMs running game more. 

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.

5 minutes ago, PasstheDamnBallGuy said:

Yeah it seemed like just flashes before but I think he is locked in now. No matter what else is going on I feel like this dline and defense overall should be fun to watch this year. 

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. 

17 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

 

I think the point was we run very few straight draws, where it's basically pass blocking and trying to let guys run by the QB. We run a lot of QB darts/counters/powers where Martinez might do a quick pass fake, but not many of them are actual draws and are more similar to standard RB runs. 

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.

4 minutes ago, Farms said:

Yes sir and I'm not dissing on it other than I think we've relied on it way too heavily due to lack of success with anything else.  A.) Like you said, huge injury risk and if Martinez goes in I"m not confident we can have the same season with our number 2 right now.  B.) Martinez has put the ground on the ball quite a bit and that's not a even a knock on him.  Running the QB that much you're more likely to fumble. 

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