dergibog

Really? Green ran two QB sneaks deep near the endzone, then almost threw a pick at the 15. That wasn't what Wats and Bo were looking for.

Leave PhilDillard in there. He makes some incredible plays. He will be sorely missed next year. Compton and Fisher were not impressive.

Bradr's comment about the Huskers going with "The Coach Who shall not be Named" ignored the jilt Nutt gave the Husker jet on the runway in Arkansas.

Not really. The difference between 3rd & 4 with 13:04 and 3rd & 4 with 13:00 doesn't necessarily change what the team will call or how they will play. Those few seconds have practically no impact on the game whatsoever. Now under a few minutes and a team needs a score, the clock really comes into play. The team changes what they call. They run sideline passes, run out of bounds, and conserve clock. Those few seconds gain more value. Ideally you'd want the clock to be 100% on track the whole game, but is that really practical? Sometimes, every second throughout the game would've counted, but only in hindsight. Here's my problem with using the stadium clock on that play: The Stadium clock is not the official time! That's why the referee is always telling them to "Please reset the clock to 2:34" because HE has the official time. Why does he go to replay? He has the time on the field!!!!

This is easy. We WERE in this position at Colorado two years ago. Ganz spiked the ball with two seconds left in the half. We were told then that the play was not reviewable. Two years later, Big 12 championship and BCS Championship game on the line, suddenly it IS reviewable. Just saying...

I don't know about Wats. There was good article by Chatelain the OWH today. http://omaha.com/article/20091206/BIGRED/712069805 The stats for Wats' offenses in the past just aren't that impressive. Mostly in the bottom of the Big 12 in total offense and scoring offense. "Since 2000, Watson has been an offensive coordinator nine seasons in the Big 12. At Colorado (2000 to ’05), and at Nebraska (2007 to ’09). His standing in the Big 12 offensive rankings: • ’00: 8th in total offense, 10th in scoring offense • ’01: 2nd, 4th • ’02: 9th, 9th • ’03: 9th, 8th • ’04: 9th, 9th • ’05: 8th, 9th • ’07: 5th, 8th • ’08: 6th, 6th • ’09: 11th, 8th "

Imagine the impact it would make to just the Manhattan area scalpers and hotels..if they hosted next weekend. Are you talking Manhattan Kansas? Bill Snyder stadium only seats 50,000. Not enough seats. I did notice that the Wikipedia picture of Snyder stadium was taken during a Husker game. Notice all the red in the stadium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Sny...tadium_2006.jpg

I'll take Watson's play calling and winning over what Mangino pulled off tonight against Mizzou. With Kansas leading by 3, but pinned deep inside the one yard line and under two minutes to play, Mangino calls two pass plays out of the endzone. Both are incomplete so the clock stops. Third down he calls a QB draw which gets stopped for a safety. If Mangino runs the ball even a QB sneak, Mizzou has to call it's last time out, and maybe doesn't get close enough for the game winning field goal. It would have been a game tying field goal except for the safety. Watson dials up an 80 yard drive to clinch the win at CU. He did the same against Mizzou. I hope I don't see another option from this offense again, but I'm going to quit bashing Watson. He's getting it done with W's. Reminds me of an old tennis book by Jim Courier "Winning Ugly"

Suh is in the lead as of 9:15 PM

I think you're wrong about him not looking back at the ball. The way I saw it, he was playing the ball, and looking to make the pick. They both ran out of room on the narrow sideline. I was listening to the radio while watching the game, and one of the broadcasters mentioned the same thing, that he looked like he was making a play for the ball.

After reading the Bloomberg story about Patrick Witt leaving the Husker "football factory" for the Academic factory at Yale (which omitted any reference to his dad demanding that he be named starting QB before spring practice), I watched the last part of THE GAME between Harvard and Yale. Yale led 10-0 in the fourth quarter, gave up a touchdown, then faced 4th and 22. They tried a fake punt that gained 16. Harvard took over and scored another touchdown. Witt then threw an interception to end any chance for Yale to beat Harvard for the first time in four years. I hope the academics thing works out for him. Maybe there's a Bloomberg jinx!

Thanks noticing my masterful grasp of the obvious. Here's some more obvious observations. If the option results in zero yards or negative yards and teams can stop it with their front five or six, then the option pass won't work, because the defense doesn't respect the run. As for the fullback, you don't have to run the fullback, he goes through the line, blocking the linebacker or dragging the linebacker into coverage for the almighty option pass. I'm with some of the other replies. Quit running a play that doesn't work.

Why doesn't the option work for this offense? 1. O-line allows too much defensive penetration 2. Lee moves too far from the line of scrimmage. That could be because of the D-line in the back field, but he does it on every play. That messes up the position for Helu to get the pitch 3. There's no fullback fake to keep the D-line and linebackers honest. The D can just fly to the outside and stuff the QB or Helu. Wats should just $hitcan the option (including the read option) and put in the fullback, pound the ball and run play action IMO.

Yes he did an excellent job in every area in the losses to V-Tech, Tex-Tech and FREAKING IOWA STATE !!! Ok, I don't believe Bo was the one who got burned so badly by blowing the coverage in the last minute of the VT game, that was O'hanlan. Secondly, I don't believe Bo lost any of those EIGHT turnovers during the Iowa St. game. He had good game plans in both of those games and we could have easily won both, problem is, the kids have to execute. A coach can only do so much, but when your receiver is running down the sideline after catching the ball, about to score easily and just drops the ball without even being touched , what do you do? Make him run stadium stairs for the next couple of days I guess. I swear the players were trying to out do eachother in creative turnovers during the Iowa St. game. Who do you think called the wrong coverage in that scenario???? It wasn't O'Hanlan's fault, we were in the wrong coverage! I'm sure there were posts to that effect after the VT game. Rob Zatechka had the same comment on the sound off after VT. Bo is doing pretty good but he ain't there yet. Iowa State proved that.

Thanks Cy. I think the karma wheel was turning fast when you guys picked up your new and powerful head coach off the Auburn wreckage. I don't think the Auburn loss can be pinned entirely on the hat... remember the gd fake punt????? But the hat is history! Go Big Red

Independence: the Independence Bowl, now that Kansas and Kansas State have put themselves in bowl jeopardy. KU has to beat Texas or Missouri get bowl eligible, while K-State has to beat Nebraska in Lincoln, since the Huskers have two wins over Division I-AA foes. The Huskers didn't play any 1-AA teams, it was the Wildcats

Cy, I hate to break it to you, but it's not you. It's the f&%$ing husker football hat I bought at Huskers Authentic when my wife and I were headed down to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl to watch the Huskers lose to Auburn. That hat is cursed by "The Coach Who Shall Remain Nameless" or perhaps the AD with the $h17 eatin' grin. I wore it to the TT and ISU games before I realized it was cursed. I mean really eight turnovers???? I didn't wear it to Oklahoma, and look how that turned out. I'm now thinking about burning it before the KSU game, but I'm not sure if the mojo is best with it just sitting ignored in my closet.

There was always something I appreciated in the old option offense. One play set up the next play. Like the option set up the fullback up the middle. Against KU we saw where the pitch play set up the bootleg. The option set up the option pass and the Iso and Power plays set up the play action passing game. I always had the sense under the Watson Coast offense that there was just a list of plays and they just tried stuff. I'm glad to see we put together an offensive series that worked. I'm glad that TO shared his wisdom, and Watson was wise enough to learn from the Wizard.

Thomsen out of Elkhorn, may have switched to defense and a linebacker spot. Fulbacks weren't seeing the field much in the offense, and I think he switched in the fall.

Bo went off on Watson. I'm not a lip reader, but it was pretty obvious he asked Watson "What the F*&% was that?" and Watson screamed back "It was a F&%$ing audible!" So they both laid into Lee. As for the pitch, as a former high school coach, we never wanted the pitch at the running back's face or above his shoulders. It looked like Helu and Lee didn't have the right spacing, 3 yards away but 3 yards behind, and the pitch is out in front of the running back so he can run into it. I wonder what the original play call was. Helu into the line is my guess. Helu out wide gives Henery a pretty tough angle for the FG.

The refs could use some improvement. 58 passing plays for OU and NO HOLDING penalties??? WTF??? How could the OU quarterback throw an underhand toss to OLineman (#77) five yards behind the line, between the tackles and not get an intentional grounding call??? But I'm over it. It was a great game, but some of the officiating just makes me want to puke.

Hey Bo, that works out great, because I was really disappointed in the team during the Texas Tech and Iowa State games! Tonight the crowd rocked. It was as loud as any game I can remember. It rivaled the 1978 OU game or the game against Colorado last year, or even the Colorado game in the sleet in 94. The Huskers gave us plenty to cheer about tonight. The defense played with passion and everybody in the crowd sensed that and got behind them. It was awesome!

No, that's not at all what we can take from that. What you're saying there has nothing to do with what he said. What we can take from it is this: TO and Watson did/do the same thing - they try a bunch of different formations on the defense early to see what works. SAME. What TO would do was to make adjustments to that and go back and hit those plays again and again when they do work. Watson seems to find something that works and shelves it. For no discernible reason. DIFFERENT. Reading is fundamental. Thanks for picking up what I was putting down! I thought Watson did a great job last year adapting to personnel and adjusting in midseason. I heard someone today offer the observation that 1/3 of the big plays last year came off of improvised plays with Joe Ganz creating something out of nothing with Swift and Peterson. We knew coming in that we didn't have that experience. But it also makes me wonder why we can't create some big plays within the offense.

I had similar thoughts about Watson's offense until I heard Tom Osborne on the radio a few nights ago. TO said early in the game the Huskers would run different formations to see how the defense reacted. From those reads, the offense would adjust and TO called plays to take advantage of what the defense was doing. He specifically mentioned creating short yardage on 3rd down to keep the defense from "pinning their ears back on third and long, and just coming after you." That said, I still can't shake the feeling that Watson just continues to pull plays out of a hat. We ran out of the "pistol" on the first play from scrimmage against Mizzou and picked up good yardage, but we haven't seen it since. Burkhead almost broke a touchdown running an iso play with a fullback lead blocking, but we haven't seen that since either. It's like we don't run the plays the work, we just keep digging deeper into that thick playbook.