brophog

I'm not one of them. I definitely think we will look to establish the tight end position because there's some good numbers there, but two tight end sets in the modern game are more often not two inline tight ends. You're looking for an h-back or slot guy that you can get in a mismatch and then pairing him with an inline type. There could be some versatility in this group to do those sorts of things, but we will see how that develops. Two inline tight ends brings so many defenders in the box and if they feel they can match up man on the outside they can get a serious numbers advantage. With the state of the offensive line and receivers believed to not be great in this first year, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, regardless of the running back. Rhule and Satterfield will probably throw a bunch of things at the wall this first year, especially if things start off slow, but Rhule's teams still have common philosophies over the years even if the specifics change year to year. One of those is what I'm going to call 'common sense football' in regards to personnel. Short yardage: jumbo, 3rd and long: 4 wide, that sort of thing. In that sense, yes we could see some two tight inline sets situationally. If I had to describe what I expect this year in terms of offensive style it would be limiting the liability that is the offensive line. Rhule knows how important that group is, and while he may talk them up, he also knows Rome isn't built in a day.

I don't even know what to think about that, given where college football may be at in a few years. The Big Ten isn't done expanding, which means the SEC probably isn't done expanding. When we get to years 4 or 5, when this question would come up, what does 8 wins even mean at that point? Alabama may still get into a 12 team playoff with 8 wins.

The only person I'd even put in the same ballpark of universal hatred is the radio guy, but who listens to the radio these days. I'll say up front, I think if the Penn St job opened tomorrow, I think he's gone. He's not at that level of devotedness, yet. That said, I've been very impressed with how quickly he's acquiesced to the Nebraska culture, and not just football. The spring game tribute to Frank, and using the FB first play, I think that's his nod to the fans that he's going to respect that past. I would say, as general criticism of several past Nebraska coaches, one of the failings has been too tightly clinging to the past. Sometimes we are all guilty of living 30 years ago, and the game has changed greatly in that time frame. When you look at some of the top programs today, they're traditional powers that had semi lengthy down times and much of what has gotten them back on top is bringing in and accepting new ideas. In that sense, I think Rhule is a great fit, and maybe makes him a better choice specifically for Nebraska than other candidates might have been. He has a strong foundational idea of how to run a football program, but he's also been willing over the years to change things whether that's playcalling, analytics, biomonitors, etc.

Good article that goes to a point I really like about Rhule. In several speeches he'll say something to the effect of "I used to do it this way, but...." and then he'll explain himself. That article describes a few scenarios that sentence could be applied to.

I'm very interested to see how Lincoln Riley adjusts to the Big Ten. He's been quite happy over the years playing teams that also want to play his style. As much as we all meme on the Big Ten, I've always felt one of the underrated facets of the conference is how diverse teams are. That's one reason I'm super excited for Tony White's defense. It's very multiple and I think he'll have more tools to provide answers with on a week to week basis.

One brick wall is good, 3 brick walls is great.

The fact CSU is on that list just makes that all the more hilarious. There top 5 is not exactly risky, however. A bunch of teams with enough talent to win twice as many games as they did, and Nebraska has been making these lists for years because it should be mathematically improbable to lose so many close games without regressing to the mean at some point. A lot of of these sorts of predictions are nothing more than that, picking things that should regress to the mean. Turnovers and injuries are both very common because there is a certain amount of luck involved.

Football is actually trending away from that, because the math says kicking is stupid. Not Big Ten football, mind you, some of them just accepted the fact the forward pass isn't actually illegal.

I think there is definitely a certain logic to the idea that the longer this goes the more favorable the outcome could be for Nebraska. However, he also knows he's in no rush because the top destinations in the country will make room for him whenever he chooses. The idea we're accustomed to that everyone basically takes 1 QB and you'd better commit early to secure your spot doesn't seem to apply to him.

It is funny, but it's next to impossible to properly handicap them. We've just never seen this sort of experiment taken to this sort of level, all amplified of course by a guy like Deion who throws another wrench into that equation. Wouldn't touch that line for anything. No record Colorado puts up could be considered truly surprising.

I don't know about 2023, but once he gets this thing going I'd expect scoring to be in the high 20's to low 30's. Rhule just doesn't prioritize pace that highly, and I think over time more and more teams are realizing the same. There are also concerns that games are taking too long, and so rules will decrease the number of plays as well. Red zone was definitely an issue, but so was getting to the red zone. It's hard going 80+ yards every drive. It leads to a lot of drives that stall out in that grey area. Obviously some of the placekicking issues hurt scoring chances there, too. I think it is interesting to look at the 2018 yards per point stat. That year is picked both because we can see Rhule's second year, which is about the closest analogue to our current situation and because this is one of Frost's highest scoring offenses. This stat is simply how many yards of offense you had divided by how many points you scored. It's a level of how efficiently you score. Explosive plays will obviously help, as do special teams and defensive scores. Rhules second year at Baylor, 2018 Nebraska 15.9 (97th) (28.6 ppg) Baylor 16.3 (106th) (27.4 ppg) Rhule's final year at Baylor, 2019 Nebraska 14.9 (74th) (28 ppg) Baylor 13.0 (28th) (31.9 ppg)

Rhule is going to be a great politician if he wants to be, not that I think he would, and I'm saying that in a good way. A head coach at this size of operation is a politician at times. Every time you hear him speak, though, he just knows how to speak to that audience. It's a good speech and I ran through 3 brick walls after watching it.

Both Adrian at Nebraska and Sims at Georgia Tech can be very fairly questioned on their decision making. However, if you run a bunch of RPOs and max protect play action plays, you really limit that decision tree. That's largely what happened in this year's spring game.

Great video with Sirles. Positive but very informative.

I completely disagree with this assertion, and I think Casey Thompson is a good example. His play to date is pretty consistent and is much closer to his ceiling than Sims. Sims, on the other hand, has phenomenal tools. His potential is as high as anyone in the country, but he hasn't played at anywhere near that level. You see this play out in those projections above, Sims is much higher in most of those sets despite the fact Thompson's production over the past two seasons is significantly higher.

Generally speaking, season win totals are a pretty bad bet for the simple reason that you’ve tied your money up for most of the year.

The schedule isn't "Wisconsin Easy" (who'd they bribe, anyhow) but it's still pretty favorable. I think to win 8+ Sims has to both stay healthy and improve on his play from Georgia Tech. I think he only has like 8 wins in his entire career at this point.

Rhule really shows his coaching experience here. Rhule has figured out, very quickly, that no one appreciates, or criticizes, the offensive line like this place does. His job right now is to buy time for those guys to get good. I think we will likely see more backs and tight ends helping pass block, more play action, more RPOs and a liberal use of the quick game. I'm not expecting miracles, personally. I'm hoping to build this over the course of year one, get these guys believing, and have the pieces in place for (hopefully) a very good year 2.

Jeff Sims is a guy who is one good year away from launching up the draft boards because his athleticism and arm talent are so good. I don’t know how much today’s mocks are reflective of his position because he has a lot of room to improve. A few mechanical tweaks and some better decision making, and he goes from that sub-60% completion rate guy that typically bombs out of the league to a 65%+ completion guy that could be a starter. He has a lot of potential, but so far he doesn’t have the production to match.

I do recall one of his earlier press conferences, early signing day maybe, where he talked about how important he felt having an offensive identity was to the offensive line. He's also talked about needing to build their confidence up, and certainly play calling goes into that. I'm probably missing a lot of comments, too.

I think you are right. Not only the success if this season, but how this all will look, will come down to the play of the offensive line and keeping Sims healthy. A couple of things we saw in the Spring game: RPOs and Play Action (specifically 7 man protect). I don’t think the offense will be designed around Sims (even if they may say that) as much as it is designed to limit the liability up front. Those two play categories are exactly that. I expect to see a very pragmatic approach to football.

Don't sweat it, I had a poor post this afternoon, too. That's what I get for putting something up quick when I knew I didn't have the time to do it proper. I'm pulling for him, I think we all are, and I don't think any of the criticism in this thread is unfair. All of these guys in these last few rounds are playing just to make the team and I hope he has someone he trusts telling him the same things we're discussing.

That's always the thing when guys reach that level, isn't it. Sometimes going in the 6th round is a wake up call, and sometimes you find yourself playing in the XFL for 50k a year. He's not big enough to just play on the outside and rely solely on getting downfield, that's what I meant earlier by being a ''tweener'. If he wants to make the NFL work he has to become a better much route runner and just be a more focused player, in general. I think a lot of his drops are just focus and concentration. The reality of playing for your job every week has a tendency in some to alleviate that focus problem.

I don't disagree with any of that, but if he was 3-4 inches taller NFL teams will take that gamble. Most of his issues are coachable.

Because Herbie would be in transfer portal.