brophog

I'm fully in agreement that play calling is a significant contributing factor....but the blocking is awful right now. Line, tight ends, backs, the whole thing. What's kind of amazing is how complete the failure is. Whether it's a downfield pass, running play, screen, just everywhere there are so many plays where we're not even getting a hand on a guy.

But that's nearly every head coach. It's a stupid hard job. The hours are excessive, the stress high, and every time you make any decision thousands of people second guess it. It just takes that certain something special to get over that 8-9 win level and start winning somewhat consistently against other teams that are also above that level. This is where we have a fundamental difference of opinion. The change, especially for programs in a short decline but have resources and a rich history like Nebraska, is nearly instant. That first year may border on more of a promise, but that second year is usually pretty confirming, and almost certainly by the third. Every year this kinda becomes more and more the case. High school offenses and defenses get more and more advanced, the players are much, much bigger out of high school now. Even since the mid-90s, there's so much more your incoming players can contribute. It jump starts the process so much compared to the old days.

Everyone has fans, and passionate ones. But what other state embodies one program, one school, one sport. Notre Dame may have a rich history, but Indiana is as much associated as a basketball state as anything. When you say "Nebraska", everyone knows you're talking Husker football.

The outside LB is the usual read on such a play.

That's exactly what he does. He tries 3 running plays, decides they don't work, and then does something else. 40 times a game.

I don't care about any of that stuff, and when the going gets bad, I don't think most other people do, either. All I care about is signs of promise towards the goals set forth when this most recent hire was made. I understood the argument to not fire Pelini, but I also agree that if you have high ambitions it made sense to go another way. I just had no idea why anyone would have made this hire if those were the stated goals. Too many things had to go just right. As long as a new hire is progressing towards those goals, I'm ok with that. Could be Frost or someone else. I think Frost has a chance at being a top flight head coach. He speaks with an intensity but also a vision. He seems wise for his age. It's only a chance, though, there are no guarantees. I'm not sure he feels he's ready for a program like this one. I get a strong sense that he wants to build at UCF and prove to himself he can do it before he takes on this task.

Except for at the moment, none of those three project to be massively overrated like that MSU team was. I didn't consider it much an upset then (I had a lot of posts before and after on that subject), and I still don't now. So, it would be tough to beat a better opponent, while maybe being a worse team than in 2015. That last part is certainly debateable. As of right now, I can at least say I'd be a lot more surprised to win against one of those three than I was to beat Sparty.

More even the corners are the safeties. Safety is the heart of a modern defense. Ours are serving cocktails on the blimp.

I grow tired of people treating this offense as an alien species. Its a collection of plays. Words like "pro style" and "spread" get thrown around without any definition! It's blocking and catching, throwing and running. It's Y-Cross, mesh, snag. It's a counter, ISO, draw. They are just plays and concepts.

They're also not far from 3-0, which only shows wins are not a great way to judge such things.

And that's why I disagree with some of the previous posters who feel he may have had long term success. He was less head coach of a program and more a salesman of himself. I felt like he was trying to off load an old junker rather than be the representative of the university.

I'm not so sure there. A lot of our current gains are -1 in October. The sad state of affairs is that we're pretty bad at both, given what we are trying to do. If I were to design a general idea to overcome a bad offensive line, especially one that had bad blockers at TE/RB, it would based on spreading the field with 10 personnel, with a very quick passing game dependent on deep to shallow reads, third to half field. Try to dictate numbers in the box and get my back in situations where he can make an isolated defender miss. It would be a grinder, and you're just kinda hoping to get a consistent 4 or 5 with the promise that someone might break one. The reality is no offense really functions great if you can't block.

Yes, Nebraska lost to Northern Illinois, and yes, that makes prospects for this season bleak. Rutgers lost to Eastern Michigan, a school that was 0-38 against the Big Ten and 0-58 against the P5 schools, and they looked horrendous doing it. If you think Nebraska is so bad they couldn't be a 2 TD favorite, try to see it from the perspective of the team that is such an underdog.

If two s#!tty teams play, and the rules state one s#!tty team has to win, it doesn't make the winner a hot dog.

His arguments were in regards to how the offense can use such tactics to exploit substitution rules. Often times the play count is cited as a means to increase scoring, forgetting that the game is drive based and alternate possession.

They're great teams to make you think you fixed a bunch of things that are still broken.

The point many are making (at least me) is that even with better offensive line play, the play calling is not putting players in the best position to execute. As to the "scheme", I don't even know what that word means in this context. Everyone has stolen from everyone so much over the years, trying to name an offense is kinda silly. They're plays built on their respective concepts. Modern offenses are pieces and parts, often in the same play call.

Here's the quote I latched onto, from the article Mavric linked. Watch that play again. CB is 3 yds off the line, jumps the route at the snap. Morgan has virtually no chance at that angle.

Hiring and firing is all gut. There are all kinds of mistakes in hindsight. I'm, frankly, not interested in "random example to prove a point" because all sides could play that game until the end of time. Would anyone believe me if I told you early on that a coach like Bob Stoops would win only one national title, despite a very productive 18 years? Or that Dean Smith or Tom Osborne would win any titles? You just don't know for sure, so it's a pretty pointless exercise. The best you can do is make an educated guess on if your guy is the right one. I've never felt Riley was the guy if your goal (as was stated) is to exceed that 9 win plateau and win titles. I simply did not, and do not, feel a guy with his track record suddenly becomes that coach. Others disagree, and still others didn't even have a clue who he was (and maybe they still don't). I feel that if your goal is to exceed 9 wins (not a trivial matter) then there is some element of risk. It may take several hirings to get it right. Going from a 9 win standard to 10 sounds like nothing, but each win takes more and more ability; it gets disproportionally harder and harder.

There are some absolute turnstiles on that line, and they've been consistently spinning.

You'll get your wish.

Rutgers likes to troll Vegas. Whereas the MAC just trolls the Big 10.

Even if this team were closer to its potential, this was expected to be a challenging schedule. My opinion hasn't changed since the opener, but as I said then, I didn't think the offense was as good as claimed in that game, nor the defense as bad as claimed. So, yesterday doesn't really sway my opinion much, nor have really the past 29 games.

Mamas and girlfriends.

WR screens do a lot of what the option did...source of cheap yardage, spread the field laterally, dictate numbers in the box, good in 3rd and short... Except they have one big advantage: they are much easier to install. The option remains a great play, but it takes a rather significant amount of repetitions to get right. Practice time is always a major constraint, and at all levels of the game safety concerns has had a diminishing effect on not only overall time but contact time and time in full pads. You can certainly run the option in today's game, but you pay a bigger opportunity cost than you do with other plays.