brophog

It is also a big reason that the PAC 10 was thinking of dropping their 9 game schedule before the realignment talk began. They were hurting their chances at postseason access and making less money by not being able to schedule an extra yearly home game. A 9 game schedule means every other year you max out at 4 conference home games, with only 3 possible dates for future home games. An 8 game rotation means those that like to dine on cupcakes can have 8 home games. The price impact depends on who you are. If you have a 50,000 seat stadium, a million dollars to bring in a Sun Belt opponent is rather pricy. At 100,000......you gladly pay it. You're making more money on that home game than if you didn't have an extra home game. It comes down to supply and demand. Lower level D1A teams are the best opponents in terms of ranking implications per risk, but there aren't nearly enough for all of the upper tier schools to possibly schedule. Something has to give. Its another in a long line of consequences of having super-conferences.

Run/Pass Ratios are the single most overrated statistic in all of football. I can't exaggerate how meaningless that statistic is, nor how imprecise it is in today's college game. We track it only to abide by the rule that each play can only have 1 forward pass. It's usefulness in statistics and tendencies is very, very low. Now, if you want to track how many times Team A threw a flanker screen out of a Trips set on the short side of the field, that's meaningful. The number of times a team was credited with a forward pass is not. It doesn't tell me how to defend that team. Was it a 3 yard RB screen? A 7 step drop? A draw play? I think fans today are so much better educated about the game than they were in the past, but the media and the popular opinion on this stat is such a huge tether holding it back from going further. Especially with that word 'balance'. Blah, such a useless and generic word. It assumes that doing something in equal proportions is somehow a desired result. There is nothing special about having a 50/50 pass run ratio. In fact, from a big play potential, it is often counterproductive........and football is a game where picking up large chunks of offense at one time is a very desirable trait. Every successful offensive scheme is 'balanced'. By 'balanced' I mean the capability to present complementary looks and actions in order to derive specific results from the defense. A triple option offense is balanced via the FB dive or outside release. You're attempting to give one look to a playside DE and enticing different actions. The Zone Read is balanced via the backside DE. We don't keep mainstream stats on how often the FB Dive was ran, but we track how many times the same offense threw a forward pass. The former, which is important, doesn't enter mainstream consciousness despite the fact it is infinitely more important to the success of that offense than the latter. Of all the complementary actions, the pass-run relationship is just one of them and yet because it is an easily accessible statistic it is given an enormous priority. For general purposes, its pretty meaningless to know if your opponent passes the ball 45% or 52% of the time. Now, if we make it situationally specific, it becomes more important. You want to know how often on 3rd and 3 or less the opponent ran an ISO or threw an inside slant on a 3 step drop. That's meaningful data that tells me how to defend that down. That's what I really want to know......how do I defend it. The problem with pass/run ratios is it turns the game into a simple dichotomy: it's either pass or run with a requisite response to defeat it. Early computer games on the sport were this way. It ignores the diversity of this game and attempts to simplify it to an erroneous degree.

It's always been that way. Teams formulate offenses to defeat the popular defense at the time and then defenses attempt to adjust........kicking off the next popular defensive era. Defensive constructs have typically been more generic and more rigid, and therefore once an offense found a way to defeat one defense they could have success against the popular defensive construct of the era. The idea that an offense has to attack multiple fronts is a relatively new concept in football history. Not only do defenses run so many more fronts these days, but run a lot more games and stunts with a wide range of blitz packages off of those combinations. Defensive innovation is at the forefront, mostly be necessity. The rules have so heavily skewed the advantage to the offense that you have to be more creative than ever. Defending the passing game through physicality just leads to too many hankies......gotta outsmart them now. The side that makes the other side think the most has the advantage in today's game.

I don't, for a lot of reasons. 1) The passing game is simply more efficient from a per play standpoint. 2) The rules heavily favor the passing game. 3) The size of today's athletes favors the passing game. 4) Very, very few current coaches are trained in sequential playcalling. None of those say that the option can't work. None of those say that the option won't work. None of those say the option cannot be part of an overall offensive system. They simply say we will not see a large scale trend towards option/wishbone/veer offenses in the near future, imo. The forward pass has simply become a dominant figure in modern football and as the coaches that started in a sequence based offense continue to retire, that will only become more the case. I'm not saying the option is going to leave the game, but the multiple wide receiver offenses have replaced it as the defacto choice amongst the lesser talented institutions and that was always a huge draw for the option. The option's future I believe will exist as a complementary part of an existing offense. What we're seeing is versatility come to the forefront, even in the slow to change NFL: 40 Nickel, 33, 3-4......all of these structures have become popular because they bring more flexibility in personnel. One of the things I have a hard time explaining to people is the rise of the 3-4 in the NFL. The standard idea amongst the public is the 3-4 is a 2 gap scheme, with a 0 tech NT, and with little variance from that singular idea. It is so much more flexible than that. The same thing happens at the college level, but instead of flexing the DE/OLB we're flexing a LB/S/CB. Teams have different ways of doing it, but at the end of the day it is in response to offensive variability. Defenses need to be more versatile in their base sets. Gone are the days we put 8 in the box expecting a lead ISO on first down and only moving to a Nickel on 3rd and Intermediate or longer. It may be 5 wide now on first down and 2 back on second down! Most defenses these days run a lot of fronts, to the point even calling an NFL defense a 3-4 is a bit of a misnomer. Some "3-4" teams aren't lined up in a "3-4" by alignment more than 10-15% of the time. You really can't discuss modern football defenses without looking at them by personnel and by alignment. We just play so many fronts these days that thinking about the defense as a whole as a combination just won't work. It's not your daddy's game anymore, on either level. As these defenses become more versatile, the offenses again respond. The basic passing concepts used in most multiple receiver offenses are zone based; attempting to outnumber zonal defenders in a single part of the field. Defenses have adjusted by using more man and matchup zone philosophies. More film study is done now that helps players recognize offenses by passing concept rather than by route. More understanding on the defensive side is happening in regards to tendencies and route combinations. Bill Callahan may have failed in a lot of areas as a head coach, but he deserves a great deal of credit in upgrading our technology in these regards. When you see Asante and Amukamura change the defense at the line so seamlessly, that's a direct consequence of their detailed film study. No defensive structure is more powerful than the ability to recognize the offense's intentions, just as no offensive structure is more powerful than the ability to defeat the defense's on the fly. The response to the other team playing man is to either attempt to outnumber them in the box, with schemes like the zone read or to create open space by bringing players closer to the line with bunch formations, or utilizing more tight ends. The option is another way; teams that play a lot of man defense are more susceptible to being blocked by receivers. Bubble screens.........the list goes on and on. What we're seeing are offenses doing a little bit of all of this. They're not as specialized as they were, which you'll no doubt notice bothers many traditional college football fans who relate their team by an easily recognizable structure. I applaud Watson in that he understands this need for versatility. I was really against his hire, and made my opinion on that known publicly, but in 2008 I issued a public apology......that offense married these things together and became difficult to defend. If we keep an open mind, and improve from a technical aspect, I think we'll see this variability again. Watson is the type of coach that is willing to step out of his comfort zone a bit and bring together divergent ideas, and that's the type of offense I think we'll see in the next decade. I think we'll see teams attack versatility with versatility.

I don't think the coaches were ever going to give Adi the option. It isn't what is best for the team, and outside of just the thrill of placekicking in college it is rather irrelevant to Adi. If his preference is to play professionally, they don't really care what you did in college. Kickers are rarely drafted and even the guys that go in the 3rd or 4th round are as likely to get cut week 1 after missing a few as anyone else. Even more than any other position, kicking at the next level is a week to week occupation. If kicking professionally is his concern, Nebraska will get him an invite into camp. After that, he's on equal footing with every other kicker. That's the blessing and curse of the position at the next level. If he wants to be the full timer, he's in the same predicament as every other single player position on a team.........he's gotta win the job. Redshirting to avoid competition is very rarely going to work for anyone's benefit. There's just always someone else you have to compete against. More to the point of this thread, I'm glad to see the position given a priority in the recruiting process. Given the impact of the position on the games that really matter, it's a shame how little respect it is usually given.

I'm not exactly part of the twitter generation, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little long winded at times.......

Don't let this week make much of an impression on you. There has been a lot of chicken counting, name calling, and a general lack of intelligent thinking around here this week, mostly due to the emotional cost of all of this. It has been a pretty atypical week around here. Its best just to not put much stock in what is said until things calm down.

Trying "hard" means not catching the first flight to LA..........

I think it is actually the complete opposite. The SEC takes a hands off approach with its members, whereas the PAC10 is very much the opposite. USC may be the "superpower" of the conference, but they do not run it. No major conference is more communal in nature than the PAC10. In terms of power and control of conference affairs, Texas would be walking into a conference in the PAC10 that does things as a larger whole. There are not the power brokers in the PAC10 that there are in the other conferences. USC is not the PAC10 equivalent of "Texas". On the field, it is obviously completely different, though historically Texas has fared very well against SEC opponents.

Let's hope it is indeed a "reward". I'm seeing a whole lot of chicken counting going on..........

That's because a false dichotomy has been established whereby two sides are drawn and both fail to even consider the possibility that the flaws inherent in the core system cannot be solved by either solution. That hasn't stopped each side from trying to construct "solutions", however. In the end, it amounts to nothing more than trying to heal a gaping wound with a small band-aid: all you ever accomplish is convincing yourself that you've somehow slowed the bleeding. It has to be understood that money generation is the primary goal of the athletic corporations and efficient money generation works in opposition to efficient team filtering techniques. It, therefore, becomes very, very political in nature. When two political forces are engaged, the mere fact that they are both wrong is rather irrelevant.

You'll never get anything resembling a champion as long as you're playing with this many total FBS teams and in conferences this size, with the strong monetary desire to play a substantial portion of non-conference games outside of the overall set. There just isn't enough connections between the teams to generate adequate data to make the necessary comparisons. It is estimated that games between AP Top 25 opponents has been cut around 40% in the last 20 years, and if you go back another ten years that number goes up significantly again. People can argue playoffs vs BCS until they are blue in the face and it just doesn't matter. Neither will work in the current (or proposed) state of top division college football. Money has driven away any possibility of improving that situation. Conferences long ago ceased to operate as effective subsets and became marketing coalitions. We can't even discuss the insanity of a "champion" when only one major conference plays a round robin and we have to resort to multiple bye tournament formats. When television became the major driving force in collegiate athletics in the late 80's any hope of putting together a system to even poorly approximate a "champion" went right out the window.

Odd choice for player of the year, however, I thought for large portions of the year Crick actually played better than Suh. His ceiling isn't as high as Suh's simply because he's not nearly as athletic as Suh is, but from a production standpoint Crick performed very well. Allen, more than Steinkuhler (or another DT) is more important to Crick's play simply because Crick needs a bit of space to operate in, and the more the line has to account for an edge rusher the more of that will be allotted to him. One area where Crick will need to develop to become "the next Suh" is in understanding team defense. Suh was able to utilize his attention to help generate opportunities for others. That's one of the big, often underrated strengths of Suh's game is he had an awareness for what others were doing in the scheme and made himself available to make plays to help others. For example: We didn't blitz much last year, but when we did it was often a simple Nickel Blitz. The Nickel shows strong at the pre-snap and comes off of the edge in a wide release. The DT stunts hard to the inside, and then the LB peels off of him into the B gap. The most important player in that blitz is that DT......he has to sell his inside stunt well to force the Guard to play underneath and protect that A gap. If he does that, and if the offensive team is in a man blocking scheme they are totally outmanned........3 potential rushers (N,LB,DE) vs 2 likely block (OT,RB). The RB will often take the Nickel simply because he's the immediate threat and if the DT/LB work well the LB will be hidden at the snap.

Unless there is reason to believe that the offensive line wasn't giving adequate time or passing lanes to a QB that was already playing at a high level, then an improved offensive line isn't likely to make an impact on QB play. There are times, especially with quarterbacks that don't move around in the pocket well or whom don't throw outside the hashes well, when an offensive line giving up 2 seconds or less will have a direct impact on QB play. However, contrary to traditional thinking, many stats often attributed to lineman in that regard have a far better correlation with the QB himself. Sacks are the most common statistic in that regard. Even when QBs change teams, their sack rate tends to hold rather steady. Traditionally we place the blame on the offensive lineman for a sack, when in actuality the QB controls most of the factors that would lead to a sack. If a QB showed high aptitude when given time, then the improvement of the offensive line would allow him to showcase that more consistently. However, most of our QB issues are independent of the offensive line. Our QBs are slow in the pocket. Their drops are too slow, their reads are too slow, and they tend to hold onto the ball too long (talking specifically Cody and Zac......Martinez has his own issues). I know a lot of people have changed opinion on Zac since the injury revelation, but I'm not one of them. My notes from the Florida Atlantic game are full of things that Zac really didn't do well. His stats look good because of the level of competition. The passing windows were huge and he often had 4 receivers open. He missed the proper window more times than not, often throwing players into zones and out of bounds. It is a classic example showcasing that completion percentage does not equal passing accuracy. His completion percentage may have been high, but he was not putting the ball where it needed to be put, when it needed to be put there. That said, I'm of the opinion that despite the injuries, Zac improved as a QB as the season went on. He still has a lot of work to do, however. None of that means the offensive line doesn't need to improve, because they do in a huge way. Where we should see improvement there and indirectly help the QB is in areas like not committing fouls and in the running game. So, so often last year we were a block away in the running game. Often poor technique just killed us. For example, I can think of at least two personal foul calls last year that were a result of poor cut blocking. One was against OU (iirc) where an interior lineman was attempting to block a LB, whiffed, and his moment rolled him into a blocked defender. The other I can't recall the game at the moment, but a missed cut block caused an inadvertent leg whip on a defender. We use a lot of cut blocks in this offense, particular on backside zone blocks and our execution of those blocks really needs to improve. That's just one example, of many. The plays were often there, though, but the execution did not always follow. More experience, a deeper, healthier unit, and dare I say a potentially more talented offensive line should indeed help the offense as a whole. I expect a big turnaround in this offense this year, not the least of which being what should be an improved offensive line. There's really no reason that this offense can't get back to the 425-450 yards per game level.

Last year there was four. OU, Texas, Ok St & NU. Those were the 4 teams in Steele's preseason poll last year, and I think someone mentioned it already but it was those 4 plus KU in the AP, with TT in 26th. It isn't surprising in the least that he put OU there. Steele values two metrics a great deal (as he should); turnover margin and injury rate. The reason being is because those are two of the biggest predictors of future success due to heavy regression to the mean (even moreso in the talent/schedule neutral pro game). Add returning experience (particularly at the college level) to those two and you have the nuts and bolts of a good predictor. That's a lot of the same reasoning behind picking Nebraska where he did. When you have two really good defenses like OU and NU had and they didn't heavily rely on large turnover margins, that spells good things the following year. Oklahoma was a good team last year. A really good team. They were simply a very unlucky team. That should even out for them this year, and that's a large part of what Steele is banking on.

Some caveats there: Penalties: You really don't mind all of the defensive penalties, provided they're during live ball situations. Pre-snap penalties and dead ball fouls you really have to clean up, but you're going to have a certain number of penalties during the course of play when you play coverage as tight as what we do and you play as overall aggressive as we do. Some of those pansy QB roughing calls and phantom PI calls are simply going to happen. The refs are hit and miss on those, and we all can think of several of both kinds that simply weren't fouls. It's the undisciplined ones you don't want. Similarly with the offense, though we just committed far too many bad fouls offensively. Formation calls, procedure calls.........those are always bad fouls to take because they are undisciplined fouls. Some of our offensive fouls were a product of bad technique. I can recall a few leg whipping and chop block fouls that were nothing more than bad cut block technique........we'd miss on the cut block and either catch someone else with our legs or roll into the back of another defender. Those simply have to be cleaned up. Defensively, we'll probably see more calls than we're accustomed to seeing, and that's really a good thing. With the way the game is called now, defenses just get screwed over, no two ways about that. If you're playing aggressive, you're going to get a lot of bad calls.

I agree with the popular sentiment.....every season's a 10 for me. I can't recall any season where that wasn't the case, for one reason or another. Yet, this season is different too. The fall from the nation's elite has made everyone appreciative for season's like the coming one. We're not taking for granted a potential preseason top 10 ranking, and that adds a lot of excitement. Last season has a feeling of redemption to it, both in how it ended and how it progressed. Position wise there is a lot of excitement. Niles Paul is at a place right now where the expectations on him should be extremely high. I fully expect him to live up to those and to end next season as a guy on both the conference and national radar. I really, really like the potential in this receiving corps, and it isn't just Niles. We have several playmakers on this team and I think once the season starts to take shape 1 or 2 of them will break from the pack and showcase what they can do. I'm not exactly going out on a limb here and saying Rex is going to have a MONSTER year. A lot of the RB talk has centered on guys pushing Roy with an implication that Roy is still the lead dog. Roy had better buckle his chin straps and lace 'em up tight because Rex will be awfully hard to keep off of the field this year. There is a lot to be excited for offensively. Watching last year's tape closely the offensive plays went better than commonly believed. We were so close so often to making things work. It was usually a small execution error that kept things from happening. Inexperience and injuries are the cause there, and with any kind of luck we make it through the season healthier. At the very least, we're much, much deeper across the entire team to be able to better manage those situations. Defensively, as good as the team ended last year it is easy to forget that the defense didn't really find its rhythm until the second half of the season. Sure, the numbers were good against the Sun Belt All-Stars, but the play wasn't on par with what it should have been. Its easy to forget that this great defense didn't earn their blackshirts from Pelini until prior to the Texas Tech game. Like the offense, the defense is further ahead right now than in the past and it is exciting to see what it may do over the full course of next season. Finally, this season has been anticipated for some time. Last summer, much of the buzz was already about 2010. A lot of people were almost thinking of 2009 at the time as an afterthought. 2009 was more part of the process and 2010 the destination. That excitement has only intensified in the last year.

I have no desire to roast you. However, let's play with these definitions a bit. Which formations are we describing? We could be in 22 personnel, with one lone receiver at the wide sideline. Is that a "spread" formation? He's certainly on an island. What about a jumbo set, but with the Backs and TE's running outside releases. That's going to create a lot of space and "spreads" the field. Is that a spread formation? What about your stereotypical Pro Set, 21 personnel, with each WR in a wide split? Is that a spread formation? What about Tight Trips RT, X receiver in a wide split? Is this a spread formation? I'm not picking on you.......it's a tough descriptor, and therefore one I never use if I can help it. It's simply way, way too generic. Most people who use the term are not describing formations, but personnel groups (others are merely describing Shotgun oriented offenses vs those predominantly under center). If a team, regardless of offensive structure, is based out of 10 personnel then they tend to get the spread moniker. They could run nothing but power, counter, traps, IZ, and OZ and they'd still get that moniker just because of their base personnel......even though it would fly completely against what most associate with the term. To get back to the original inquiry: My guess is Watson is referring to the Shotgun running game, and his reference is to a change in base personnel. There's no such thing as "spread running game" in coaching lingo.......that's mainstream talk there. He's trying to quickly take what they're doing and put it into mainstream language. The biggest difference in executing a run play comes in where the QB is lined up at because that changes your angles and your release vectors. For instance, if we're running Power out of a 2RB Shotgun set vs a 2RB set from under center, the RB's angle drastically changes. In a Shotgun set he's coming across the formation to receive the handoff, from under center its a vertical release. There's no such change if we ran all of our plays from under center but in different formations. I'm taking context clues here, but the only way that statement makes any real sense is if he's differentiating the plays from a Shotgun set.

You take just about any team and lose the starting QB and you're in for a world of hurt. Just look at all of the stupid rules the NFL has made up to protect QB's, and the majority of those offenses are just about as far from what you're describing as we can get in today's day and age. Even in a "balanced" offense, when the star QB goes down the team's season in all likelihood goes down with it. You name your offense and you lose the QB and your offense likely went splat. If you have the road graters up front to pop off 5 yds a carry you can get by, but very few teams historically can do that against even competition. The benefit of so many of these college offensive structures we see today is they take the premium off of having a top QB, rather than the other way around. You don't need the physical skills at that position because you're creating mismatches and easy throws through concept passing. Where your examples got hurt is in terms of reps that those QBs saw. That's independent of the offense. Take a 4 year starting QB out of the game and pop in a frosh and your offense goes to a crawl.

"Spread" is a concept, not the name of an offense. I remember one of Bo's first interviews once hired, there was a reporter who asked him how he was going to defend the "spread teams" in the conference. His answer was a little terse, and rightfully so. To him (and frankly, to anyone in the know) those were very different offenses he was going to be defending. One has to define the term before you can decipher those comments, and in the case of Watson's time here, its difficult to describe his offense under even vague terms such as "spread" and "West Coast". It has been more like a movie mash-up, and I don't expect that to change.

I blame the fact every kid suddenly has 9 fathers.

"Better" needs to be defined. Statistically, it is a mess. Take for example the probable conclusion I am seeing in this thread of an improved offense. What's that mean statistically? Total Defense numbers are bound to go down, simply due to far fewer defensive plays on the field. Sack numbers are also bound to go down, for the same reason. This defense did a remarkable job last year of continually getting itself off of the field. It created short drives for the opposition, and combined with the increased number of possessions by both teams that meant a lot of desirable pass rushing opportunities. Yards per play is a tempo free metric, but it is hard to get much "better" in that regard. It was under 4 yards per play as it was, and any improvement there is likely to be small. "Better" for me is defined by the personnel. One person against one person, perhaps not. Overall, however, this defense will have more better players, far more depth, and be far more versatile. Yes, Dillard played well his senior season, but we had very little help at the LB position. We relied too heavily on youth, and one of the big reasons the defense improved as the season went on was we found out that our best combination was using Dime personnel, regardless of the opposition. Against KU, that was a mismatch in their favor. They were able to dictate assignments that left us with one free man against their RB, and that was all too often Opurum vs Gomes. Gomes played his tail off when given the opportunity, but from a straight size advantage he was ill equipped. We'd have rather had a LB against that particular personnel package. Our overall experience is much better. Certain players will be asked to contribute this year for the first time as starters/regulars, but those players are now in their 3rd year in the program. The returning players are more experienced. Experience is like an avalanche.......it has a bigger impact as it rolls along. In year one, it was just coaches coaching players. In year two, it was coaches and a very few players with some experience coaching the other players. In year three, it finally begins to snowball because the collective pool of knowledge has grown to that point. Players have the tools and knowledge now to do more things on their own, and teach more players on their own. In a sport with loosely "governed" time limits whereby the principle governance is coaching contact, the effect of that snowball is magnified even further. Finally, this defense isn't starting from ground zero the way it has had to do the past two years. One of the reasons Bo "appears" to have difficulty in the middle of the season is that he has had to find ways to win once the real season begins. Spring and fall camp were more about just getting guys ready to play, rather than honing developed skills. That shows in midseason when the real competition starts and you find out that foundation isn't where you'd like. To Bo's credit, he's been able to scramble and find things that work to win games at the end of the season. In my opinion, Bo's excitement and the reason to be so optimistic is that we're at that level where most of that foundation is under us. It's now time to bring the young guys up to speed and hone existing strengths. When time is your commodity, the way it is in collegiate athletics, that makes a world of difference to the overall final product we see on the field. We can compare player A from December to player B in April and see a mismatch. Then again, if we looked at the defense in September last year and compared it to the one that finished in December, there is no comparison. That gap from the start of the season to the end of the season, for the total defense, should be smaller and in terms of the overall team success for the year that is huge.

Several of those posts were mine. Those of you that have followed various Husker message boards for the last 10-15 years may recognize the name, and those that have solely called Huskerboard their home, or have only recently followed various boards may not. I've been around a long time, though I post very infrequently anymore. If you notice, those were my first and only posts on that site, much as this one here is. I felt that some frame of reference was needed for those that don't follow Husker athletics, and some explanation in terms of statistical analysis was also required. Furthermore, the context of the topic needed some explanation. Even those of us that do follow the team closely can debate all spring on such subjects as who the QB will be, the battle for DE and DT, which receivers will step up, and who will replace the two starting safeties (amongst other topics). Imagine now an outsider looking at these unknowns and then seeing media, bloggers, and even betting sites pronouncing Nebraska as title hopefuls. Some perspective was needed there. The goal was not for me to sell Nebraska, nor give an intimate breakdown of the roster, but to provide reasoning. I was not there to cause a fight, but provide a framework and let them settle the issues themselves. For those that may not have noticed, that was the site for the Lawrence newspaper. As is the case these days, most such sites have something akin to a message board. However, these should not be mistaken for forums seen on sports network sites (such as the popular recruiting networks) or independent sites such as Huskerboard. Newspaper sites draw a very different demographic than sites specializing in the discourse of sports talk, and therefore the kinds of discussions one sees is also very different.