brophog

Iowa is so good they can win 10 games and still be the laughing stock of the sports world.

It's even worse than that sounds. Our long on the year was 8, and no one other than Billy and Ethan had one longer than 1. The punt return game was similar to the offense. Billy was the returner, but he was hurt a lot. We weren't even trying to return punts with him much of the time, instead just being content that he was going to catch the ball. At some point we just didn't even bother with a return game and opted to try blocking punts. Sounds like they're trying to develop some more options this year. The biggest thing you need in a punt returner, besides catching it, is the ability to make the first guy miss. Once that happens the blocking can develop and then you might have a chance at doing something.

If I can explain why Donovan is calling it 'lazy blocking' maybe that can illustrate why that's a bad idea. Imagine you're an offensive lineman and you've got your hands on the inside of the defenders pads so you can disguise your holding. Now try to slide your feet left or right. Your feet are connected to your legs which connects to your upper body which connects to your hands which are currently attached to a 300 lb man who doesn't necessarily want to slide left or right. If you slide your feet, your upper body and head aren't going to move with them and you'll get unbalanced. So, the remedy is to keep a wider base, minimize lower body movement, keep your head above your feet and try to do everything with just your upper body. That's 'lazy blocking'. Not only is it hard to make something as large as a 300 lb man do what you want with just your upper body strength, there are a lot of times an offensive lineman needs to be able to move. Plus, if you're keeping your hands inside to prevent the holding from being called, the defender can still move his shoulders and arms. Holding has its place and don't believe anybody that tells you any offensive lineman is never going to hold. There is a lot of value to what Donovan is saying about teaching 'knuckles up' vs 'thumbs up', and that's easy to illustrate. Hold your hands out in front of you knuckles up and see how easily you can manipulate objects. Now, try that with your thumbs up. With thumbs up, its easier to grab things but it's harder to do just about anything else. Would you rather them convert the punters?

I agree with that sentiment. Personally, I want to see Haarberg the most for the simple reason that his performance last year sets the baseline. I'm more interested in seeing how this passing game has improved than I am watching one guy throw everyone open. I guess I'm assuming if Haarberg can do it then the other two can, too, which isn't fair for me to say at all, but after seeing last year I don't think anyone would blame me.

Even for the time his numbering system was very simple. Back/Hole/Action where every back had a number, every gap had a number, and the action was play type, i.e. dive, iso, trap, option, etc. So the whole play would be that preceded by the formation and then could tag it with a motion call or an alternate blocking call or whatever they needed. Believe it or not, early Air Raid was the same sorta thing. The idea is that it makes it seem simple for your guys, more complex for the other team, and then you just rep the snot out of everything until you got it perfected.

Pre spring game are there really that high of expectations outside of that building? Seems like us fans are so beaten down over the years that we're afraid of even having expectations. From a neutral fan / national observer standpoint: Nebraska should be at the top of any sort of comeback / dark horse / breakout season....whatever you want to call it...list. There are several historically strong indicators to suggest this: Year 2 improvement 5 losses by 3 points or in OT Turnovers regress to the mean Returning experience The reason Nebraska fans may not think that way: Nebraska has been the team that bucks those sorts of trends over the years.

One of the reasons we've heard so much about Lloyd is he's with Dylan's group and he seems to be his preferred downfield target. But Barney and Neyor just got traded for one another, sending Barney to Danny's group and pairing up Neyor with Lloyd. That'll make this comparison more interesting, I think.

One of the reporters, and I dont recall which one, said they got to see 9 plays of Dylan during that session. They don't get to see very much.

Word is Belichick only came down and talked for 4.5 hours so he and Ed could talk about long snappers.

Danny isn't the generational talent that Dylan is, but he's right there in terms of the rest of that quote. The atypical part is really the coaches giving them the freedom at the line of scrimmage. The coaches could have talked about last year's poor performance and having to start a freshman qb this year and made that an excuse to lower expectations. They know there is a high probability that they're not only starting a true freshman but that his backup may also be a true freshman and they're trying their hardest to age those guys up. I think they're respecting the ability and intelligence of these guys by throwing the kitchen sink at them and letting them learn through their mistakes. The defense has gotten them a few times because of it but they've hit some passes that were damn near indefensible as well. I know there is a lot of talk about needing to work on the passing game because of how poor it was last year and how the running backs are a little banged up, but I think there is also a strong belief that given enough time, effort, and patience this passing game can get really, really good.

I think a couple of these guys are eligible to run for President.

By next year I hope there is a fantasy league so we can play along at home.

Look how excited these guys are to make a play in practice. <cue allen iverson> What a concept this spring league is.

This will be the story at some point. If you parse together the videos yesterday from the OCs and QBs it's very apparent a lot of emphasis is being spent on RPOs and the quick game. At one point Raiola made mention of explosive plays and when a reporter followed that up assuming he was talking about deep balls he elaborated that he was referring to turning 5s into 25s. This offense sounds like it will use the short passing game and running game to control the safeties and then take calculated shots with the play action game. Not only with WRs but a myriad of TE looks, too.

I believe in Year 2.

The problem is the courts have been pretty clear that it's going to be a wild west out there without some sort of collective bargaining. Between that and Title IX concerns and all of that and it's sorta no win situation. Everyone agrees this current path is neither sustainable nor good for anyone.

At the end of the day I don't think I'd put much thought into this job title. It's not an atypical setup for Rhule. Unless Rhule announces differently, expect Satterfield to remain the primary play caller. What this does do, though, is bring a much needed veteran into the offensive staff because overall it's a very young and inexperienced gameday coaching staff. At the end of the day, Rhule is the final arbiter and he has a certain philosophy. That manifests itself differently at different stops. At Temple it was a bit more run centric, at Baylor a bit more pass centric, but there is a common philosphy in terms of how he wants to manage the game at both places and Glenn experienced that with him at both places. With Raiola coming in as almost certain starter, we are going to see that transition immediately and for the same reason we did between Temple and Baylor....the athletes changed. It was the expected hire and a good hire. If the offense doesn't see some significant improvement after all of this investment this year, then I'd expect some major changes.

The downside as an on the field coach is Holgorsen really hates recruiting. It would be an enormous shot in the arm for this offense though, as this staff desperately needs to completely restructure this passing game. Whatever role he takes, it'll be a big influence because the Air Raid brings a structured approach that, imo, Satterfield has always lacked. Some may be wondering how the Air Raid matches with Rhule's stated offensive philosophy, and to that I'll say to look at Michigan. A lot of their passing game is based on Air Raid concepts. You don't need 4 tiny wide receivers to utilize this approach it just started that way because the Air Raid, like most offensive systems, was designed to solve roster limitations at a school that didn't recruit the way the bigger schools did. Whatever role he ultimately takes, it will help solve the biggest problem this offense had last year: rhythm and timing. Our passing concepts had no sense of timing in their progressions and the QBs often held the ball, way, way longer than you can realistically expect to block. That's literally the problem the Air Raid was designed to solve.

They have good skill guys, but the key to that offense is they have offensive lineman that can really move. They ask a lot of their lineman with their reach blocks. That makes the defenders overplay to beat them to those spots and then the 49ers utilize a lot of motion and misdirection to punish them when they do that. All of their big guys can really move whether that's OL, TE, or FB and that immensely helps them with a wide variety of screen passes. They also love quads and with all of that motion that creates a lot of opportunities. Purdy gets a lot of easy throws at times because they can either create a numbers advantage in this way or set it up so that they can isolate a backside receiver if the defense overplays the strong side. They simply do a fabulous job stretching you laterally with their motion and mobility, and off of that lateral stretch they can create verticality by attacking those seams. It's this mobility by everyone, but in particular the offensive line, that forces the defense to overplay and that allows the running and passing game to sync off of one another. As it relates to Nebraska, this falls in line with our overall recruiting and S&C philosophy. Both offensively and defensively, we want big guys that can move and guys on both sides of the ball made big strides towards that end this past season.

Like is typical with Rhule classes this is an underrated class. Lots of guys will grow into big, fast, physical frames. Lots of guys will change positions. Finally, lots of guys will come in early and while that last aspect doesn't go into the ratings, maybe it should because those guys won't be the same come fall.

I can’t believe the college football world lost it’s collective mind over this bum this week.

Bad QB play AND turnovers. Iowa had arguably an even worse passing game than we did. While their turnover numbers weren't good, they were still over a whole giveaway less per game than ours.

The NFL passer completion formula was supposed to show a top QB at 100, not 158.3. In 1971, when the formula was created it was derived using then current statistics and those statistics made 100 a great score. The big difference between then and now is because completion percentage is double figured into the formula because the equation includes both a completion percentage and yards per attempt component. As teams styles changed to include more short passes, the completion percentage went up, and since it's more or less counted twice, it had a great impact on the scores. Back in Nebraska's heyday, running backs from the school were often discounted as pass catchers, because essentially, they were never thrown to in that offense. It's not without its irony that Roger Craig and Ahman Green are arguably two of the very best West Coast Offense running backs, playing a system that commonly threw to its backs. 49.5% is not the same in that offense, in that era, as it is in the modern game. Frazier ranks #2 in Big Eight history for passing TD's and #1 in TDs Responsible for.

He's not that bad. I wouldn't have hired him, certainly not at that cost, but he's average level OC.

So while the analytical world struggles with interdependence relationships, not only amongst the group of lineman themselves but also as they relate to the ballcarrier, you can actually identify which coaches were responsible?