2023 Fall Camp Notes - Running Backs

[Undone]

22 minutes ago, brophog said:

Coach Rhule might be taking Kemp into the dark alley, but I'm taking Gabe Ervin.

 

 

 

Yeah, as far as his build goes, as of this spring he looks massive and cut.

 

His vision, moves, and stability need to catch up to his physique though.     

[Mavric]

 

[Mavric]

 

[knapplc]

RTDB Guy is going to be chuffed.

 

 

 

 

 

[brophog]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

RTDB Guy is going to be chuffed.

 

He'll put it back in his pants when he sees how much 4WR is used.

[runningblind]

45 minutes ago, brophog said:

 

He'll put it back in his pants when he sees how much 4WR is used.

You misspelled 4RB

[brophog]

4 minutes ago, runningblind said:

You misspelled 4RB

 

You misspelled 4TE.

 

And I wish I was joking.

[Undone]

I think it's misguided for even Alberts to go "we have to have an offense that looks exactly like 'X.'" If it's not the optimal choice for the personnel you have, maybe the fans like it for a while...as you churn out more 4-8 seasons.

 

I definitely reject the idea that Nebraska can only be successful again if we have a smashmouth scheme, or we have some option mixed in, or fullbacks on the roster, etc.

 

We need a staff that puts a playbook & scheme together each season that suits & maximizes the strengths of the available players. And I'm sure somebody's going to chime in and say Rhule is absolutely that guy. But, it doesn't exactly jive with the Trev Alberts quote.

[Undone]

10 minutes ago, brophog said:

 

You misspelled 4TE.

 

And I wish I was joking.

 

I mean, in his introductory press conference Rhule said "we're not going to be a spread offense."

Now I'm not so naive that I'd actually think that just because he said that in his first presser that it means we'd never see four receivers wide. But I'll still be pretty surprised if we see that frequently.

[Hilltop]

14 minutes ago, Undone said:

I think it's misguided for even Alberts to go "we have to have an offense that looks exactly like 'X.'" If it's not the optimal choice for the personnel you have, maybe the fans like it for a while...as you churn out more 4-8 seasons.

 

I definitely reject the idea that Nebraska can only be successful again if we have a smashmouth scheme, or we have some option mixed in, or fullbacks on the roster, etc.

 

We need a staff that puts a playbook & scheme together each season that suits & maximizes the strengths of the available players. And I'm sure somebody's going to chime in and say Rhule is absolutely that guy. But, it doesn't exactly jive with the Trev Alberts quote.

I think most of us agree with you to a point but the one thing our team has lacked since Pelini left is an identity.  We need to know who we are and adapt and adjust as needed- crawl before you walk.  One pretty good example in another B1G team- Quite a few people thought Michigan's offense was inept due to the style being run a few years ago.  They hardly ever passed the ball.  They have adjusted and adapted that to be an explosive offense now but they still have their core of who they are.

 

Time will tell if it works but I like the direction we are going.  

[BaytownHusker]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:15 AM, Decked said:

Of everything to teach a running back natural vision has to be the hardest. 

 

Unteachable. You either have vision for the position or you don't. Along with Vision is patience. Those 2 combined is a must IMO.

[brophog]

4 minutes ago, Undone said:

Now I'm not so naive that I'd actually think that just because he said that in his first presser that it means we'd never see four receivers wide. But I'll still be pretty surprised if we see that frequently.

 

Between Temple and Baylor Rhule's general philosophy didn't change, but the method in which he employed it shifted. At Temple it was more two back, at Baylor it was more one back. Recruiting the respective areas has a lot to do with that. At Nebraska so far he hasn't shown through essentially 2 full classes that he'll be limited in the type of offense he can run. 

 

Rhule likes to talk about 'earning the right to play Minnesota'. In football, you often earn the right to run the ball, and that's what we've seen at Temple and Baylor. Even though personnel at those schools leaned differently, the trajectory of how much he ran the ball was the same....the better they got the more opportunity they had to run the ball.

 

As the years go on at Nebraska and he can refine how he does things it'll come down to what's working. What player types can they best recruit, what characteristics do conference defenses lean towards, etc. Some coaches are pretty set in terms of personnel groupings and pace and those sorts of things and they try to make that work for all situations and Rhule isn't really like that. If in two years all of this receiver speed he's bringing in pans out, he's not going to sit his best players because he thinks fullbacks are cute. On the other hand, if the conference shifts to more one back where defenses adjust to stop that and he thinks he can find success going counter to that trend, the way we've seen some Big12 teams win in recent years, he may do that. He's a flexible, adaptable guy and he's willing to change to best fit the situation.

[brophog]

51 minutes ago, Hilltop said:

One pretty good example in another B1G team- Quite a few people thought Michigan's offense was inept due to the style being run a few years ago.  They hardly ever passed the ball.

 

Statistically, everything is considered a run until it is not in college football. QB scrambles, sacks, occasionally screens are all counted as runs even though the intent was to pass. Teams also often run the ball more late in the game to kill clock. For these reasons when a data modeler or analyst wants to profile a team they'll throw out that sort of thing to get a better idea of the true intent of the offense.

 

When you look at just the raw stats, a huge swath of teams sit at that 50%-55% rush area for these reasons. Michigan under Harbaugh generally sits in that 55%-60% rush area. Where Ohio St has been getting into trouble the past few years is instead of realizing Michigan skews run, they act like they're playing Navy. Michigan still plays a lot of 3WR and even 4WR (on 3rd down) and Ohio St has been putting 8 and 9 guys in the box, playing a ton of Cover 1 and getting smoked because of it.

 

Michigan runs a lot of 3WR Shotgun like everyone else is, the difference is they have a better offensive line than just about anyone else.

[Undone]

2 minutes ago, brophog said:

Michigan runs a lot of 3WR Shotgun like everyone else is, the difference is they have a better offensive line than just about anyone else.

 

Yep. And so did Scott Frost. A lot of our fans probably didn't understand that it wasn't the scheme Frost was playing that was the problem, it was just bad blocking so much of the time. Although when Spielman decided to not come back for his last year up through bringing in Palmer, we didn't exactly have the greatest WR corps out there.

[brophog]

33 minutes ago, Undone said:

A lot of our fans probably didn't understand that it wasn't the scheme Frost was playing that was the problem, it was just bad blocking so much of the time.

 

Disclaimer:

 

I could be completely and totally off my rocker with what I'm about to say.

 

Sometimes I wonder if Frost would have been more successful at a school other than Nebraska. I think the idea of "Husker Power' poisoned his offense.

 

These spread to run type offenses developed because these teams didn't have Rimington award winners on them. Offenses like Mike Leach's Air Raid have those big line splits because someone went out with a stopwatch and went "Our Left Tackle sucks, how long would it take an opposing DE to get to the QB if he wasn't blocked". That's a big reason those line splits are so wide is to extend the distance between the DE and the QB's launch point.

 

A lot of today's popular offenses were developed for this reason; to overcome offensive line talent disadvantages. The spread to run offense Frost used as a base is one of them. It's designed to run against light boxes and to use pulling linemen to create numbers advantages. Somewhere along the line it all got big and bulky and slow.