Has Nebraska Moved to the Spread?

[captain obvious]

I thought it looked like we finally ran what Callahan and Watson had been advertising all those years. Quick, short passes mixed with runs between the tackles. I'm not sure why that looked like the spread to anybody. I thought it looked just like a WCO.

[junior4949]

Probably because there's not a lot of differences between the two. College WCO looks a lot different than pro WCO.

[billdozer15]

I think that we would be very efficient in the Spread. The only thing that sets us back in either the WCO or the spread (and I truly hate saying this) is Joe Ganz. I love the guy, and his spirit, but he doesn't throw the deep ball enough. Anyone who has been to a game this year can see that there are tons of times throughout a game that our deep reciever will be wide open and Joe always checks down to whoever is running a short route, or to a RB. He is awesome at hitting the short routes, and running the so called WCO, but you never open it up for the run or to beat the DB's deep if you don't check deep. And you have to do it more than once a game. Hit it once or twice a quarter to keep the DB's true. I will probably get hate responses for this because Joe's numbers were pretty awesome tonight (minus the final INT). But those numbers are a direct reflection of someone who hits those short passes to chip away at a D and not taking any big chances to go deep. Maybe Joe has been coached to just do it this way, maybe he isn't confident with his arm (he does tend to underthrow WR's deep and gets picked), or maybe he just doesn't have that full QB vision to check all his reads, but until this changes, the run will suffer and we will always have safeties shoved down our throats. Once again, I think Joe is a good QB and has shown a lot of heart go through all he has, but he is not a great QB and that does hold us back some. I really wish we had gotten Blaine Gabbert to stick it through last year's recruitment. We needed a guy like him. Oh well, just my 2 cents.

 

I agree at times it seems we dont go deep enough, but i think it may be a product of the game plan. Our obvious game plan was to eat the clock and grind the game to a halt. If we go for that deep ball and miss the clock stops, while the short passes that are very high % act almost like a run and keep the clock moving while we are chipping away at their defense. We did hit a long one to Petersen late in the 4th i think it was a 30+ yd gain. Not a homerun but definately a big chunk of yardage. The other thing is we dont really have a guy with break away spead. Swift, Petersen, and Holt all appear to be possession guys who can catch almost anything, but they arent going to burn any defenses. Hopefully within in the next few years we get some burners and our run game will be established enough to where we can start looking to go deep. GBR!

[I See Red People]

I don't care if it was the spread, the wco, the option or the, knick-knack-paddy-wack-give-the-dog-a-bone offense...if it seems to be working, stick with it

 

I agree, keep doing it if it is working. I think the coaching staff prepared the team incredibly well for this game(minus penalties) after laying an egg last week. Hopefully everyone is getting into a rhythm, the second half of the season could be a fun one.

 

[Igetbored216]

It didn't really look like the spread to me. The West Coast offense opens up the run game by concentrating on short, horizontal passes while controlling TOP.

 

This definition was exactly what Nebraska did on Saturday. We had the ball for 40 minutes! I'm all for scoring quickly, and heaving the ball downfield, but I just don't think our defense would hold up under that. We need to have the ball for as long as possible, move the ball down field, pick up first downs, and then punch it in for TDs. If we do that for the rest of the year, we will be in great shape.

[TheKiD]

I gotta say, I'm surpised we didn't go for the deep ball at all tonight.

I'm not. The reason we played Tech so close is that we were eating up the clock with consistent drives.. 3-10 yards a pop. Against teams like Tech you want long sustained drives (2-4 minutes) that end in points rather than the 4-play 45 second drives. We don't want to get into shootouts with teams like Tech and MU. I was rather happy to see no shots down-field, because the short game was working very well.

[clone]

The offense looked damn good, Ganz was on fire until that one bad mistake, but they looked good. I think Tech's defense is statisticaly pretty good.

 

 

TT is #64 in total defense.

 

http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/natlRank.jsp?year...ef&site=org

[rkhufu7]

The offense looked damn good, Ganz was on fire until that one bad mistake, but they looked good. I think Tech's defense is statisticaly pretty good.

 

 

TT is #64 in total defense.

 

http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/natlRank.jsp?year...ef&site=org

UT is 40th!

[bbhusker]

I think that we would be very efficient in the Spread. The only thing that sets us back in either the WCO or the spread (and I truly hate saying this) is Joe Ganz. I love the guy, and his spirit, but he doesn't throw the deep ball enough. Anyone who has been to a game this year can see that there are tons of times throughout a game that our deep reciever will be wide open and Joe always checks down to whoever is running a short route, or to a RB. He is awesome at hitting the short routes, and running the so called WCO, but you never open it up for the run or to beat the DB's deep if you don't check deep. And you have to do it more than once a game. Hit it once or twice a quarter to keep the DB's true. I will probably get hate responses for this because Joe's numbers were pretty awesome tonight (minus the final INT). But those numbers are a direct reflection of someone who hits those short passes to chip away at a D and not taking any big chances to go deep. Maybe Joe has been coached to just do it this way, maybe he isn't confident with his arm (he does tend to underthrow WR's deep and gets picked), or maybe he just doesn't have that full QB vision to check all his reads, but until this changes, the run will suffer and we will always have safeties shoved down our throats. Once again, I think Joe is a good QB and has shown a lot of heart go through all he has, but he is not a great QB and that does hold us back some. I really wish we had gotten Blaine Gabbert to stick it through last year's recruitment. We needed a guy like him. Oh well, just my 2 cents.

 

We do have a burner but he is a youngster, Curenski Gilleylen. He just isn't executing the way the coaches want him to yet. I look for him to make a huge impact in the future. 10.22 100M in highschool.

 

I don't what I did but I was responding to billdozer15.