Was the offense exposed tonight?

[Cornhuskers]

SDSU put 7(?) in the box forcing NEB to pass and Martinez went 6-14. NEB's run game is definitely great, but I see tough games when B12 teams stack 7-8 in the box forcing NEB to pass. NEB needs a better/improved passing game to take the team to the next level

[Hercules]

Not the best guy to answer this since I didn't get to see the game... But I don't think our passing offense was exposed as badly as Texas' run defense/entire offense was.

[Glendower]

No, I think that there was something exposed, but it wasn't a fundamental problem with anything other than mental preparedness. Tonight was an odd night for many ranked/favored teams. We saw it with texas, OU didn't exactly mop up with Cin, Bama squeaked by Arkansas, Arizona barely beat Cal, etc. Granted, the way other teams perform doesn't have any direct bearing on the Huskers, but the point is that it happens. They didn't come out on fire (the tunnel walk was more of a lazy shuffle) and never really got into the game. A lot of heads screwed on wrong and whatnot.

 

However, this isn't an excuse and they were almost lucky to come away with a win. There needs to be some mental conditioning going on.

[TMagic]

Not the best guy to answer this since I didn't get to see the game... But I don't think our passing offense was exposed as badly as Texas' run defense/entire offense was.

 

apples and mangos.

[huskernumerouno]

Not sure in they exposed the offense or they exposed a mentality issue with the team. My guess is a little of both. I think TM is a servicable passer and in most games will do better. I think his mental outlook on the game will improve after this game, it will show everyone he does not walk on water and needs to refine some things in his passing game. We are talking of a guy with 4 starts under his belt. From what I have read so far it seems like the entire team left the business part of the game in the locker and on the practice field. I will hold judgement until we see how they come out and play against KSU. Bad games can be a good thing to a team.

 

We need to work on turnovers and penalties. Those two things right there will kill us in a tight game with an opponent that has equal talent or close to it. Someone else posted in another topic that our talent level was enough to carry this game with out the right amount of effort. We need to fix the penalties and turnovers while the players demand of themselves to never sleep walk through another game like that.

[Blackshirt316]

No not really. The plan was to win this game without revealing anything we haven't already done.. they did that. The only problem tonight is that the offense was extremely lazy and uninterested and that killed their execution of a simple but what should have been effective gameplan against a team they just had to get off the bus to beat.

 

Sure they could have opened the playbook up a bit but why do that when you simply don't need to? Going forward we're not going to be anywhere close to as simple as they were tonight (I'd hope not anyway) and wrinkles and other formations will open up the plays we did tonight as well as the ones we've used over the past couple weeks. If execution tonight was more about being lazy and uninterested in a team that would maybe give the scout team a good scrimmage...then we'll be fine. If they continue to play down to the opponents level and make boneheaded mental errors then we could be in trouble...

 

but that isn't something that was or was not exposed tonight.

[huskernumerouno]

No not really. The plan was to win this game without revealing anything we haven't already done.. they did that. The only problem tonight is that the offense was extremely lazy and uninterested and that killed their execution of a simple but what should have been effective gameplan against a team they just had to get off the bus to beat.

 

Sure they could have opened the playbook up a bit but why do that when you simply don't need to? Going forward we're not going to be anywhere close to as simple as they were tonight (I'd hope not anyway) and wrinkles and other formations will open up the plays we did tonight as well as the ones we've used over the past couple weeks. If execution tonight was more about being lazy and uninterested in a team that would maybe give the scout team a good scrimmage...then we'll be fine. If they continue to play down to the opponents level and make boneheaded mental errors then we could be in trouble...

 

but that isn't something that was or was not exposed tonight.

Good Answer

[ZRod]

I would say that a couple things were exposed in this game and hopefully they were just under-coaching or lack of preparation, since those are easier to fix. The first and most obvious was that the line did not come to play. The biggest problems were not sustaining blocks long enough, and just plain getting beat, escpecially on the edges. A friend made the comment at the game that the running backs weren't doing to hot, and I asked him how he expected them to do much when they have to start putting moves on defenders in their own backfield. I'll give SDSU credit they came to play tonight, but we just left our emotion at the door and were completely flat and that first fumble didn't help things either. I think what won the game for the most part was just better athelets on both sides of the ball.

 

The other thing I notice was a lack of adjustment in play calling through most of the game. I'm all for running the same play till they can stop it, but once it's stopped usually you move down the palybook and find another one to call. It seems like we relied heavily on the read option, and a lot of one back sets from the shot gun like we did in the Washinton game. But once those plays we stopped we either ran it again for the same result or went to the air (with mediocar results at best). Seems to me when you having a hard time getting the run working out of one back sets and your not having much success through the air you might want to bring another body into the back field to help block, or move under center with a fullback and use more power oriented run plays. I know it was the 4th quarter, but towards the end of the game we ran a couple of plays out of the I and it was able to get 6+ yards. I just can't understand the lack of adjustment here, I really hope it was a lack of respect that was reflected in the preperation and game plan rather than something else.

[TheKiD]

You can run against 7-8 in the box, Bo and Watson would tell you the same. This was 80% a mental issue and 20% existing issues we knew about.

 

Let's not forget, there are really good athletes in FCS. Some don't have the academics, some want an easier road to the NFL, some want to increase their chances of getting playing time/starting early/being the star. This team was a hell of a lot more fired up than we were. We were thinking about how early in the 2nd half they'd get to come out. They were thinking Michigan, Va. Tech. Coaches probably had a lazy game plan, not expecting much resistance. They have been scheming for us all summer i would imagine. That's why these kinds of usets (michiga, va tech, etc.) happen. They get scheduled for easy money/guaranteed win, but there's never a guaranteed win. Thankfully, our defense bailed us out of this one and we weren't ESPN headline news today.

 

This should certainly serve as a wakeup call, and I don't think Bo is going to let them forget it anytime soon. We need our A-game for K-State and Texas. But, this team will have a week and a half of daily reminders from the coaches. By the time K-State rolls around, I very much expect them to be itching to prove themselves in a big way. And, I hope to god we don't need motivation for the Texas game

 

I don't think the sky is falling. This is probably just what we needed after 3 blowouts.

[HuskersNow]

I don't think that the offense as a whole was exposed, but Martinez's passing ability was. It seemed to me that most of the players on offense barely brought forth any effort in this game which led to us only scoring 17. But even when Taylor had time to throw he was still throwing ducks out there. You can tell that he still has tremendous work to do to become an accurate passer.

[Billyball]

It's amusing to hear the koolaid gang pretend we are some sort of elite football team that just had a little mental letdown. At the same time they building of of the FCS school that exposed our puffery like they are some collection of future NFLers. just a few words from Bo and some windsprints and everything will be fine. All Watson has to do is teach a very inept passer to throw the ball, use the proper mechanics and the right reads in the next few practices.

 

GET OVER IT. Though reading our press didn't help this bunch prepare, the problems popping up from our guys and Texas are not going away. UT cannot run the ball and cannot stop the run with their base defense. They, nor any. Other opponent will be in a base d when they play us. We can't throw the ball and our D line is pretty dam common. We are as unlikely to learn to throw efficiently anytime soon with TM. IF Ksucks loads the box look for that to be the end of the TM experience except for wildcat plays. I am more concerned about the D line. There is no fix to be easily had their. We can hope when we load the box to stop Thomas, that KSUs qb looks as bad as TM yesterday aginst that SDSU juggernaut.

 

There are bigger holes than many watt to admit. Our goal should be making it to the CC and that will not be a cakewalk. sober up

[Fuzzy]

SDSU put 7(?) in the box forcing NEB to pass and Martinez went 6-14. NEB's run game is definitely great, but I see tough games when B12 teams stack 7-8 in the box forcing NEB to pass. NEB needs a better/improved passing game to take the team to the next level

 

It wasn't exposed last night, it was tested. We all know now what the grade is when you stack the box against the Huskers completely take away the run, we don't have a composed QB that can pass, yet. Martinez has the goods to pass the ball, he just has not matured enough to show off his talents with his arm.

 

If I were Shawn Watson, i would do pretty much what i did during the Washington game, air it out early in the game with a good dose of running plays to Rex and Roy, once the defense has bitten on Rex and Roy and playing the more open pass should we see Taylor tear up the field with his legs. After last night, Im sure KSU is taking notes on how to stack the box against the Huskers to shut down the running game completely by taking out Rex, Roy and Taylor.

 

Teams shouldve known how to slow down the run, you stack the box. Plain and simple. Washington could have exposed the offense, by stacking the box. But they didn't they played more of a pass defense with occasional blitzes that Taylor made them pay for.

[Enhance]

Don't get too high and don't get too low after a win/loss.

[GBRsal]

this was a calculated strategy to lull Ksux into a false sense of security.

[shyndy]

It's amusing to hear the koolaid gang pretend we are some sort of elite football team that just had a little mental letdown. At the same time they building of of the FCS school that exposed our puffery like they are some collection of future NFLers. just a few words from Bo and some windsprints and everything will be fine. All Watson has to do is teach a very inept passer to throw the ball, use the proper mechanics and the right reads in the next few practices.

 

GET OVER IT. Though reading our press didn't help this bunch prepare, the problems popping up from our guys and Texas are not going away. UT cannot run the ball and cannot stop the run with their base defense. They, nor any. Other opponent will be in a base d when they play us. We can't throw the ball and our D line is pretty dam common. We are as unlikely to learn to throw efficiently anytime soon with TM. IF Ksucks loads the box look for that to be the end of the TM experience except for wildcat plays. I am more concerned about the D line. There is no fix to be easily had their. We can hope when we load the box to stop Thomas, that KSUs qb looks as bad as TM yesterday aginst that SDSU juggernaut.

 

There are bigger holes than many watt to admit. Our goal should be making it to the CC and that will not be a cakewalk. sober up

I don't want to say that this game means nothing, but there have been many very good teams in the past that had early season near losses to teams that had no business being in their zipcode. Its football, stuff happens that can't be predicted, I think, as the saying goes, "that's why they play the game."