Dear Shawn Watson,

[gobiggergoredder]

 

 

Oh, I know. I am just saying to hesitate before hailing Frost for that. We have no idea the kind of job he is doing there. Nebraska has an awful WR coach, for example. I mean, this is Frost's first shot at a position coaching job, too. I don't know the particulars. I am just hesitating to assume credit for Oregon's offense goes to anyone really other than Chip Kelly. I mean, are their RB and TE and OL coaches hot young prospects for OC positions, for example? Maybe, but maybe not. It would really be a wild guess to suggest so, and those other guys probably have longer resumes than Frost.

 

 

I'm not trying to be critical, but what has Frost done to rock everyone's jolly? He's from Nebraska and he is now a position coach at Oregon. From a body of work standpoint, I don't really see what he has done to separate himself from anyone else. It was pretty cool when he picked up LaGarrett Blount last year though.

[Ratt Mhule]

Terrible display of offensive football. Where is Scott Frost?

 

Coaching arguably the best offense in the nation

 

That's like saying Ekeler is coaching one of the best defenses in the nation. That offense is Chip Kelly, really. Maybe whoever their OC is too. I don't think Frost is even really like a Ron Brown or Marvin Sanders here - top position coaches.

 

Oregon's WRs > Nebraska's WRs ... and Oregon's WRs are more "talented."

 

They're setting off fireworks in Eugene right now, by the way. Literally.

 

Oh, I know. I am just saying to hesitate before hailing Frost for that. We have no idea the kind of job he is doing there. Nebraska has an awful WR coach, for example. I mean, this is Frost's first shot at a position coaching job, too. I don't know the particulars. I am just hesitating to assume credit for Oregon's offense goes to anyone really other than Chip Kelly. I mean, are their RB and TE and OL coaches hot young prospects for OC positions, for example? Maybe, but maybe not. It would really be a wild guess to suggest so, and those other guys probably have longer resumes than Frost.

 

Everyone has a job to do, including Frost. It may be Chip's system, but every coach is helping in some way. And my original post is 100% true, I didn't say he is running the best offense in the nation, I said he is coaching the best offense in the nation. He is a COACH on the OFFENSIVE side of the ball, so that makes him, "coaching one of the best offenses in the nation." He is doing something, he isn't just getting paid to sit around...

[irafreak]

I know this has been the eternal debate, but I point most of the blame at the offensive line. Our blocking was horrific. Our blitz pickup was awful. I don't care what scheme you run. It won't work with the OL play we saw tonight.

Sorry but if our oline is pass blocking so pooly....RUN THE BALL!!!!!!!!!!!! The wildcat was picking up nice yards fairly regularly. Taylor can't throw the ball away. The oline can't pick up the blitz. RUN THE BALL!!!!!!! OU has been vulnerable all year to the run (if they play stanford this will be proven again). RUN THE BALL!!!!!!!

 

OL wasn't blocking that poorly either. When you have ALL FREAKING DAY back there and you STILL take an 8-yard sack, that is on the QB. And whoever is allowing him to play. The last drive that's on Watson for calling it. 100% agree.

 

It just baffles the mind. Why are we throwing on 3rd and goal? 3 points gone.

 

We threw several times on short yardage situations early in the game and it worked. At that point in time, that play and how it broke down was 100% on Taylor. The only reason 3 points are gone is because he decided to throw it into the field of play, across his body. That is really 150% Taylor's fault and also the complete subsequent evaporation of momentum. The whole game changed on that one incredibly awful play.

It's not about throwing on 3rd and short....3rd and goal. I have no problem with a fake run then pass like Rex did but there isn't enough room to make a play so close to the goal line.

[Hercules]

Yeah, I think I'm basically on the "Wats has to go" train... I mean, I'd be ok with him getting one more year... but honestly, I just don't see his future being at Nebraska. Hopefully someone takes him off our hands and it doesn't get ugly like Texas right now... But this has been two years of the same self-inflicted mistakes. You can make excuses for these two years all you want, but it just isn't working. We are consistently playing championship level defense, and every time we lose, it's the same discussion, just coming down on the offense.

 

If Watson is still around next year, and improvement hasn't been made on that side of the ball, I can only imagine the rage that will unfold. It will make nights like tonight look like the good old days.

[Ringer02]

Dear Shawn Watson

 

Eat sh#t and die

 

sincerely huskernation

[gobiggergoredder]

Yeah, I think I'm basically on the "Wats has to go" train... I mean, I'd be ok with him getting one more year... but honestly, I just don't see his future being at Nebraska. Hopefully someone takes him off our hands and it doesn't get ugly like Texas right now... But this has been two years of the same self-inflicted mistakes. You can make excuses for these two years all you want, but it just isn't working. We are consistently playing championship level defense, and every time we lose, it's the same discussion, just coming down on the offense.

 

If Watson is still around next year, and improvement hasn't been made on that side of the ball, I can only imagine the rage that will unfold. It will make nights like tonight look like the good old days.

 

 

It will get sick. We are losing too many playmakers on defense to survive like we have the past two years.

[zoogs]

What did anyone expect with an injured Taylor or a healthy Green?

 

350 yards on Oklahoma? I think we could have gotten more than we did (300) and I think we could/should have done a better job than we did, but that goes for both sides of the ball. I don't quite understand what people learned about Watson as opposed to Taylor tonight.

 

I'm starting to agree that the problem really is with the fact that we started Taylor without a backup plan (as jliehr said). If Taylor craps the bed as he did, we have no options. Either our running back becomes fulltime QB (which you'd think would almost be better), or a guy who did not take #1 reps all week steps in. What do you do when your #1 QB becomes useless and you don't have a backup option? I think you'd call that a bad situation no matter what even if we could have asked Burkhead to take even more of a role. I wonder if that wouldn't be a case of diminishing returns though. The more you run a limited Wildcat package, the less effective it becomes.

 

To put things into perspective, I will just thank Watson for drawing up and installing the Wild Rexcat since last year and to Bo for finally allowing it to be unleashed at the end of last season after being reluctant to work it in before. It disappeared when we had Taylor healthy, but once Taylor went out and Green/injured Taylor had to go in, it has been quite an important part of the offense. To the point where it's more effective than the main offense.

[Blackshirtsguru]

What did anyone expect with an injured Taylor or a healthy Green?

 

350 yards on Oklahoma? I think we could have gotten more than we did (300) and I think we could/should have done a better job than we did, but that goes for both sides of the ball. I don't quite understand what people learned about Watson as opposed to Taylor tonight.

 

I'm starting to agree that the problem really is with the fact that we started Taylor without a backup plan (as jliehr said). If Taylor craps the bed as he did, we have no options. Either our running back becomes fulltime QB (which you'd think would almost be better), or a guy who did not take #1 reps all week steps in. What do you do when your #1 QB becomes useless and you don't have a backup option? I think you'd call that a bad situation no matter what even if we could have asked Burkhead to take even more of a role. I wonder if that wouldn't be a case of diminishing returns though. The more you run a limited Wildcat package, the less effective it becomes.

 

To put things into perspective, I will just thank Watson for drawing up and installing the Wild Rexcat since last year and to Bo for finally allowing it to be unleashed at the end of last season after being reluctant to work it in before. It disappeared when we had Taylor healthy, but once Taylor went out and Green/injured Taylor had to go in, it has been quite an important part of the offense. To the point where it's more effective than the main offense.

 

And it was effective tonight yet our inept OC couldn't see it!

 

Oh and here's Watsons stellar resume in just the past two years.

 

2009 Virginia Tech. No touchdowns, one point loss, brilliant defensive effort wasted.

2009 Texas Tech. One offensive touchdown in junk time.

2009 Iowa State. Eight turnovers, one touchdown, 9-7 loss at home.

2009 Texas. No touchdowns, one point loss, brilliant defensive effort wasted.

2010 Texas. No offensive touchdowns. Lost at home to 5-7 team.

2010 Texas A&M. No touchdowns.

2010 Oklahoma. ZERO points in second half. 17-0 lead blown. FOUR turnovers. Countless drives in second half end in Sooner territory where ONE MORE FREAKING FIRST DOWN IS FG RANGE.

[Hercules]

Yeah, I think I'm basically on the "Wats has to go" train... I mean, I'd be ok with him getting one more year... but honestly, I just don't see his future being at Nebraska. Hopefully someone takes him off our hands and it doesn't get ugly like Texas right now... But this has been two years of the same self-inflicted mistakes. You can make excuses for these two years all you want, but it just isn't working. We are consistently playing championship level defense, and every time we lose, it's the same discussion, just coming down on the offense.

 

If Watson is still around next year, and improvement hasn't been made on that side of the ball, I can only imagine the rage that will unfold. It will make nights like tonight look like the good old days.

 

 

It will get sick. We are losing too many playmakers on defense to survive like we have the past two years.

 

Defense should still be pretty good though...

 

Returners: Courtney Osborne, PJ Smith, Ciante Evans, Lavonte David, Will Compton, Alonzo Whaley, Eric Martin, Cameron Meredith, Baker Steinkuhler... All of those guys contributed, and Sean Fisher will be back to add even more depth at linebacker.

 

If we get lucky and Alfonzo Dennard returns along with Jared Crick, then it's still a very salty defense, even without Amukumara, Hagg, Gomes, Allen, and the other seniors. And we're not going to have as many defensive backs on the field anyways, playing against teams like Wisconsin. I think the defense will be just fine as long as the Pelini's are around.

 

On the offense:

 

Returners: Mike Caputo, Jeremiah Sirles, Yoshi Hardrick, Marcel Jones, Taylor Martinez, Rex Burkhead, Brandon Kinnie, Kyler Reed, Ben Cotton

 

We need people to step up on the offensive line and at WR badly, and maybe hope for some good play from true freshmen.

[zoogs]

And it was effective tonight yet our inept OC couldn't see it!

 

It was so effective that people were screaming for us to stop running the zone read, which actually is the premise of this thread.

 

No, but I do feel the Wildcat, which we run ZR out of almost every time it isn't a throw (which it almost never is), was pretty effective for most of the game. I guess we went away from it a bit after the fumbled snap. I wonder if Bo or Shawn shut it down then because of the risk. Or I wonder if there were other things that went into that decision, hard to say. So I would say our OC saw how effective it was and milked it pretty good. I'd love to see a Rex vs Taylor at QB breakdown for the game, by quarter, but I am far too lazy to go do that.

 

That's why I brought up diminishing returns. Running ZR out of the Wildcat is effective, but I'm not sure you can exactly make it 60% of your gameplan and still expect it to be remotely as effective. I can't keep track of how often it was used but it certainly did feel like we used it a ton as the game wore on. I think it was only kept useful as a threat because we still went back to our base offense with regularity.

 

Two critical playcalling mistakes IMO that could have helped us win the game were at the end of our last two drives. We got down to the OU 39, for goodness sake and it was 2nd down. I don't care how predictable any play is at that point, you figure two safe run plays can get you from 0-5 yards combined. Heck give it to Cody and let him sneak it. Except for the fumble risk. But anyway, you figure that's a "OK, it's time to just let Alex kick it" time. Instead, we take a huge shot downfield, our only one really of the day, with Burkhead heaving it up to Taylor. It didn't work; OK. Could have been picked; OK. That should have scared us enough to turtle down and dive forward for a yard on 3rd. Instead Taylor gets the drop back and is sacked.

 

To be fair, I think we really wanted to get 5+ yards for Alex, since another 57-yard tying field goal isn't quite as safe, and Taylor may have been told to just throw it away and let Alex have at the 57-yarder if it wasn't available. Instead he takes a humongous sack and we are forced to punt. You can pin part of that on the playcall, but there's no excuse for the sack either. Goodness...he had 5 full seconds to just stand there and make a good decision. That should basically be all the time in the world. Instead we have to punt.

 

The other was the end of the game but I already talked about that a bit.

 

Returners: Courtney Osborne, PJ Smith, Ciante Evans, Lavonte David, Will Compton, Alonzo Whaley, Eric Martin, Cameron Meredith, Baker Steinkuhler... All of those guys contributed, and Sean Fisher will be back to add even more depth at linebacker.

 

I feel pretty good about the defense if Alfonzo returns. Hagg will be tough to lose, but Cassidy is having time to grow on the job, Evans could step into Prince's spot, and our two safeties Osborne and Smith could be a big improvement over this year. David along with Fisher's return and another year for Compton could bolster LB, and DL has a chance to be OK.

 

I feel like we will always struggle on O until we get more out of our receivers. 70% run offense or not, that is a big dimension to the game we are missing. But the biggest piece to the puzzle will be the signal caller, as usual. Now is the time for Taylor, or anyone really, to make the leap and take command.

[irafreak]

That snap was all on Caputo. Burkhead had to reach way over for it and it threw the timing off. Caputo's had way too many wild snaps this year.

[Morrison]

 

2009 Va Tech, lost 16-15. 0 offensive TD's

2009 Texas Tech, lost 31-10, 1 offensive td, offense GIVES tech a td. I remember watson in that game continually go away from a run game that was working great in favor of slinging it all over the place, but the defense gave up a whole 3 or 4 big plays and some penalties.

2009 Iowa St, lost 9-7, 1 offensive td, but 8 turnovers, game was inexplainable and cant really put this one on Wats due to 28-35 points being left out due to to's

2009 Texas, lost 13-12. 0 offensive td's

2010 Texas, lost 20-13. 0 offensive td's

2010 Texas AM lost 9-6. O offensive td's

2010 Oklahoma lost 23-20. 2 offensive td's, 1 essentially directly results form turnover getting the ball at 10, other was a long run broken by Helu.

 

 

It's funny how you can rationalize each one of these games away individually to make them seem not as bad. But, in their totality, the only logical conclusion that is possible is that Watson is the problem.

 

I don't have any personal animosity towards the man - I am sure he has tried his best to make it work. Further, saying he needs to go simply because he was "part of the Callahan regime" is ignorant.

 

That being said, he simply has not gotten it done when we needed him to. It's time for a change. Our offensive performances in those losses makes me sick.

[Elf]

A booger eating opposing QB once said our defensive coaching was high school level.

That's a fair description of our offense under Watson the last 2 years.

Stoops was playing chess, Watson was playing tiddly winks.

This was just another in a long line of embarassing offensive performances on national TV by Watson.

Watson's offense is starting to rival ol' Cosgrove's defenses for glaring, in-your-face ineptitude. Like Cosgrove, Watson simply doesn't know what he's doing. And it shows.

 

Callahan orchestrated a program disaster by focussing only on the offense,

letting Cosgrove run the defense into the ground. Coach Pelini, you are the HC,

not the DC.

 

Enough is enough. Watson needs to go and take Gilmore with him.

Let's trade-in our Game Management Specialists for a couple of real football coaches.

 

You forgot Barney Cotton, he needs to go with Watson and Gilmore. All three have shown a level of ineptitude that is unbelievable.

[houseofspears]

A booger eating opposing QB once said our defensive coaching was high school level.

That's a fair description of our offense under Watson the last 2 years.

Stoops was playing chess, Watson was playing tiddly winks.

This was just another in a long line of embarassing offensive performances on national TV by Watson.

Watson's offense is starting to rival ol' Cosgrove's defenses for glaring, in-your-face ineptitude. Like Cosgrove, Watson simply doesn't know what he's doing. And it shows.

 

Callahan orchestrated a program disaster by focussing only on the offense,

letting Cosgrove run the defense into the ground. Coach Pelini, you are the HC,

not the DC.

 

Enough is enough. Watson needs to go and take Gilmore with him.

Let's trade-in our Game Management Specialists for a couple of real football coaches.

 

You forgot Barney Cotton, he needs to go with Watson and Gilmore. All three have shown a level of ineptitude that is unbelievable.

 

 

do you think ben sticks around if barney is shown the door? not that it's a reason for keeping a coach who's not getting the job done.. but i like ben.

[LNCBorn]

My views, feel free to disagree...

 

1) The vitriol directed at Taylor is over the top. Cut his scholarship fund? Taylor sucks? Freshman had a rough game, but that's unmerited IMO. Another example of hype becoming a player's downfall. More moderate voices since the beginning of the year nailed the situation for what it is: Taylor is an athlete at QB, who brings explosion and the big play to the offense while being completely raw as a passer, and prone to cold spells, and extreme cases of nerves. I felt Taylor should not have started, and that's why. But Taylor doesn't suck either...and attitude or not, shouldn't deserve the kind of hate he is all of a sudden getting. I guess I did become a fan of the guy over the games, even while acknowledging that he's a potential bomb waiting to explode and implode the team. Which is a separate issue.

 

2) Defense: you got owned. 17 of Oklahoma's 23 points at least were directly caused by three huge plays given up by the secondary. Cassidy, Hagg, and pretty much everyone (I guess it was Dennard's man). These are good players in a very good defensive system. But these three plays are more costly than I could even begin talking about. There was a lot of good defense today, and a lot of sharpness from Jones with his pinpoint passes. But there was also some giving up big runs up the middle (DL?...) and those three ugly, inexcusable plays. You cannot expect to go against a quality offensive team and make THREE miscues like that, and still expect to win. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE YARDS today by the Sooners. I will not call for anyone's heads though. But just think about that. 4-5-5.

 

3) Starting Taylor. Watson called a great game early. The fourth down playaction was ballsy and masterful. Then Taylor loses his cool and doesn't regain it for the rest of the game. Taylor was not prepared to play today IMO. I don't know what to say since we are so thin at QB and Green was even more scary of an option. But this decision to start Taylor, which is Bo's as well as Watson's, should be something to be talked about.

 

4) Watson and the Last Drive. We scored 20 points in the first half and looked on track to do more than our fair share against the Sooners. Indeed, probably most felt if we could put this number up on Oklahoma, we'd win (but see #2: defense). At some point you got to commit to Burkhead/grinding it out. Why am I so defensive of Watson in spite of 2009? Because I loved and embrace the 2009 philosophy, which Bo directed. Shut it down on offense, grab a lead and hang the heck onto it. Keep it out of the realm of killer mistakes, and I don't care if we average 3 yards a carry as long as we are chewing clock and getting a field goal here or there.

 

So WHY, when the game is on the line, we have the ball thanks to Rex on our own 40, with just 20 yards at minimum to go, and nearly 2 minutes on the clock to get there, do we not run it? Rex had success in the Wildcat and we have enough time to average 3 yards a clip and still get to field goal range with a break or two. So we throw a quickslant on first down, fine. But on 2nd and medium, after seeing how Taylor has reacted to pressure ALL DAY, and really, Taylor's dancing around into linemen in the pocket has been a chronic occurence all freaking year. When we can rely on any of our multiple ways to attack the defense on the ground to put us in third and short, why do we call something that has ANY chance at all of putting us into 3rd and 16? There's no criticism on the two plays after that because we were desperate anyways. It's these first two plays that killed us.

 

There, now I know what it's like to play armchair OC. I don't think Watson should be fired, for the usual reasons. Just like I don't think the defensive coaches should be fired. But I think this is fair criticism of a couple of very costly decisions.

 

5) Bo. This goes right with the above. I loved 2009 because of the conservative approach. Why did Bo go away from that today? It was especially evident on the last game, unless Watson went rogue on Bo, which I doubt, because it was evident on Bo's approach through the day. He did go balls out on this one, which is to his credit, but honestly there were some very dangerous decisions there that could have cost us the game at multiple times. The 4th and 1 was surprising, but it worked. That doesn't mean it wasn't hella dangerous. The fake punt - also surprising, and I'm sad I didn't get to see it. But also EXTREMELY dangerous. We are talking Les Miles dangerous or CU 2008 dangerous if we don't make those 4 yards, late in the game and down 3 in our own territory. And of course the end of the game.

 

Since when did Bo have little faith in our defense? I suppose this game gave him no reason to have faith. Still, I really believe going away from the 2009 approach when the chips were down was a questionable decision. Using it opened up Watson to a ton of unfair criticism, but using it the way it was used in the 2nd half of this game opens up Watson to a lot of valid criticism.

 

6) Misc things on playcalling...the zone read was fine IMO. Not with Taylor, though, after the first few drives. But with Rex out of the Wildcat. All those Wildcat plays were pretty good. Although I would say the throws were very dangerous. Rex should have thrown the second one away (or sooner), and the first one was off target. Good to give them something to think about though. The one that failed was Mike Caputo's bad snap that resulted in a fumble. Throwing the ball with Taylor quickly became a completely untenable option, and yet we stuck with it. I like showing faith to your players, I think it enables them to succeed. But this is a situation where no faith was deserved.

 

Your rant was too long and boring to read in full.

 

The loss was not on the D. Yes they may have given up quite a few yards, but 4 turnovers assisted the OU O.

 

TM has no clue of pocket presence. Of the 7 or so sacks he took tonight, 5 were preventable if he would have made the decision to tuck and run or throw the ball away.

 

Watson's play calling was piss poor to say the least.

Where was the Power running game. Seemed to work the very few times it was ran.

We do not have very good recievers. Kinnie and McNeil are good, but McNeil is slow and an undersized TE. Good hands and a good route runner, but not a threat. We didn't have a deep threat all game. There were opportunities for shots deep but the personel wasn't there.

 

All in all this game falls on the O and the Offensive coaches.

I have to admit, the one refreshing thing that happened all day was reading this last post. Well said and you do know football.

 

I counted atleast 13 points that were triggered by Neb. Offensive blunders, huge momentum swings also, giving life back to the sooners. If you include the Martinez intereception in the endzone and Burkheads fumble when it looked like the Wildcat was starting to roll in the middle of the 4th Quarter tied 20-20, which again led to the last field goal to win, was more than the defense could hold. Understand this that 455 yards or 655 yards the Blackshirts held Oklahoma to 23 points TOTAL and 10 possibly depending on how u look at it. You can't blame them at all. Ya we did get beat a few times over the top but we are suseptible to that play because of our aggressive style. OH WELL

Live with it cuz its a hella defense. We did not score ONE POINT in the second half. Figure it out!