What will change, hopefully change, or stay the same with the 2012 offense?

[HuskerShark]

I would like to see a lot of the diamond formation. I know. But seriously, it seems that whenever this formation was utilized it produced. It just creates so many options and matchup problems, not to mention the multiplicity of possible changes at the line of scrimmage without showing your hand. I know a lot of last year was experimenting for Beck in trying to find the right combinations with so many young players and a new offense. I think this year we'll see a lot more of a focus on certain aspects that we know are/will be successful, and hopefully the diamond becomes one of those mainstays.

THIS^^^

 

In addition, I say keep the creativity as long as it doesn't make the offense too cutesy. Beck seemed to do a good job last year.

 

I agree, more zone read.

 

I still want us to run true option just as much or more than last year, though. Taylor was finally making really good timed pitches toward the end of the season. Let's progress upon that.

 

Keep the ball in Rex's hands unless somebody proves they can do a good job, which I have faith that AA or Aaron Green will emerge and get more carries this year.

 

Receivers.... Catch the ball EVERY time it hits your hands! Okay, that's asking a lot. Each WR is allowed only 1 drop in the season.

 

Stay strong on the run game. I don't care if we run it 70% of the time. If it works, keep it on the ground. Dominate the opposing team at the LOS and eat up yards and time. Then keep them honest with the occasional play action pass.

 

Amen brother. TO used to run the ball up to around 80% of the time and all that did was win us boatloads of games, conference championships & national titles.

 

Run the ball, stop the run......win the game.

 

As far as our wrs, only 5 drops allowed each for all year.

5 drops? Holy dang! Kenny Bell led the team in receptions with 32, and the next highs were 22, 21, 21, 15, 15, 14, and 12. If each has 5 drops, you are looking at around 20-30% of the balls being thrown their way that are catchable hitting the ground. Totally unacceptable. I would MAYBE say 2 drops per receiver. 5 drops is a lot....

[Enhance]

Do some of you guys really think we should be running more traditional option? Here's why I say no.

 

Martinez doesn't have great lateral movement, or agility for that matter. When something isn't obvious to him, his movement locks up and his body gets rigid. There's little conviction when he's running the traditional option. But when I see him in the shotgun, further back from the LOS and with more room to make his reads, I thought he did significantly better. Although the belly g is a good call back to the 90's, I don't think we had a great YPC average with that play, but perhaps we did.

 

I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts on this.

 

I'd also like to see less Kyler Reed on blocking downs and more Ben Cotton, with less Ben Cotton in passing situations and more Kyler Reed. Although I didn't pay close enough attention this year, many of you have said Reed is just downright bad at blocking.

[Stumpy1]

I would like to see heavy packages with 2 TEs, I formation and run some traps or an iso. Really get physical and then throw in some PA with it.

 

Also like others have said...More Diamond Formation

[Warrior10]

A serviceable back-up QB (which is sounds like Brion is turning into), that way we can turn Taylor loose again!

[COMPTON]

A serviceable back-up QB (which is sounds like Brion is turning into), that way we can turn Taylor loose again!

This made me laugh...

[walksalone]

Amen brother. TO used to run the ball up to around 80% of the time and all that did was win us boatloads of games, conference championships & national titles.

 

Run the ball, stop the run......win the game.

 

As far as our wrs, only 5 drops allowed each for all year.

 

What I've been screaming for years. Run the ball, keep their offense off of the field, make their defense suck wind so bad they wish they were dead from running at them constantly, and shut down their run to force them to become a one dimensional offense, A-freaking-men.....

[Danimal]

TM should continue to become a smarter qb but he got the start because he was explosive, an explosiveness he's lost, needs to get that back.

 

 

We need consistency at receiver, passing isn't good enough that we can afford so many drops. We haven't had any sort of go-to guy since Swift left.

[bshirt]

TM should continue to become a smarter qb but he got the start because he was explosive, an explosiveness he's lost, needs to get that back.

 

 

We need consistency at receiver, passing isn't good enough that we can afford so many drops. We haven't had any sort of go-to guy since Swift left.

 

That's a good way of looking at it and makes sense to me.

 

Haha....you don't what you had till it's gone, huh? Swift, Peterson & Lucky....."all" with hands of glue. It seems like 10,000 year ago. We couldn't run on any decent defense (at all) or stop any decent offense (at all) but at least we could catch the ball.

[NoLongerN]

I have yet to see this offense do anything basic to see if there are any changes needed. Overall, not enough ball security, too many dropped passes, poor blocking, penalties, loss of focus, lack of leadership. How does one recommend a change in an offense that at its core is its own worst enemy? If we can just play solid football I think these kinds of threads become fewer and have less input.

[kchusker_chris]

Rex (or whoever) catching the ball out of the backfield. We didn't see that for the first 6-8 games...when finally used it was a nice compliment to our offense and helps Taylor w/ a confidence boost.

 

I'm w/ you all on the Diamond formation. Kind of goes w/ the above statement as well...since it's a prefect chance to use a little misdirection to our advantage.

 

A big back like Cross at 250lbs pounding 3rd and shorts. These are Rex's bread and butter - but it's also where he takes the biggest beating.

 

Reduce the red-zone turnovers. Those are momentum changers and possibly cost us 2 wins last season. (I think we had one against USC right?)

 

Limit the deep ball to 1-2 attempts per game. Seems like Martinez was loaded and heaving one of these at least 3-4 times last season. It's low percentage, especially w/ Martinez and our drops. Better to let those speed little guys catch it at 12 yards and gain another 20 after catch than waiting around and trying to pick up the whole 30+ through the air.

 

Anything that can force the defense to play honest and reduce the load on our OL. No OL can stand up to 8 in the box for an entire game. Our running game could be deadly going against 6-7.

[huskerjack23]

I wanna know why people are clamoring for the diamond formation so much when Beck has shown a tendency to run the flexbone or double wing formation. I'd rather see more of that quite honestly, or Ski-gun type plays from the pistol spread. But this might get into the discussion of under center option versus the read option as well, one being under center and the other being pistol. Martinez looks more comfortable doing the read option stuff, that's for sure.

[NUance]

Stay the same: minimal interceptions.

 

Change: More completions.

[Enhance]

I have yet to see this offense do anything basic to see if there are any changes needed. Overall, not enough ball security, too many dropped passes, poor blocking, penalties, loss of focus, lack of leadership. How does one recommend a change in an offense that at its core is its own worst enemy? If we can just play solid football I think these kinds of threads become fewer and have less input.

That falls into the purpose of this thread. Your thinking we need fundamental improvement would fall into the "I hope this will change" category.

[NoLongerN]

Agreed Enhance, guess I heard all these comments about all the offenses we should run ... and we will have the same problems if we don't major on basic football fundamentals. I fear for Bo if it continues.

[HuskerShark]

I wanna know why people are clamoring for the diamond formation so much when Beck has shown a tendency to run the flexbone or double wing formation. I'd rather see more of that quite honestly, or Ski-gun type plays from the pistol spread. But this might get into the discussion of under center option versus the read option as well, one being under center and the other being pistol. Martinez looks more comfortable doing the read option stuff, that's for sure.

 

My personal reason for wanting more of the diamond formation is because we ran it like 1 or 2 times a game, and every single time we ran a play out of the diamond, it seemed to go for a TD. Watch the replay of the Ohio State game. I think in our furious comeback we ran it 4 or 5 times, and I think we got 3 TDs out of it IIRC. It's big enough of a threat that I would definitely consider having it as our base offense. We have so many weapons on the field at once, and there are simply too many areas on the field for the entire defense to cover. Let's take advantage of that.