Armstrong and the long ball

[MichiganDad3]

If I recall correctly from Jammal Lord's days, he threw a decent deep ball and hit some long bombs to Isaiah Fluellen and Mark LeFlore. Those were exciting to watch, but Lord's short passes were still spotty. I hope Armstrong refines his passing touch, but his build and athletism remind me a lot of Jammal Lord as well. If Lord had better talent around him, I think he would have been remembered more fondly as a QB for Nebraska and we would have won a lot more games. If Armstrong can show similar physical capabilities and continue to improve his passing skills, with the talent NU has now, it will be very exciting to see.

 

Lord is one of my all time favorite Huskers. He broke Crouch's records with much less talent at OL and RB.

[Count 'Bility]

Ross Pilkington was always good for a 75 yard TD reception of the option pass every now and then.

[JTrain]

Unfortunately that made up about 75% of our passing yards.

[jsneb83]

Tommy Armstrong has a committed love affair with bomb passes.

 

Only thing is, a lot of the time his receivers didn't get the message and aren't within 20 yards.

 

 

Is his love affair with the long ball a good thing or bad?

 

 

I don't know - to my untrained eye, it seems like he wants to play video game football. At least two times per game he'll just chuck one, for the sake of wanting to chuck it without much thought. I know at least 5 times he has thrown a pass further than 30 yards and the receiver would run a hook pattern or something short and he'd be throwing to nobody.

I think it has more to do with him not being able to read defenses and not knowing his receivers tendencies real well. I think that when the receivers see that their route (usually a streak) is covered they will cut it off hoping that the QB read the same thing and knows that his receiver is going to cut his route off. As Armstrong gains more experience and has more chemistry with his receivers, I think you will see a number of those "miscommunication" plays diminish.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Tommy has a strong arm and a nice touch.

 

I hope we pass at least as much next season and hopefully more. A mix of short, medium and long, like every good quarterback and smart OC calls for.

 

Because I'm sure we will also continue to run at least twice as much as we pass.

 

Unless I'm crazy, someone just suggested these periodic long bombs make us look "singular". To reach that conclusion, you'd need to ignore every shred of available evidence.

[True2tRA]

You misunderstood what was said Guy. And you can say my name when responding to what I said. Don't be an arrogant ass and just say " someone said". You're not crazy, I said it, and its still right there above if you scroll up and read it...so not real hard to see who it came from.

 

As far as the singular comment, I meant that in Nebraskas passing game it seems we only have one kind of pass and that it the 30 yard or more throws. That or the one we throw straight to the sideline. The evidence I have to back that up? I watch the games just like you do. That's my perception. If youve been around very long, you know that two people can watch the same thing and see it two different ways. Maybe I am wrong in my assessment, but maybe you are. At least I responded to YOU with what I thought about it when I disagreed with what you said.

[True2tRA]

Also, I happen to probably support Armstrong at QB more than anyone else on this board from what I gather. I was one of the first to comment about his skill set and how I though he was going to be something special here. Some others were late to the bus but are finally seeing it. I hope he wins the job next year and kicks some ass. I'll say it again. This kid can make all the throws, he can run, he's calm in the face of pressure and best of all he's a good leader. His future relies on Beck. I think Beck throws those long passes in there more than anything just to back off the opponents secondary, and to show that we are capable of doing it. Our passing game is not refined by any means. There's nothing complicated about it. I hope we develop something that is more capable of putting together 15 play drives and scoring. Right now we seem like we are either running the ball or looking for the home run.

[Guy Chamberlin]

You misunderstood what was said Guy. And you can say my name when responding to what I said. Don't be an arrogant ass and just say " someone said". You're not crazy, I said it, and its still right there above if you scroll up and read it...so not real hard to see who it came from.

 

As far as the singular comment, I meant that in Nebraskas passing game it seems we only have one kind of pass and that it the 30 yard or more throws. That or the one we throw straight to the sideline. The evidence I have to back that up? I watch the games just like you do. That's my perception. If youve been around very long, you know that two people can watch the same thing and see it two different ways. Maybe I am wrong in my assessment, but maybe you are. At least I responded to YOU with what I thought about it when I disagreed with what you said.

 

Sorry if I didn't call you out by name, but if it makes you feel better I will do it here.

 

Yes True2tRA, we watch the same games, but I disagree with your assessment. Nebraska runs flares and sideline outs and crossing patterns and safety screens and perhaps slightly more than in the past, Tommy Armstrong airs one out deep. It's a good mix. I'm genuinely baffled how someone can watch the game and think Nebraska's passing game is based on the long bomb.

[Count 'Bility]

We dont stretch the field down the middle nearly enough, if any at all. i think that's what True is alluding to. Our pass game is rather predictable. Opposing defenses can get away with cover 2 shell more times than not, because or passing game seems to be based on the premise of being in a 2 minute drill with no timeouts left. And then when we do try to stretch it down the middle, we fail to execute more times than not. That threat doesnt seem to be there.

[Mavric]

We dont stretch the field down the middle nearly enough, if any at all. i think that's what True is alluding to. Our pass game is rather predictable. Opposing defenses can get away with cover 2 shell more times than not, because or passing game seems to be based on the premise of being in a 2 minute drill with no timeouts left. And then when we do try to stretch it down the middle, we fail to execute more times than not. That threat doesnt seem to be there.

We tried to hit Carter down the seam several times but usually failed. I think the Gator Bowl was the first time we actually connected with him. If we can hit that pass on a regular basis, it will open up a lot of things.

[Count 'Bility]

We dont stretch the field down the middle nearly enough, if any at all. i think that's what True is alluding to. Our pass game is rather predictable. Opposing defenses can get away with cover 2 shell more times than not, because or passing game seems to be based on the premise of being in a 2 minute drill with no timeouts left. And then when we do try to stretch it down the middle, we fail to execute more times than not. That threat doesnt seem to be there.

We tried to hit Carter down the seam several times but usually failed. I think the Gator Bowl was the first time we actually connected with him. If we can hit that pass on a regular basis, it will open up a lot of things.

That's what I meant when I said when we do try, we fail more times than not. And the problem is, it seems that when we fail to execute something once, we tend to just scrap it for the day. And that's ridiculous. Showing the look alone is sometimes enough. Go after it again.

[Hooked on Huskers]

long fingers

 

[Mavric]

We dont stretch the field down the middle nearly enough, if any at all. i think that's what True is alluding to. Our pass game is rather predictable. Opposing defenses can get away with cover 2 shell more times than not, because or passing game seems to be based on the premise of being in a 2 minute drill with no timeouts left. And then when we do try to stretch it down the middle, we fail to execute more times than not. That threat doesnt seem to be there.

We tried to hit Carter down the seam several times but usually failed. I think the Gator Bowl was the first time we actually connected with him. If we can hit that pass on a regular basis, it will open up a lot of things.

That's what I meant when I said when we do try, we fail more times than not. And the problem is, it seems that when we fail to execute something once, we tend to just scrap it for the day. And that's ridiculous. Showing the look alone is sometimes enough. Go after it again.

Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just continuing the line of thought.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Again, not sure what games you guys are watching, but every game I've seen we've completed a 10 - 12 yard curl route for a first down on third and long. And occasionally on second down, too.

 

Could probably make a nice highlight reel of Bell, Enunwa and Burch catching the ball in traffic, more often than not outside the hash marks, but mid-distance passes nonetheless.

 

Another highlight reel of touch passes and fade routes.

 

We can be a little predictible with that first or second down flare screen to a WR or RB hugging the sideline, but that's become a staple of a lot of teams, maybe even moreso in the NFL these days. Again, neither a long bomb nor a singular passing strategy.

 

It would be nice to get our tight ends more involved, but I'm not sure if that's a playcalling issue, or if a quarterback just gets used to seeing Bell and Enunwa more open more often.

 

Quick release crossing patterns are great, too, and we do a few of these. But they're alway a greater risk and the OC gets yelled at when he puts his Freshman QB in that position.

 

Two of our insanely long low-percentage throws won big games for us.

 

And of course when you really open up the passing playbook, a large Husker contingent will scream that you're not handing the ball to Imani Cross.

[Enhance]

If TA is our starter in 2014, I'm really interested to see how they develop the passing game. I think he was only averaging anywhere from 12-16 passes a game as a starter, IIRC. Maybe a few more. Either way, it certainly wasn't much. We also leaned on Abdullah and the option a bit more because it seemed to fit TA's skill set.

 

And as evidenced this year, TA really does throw a good long ball. And his receivers dropped several passes that were on the money. Will our offense stay committed to running and the option game, plus play action passes to let Armstrong take a shot down field? Or, will the offense transition back into what it was under TM in his later years, where TM was throwing 25-30 times a game?

 

Given Abdullah leaves, we've got a group of extremely talented running backs. With the exception of Cross, a lot of that talent is unproven, but the potential is there. They need to be a staple of what we do and I think the coaches realize that.