Serious OL Question

[Guy Chamberlin]

Is McNeese State's defensive line that much better than Miami?

 

Or did our offensive line eat its Wheaties?

 

Much has been made about Beck committing to Abdullah this game, but in the two previous games Abdullah had plenty of carries but far less penetration. Against McNeese, you could see that our OL wasn't getting any push. A third and one was never a gimme. Against Miami Beck seemed to spread out the point of attack a bit for Abdullah, but it still required an offensive line that could get push, the kind where the qb or rb could essentially fall forward for two yards. That's the part that reminded me of vintage Nebraska.

 

So was that execution and attitude, a change of scheme, or is the Miami D simply not as good as McNeese State?

[Undone]

If those are the only three choices, I'm going with execution and attitude.

[BigRedBuster]

Rewatch both games. There are a few factors that I see. I've only rewatched a little over a quarter of the Miami game.

a) yes, they did play better. Mainly, they did a better job of making sure the DLineman is blocked before they went to the second level. In the McNeese State game, sometimes the D lineman was able to make a play because the Husker O lineman went to the second level and the block at the one wasn't passed off to someone else properly.

 

 

b) McNeese State looked like they stacked the box more. I haven't studied it in depth but Miami didn't have as many people committed to stopping Ameer.

 

c) And, I think this is the biggest one, Miami wasn't blitzing their LBs to fill running gaps as much. They thought their D line would be able to win the point of attack and the LBs stayed back reading the play more. This allowed us to WIN the point of attack and get Ameer and Tommy to the second level.

 

This is why we saw Nebraska passing 31 times in the McNeese State game. If they are going to commit that much to stopping Ameer, then the passing game should open up.

 

Honestly, I don't know how I would defend Nebraska right now. We have proven we can beat you by running Ameer, long passing offense, medium length passing offense and with this game, we have proven that Tommy and Ameer are deadly with the read option as a tandem.

 

Tommy is really running this offense very well. You can tell he has confidence in it and he knows the majority of runs needs to go to Ameer but he is perfectly fine with taking it and making plays on his own. I REALLY like watching both players run the ball.

[zoogs]

The Miami DL is quite possibly that bad:

 

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/9/4/6105923/phillip-buchanon-miami-twitter

 

Certainly they played a different scheme. McNeese State 1-gap, Miami 2-gap. Miami fans feel like their defensive scheme played right into our hands, and it's hard to argue with that.

 

Personally, I feel Beck did a great job of outscheming the opposing coordinator and should get the credit. If Miami was going to try and stack the box, we could and would have hit them over the top.

 

McNeese State was a day that led us to wonder if the offense could be rendered 1-dimensional so easily. Miami, through their fault or our credit, was the realization of this offense's dual-threat potential, with the pass threat opening up the run.

[Count 'Bility]

Not to mention Miami allowed themselves to be outnumbered in the box time and time and time and time again. They went into a 2 high safety look after the first long td drive and proceeded to stay in it for the duration of the game.

[knapplc]

From today's presser:

 

 

Kevin Sjuts ‏@kevinsjuts

Pelini: "Miami might've gotten spooked when we hit a couple passes early." Says it opened up running game #Huskers

[BigRedBuster]

Not to mention Miami allowed themselves to be outnumbered in the box time and time and time and time again. They went into a 2 high safety look after the first long td drive and proceeded to stay in it for the duration of the game.

Which I think is a direct result of the long TD pass to Bell.

 

That pass was open on that play, they adjusted. I don't think we threw the long ball again the entire game. We proved we will kill you with that and they committed to making sure we didn't.

 

Wait.....Armstrong did something right in the passing game? I must be wrong.

[RedDenver]

Not to mention Miami allowed themselves to be outnumbered in the box time and time and time and time again. They went into a 2 high safety look after the first long td drive and proceeded to stay in it for the duration of the game.

Great point. When viewing the success of the NU run game, keep in mind that 40-yard TD pass to Bell put some fear into the Miami DC and kept high safeties the rest of the game.

[Undone]

Our receivers blocked well in this one, too.

 

Bo in the presser also just said, "I don't know if the first guy brought him down all night."

 

Love it.

[Count 'Bility]

We did a little bit of everything on that drive. Zone read keep and give, power, counter, PA Deep ball, WR screen to Westerkamp. Sure it's *gasp* "multiple", but I thought it was an excellent script to open. Like Bo says you gotta execute. And they did. They executed that whole first possession to a T. And I thought it really set the tone and put Miami on their heels a bit for the remainder of the night.

[Mavric]

As I said after the McNeese game, it's not so much of playing "better" as it is selling out to stop AA. McNeese always had at least one more guy in the box than we could block - often two guys - and they went straight for AA which is why TA had several long runs. If anything, we actually should have run AA less in that game - not that we couldn't have gotten the ball to him in other ways.

[MichiganDad3]

Rewatch both games. There are a few factors that I see. I've only rewatched a little over a quarter of the Miami game.

a) yes, they did play better. Mainly, they did a better job of making sure the DLineman is blocked before they went to the second level. In the McNeese State game, sometimes the D lineman was able to make a play because the Husker O lineman went to the second level and the block at the one wasn't passed off to someone else properly.

 

 

b) McNeese State looked like they stacked the box more. I haven't studied it in depth but Miami didn't have as many people committed to stopping Ameer.

 

c) And, I think this is the biggest one, Miami wasn't blitzing their LBs to fill running gaps as much. They thought their D line would be able to win the point of attack and the LBs stayed back reading the play more. This allowed us to WIN the point of attack and get Ameer and Tommy to the second level.

 

This is why we saw Nebraska passing 31 times in the McNeese State game. If they are going to commit that much to stopping Ameer, then the passing game should open up.

 

Honestly, I don't know how I would defend Nebraska right now. We have proven we can beat you by running Ameer, long passing offense, medium length passing offense and with this game, we have proven that Tommy and Ameer are deadly with the read option as a tandem.

 

Tommy is really running this offense very well. You can tell he has confidence in it and he knows the majority of runs needs to go to Ameer but he is perfectly fine with taking it and making plays on his own. I REALLY like watching both players run the ball.

I also like how TA handles the offense. His ability on the option read is so smooth he reminds me of Turner Gill. I just hope he limits the bad throws.

[BigRedBuster]

Also, I'm not hearing much talk about us not being able to grind out drives. The first TD was on a big play. The rest were grind it out drives.

[BigRedBuster]

 

Rewatch both games. There are a few factors that I see. I've only rewatched a little over a quarter of the Miami game.

a) yes, they did play better. Mainly, they did a better job of making sure the DLineman is blocked before they went to the second level. In the McNeese State game, sometimes the D lineman was able to make a play because the Husker O lineman went to the second level and the block at the one wasn't passed off to someone else properly.

 

 

b) McNeese State looked like they stacked the box more. I haven't studied it in depth but Miami didn't have as many people committed to stopping Ameer.

 

c) And, I think this is the biggest one, Miami wasn't blitzing their LBs to fill running gaps as much. They thought their D line would be able to win the point of attack and the LBs stayed back reading the play more. This allowed us to WIN the point of attack and get Ameer and Tommy to the second level.

 

This is why we saw Nebraska passing 31 times in the McNeese State game. If they are going to commit that much to stopping Ameer, then the passing game should open up.

 

Honestly, I don't know how I would defend Nebraska right now. We have proven we can beat you by running Ameer, long passing offense, medium length passing offense and with this game, we have proven that Tommy and Ameer are deadly with the read option as a tandem.

 

Tommy is really running this offense very well. You can tell he has confidence in it and he knows the majority of runs needs to go to Ameer but he is perfectly fine with taking it and making plays on his own. I REALLY like watching both players run the ball.

I also like how TA handles the offense. His ability on the option read is so smooth he reminds me of Turner Gill. I just hope he limits the bad throws.

 

He did a good job throwing the ball on Saturday.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Interest bit from McKeown today that went under my radar. I'm assuming this was a new twist:

 

 

» A creative use of tight ends. Beck cleverly deployed Cethan Carter and Sam Cotton as extra physical blockers, often on linebackers or safeties. Though both tight ends occasionally lined up next to tackles, they also worked as H-backs, arcing around a Miami defensive end — who was left alone to be read by Armstrong — so they could wall off pursuit in case Armstrong came running their way. But a few times, those tight ends served as true lead blockers, bolting through to surprised linebackers who, by then, were probably looking for the arc block.