Serious OL Question

[ColoradoHusk]

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.

Benning commented about that this morning on his radio show. Sometimes there are opponents like Fresno State who will defend with a "boom or bust" strategy. NU was able to break the long plays against them, but had several plays with limited success. Miami seemed to take the opposite strategy, where they wanted to limit the big play, and make NU put long drives together. Credit Beck for committing to the run, and taking those 5-8 yards runs play after play. On TA's INT in the 3rd quarter, that might have been Beck getting a little greedy, but Bell was wide open 5 yards down the field, and that was a read that TA missed. It was interesting to see Bo rip into TA for making that throw.

[Mavric]

I don't think we were doing much different alignment-wise. Perhaps using them a little more. The blocking scheme may have different.

[Branno]

I think the biggest factor in Miami's scheme can be attributed to one number: 69.2%

 

I know the sample size was low (because we didn't need to throw as much), but when you complete 70% of your passes the D will not stack the box. This is the game I wanted to see from TA (aside from the turnovers, but improvement is improvement). Anyone else see the check down to AA for a TD?

[zoogs]

We completed more of our passes because we had maybe one long downfield throw all game.

[LukeinNE]

I think part of it was attitude and execution, but mostly I think it was Miami's scheme. McNeese and Fresno went all Kevin Cosgrove circa Texas 2007 against Ameer Abdullah. The numbers game made it likely that we'd struggle to run, and we did. Nebraska's passing game had an off game against the former and it almost got them the W. It didn't against Fresno and they got BTFO. I get Miami's scheme: let's take away the big play and use our athletes to beat them man to man. What I don't get is their utter failure to adjust when it became obvious their front 7 was totally outclassed by our line and Abdullah's ability. Yes, pulling in the safeties probably leads to another home run or two over the top, but at some point the body blows are going to do you in and you have to risk taking a haymaker to stop them.

[junior4949]

The biggest difference was the execution and how the OL continued blocking well into the play. The offensive game ball obviously goes to the OL. I've been as negative as anyone with regards to the OL, but the OL played as well as I've seen in over a decade. The thing most need to acknowledge is the fact that Miami has a lot of speed and talent. They may be a bit thin in certain positions due to infractions from the past, but they still have a ton of talent on that team. The only mind boggling thing I really witnessed from the Miami defense was the use of their safeties. These guys seemed out of position nearly every play. If the OL plays as well as they did against Miami, Michigan State all of a sudden looks a lot more promising.

[Minnesota_husker]

Here is the thing.. If Tommy is on point, it doesnt matter what McNeese State did against the run because we would have torched them through the air.

 

If a team is going to to commit to stopping the run and going to put 9-10 guys in the box, we need to make the throws to beat them.

 

 

This is where running from the shotgun can help, because what team is going to commit that heavy to the run with the Offense that spread out.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, it was execution of the plays that seemed to make the difference.

 

 

BUT It did seem like the O-line was blowing their guy off the line... AA was awesome but the o-line was giving him holes all night long.

 

 

Mixture of execution and also performance.

[Branno]

We completed more of our passes because we had maybe one long downfield throw all game.

 

And that makes me happy. We had the long TD pass, and everything else was much shorter. We are not a team that needs to try for the home run every throw. Saturday made me super happy.

[True2tRA]

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 agree with this. Also as Knapp posted above, I do think that long pass backed Miami off. I think Miami believed in their font seven, even their front four, and dared us to run it on them. We did just that. We saw two defenses Saturday that were just trying not to give up the big play. Remember, Miami was right there in the game til' that fumble returned for six by Mitchell. Also like you said BigRedBuster, McNeese St, did quite the opposite. They dared Tommy to beat them. Their LB'ers attacked almost immediately on the snap of the ball. They didn't read, there was no react, they were attacking. Their safeties crashed down also. Miami's rarely did.

[Saunders]

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.

Yup, you can see it perfectly on Ameer's last TD. We've done it alot out of the pistol, and it works great.

[Warrior10]

Don't take for granted the jet sweep motion we ran vs Miami and not McNeese...watch a replay, you will see almost 2-3 guys start heading outside for the "sweep" while Ameer is dashing through the middle. I am convinced we were saving that all season. Beck killed them with decoys all day.

[Danimal]

Outside of having to settle for 3 at the end of the first-half Beck did call a hell of a game.

 

 

The pass does set-up the run. That early td by Bell got those safeties back for the rest of the game. Granted Miami probably should've brought them back into the box when they were getting gouged on the ground. Miami was also not shooting gaps like the previous teams. They relied on their guys to win individual battles and they weren't getting off our blocks.

 

The McNeese State game was bad partly because they had quick guys loading the box and shooting gaps. We didn't react well to it in the run-game and failed to make the pass-plays that were there.The other part was that we just didn't come to play. When a team doesn't come to battle the biggest place you probably see it is in run-blocking. The guys came to battle Saturday.

[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.

 

He did a good job throwing the ball on Saturday.

 

9 of 13 was good, but 1 out of 13 interceptions is unacceptable, especially given how wide open Bell was on the play

[BigRedBuster]

I agree Bell was wide open.

 

I also believe a coach after the game said thd receiver made the wrong move.

 

So, it's possible that play was not all his fault.

[BigRedBuster]

Also, He is at 92 attempts and 2 ints. Also. 9/2 td/int ratio.

 

Both nice stats.