Huskers want teams like they had in 90s, florida st wants teams like they had in 90s, miami wants teams like they had in 90s and early 2000s, oklahoma wants teams like they had in 70s and 80s, and on and on. Football changes and evolves. If you want teams like we had in the 90s then get out your dvds and watch them and quit following the Nebraska team now. I would have loved to get Paul Johnson in here as coach. Would love to hear the same people complain when things would have failed saying how we cant run option football with how football is now. Recruiting is WAY harder now and getting players to come in and play option football is hard as hell. They want to play in schemes that can help them get to the nfl now. Theres no prop 48 anymore. If you want the best talent you better have schemes that talent wants to play in.
Maybe that's the biggest reason why Callahan was able to bring in better players than Solich or Pelini. He was running a pro style O and D, so he got pro style players.
Pro style isn't as bad as a lot of people seem to think. Devaney ran an early form of the pro style with very little option. Osborne didn't add the option in until the 80s if I remember correctly.
And to be honest, I do like the passing game Riley has going on here, for the most part. I would like to see a bigger emphasis on the run game, and run some deep play action off of it. Cross would be much better suited for a pro style power run offense, even more so than Newby or Wilbon. At most a 65%-35% run-pass ratio though, for a balanced offense.
I think there is still potential here for a good system and a good team. We will still improve as the season goes on, but if we can bring in some talented pro style nfl calibre players, 2 or 3 years down the road we could be in the playoff conversation again.
Also, there's a lot of potential to adding some option into a pro style attack. A Power O or HB Dive play run out of the pistol with the QB making a read on the backside DE or OLB could open up a lot of space on the outside for some big gains, or if that's accounted for would pull one man out of the box and possibly open the inside run for a big gain. Some traditional speed option to the outside could also make the middle vulnerable to a fullback trap (or H-back trap if you're running it out of the pistol.)
The option doesn't have to be the end all, be all of a scheme. Its usually more effective as an add on to take advantage of an opposing defense's tendancies.