Our team is an inherent contradiction

[Hujan]

I was thinking about the team under Riley today and it struck me that our schemes on offense and defense present an undeniable and inherent contradiction in football theory. Allow me to explain:

 

Defense--Stop the run

 

Our defense scheme is clearly designed to stop the run first and foremost. We pull the safeties up close to the LOS and leave our corners largely in single coverage. The "sign" that our defense is working as designed is that opposing offenses will have little choice but to attempt deep, fade routes to the outside.

 

I have to assume that this schematic shift is predicated on Banker's belief that, against most college teams, when you take away the run, you take away their offense. Banker no doubt feels that few college teams have QBs who are good enough to beat teams with their arms, and therefore selling out to take away the run will win a lot of college football games.

 

And the stats have borne this out: Whereas in recent years Nebraska had a historically embarrassing rushing D, our pass D was pretty good. By contrast, now our rush D is good, but our pass D is porous at best. And yet, to Banker's credit, we have been in every single game thus far despite having a porous D. And even if you point out that this is only because we have yet to play a truly stellar QB, you are only making Banker's point: Most teams lack the elite talent at QB to consistently put up points without the run.

 

Offense--Abandon the run

 

Given that Banker clearly believes stopping the run is imperative to shutting down an opposing offense and does not seem terribly worried about teams beating a defense through the air, one would expect that our offense would focus heavily on ensuring a powerful, unstoppable rushing attack, with a relative de-emphasis on the pass.

 

And yet, what you see is exactly the opposite: We have effectively de-emphasized the run in favor of trying to pickup yards through the air. And we are doing so on the back of a QB who lacks the ability to consistently make the reads and throws needed to move the chains. The result is basically a Mark Banker wet dream: An offense that frequently attempts low-percentage passes downfield, consistently struggles to pick up first downs, and has trouble reliably putting points on the board.

 

Conclusion

 

To summarize: Our defense is built on the belief that an offense cannot put points on the board unless it can run the ball effectively and therefore schemes to take away the run. By contrast, our offense reflects the belief that an offense cannot put points on the board without a powerful passing attack, and voluntarily abandons the run.

 

You could actually take this one step further: In addition to stopping the run, the stated goal of Banker's defense is to "spill" plays to the outside. The middle is solid and the goal is to flush ball carriers to the perimeter. Banker's ostensible rationale is that by forcing plays to the outside, the sideline essentially becomes a 12th defender, thereby making it easier to limit opponents' yards. And yet, what is a staple you see with Riley's offense? Lots of quick bubble screens to the outside and fly motion all of which do what? Force the ball toward the sidelines, exactly where a Mark Banker-coached defense would dream of putting the ballcarrier.

 

I find it shocking that a single team's offense and defense could reflect such diametrically opposing theories of what it takes to succeed at football and I have to believe this is a huge reason for our failure as a team. It is tempting to wonder what is going through Banker's head as he watches Riley and Langsdorf abandoning the run in favor of forcing low-percentage balls downfield or running plays to the sidelines.

[jam56]

I have to agree with you on this and what is also apparent does not communicate with each other, have team meetings. Do they even know each other.

[4skers89]

Good topic since I noticed this as well. I was going to use it to point out that the focus of stopping the run on defense is really proof that Riley feels running the ball is key to winning games. His answers to questions about the defense in press conferences makes me think that he is very engaged in what the defense is doing and we all know that he is very involved with the offense. So if he isn't running the ball on offense there must be another reason such as we aren't very good at it. Is that because we don't practice run plays enough? Someone stated that practice observers saw about 75% passes in practice. I thought it made sense during fall camp and early in the season to focus on improving passing if that was key to making Langsdorf's offense work. By now I would expect more emphasis on developing a rushing attack. The only other explanation I can come up with is that the staff had this preconceived notion of the B1G of being a 3 yards and a cloud of dust conference where if you can stop the run, you win games. I don't think that is the case though.

[ColoradoHusk]

In Fall Camp, I heard from a lot of people that going up against our strong d-line would make our o-line better. That's good in theory, but Fall Camp is also a time where coaches can see which plays will be most successful for the offense. If the offense wasn't moving the ball via the running game in Fall Camp, then I would assume Langsdorf/Riley would try passing the ball to create success. If the coaches aren't "committing to the run" in Fall Camp, then it doesn't surprise me that the coaches aren't "committing to the run" during the games. Committing to the run requires a physical mentality that I don't think the offense has. They want an offense based on deception and "tricking the defense", and don't want to say "We are going to line up and beat you off the ball, and shove this RB down your throat".

[Hujan]

I have to agree with you on this and what is also apparent does not communicate with each other, have team meetings. Do they even know each other.

 

 

Exactly! You'd think Banker would be tempted to chime in when he sees the offensive coaches flinging the ball downfield, de-emphasizing the run, and trying to force things outside. In Banker's view, this would be playing right into the strength of the "ideal" defense.