Tommy Armstrong's Passing Game Breakdown vs. Fresno

[ColoradoHusk]

With only 10 official passing attempts by Armstrong vs. Fresno State, there seems to be a lot of concern about Langsdorf being afraid to use Tommy in the passing game, and Tommy continuing to be poor in the passing game. I am not saying either of those opinions are wrong, but I did want to go back through the game and look at all the passing attempts by Tommy and put in my point of view. Now, I am not a QB coach or offensive coordinator, and I am not using the All-22 view which gives coaches the best view on seeing the game. But, I think this breakdown is helpful.

 

1st Quarter

3rd and 4 from Fresno 38. Tommy makes a simple throw to the right sideline to Morgan on an out pattern for a gain of 11. First read, and he was open, but Tommy did his job.

 

2nd Quarter

2nd and 10 from NU 30. Play action roll out to Tommy's right. He makes a good throw on the run on a deep out pattern to Moore for a gain of 23. Very good play IMO.

 

2nd and 17 from near midfield. This is the play after DPE fumbled on the end around, which put NU in a deep hole. Armstrong rolls right and throws a deep pass to Moore along right sideline. Moore has 1 on 1 coverage, but the ball was thrown late and is broken up by the DB. From the TV view, the short routes appeared to be covered. One could say that this is Tommy going for the big play too much, but I didn't think it was a terrible decision, just not great execution.

 

3rd and 17 near midfield The call was a screen pass to Newby, which Fresno sniffs out right away. The ball hits Newby right in the chest and he drops it. Even if it Newby catches it, the play wasn't going anywhere. I don't know how this play can be viewed as a negative for Tommy though.

 

3rd and 2 from NU 40. Tommy hits Cethan Carter on a quick hitter and Carter rumbles for nearly 15 yards. However, there is illegal formation penalty which nullifies a positive play by Tommy.

 

3rd and 7 from NU 35. Tommy sees pressure coming at him and throws a deep pass off his back foot to Westercamp. Everyone is calling this another YOLO bomb, and I don't disagree. However, Tommy didn't have a lot of time to go through his progressions, and was trying to give Westy a chance to make a play vs. 1 on 1 coverage. I don't know if others were open from the TV view.

 

3rd quarter

2nd and 8 from Fresno 40. Tommy tries to hit Carter on a short pass over the middle. At first glance, the ball is thrown behind Cethan and is incomplete. Looking at it again, it looks like Tommy expected Carter to stop between the 2 LB's in zone coverage, instead Carter continues to shuffle towards the LB to Tommy's right. If Tommy doesn't throw it "behind" Carter, it could have been an INT. Tommy does pass it to a spot that only his guy can catch it. Now, I don't know who's "fault" the incompletion is. IMO, it was a miscommunication between Tommy and Cethan.

 

3rd and 8 from Fresno 40. There is a protection bust right away by NU's o-line, but Tommy is able to avoid the pass rusher coming through free. Tommy steps up in the pocket and then scrambles left and hits a wide open Moore along the left sideline for a first down. This is a VERY GOOD play by Tommy. He does a great job of avoiding a sack, and makes the smart decision on the pass to Moore.

 

3rd and 2 from NU 28. Tommy tries to hit Newby, who ran an angle route out of the backfield. Newby was open, but Tommy leads him too much. Others have said that poor footwork led to a bad pass, and that is very probable. One thing I want to point out about this play, was that it was all messed up from the very beginning. Knevel got hurt in between plays, and instead of going to the ground, he runs off the field. There is a mad scramble to bring in a replacement offensive lineman, and get the play off in time. Yes, Tommy didn't execute once the play was ran, but Riley could have called timeout once he saw the mass confusion going on before the ball was snapped.

 

4th Quarter

2nd and 5 from NU 42. This is the first play of the 4th quarter. After running the ball all game, Langsdorf finally goes to a deep play action pass. It's a great play call, as Moore is wide open behind the coverage. Tommy has good footwork in the pocket after the play-fake, and steps into his throw nicely. Nitpickers could say that the ball was slightly underthrown and the DB almost came back to make the play. But, when Moore is that wide open, the last thing Tommy wants to do is over throw him. Great play call and execution for a 58 yard TD.

 

1st and 10 from NU 49. Tommy rolls out right and checks down to Ozigbo in the right flat. It's not a great throw, but Ozigbo makes a very nice catch for a gain of 5

 

 

Those are all 10 pass plays, with another pass play that was nullified by penalty. Yes, Tommy's stats of 5 of 10 for 108 yards and 1 TD aren't super impressive. But, what if Newby catches the screen pass that hit him in his chest. Then Tommy has a 60% completion rate, and I think people would be happy with that percentage. Tommy also had a completion nullified due to penalty, and the next play resulted in an incomplete pass. People want to use completion % as the best measure of accuracy, but I don't think it's that easy.

 

Breaking down the passes further, I saw 3 short pass attempts to RB's, and only 1 was completed. That's not great, but that did include a dropped screen pass (although it would have been no gain anyway). The missed pass to Newby on the angle route was not a good throw to an open RB.

 

Tommy was 2 of 3 on intermediate passes to WR/TE, and the 2 completions gained 1st downs. I think that's a good percentage rate.

 

On deep passes (over 15-20 yards downfield), Tommy was 2 of 4 with 1 TD pass. I think a lot of coaches would take a 50% completion rate on deep passes like this, as anything more is probably unrealistic IMO.

 

So, yes Tommy did have an uneven game in the passing department. But, he had a pretty good game running the ball, including 2 nice TD runs. He wasn't sacked and didn't have any turnovers. I think NU will need to pass more against tougher opponents/defenses, but for game 1 of the season, I am not going to say Tommy had a "bad" game. I would give Tommy a grade of a B/B- for the Fresno State game. It wasn't bad, but there is room for improvement.

 

[JJ Husker]

Good review. I've only watched it live but it sure didn't seem to me that TA was struggling to throw the ball well. I was just giddy that Langs was sticking with the run even though it was working. I did think Tommy's arm strength looked very good, epsecially that 23 yard out to Moore in the 2nd (I think that was the one) he threw that on a rope while rolling out. Not sure how anybody can complain about his passing in this game. It's his decision making and getting through his progressions that have been the problem historically. I'm sure we'll see more of those problems but I was more than pleased with his performance against Fresno.

[Bigred_inSD]

Who's coaching up the WR with KW suspended

[ColoradoHusk]

Who's coaching up the WR with KW suspended

Hardie Buck (see bio below) is the Grad Assistant that works with the WR's,

 

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=210175343

[Mavric]

With only 10 official passing attempts by Armstrong vs. Fresno State, there seems to be a lot of concern about Langsdorf being afraid to use Tommy in the passing game, and Tommy continuing to be poor in the passing game. I am not saying either of those opinions are wrong, but I did want to go back through the game and look at all the passing attempts by Tommy and put in my point of view. Now, I am not a QB coach or offensive coordinator, and I am not using the All-22 view which gives coaches the best view on seeing the game. But, I think this breakdown is helpful.

 

Excellent analysis. I pretty much agree with you.

 

But I would point out that the concern over Langsdorf being afraid of Tommy isn't really an opinion. It's pretty much what Langsdorf said himself. So perhaps Langsdorf is looking into things a little deeper as to what else could or should have been going on on some of those plays.

[TonyStalloni]

I expected the coaches this year to do a better job of putting TA in a comfort level where he could do well. Easier passes with higher completion %'s. Let him carry the ball to force the D to account for him. I hope that by the Oregon game they can unleash hell on the Ducks.

[Count 'Bility]

I thought the long pass down the sideline to Moore was a tremendous throw. On the run, about a 40 yard toss (maybe more?) and dropped it right in the bread basket. but the defender made a great play. That was the only option on that play. Everything else was covered. It was either that or throw it away really.

 

Mixed feelings on it otherwise. But the bottom line is, we didnt see really enough to have any real sense of where Tommy is at right now. He completed some passes, and he missed a couple. The TD to Moore was pretty well underthrown, which is fine beins Moore had his guy beat by 10 yards. And, we took the decision making away from him. Didnt put much on his shoulders. So it's really hard to tell. But it's gonna be interesting when we get to Big ten play, against 8-10 in the box, how we'll be able to cope with that. Will our defense be solid enought by then to just hunker down and shorten the game?

[Redux]

Nicely done Husk.

 

My big takeaway from the game was that I felt like Tommy wasn't quite on the same page with his playmakers. That and the O Line needs to mature to give those guys more protection and gaps.

 

After the UCLA game and now this, the Run game looks to be back. Well, that is until Oregon comes to town. I think we see more ground and pound againdt WYO this week and love seeing Ozigbo as the guy who has already stepped up.

 

As for Tommy, I don't see him making some huge leap this season based off an incredibly small sample thus far. But one could argue he is making better decisions so far.

[Count 'Bility]

Im more worried about Wyomings ability to stop the run than Oregons. That's a struggling defense up there in Eugene. Lots of work need done on that. Wyoming on the other hand was in pure shut down mode.

[Redux]

Im more worried about Wyomings ability to stop the run than Oregons. That's a struggling defense up there in Eugene. Lots of work need done on that. Wyoming on the other hand was in pure shut down mode.

 

I think we have a strong enough stable of RB's we will simply wear them down by the second half. I would say though that we see double the pass attempts by Tommy this week.

[ColoradoHusk]

 

With only 10 official passing attempts by Armstrong vs. Fresno State, there seems to be a lot of concern about Langsdorf being afraid to use Tommy in the passing game, and Tommy continuing to be poor in the passing game. I am not saying either of those opinions are wrong, but I did want to go back through the game and look at all the passing attempts by Tommy and put in my point of view. Now, I am not a QB coach or offensive coordinator, and I am not using the All-22 view which gives coaches the best view on seeing the game. But, I think this breakdown is helpful.

 

Excellent analysis. I pretty much agree with you.

 

But I would point out that the concern over Langsdorf being afraid of Tommy isn't really an opinion. It's pretty much what Langsdorf said himself. So perhaps Langsdorf is looking into things a little deeper as to what else could or should have been going on on some of those plays.

 

Yes, Langsdorf did show concern over Tommy. Who knows what Langsdorf is thinking or seeing from his eye in the sky. I think Langsdorf will always be uncomfortable with Tommy because Tommy struggles in the go-to plays that Langsdorf and Riley want to run. Conversely, Tommy excels in plays that Langsdorf and Riley don't have much experience designing and calling.

[Undone]

Im more worried about Wyomings ability to stop the run than Oregons. That's a struggling defense up there in Eugene. Lots of work need done on that. Wyoming on the other hand was in pure shut down mode.

 

I'm kind of hoping to see some screen passes to Moore, and possibly a bubble screen to Newby this weekend.

 

I'm not worried about showing Oregon or Ohio State or Wisconsin our playbook. I think the game this weekend needs to be about creating a template to be used against those three teams above.

[Count 'Bility]

 

Im more worried about Wyomings ability to stop the run than Oregons. That's a struggling defense up there in Eugene. Lots of work need done on that. Wyoming on the other hand was in pure shut down mode.

 

I'm kind of hoping to see some screen passes to Moore, and possibly a bubble screen to Newby this weekend.

 

I'm not worried about showing Oregon or Ohio State or Wisconsin our playbook. I think the game this weekend needs to be about creating a template to be used against those three teams above.

 

I dont think we can throw screens. The one time we tried saturday, it was a complete circus. Our bubble game was shredded from the playbook after some embarrassing execution against Mich St. And this it's why I feel how I feel. you would think that with a qb that struggles with downfield progressions, that screens and bubble would be ideal, esp with the kind of athletes we can put on the edge in any pers grouping. But the problem is simple throwing ability. Our qb also lacks the necessary touch and accuracy for such throws. It's just a double whammy that kinda has this staff handcuffed right now in offensive playcalling. That's something that was pretty telling is that Tommy still struggles with any sort of touch on the ball. This is who he is.

[Undone]

I dont think we can throw screens. The one time we tried saturday, it was a complete circus. Our bubble game was shredded from the playbook after some embarrassing execution against Mich St. And this it's why I feel how I feel. you would think that with a qb that struggles with downfield progressions, that screens and bubble would be ideal, esp with the kind of athletes we can put on the edge in any pers grouping. But the problem is simple throwing ability. Our qb also lacks the necessary touch and accuracy for such throws. It's just a double whammy that kinda has this staff handcuffed right now in offensive playcalling. That's something that was pretty telling is that Tommy still struggles with any sort of touch on the ball. This is who he is.

 

I tend to agree. It's really frustrating.

 

It's kind of why the Michigan State game and the bowl game felt almost like miracles. Yes, we established the run first and foremost. There's no question there.

 

But we probably won because Tommy was "on" in both of those games.

 

We *have to* find high-percentage ways to get the ball to Westy and Moore down the stretch. I think Langsdorf is in the right mindset this season to design game plans based around what we're capable of, not just want he'd prefer to do. Those fears seem laid to rest. But honestly, I cringe thinking about lining up against Wisconsin.

[ColoradoHusk]

One thing that bothers me with a lot of fans and their critique about Tommy is that they refuse to count in Tommy's run game. On Saturday,, Tommy had 11 runs for 43 yards According to the play by play, 6 of Tommy's 11 run attempts went for 3 yards or more. To me, those are like completions in the short passing game. So, if I add the 11 run attempts and 6 positive runs to Tommy's passing stats, his passing stats would be: 11 of 21 (52.3%) for 151 yards, 3 TD's, no turnovers, and no sacks taken. The adjusted "completion %" is low, and I would like Tommy's total offense to be at least 200 total yards. But, in a vanilla scheme against Fresno, Tommy's stats are more efficient than first glance would show.