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Husker Offense Looking for "Plus Twos"


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Stoll has some work to do as a vertical threat in the passing game and his footwork needs some tweaking. But as a blocker, the Huskers know what they are getting.

 

"Right now Jack's the guy," NU tight ends coach Sean Beckton said. "He's the one guy in this room that we know that's gonna strike and drive people two yards on a given play."

 

 

Ask around the offense, and "plus-twos" are as important as any conventional statistic coaches and players track. Moving a defender two yards can demonstrate a strength advantage and extra effort on an individual level. In a broader sense, it furthers a culture of competition and indicates the potential success of a play. It can even be predictive of future contributors.

 

Players earned a point every time they collected a plus-two last fall. Stoll won going away among tight ends. Stanley Morgan paced the receivers, followed by JD Spielman, Kade Warner and Mike Williams. At running back, Devine Ozigbo was the big leader.

 

As for the offensive line? Junior left tackle Brenden Jaimes said it was either him or right tackle Matt Farniok. O-line coach Greg Austin declined to list the leaderboard from a year when those in the trenches were learning a new system and making strength gains.

 

OWH

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OK, educate me.

 

Back in the day, we were coaching our linemen to blast off the ball and knock people down.  We measured success in pancakes.  It was awesome.  This was done more with a lot of communication along the line pre snap and each guy knew who he was supposed to block.  Fire off and go get him.

 

Then, we went to this zone blocking and I remember a point in maybe Callahan's era where it came out that our OC didn't really want our linemen knocking people down.  Seriously, I remember the discussions amongst fans.  The argument was that defenders on the ground got in the way.  They wanted the linemen to move the defender in the direction he starts and just move him farther than he wants to go so that it opens up a hole.  They were supposed to move the defender more down the line in one direction or the other instead of back.

 

So....now we have +2.  I'm liking what I'm hearing.  This seems to be moving back more towards old thought processes.  We want to reestablish the line of scrimmage with the defenders moving back.

 

So, am I correct in that we are going back more to what we knew and loved in the 80s and 90s where we want or guys firing off forward and attacking the guy on the other side?

 

I am far from an expert in blocking schemes.  All I know is I loved how we used to block and I hated zone blocking when it was brought to Nebraska.  

 

Teach me.

 

Thanks.

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51 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

OK, educate me.

 

Back in the day, we were coaching our linemen to blast off the ball and knock people down.  We measured success in pancakes.  It was awesome.  This was done more with a lot of communication along the line pre snap and each guy knew who he was supposed to block.  Fire off and go get him.

 

Then, we went to this zone blocking and I remember a point in maybe Callahan's era where it came out that our OC didn't really want our linemen knocking people down.  Seriously, I remember the discussions amongst fans.  The argument was that defenders on the ground got in the way.  They wanted the linemen to move the defender in the direction he starts and just move him farther than he wants to go so that it opens up a hole.  They were supposed to move the defender more down the line in one direction or the other instead of back.

 

So....now we have +2.  I'm liking what I'm hearing.  This seems to be moving back more towards old thought processes.  We want to reestablish the line of scrimmage with the defenders moving back.

 

So, am I correct in that we are going back more to what we knew and loved in the 80s and 90s where we want or guys firing off forward and attacking the guy on the other side?

 

I am far from an expert in blocking schemes.  All I know is I loved how we used to block and I hated zone blocking when it was brought to Nebraska.  

 

Teach me.

 

Thanks.

This was my question as well.  The emphasis of power blocking was 'put downs' - pancakes.  I hope this new philosophy moves us from finesse football to power football once again.

Pancake or knocking someone back 2 feet tells me the OL has control and not the Dline.     I like the emphasis.

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The biggest reason pancakes seem deemphasized is the increase in overall strength and conditioning at all levels of football since the 90s.

 

Best example are freshman offensive lineman. In the 90s, no one played a true freshman. Now, despite the position needing more weight is relatively common for even premier programs to start a true freshman.

 

What this means, schematically, is its a lot harder to blow guys up. So instead teams look to win in space. Blocking is still important, but your win condition changes. It's more about using angles to redirect than it is launching a bunch of big guys against a bunch of other big guys.

 

Think of Iowa's offense, which still uses a lot of 22 personnel. They average about 4 yards a rush, but many years below that. Nebraska last year averaged 5.4 in year 1.

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37 minutes ago, brophog said:

Think of Iowa's offense, which still uses a lot of 22 personnel. They average about 4 yards a rush, but many years below that. Nebraska last year averaged 5.4 in year 1.

 

You're not wrong, but I'm going to nitpick slightly and add some context to your paragraph there.

 

Because of scheme (and probably speed at the I-Back position), we averaged more yards per carry. But on 3rd & 1, which team's offensive line you going with last season? I am unashamedly going with Iowa's. And that's one of the reasons we didn't score a proportional amount of points to the yards we racked up.

This is why "getting push" is unarguably really important, and especially in Big 10 play. If we had good push, we could have iced the Northwestern game. And we would have scored more points - at a minimum more field goals - by not having drives get stalled when we got into the opponent's half of the field but then failed on simple 3rd & short plays that got stuffed.

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1 hour ago, brophog said:

What this means, schematically, is its a lot harder to blow guys up. So instead teams look to win in space. Blocking is still important, but your win condition changes. It's more about using angles to redirect than it is launching a bunch of big guys against a bunch of other big guys.

 

I somewhat agree with this.  It's obviously not nearly as easy to get pancakes now compared to back in the 80s when we were one of only a few teams who actually lifted and had nutrition.  So, expecting your O line to knock people down every play is a little unfair.

 

But, I see a difference in the zone blocking mentality that you mention where you're redirecting guys.....and expecting them to be pushed two yards back.

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17 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I somewhat agree with this.  It's obviously not nearly as easy to get pancakes now compared to back in the 80s when we were one of only a few teams who actually lifted and had nutrition.  So, expecting your O line to knock people down every play is a little unfair.

 

And as far as this next season is concerned, I'm much less concerned with whether we're knocking guys on their a$$ as I am with whether or not the other team can work off of our block to tackle the runner/get to Martinez.

 

Discussing Frost's perceived level of importance that he places on pancake blocks is a fun tie-in to 90s nostalgia but in reality as long as the defender isn't working off of his block it doesn't actually matter that much to the play. Someone will of course chime in and disagree and also talk about how this plays in to wearing a team out by the fourth quarter and every other host of Osborne-isms, and that's great...but, baby steps.

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1 hour ago, Undone said:

 

And as far as this next season is concerned, I'm much less concerned with whether we're knocking guys on their a$$ as I am with whether or not the other team can work off of our block to tackle the runner/get to Martinez.

 

Discussing Frost's perceived level of importance that he places on pancake blocks is a fun tie-in to 90s nostalgia but in reality as long as the defender isn't working off of his block it doesn't actually matter that much to the play. Someone will of course chime in and disagree and also talk about how this plays in to wearing a team out by the fourth quarter and every other host of Osborne-isms, and that's great...but, baby steps.

My comments were not waxing nostalgia about the 90s. It was about comparing blocking scheme/theory. 

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2 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

My comments were not waxing nostalgia about the 90s. It was about comparing blocking scheme/theory. 

It's fun to look back though.  This interview with Aaron Graham was interesting and kind of backs up what @brophog said about better S&C 

 

Quote

Q: What about his personality, his methods?

AG: The thing that stands out most about Coach Tenopir -and other people have said this- is that he treated you like a man from day one. He respected new guys, he expected a lot out of us, and he treated us fairly. He could coach run-blocking better than anybody I ever saw or ever played for, and the one thing that he taught his guys how to do was to come off the rock. When I went back after my second or third year in the NFL I went down and they were going through spring drills. And I watched his offensive line go through some blocking drills I’d done a million times down in the old pit, and I looked at those guys and I wanted to take a video of it and take it back to my teammates at the Arizona Cardinals. I wanted to say to them, ‘Do you want to see how you’re supposed to come off the ball to go run block? This is how you do it.’

This was probably me just getting ready to go back to a mini-camp, and to watch the explosion, the speed, the technique we had to do, to reach individuals? (When I talk about ‘reach,’ I mean ‘to pull down the line’ a half-man or a full man and cut that guy off.) You have to be faster, stronger, quicker, to get in the position and to knock him off his feet…you can’t even do that in the NFL. You can’t even teach that technique. It’s like it’s even impossible to do. They don’t even try it!

Q: Not many pancakes in the NFL, huh? (laughs)

AG: Yeah! (laughs) If you get a pancake in the NFL you’re bound to probably get a plaque for it. A pancake where you‘re running over a guy? It’s extremely difficult to do. And for this book you’re putting together, I want people to know those stories. I want people to know about that experience because I’m telling you -that group that I played with?- it may never be duplicated again.

 

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