A look at Mike Riley's offense

I know it's not the 1995 pipeline, and that pass pro and run blocking aren't the same thing, but I just really don't see how offensive lines that have paved the way for 3,547, 2,804, and and 3,123 yards over the last three seasons are so atrociously poor.

 
There isn't any group on the team that doesn't have a lot of room for improvement. With the O line, they were far from pathetically terrible like some fans want to make them out to be. You don't have the rushing production we had without a decent O line. What was bad with them is that a couple times a year they would have a bad game where it looked like they had never played the game before.

However, that was true with most of the team.

 
i would hope we could get a true decent passing qb eventually, its not whether we run from a pro set or out of the gun or the spread........but most top teams have a kid who can first and foremost throw the ball for 60% or better and are good game managers........running qbs who are undependable passers and are not respected by the D's is what we have most recently put on the field.....say what you want, but that has to change......

 
I completely agree. The QB should be your game manager and be a weapon, not a player you are scared to watch handle the ball longer than it takes to hand off the ball.

 
Hunter94 said:
i would hope we could get a true decent passing qb eventually, its not whether we run from a pro set or out of the gun or the spread........but most top teams have a kid who can first and foremost throw the ball for 60% or better and are good game managers........running qbs who are undependable passers and are not respected by the D's is what we have most recently put on the field.....say what you want, but that has to change......
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I completely agree that our QB needs to be able to complete a higher percentage of passes and ones in key parts of games while also taking care of the ball. He and the center are the only players who touch the ball every play. You can't be successful when turning the ball over constantly. My thing in this thread is that some seem to think that that has to be tied to not having a QB who is also asked to run some option and designed QB runs. That just isn't true. In fact, three of the playoff teams have lived off of some form of option/designed QB runs and they have QBs who completed over 60% of their passes while not turning it over.

 
It seems highly unusual to hear everyone jumping on this "we don't need no quarterback to run... They's useless anyways..." mentality.

Everyone does realize that since 2010, 4 of the 5 Heisman winners was a "dual threat" QB... Jameis is even borderline dual threat if not "mobile".

I'm not saying "dual threat" is the way to go. But the opposite is not the only answer. Especially considering that 3 of the 4 teams that participated in the past two National Championship games had option based attacks.

 
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I know we're talking about college football, but the dual threat conundrum has a lot to do with the NFL.

These athletically gifted QBs and Heisman Trophy winners are coming into the NFL and making their mark. Kind of. For a couple seasons. Then they get injured. Or defenses figure them out. Or OCs pressure them to pass first and run second. Or run only in an emergency. And some of them lose their edge and mojo, like Vince Young or RGIII. And then you look up and realize it's still a game ruled by classic drop back passers. Maybe Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick aren't the future.

Marcus Mariota may do just fine in the NFL, but as extremely talented as he is, the number one concern at the combine was whether he could run a pro-set offense.

Top college football players, the handful with NFL potential, raise their stock signifcantly by working in offenses familiar to the NFL. I can see the zone read living on like the old triple option before it, or a WR reverse, or a fullback counter. A play you pull out every game or two, but not your offensive system.

 
To me, I really don't care what is going on in the NFL. Ever since I started watching football, the college game has been completely different than the NFL. Success at one, does not mean success at the other. And, just because something doesn't work in the NFL doesn't mean it can't be extremely successful in the college game.

 
cg_8 said:
It seems highly unusual to hear everyone jumping on this "we don't need no quarterback to run... They's useless anyways..." mentality.

Everyone does realize that since 2010, 4 of the 5 Heisman winners was a "dual threat" QB... Jameis is even borderline dual threat if not "mobile".

I'm not saying "dual threat" is the way to go. But the opposite is not the only answer. Especially considering that 3 of the 4 teams that participated in the past two National Championship games had option based attacks.
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There's a difference between a QB who is also an athlete and an athlete who is playing QB.

 
jsneb83 said:
cg_8 said:
It seems highly unusual to hear everyone jumping on this "we don't need no quarterback to run... They's useless anyways..." mentality.

Everyone does realize that since 2010, 4 of the 5 Heisman winners was a "dual threat" QB... Jameis is even borderline dual threat if not "mobile".

I'm not saying "dual threat" is the way to go. But the opposite is not the only answer. Especially considering that 3 of the 4 teams that participated in the past two National Championship games had option based attacks.
Click to expand...
There's a difference between a QB who is also an athlete and an athlete who is playing QB.
Click to expand...
Jameis was so damn slow at the combines, he was a big sumbitch to tackle once he got moving in the open....not a true dual threat guy........he took what the D gave him by accident and seldom by design.

 
BigRedBuster said:
To me, I really don't care what is going on in the NFL. Ever since I started watching football, the college game has been completely different than the NFL. Success at one, does not mean success at the other. And, just because something doesn't work in the NFL doesn't mean it can't be extremely successful in the college game.
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True. And that's great if success in the college game is all you ask in life.

But for the handful of college players being scouted for professional careers, it's pretty important that their skillset translates to the NFL. One of the reasons few college teams run the triple-option anymore is that it required different disciplines and reps of the QB, the RBs and the Offensive Line. Good for a season of college glory, but makes you a question mark coming into the NFL. Some highly touted recruits may avoid a college program that runs a college-only offense.

 
It sounds to me like you guys really dislike TA so much that you want to completely throw out the concept of an option based attack and give up on the notion of a dual threat QB running our offense from here on out.

Personally, I have a strong bias towards dual threat QB's. There is something incredibly thrilling about watching an option-based attack. From the time I was little watching Tommie run, to watching Scott Frost run, and then watching Eric Crouch win the Heisman. A dual threat QB was what I grew up with and watching us win championships with.

But I also loved our not-so-mobile QB's. I loved watching Zac Taylor run the offense. He was by far the best at running the 2 minute offense Nebraska has ever seen. There was nothing better than watching Ganz pick apart defenses.

But let's keep in mind that TA isn't Joe Dailey. He was actually very productive, especially through the air. He threw the 4th most yards in school history in 2014. I get that he could be more efficient, there's no doubting that, but he is far from an "athlete playing QB". I guess I just don't get why everyone is just so easily ready to trash a guy who is far from our troubles and far from being "terrible".

 
We've tried a number of years of this read option, running QB, 70% run kind of offense. It got the last two OCs here run out of town. I won't be sorry at all to move far away from it.

For all the potential -- and I loved it -- how much did we see it realized? I didn't know Tommy threw so many touchdowns, but teams did not respect his ability to throw. And for a guy who throws a nice deep ball, we sure couldn't put together a consistent vertical playaction threat off the heavy run base to go with it. Going back further, Taylor, if you look it up, had a couple of 1000-yard rushing seasons. Some individual virtuoso performances notwithstanding, he was frequently just taking off running for chunks of yards here or there as part of an incoherent, inconsistent attack.

All things being equal, I'd love for a QB to have the running traits of an Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, or Marcus Mariota. I don't, however, think we should marry the scheme to that idea. Especially when it's not in these coaches' backgrounds.

 
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