BTN Analysts on Armstrong

[junior4949]

I don't get into recruiting as much as some except when it involves a player I've personally watched play. ARod was dominant in high school. However, one must remember what level of high school ball he played. Aurora is Class B. The reason he was somewhat dominant was because he was just bigger than everyone else. When he lined up against a well coached team like McCook, he really wasn't dominant at all. He almost became a nonfactor.

When we were recruiting Banderas, we were also looking at another LB. Banderas was a better athlete or I should say he was faster than the other LB who's name I can't recall. However, the other LB on film was a beast. He had a nose for the football, and he was always around the football. From Banderas's film, he typically showed up for the play after it was either over or all but over basically just jumping on the pile. The jury is still out on what kind of Husker career Banderas has, but I don't think he's necessarily lived up to the hype thus far. The other guy ended up not coming here, and I have no idea how his career is going. The point is Bo and staff seemed to take kids based upon what they could do off the field rather than how they played on the field. I can definitely understand why those who are stronger, faster, etc. get looked at harder, but I can't understand why so much emphasis was put on that while almost neglecting how they performed on the field. We seemed to have a lot of misses with regards to DL, LB, and QB.

 

[Enhance]

When you say they took kids based on what they could off the field compared to on, do you mean what they could do in drills or athletic tests?

Recruiting definitely isn't my forte - I'm one of the people that doesn't care until they get to the university. Without knowing specifics of their recruitment, there could be any number of reasons we didn't take that other LB. Perhaps classroom problems, work ethic problem, teamwork problems, or maybe he just didn't like Nebraska. Regardless of the reason, I feel like we're getting into the gray area of intense recruiting speculation without having much evidence to base conclusions off of. Unless we watch every single player's high school play - ever - then we can really only go off film, and a lot of our guys have had good film. It also seems like we're now changing the conversation now from guys with bad work ethic to guys who are athletically gifted but lack skill on the field. These may sometimes go hand-in-hand but they can also be mutually exclusive.

I understand the point you're arguing but I just personally don't see a lot of substance to it or a way to prove it. Seems like just a lot of conjecture, because I know we've recruited guys who have been lauded for their play on the field and their work ethic. I know Adam Taylor is a guy who on film was an absolute terror to opposing defenses.

 

[zoogs]

Where would Cody Green fit in this? Very physically gifted for sure, but also completely lit it up for his high school team.

 

[Mavric]

I think there is a lot of just throwing things around because the guy is gone. When he was here, there were lots of complaints that we weren't recruiting the big-time players. Now we were supposedly only looking at star rankings. Banderas was the captain of the All-State football team by both the LJS and OWH but somehow that gets construed to only looking at off the field stuff.

 

[Enhance]

Where would Cody Green fit in this? Very physically gifted for sure, but also completely lit it up for his high school team.

It really just goes to show recruiting is not an exact science. A guy can have everything you're looking for and still not pan out. Or, they can not be highly recruited by a big time division one school and turn into an All-American. That's what makes sports so much fun.

It's easy to play hindsight with recruits. If they have bad work ethic but great skills, or great work ethic and poorer skills, you can find a reason to recruit both those players. Maybe you think you can get one to work harder, and maybe you think you can turn the other into a great player because of their work ethic.

IMHO it's mostly up to the coaches to install a hard-working culture and develop the talent they get. You're still going to have misses and you're still going to get guys that don't buy in and fizzle out. But, I would sincerely argue our problems in the last ~7 years or more have been culture and coaching.

Think about it - we've read reports in the last few months that meetings under Pelini rarely started on time. If this was in fact true, it makes you question exactly what Pelini's "process" was. How hard are players really going to work or buy in if the coaches don't practice what they preach.

 

[Mavric]

So, which one of you is Black41FlashReverse on Twitter? Because Mitch Sherman answered your question on ESPN.com:

Mitch Sherman:

The numbers that matter most for Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg are his height and weight - 6-foot-4 and 236 pounds. Hackenberg ranked 107th nationally last year in adjusted QBR, an index representative of a quarterback's overall play that takes into account the level of competition. He has thrown 25 interceptions in two years and completed 57.2 percent of his passes. Still, you'll not find a coach or QB expert who questions his ability. It's a matter of time with Hackenberg. If he gets better protection in 2015 - he was sacked 44 times last season - Hackenberg is ready for a breakout statistical season. Despite difficult circumstances, he has shown durability, leadership and a tendency to rise to the moment. Hackenberg, in fact, fought some of these same struggles in high school, yet maintained his spot as the top-rated QB in the Class of 2013. He may well enter the NFL in 2016 in the same position. Down the road, production will matter more. At age 20, potential earns him every benefit of the doubt.

 

[zoogs]

That's a very fair summary.

 

[jmfb]

First, a question - can anyone show me a quote or proof that zone-reads were pre-determined before the snap of the ball? I'm not asking this to be argumentative - I'm asking because people seem to argue both sides - that the reads were and they weren't. Is it all just speculation either way?

In regards to the offensive line, they were average to above average during the Pelini tenure. The good rushing numbers we put out are evidence that they could be good, so, the line wasn't bad. The lines and the backs go hand-in-hand to an extent, but, I would say AA's ability definitely transcended that of the o-line. He had to dodge a lot of tackles in the backfield and make something out of nothing a lot, probably a bit more than he should have. And I for one heard plenty of former offensive linemen from Nebraska comment throughout the season last year that our line lacked good fundamentals and technique.

We also had a lot of recruiting and developmental woes along the lines. We had some decommits or misses, some guys lost to injury and some guys who just never really developed. How many people were in the boat with me that thought A-Rod had the tools/potential to be All-Conference? I know I did, and that never really proved to be the case. If these types of decommits, injuries, lack of depth, etc. happen occasionally, that's one thing. But, over a seven year period, that's a recruiting/coaching trend that needs to be fixed IMHO.

I went to two Spring Coaches Clinics and sat in on Tim BEcks sessions

He clearly stated he ran the zone read several different ways

There were at least 50 High School coaches in each session- Dont expect any sports reporter other than Damon Benning to ever get/understand/see/ report it, most of them are clueless

He ran it reading BSDE and had a play where they read the BSDT AND he optimized it as well- So read it somethimes, called optimized others, like almost every team in DI football

Depended on the opponent, D personell and QB

Tim spoke at another HS coaches clinic in Orlando at the Capital One Bowl 2011- said exact same thing again. Again no big deal- his words were to the effect " and of course it goes without saying sometimes we just run it as a called play and block it accordingly" as he quicly scratched out a couple of lines over his already crowded white board

If you watch NU film- when you see a pulling lineman or an H back/wing/slot in tight blocking the playside LB- that is an optimized play- getting another body at the POA

As to TA not being a good option QB

What I do know is neither TM OR TA did a great job on the ZOne read or the Sweep and Power Reads ( which are three very different plays, not one, despite what the announcers say)- something that used to be a huge part of our offense and completely disappeared0 the sweep and power read that is.

Im talking about the read portion now- not just running the ball. I spoke to a guy who sat in on Joe Ganz analyzing TMs reads- said JG said TM got about half of them right just a coiple of hours after they got done watching it

I think we no longer ran it (2013/2014) sweep read/pwer read thanks to our QBs not being great readers and a lack of quality depth at QB- fear of injury

There was a lot at practice that I saw a lot of plays that were repped a ton- that we never saw in games

Expect OSU to run the triple this year- zone run by RB- read keep by QB- bubble or seam pass

While I was never a huge fan of Becks playcalling- he is a good coach- xs and os guy

Watch his teams put up some crazy numbers at OSU now that he has quality depth AND a head coach who is an offensive innovator

I think Bo put a big lid on Beck that wasnt healthy

 

[True2tRA]

First, a question - can anyone show me a quote or proof that zone-reads were pre-determined before the snap of the ball? I'm not asking this to be argumentative - I'm asking because people seem to argue both sides - that the reads were and they weren't. Is it all just speculation either way?

In regards to the offensive line, they were average to above average during the Pelini tenure. The good rushing numbers we put out are evidence that they could be good, so, the line wasn't bad. The lines and the backs go hand-in-hand to an extent, but, I would say AA's ability definitely transcended that of the o-line. He had to dodge a lot of tackles in the backfield and make something out of nothing a lot, probably a bit more than he should have. And I for one heard plenty of former offensive linemen from Nebraska comment throughout the season last year that our line lacked good fundamentals and technique.

We also had a lot of recruiting and developmental woes along the lines. We had some decommits or misses, some guys lost to injury and some guys who just never really developed. How many people were in the boat with me that thought A-Rod had the tools/potential to be All-Conference? I know I did, and that never really proved to be the case. If these types of decommits, injuries, lack of depth, etc. happen occasionally, that's one thing. But, over a seven year period, that's a recruiting/coaching trend that needs to be fixed IMHO.

He clearly stated he ran the zone read several different ways

As to TA not being a good option QB

What I do know is neither TM OR TA did a great job on the ZOne read

Im talking about the read portion now- not just running the ball. I spoke to a guy who sat in on Joe Ganz analyzing TMs reads- said JG said TM got about half of them right just a coiple of hours after they got done watching it

I think we no longer ran it (2013/2014) sweep read/pwer read thanks to our QBs not being great readers and a lack of quality depth at QB- fear of injury

There was a lot at practice that I saw a lot of plays that were repped a ton- that we never saw in games

Expect OSU to run the triple this year- zone run by RB- read keep by QB- bubble or seam pass

While I was never a huge fan of Becks playcalling- he is a good coach- xs and os guy

Watch his teams put up some crazy numbers at OSU now that he has quality depth AND a head coach who is an offensive innovator

A couple problems with a few things you've said here:
Zone read has been a HUGE part of the Nebraska offense under Taylor Martinez and Tommy Armstrong. Joe Ganz says the QB's only got the reads right half the time? Coaches recognized that Taylor nor Tommy wre good at making the read.

So why the hell do you keep running it? And not only running it, but running it as the largest part of your offense? If you have your mind set on runnning it, then how many years do you need to help your QB's get better at it? Hell, maybe even just do better than reading it correctly 50% of the time.

I believe you about practice. I think there was a ton of time wasted in Husker practices on a lot of useless garbage. We saw Beck pull stuff out of a hat all the time. Some it worked, some didn't, I truly believe we spent a lot of time in practice working on things that were never seen in a game.

Beck can be a great x's and o's guy all day long. It doesn't matter. Coaching football is not standing at a marker board drawing play designs. For Beck, I thin that's what he thought. He had all kinds of neat little ideas. Very few of whih his players could execute at a high level. Heck, many of them they couldn't excute at all. His QB's and his offensive line struggled quite often. There seemed to constantly be a lot of confusion.

If you can't teach it to your players, it's useless.

The offensive linemen were not built for the zone blocking scheme. Their lateral movement was horrible. Their hips were tight and they simply could not move their feet fast enough. Beck didn't care if he had the horses to block his plays. All he saw were x's and o's.

Lastly, Beck is not running the offene at Ohio St., nor is he calling the plays.

It's not his team at Ohio St.

People need to stop saying that. That's Urban Meyers team and they've already been putting up huge numbers up there before Beck ever even got there. The play designs and the way they block them are things Urban Meyer has been doing his entire career. He's a master of adjusting.

I don't know what Beck brings to the table but he's not going up there to educate Urban Meyer. If anything, his recruiting ties may be hisbiggest asset. Aside from that he's there to learn. He will learn too. In no way should Ohio St.'s offensive success be credited to Tim Beck this season. They will be sccessful. We already know that. But Beck's not calling the plays.

 

[lo country]

First, a question - can anyone show me a quote or proof that zone-reads were pre-determined before the snap of the ball? I'm not asking this to be argumentative - I'm asking because people seem to argue both sides - that the reads were and they weren't. Is it all just speculation either way?

In regards to the offensive line, they were average to above average during the Pelini tenure. The good rushing numbers we put out are evidence that they could be good, so, the line wasn't bad. The lines and the backs go hand-in-hand to an extent, but, I would say AA's ability definitely transcended that of the o-line. He had to dodge a lot of tackles in the backfield and make something out of nothing a lot, probably a bit more than he should have. And I for one heard plenty of former offensive linemen from Nebraska comment throughout the season last year that our line lacked good fundamentals and technique.

We also had a lot of recruiting and developmental woes along the lines. We had some decommits or misses, some guys lost to injury and some guys who just never really developed. How many people were in the boat with me that thought A-Rod had the tools/potential to be All-Conference? I know I did, and that never really proved to be the case. If these types of decommits, injuries, lack of depth, etc. happen occasionally, that's one thing. But, over a seven year period, that's a recruiting/coaching trend that needs to be fixed IMHO.

He clearly stated he ran the zone read several different ways

As to TA not being a good option QB

What I do know is neither TM OR TA did a great job on the ZOne read

Im talking about the read portion now- not just running the ball. I spoke to a guy who sat in on Joe Ganz analyzing TMs reads- said JG said TM got about half of them right just a coiple of hours after they got done watching it

I think we no longer ran it (2013/2014) sweep read/pwer read thanks to our QBs not being great readers and a lack of quality depth at QB- fear of injury

There was a lot at practice that I saw a lot of plays that were repped a ton- that we never saw in games

Expect OSU to run the triple this year- zone run by RB- read keep by QB- bubble or seam pass

While I was never a huge fan of Becks playcalling- he is a good coach- xs and os guy

Watch his teams put up some crazy numbers at OSU now that he has quality depth AND a head coach who is an offensive innovator

A couple problems with a few things you've said here:
Zone read has been a HUGE part of the Nebraska offense under Taylor Martinez and Tommy Armstrong. Joe Ganz says the QB's only got the reads right half the time? Coaches recognized that Taylor nor Tommy wre good at making the read.

So why the hell do you keep running it? And not only running it, but running it as the largest part of your offense? If you have your mind set on runnning it, then how many years do you need to help your QB's get better at it? Hell, maybe even just do better than reading it correctly 50% of the time.

I believe you about practice. I think there was a ton of time wasted in Husker practices on a lot of useless garbage. We saw Beck pull stuff out of a hat all the time. Some it worked, some didn't, I truly believe we spent a lot of time in practice working on things that were never seen in a game.

Beck can be a great x's and o's guy all day long. It doesn't matter. Coaching football is not standing at a marker board drawing play designs. For Beck, I thin that's what he thought. He had all kinds of neat little ideas. Very few of whih his players could execute at a high level. Heck, many of them they couldn't excute at all. His QB's and his offensive line struggled quite often. There seemed to constantly be a lot of confusion.

If you can't teach it to your players, it's useless.

The offensive linemen were not built for the zone blocking scheme. Their lateral movement was horrible. Their hips were tight and they simply could not move their feet fast enough. Beck didn't care if he had the horses to block his plays. All he saw were x's and o's.

Lastly, Beck is not running the offene at Ohio St., nor is he calling the plays.

It's not his team at Ohio St.

People need to stop saying that. That's Urban Meyers team and they've already been putting up huge numbers up there before Beck ever even got there. The play designs and the way they block them are things Urban Meyer has been doing his entire career. He's a master of adjusting.

I don't know what Beck brings to the table but he's not going up there to educate Urban Meyer. If anything, his recruiting ties may be hisbiggest asset. Aside from that he's there to learn. He will learn too. In no way should Ohio St.'s offensive success be credited to Tim Beck this season. They will be sccessful. We already know that. But Beck's not calling the plays.

Paps was to BO as Beck will be to Urban. A guy holding a spot/clip board. Beck's success will come from being under a head coach who is a proven winner.............. Beck has tons of X and O knowledge. None of it translated to success or development on the field. OSU success comes from Urban and his methodical approach.

Listening to him prior to the play off game against Bama he said he recruits guys for his system, teaches and develops them in that system so that if one guy goes down, next man up can perform. NU had no system, no development and form comments above as well as observation no concept of development. The entire Pelini experiment (with hindsight) was one big train wreck......

 

[jmfb]

I never said Beck would be calling the plays- everyone knows that

You dont have to be a playcaller to have your influence felt on an offense

Beck is an innovator and Urban even raved about it in one of the games he was commentating on

Beck did well at KU with little and a good Head Coach, let's see how he does under a different HC and with some depth

Urban loves little tweaks- the inventor of the Utah Shovel Triple Option and bringing the Single Wing back to College football wth Tebow, he will get along well with Beck

Guaranteed- you will see Beck in the OSU offense

Guaranteed- you see the zone give/keep/pass option as a big piece of the OSU offense now- something Beck believes in. he either wasnt allowed to run it at NU or he didnt have the talent for it, neither will be an issue at OSU

Expect to see similar plays off the Sweep and Power Read plays, take that to the bank

Urban is a great coach, he doesnt hire guys to stand around- hold a clip board and get paid $525K- half a milllion $$ per year. He brings them on to help his teams win by filling a role. Becks expertise is xs and os- so expect to see that value used by OSU as they craft their offense.

I totally agree Becks teams lacked consistent execution, which lands on him, his position coaches and eventually the HC. As to zone blocking almost everyone in College Football bases out of Zone, everyone is recruiting about the same players to do the same things. Zone isnt some one off thing that teams are experimenting with- everyone runs it, almost everyones run games are based on it. NUs run game this year will too, just like it did under Pelini and Callahan

As to why NU kept the zone read when our QBs did such a poor job on the read part- the potential for big plays, especially with TM at QB. AND quite often teams were swarming AA- even though the play was only being read properly half the time. Look at how TM got to his big numbers his run yards would look like this: 1, -2, 8, 1, 2, -1, 60. so you see 7 carries for 69 yards and a 10 yard per carry average and think, wow we have a great run game with TM all based on big plays, little consistency. That didnt count in the times he gave wrong to a RB for a 1, 2 or -1 yard gain either.

It still made sense to be part of the offense. Even though as time went by we saw less and less of it.

 

[NUinID]

I never said Beck would be calling the plays- everyone knows that

You dont have to be a playcaller to have your influence felt on an offense

Beck is an innovator and Urban even raved about it in one of the games he was commentating on

Beck did well at KU with little and a good Head Coach, let's see how he does under a different HC and with some depth

Urban loves little tweaks- the inventor of the Utah Shovel Triple Option and bringing the Single Wing back to College football wth Tebow, he will get along well with Beck

Guaranteed- you will see Beck in the OSU offense

Guaranteed- you see the zone give/keep/pass option as a big piece of the OSU offense now- something Beck believes in. he either wasnt allowed to run it at NU or he didnt have the talent for it, neither will be an issue at OSU

Expect to see similar plays off the Sweep and Power Read plays, take that to the bank

Urban is a great coach, he doesnt hire guys to stand around- hold a clip board and get paid $525K- half a milllion $$ per year. He brings them on to help his teams win by filling a role. Becks expertise is xs and os- so expect to see that value used by OSU as they craft their offense.

I totally agree Becks teams lacked consistent execution, which lands on him, his position coaches and eventually the HC. As to zone blocking almost everyone in College Football bases out of Zone, everyone is recruiting about the same players to do the same things. Zone isnt some one off thing that teams are experimenting with- everyone runs it, almost everyones run games are based on it. NUs run game this year will too, just like it did under Pelini and Callahan

As to why NU kept the zone read when our QBs did such a poor job on the read part- the potential for big plays, especially with TM at QB. AND quite often teams were swarming AA- even though the play was only being read properly half the time. Look at how TM got to his big numbers his run yards would look like this: 1, -2, 8, 1, 2, -1, 60. so you see 7 carries for 69 yards and a 10 yard per carry average and think, wow we have a great run game with TM all based on big plays, little consistency. That didnt count in the times he gave wrong to a RB for a 1, 2 or -1 yard gain either.

It still made sense to be part of the offense. Even though as time went by we saw less and less of it.

jmfb on this I am in complete agreement with you. Meyer is not stupid, his hiring of Beck was not a head scratch er as most of these guys think. Meyer is looking for someone to help add new wrinkles to his already potent offense.

 

[Enhance]

I think the issue True was bringing up is that jmfb, through his wording, insinuated that Beck would be the head guy for Ohio State's offense, but that's just not the case. jmfb clarified himself though and I'm mostly in agreement with him. Tim Beck may not be the full on offensive coordinator at Ohio State, but, his knowledge is clearly valuable to Urban Meyer and his input will be as well.

 

[QMany]

[No message]

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Here's the thing about play-calling.

You practice all week. You scout the opponent. You see opportunities to exploit. You know the plays will work if the offense can execute.

And they can execute. Most of the time. Or maybe only half the time.

Or maybe in the pressure games when the entire team has the yips, they don't even execute a simple hand-off correctly.

So at what point do you NOT call the play? It may work well half the time, but you'll only hear about the half that didn't work. The defense is already waiting for your bread and butter plays. Everyone who seems to remember Ameer Abdullah getting six yards a carry forgets entire quarters or halves where he was getting jammed for one or two, and shut down on third and short.

Nebraska has had some outstanding playmakers at QB who could be equally frustrating decision-makers. Our offensive line hasn't been as bad as we sometimes think, but it hasn't been as good or cohesive as it needs to be. Mental mistakes, penalties and meltdowns were a hallmark of Bo Pelini's teams. Even modest improvement in mental discipline (teamwide - not just offense) and we're not questioning the play-calling.

At least not anymore than fans on any team, because questioning play calls is what we do best.