Bo Pelini expressed confidence Saturday in where this Husker offense is headed after this season.
"I have a pretty clear vision of what's going to happen there," Pelini said after Saturday's practice.
Does Pelini feel he's on the same page with offensive coordinator Shawn Watson?
"Oh, yeah. There's no doubt," Pelini said, noting that the vision a coach has when a season starts sometimes has to be tinkered with to match personnel.
"You can't do things overnight and make adjustments overnight," Pelini said. "We've been on the same page. We always will be on the same page because we communicate real well and I have a tremendous amount of confidence in Wats. I like the direction where we're headed. Slowly but surely you start moving in that direction."
Watson said on Wednesday he envisions a future offense "that spreads the field and spreads the offense out ... so that's what we want to be. I think that's what you have to do to win. Because you can run and pass equally as well out of it. That's where we need to go."
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"You always got to do what you got to do to win games," Pelini said. "But I see us being a lot more diversified going forward. There's certain things that I know we have to do for the long-term future of our program, and building through those strengths. I know what those are and I know where I want it to head. Is that necessarily the strength of our football team this year? Not necessarily. But there are a lot of issues that come up with in that regard."
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As for the run-pass ratio? "I want to be 50-50," Pelini said. "But I know one thing: In this football program, I want to be a physical football team and I want to be able to run the football. Believe me, I understand the need to throw the ball. Everybody needs to have to throw the football. But that's my No. 1 priority going forward is we're going to have a way, we're going to be committed to, and we're going to be able to run the football on people when we want to. And that's the key to a good football team. A good offense, believe me you got to have multiplicity. But when I say 50-50 I mean that when we want to run it we can run it, we can do it effectively. And we can throw it. We have all the tools available to us to throw the football. That's what has to be done. How do that, there's a lot of different ways you can do that. ...
"Are we going to be limited to running the zone read going forward? No. I promise you it ain't going to be limited to that."
Is Alabama's current offense a good model of what Pelini's looking for?
"Yeah. I think that's why they win. You look at Florida when they've won. You look at the teams that have won national championships. They've always had that element to their game. They've been able to run the football. It's pretty hard these days to have a consistent offense when you don't have any running game. You're not going to be a good football team. You're going to struggle against teams that know what they're doing defensively."
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“We’ve been on the same page, and we will always will be on the same page because we communicate real well,” Pelini said. “I have a tremendous amount of confidence in (Watson).
“I like the direction of where we’re headed. Slowly but surely, you’ve got to start moving in that direction, and we’re doing it.”
The direction, more and more clearly, appears toward a style of offense similar to what NU operated in 2008 to the tune of 35 points and 450 yards per game.
“We want to be a team that spreads the field, spreads the offense out,” Watson said. “I think that’s what you have to do to win.”
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“I see us being a lot more diversified as we go forward,” Pelini said.
Said McNeill: “We’ve got to throw the ball and get back to more of the passing game.”
Watson said the Huskers would not “apologize for what we’ve had to do.”
“It produced five wins at a really critical time,” the third-year coordinator said. “Basically, we had to manage the game to put us in a position to win. We made that real clear. But that’s not me at all. That’s not our staff. That’s not the direction we want to (go).”
According to Pelini, priority No. 1 is a potent running game. Pelini promised that Nebraska would not limit its rushing attack to the finesse-style zone read.
“I want to be 50-50,” he said, “but I know one thing: In this football program, I want to be physical and I want to be able to run the football.