FG versus 4th and 1 Pass Play

[cm husker]

My guess is the fade route was the primary route if the coverage was one on one. Tommy sees one on one, even in a low percentage situation, and with his gunslinger mentality immediately goes with that throw. He thinks he can make every throw and hit the homerun on every play.

I can't imagine why not simply running Tommy off the edge with both Jano and Imani in front as lead blockers. As long as the line doesn't allow penetration (iffy, I know) it should have given us an advantage in numbers on the edge.

Running successfully is all about numbers advantages, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. Heck, in the 1st quarter, NU ran a play like that very successfully (off of a fly sweep motion look with Newby leading with a nice cut block).

 

[huskerp0wer]

Ah, here we go. Can always count on BigWillie for some on point stuff. Thanks, BW. Here we have the screen, so we know we weren't crazy about the underneath stuff.

BLAME LANGSDORF! FIRE FIRE FIRE!

Two guys WIDE open running routes. Tommy goes with the lowest percentage throw of any on this play. (...)

Serves as a reminder that when a play is called, it's not exactly as if the QB is told where to throw it. Heck, that route could just be there to clear out some safeties from the underneath stuff. And in fairness, a 1-vs-1 deep shot for a touchdown is a pretty reasonable shot to take when you identify the matchup ... WHEN IT'S NOT FOURTH DOWN AND ONE. Awareness. That's what it comes down to.

Seriously. Tommy will fix this when he is forced to. And Nebraska will replace him at the first opportunity when they are able to, if he can't. But for all our sake, we have to acknowledge that Tommy fixing it is the best scenario. Players improve. Root for that outcome.

Awareness is right. Two wide open first down receivers right there. WIDE OPEN! And Tommy is already locked onto the guy in tight coverage in the endzone. How could he not see that?

I'm hoping Tommy improves. You'd think that he would be spending a lot of time in the film room and with Langsdorf so that he'd get better at seeing stuff like this on the field. But I have my doubts that this will happen.

People keep saying these guys were wide open, but there were defenders just off the screen, the coverage was rolled over there and if the QBs eyes are there, the DBs are jumping those routes. It's not clear to me that the DE or a DB couldn't have made a play on those supposedly wide open options.

Armstrong made the correct read in a WCO play. Go to the single, press covered WR. That's the correct read.

You can argue that he made the wrong decision in that situation, but read it correctly.

That sums up why the WCO is so difficult on college QBs.

My issue is that the coaches called a play where Armstrong could make the right read but that correct read would still dictate a wrong decision.

He most definitely did not make the right read. If you look at that picture, there isn't a defender within at least five yards of either of the receivers. That's a pass a high school QB could make. I am not blaming it all on Armstrong because I believe they should have ran the ball up the middle, but still come-on. Look at those wide open receivers.....

 

[zoogs]

Yeah, to say that the result of this play should be the coaches going "Darn! We sure screwed up our teaching of this play" (I'm sure they are actually wracking their brains about how to communicate situational awareness, etc, better) is a big, big stretch -- in my opinion, anyway.

Look, it's a 4th & 1 play in crunch time. The objective is to get the first down, that's it. Tommy's football awareness and his risk assessment has been, at times, astonishingly poor. He simply has to get much better at it. Please be clear, I'm not taking sides on this. We're all, or we should all be, on the same side. The coaches and Tommy are on the same side. Everyone's got a different way, and they need to just keep working on Tommy to get there, as it's still quite possible that he is going to be the starter next year.

 

[FrankWheeler]

Langsdorf and Armstrong have had communication trouble from day one...from the spring game recap.

and a strange safety taken by starting quarterback Tommy Armstrong at the end of the first half, when he mistakenly thought offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf told him, in an earpiece, to take one.

 

[Redux]

Late to this thread, but was just having that discussion.

It seems strange to me that on the drive we go for it on 4th and 1 we are down what, 17-28? Say we get the TD and PAT, we are down 24-28.

ON THE VERY NEXT DRIVE we are down there again. The score remains 17-28. This time, we opt for the easy 3 points. Score is now 20-28.

So, now we have to stop them, get the ball back, score a TD, score a 2pt conversion just to tie the game at 28.

Why didn't we just go for it that second time down there knowing full well we needed as many points as possible? Or why didn't we kick the FG on the 4th and 1 on the previous drive? Just seems completely backwards to me. We did the same thing against NW basically. We kicked a PAT instead of going for 2 with momentum and down by 2 I think. Then later on we scored and needed 2 and came up short.

 

[3rd and long]

Ah, here we go. Can always count on BigWillie for some on point stuff. Thanks, BW. Here we have the screen, so we know we weren't crazy about the underneath stuff.

BLAME LANGSDORF! FIRE FIRE FIRE!

Two guys WIDE open running routes. Tommy goes with the lowest percentage throw of any on this play. (...)

Serves as a reminder that when a play is called, it's not exactly as if the QB is told where to throw it. Heck, that route could just be there to clear out some safeties from the underneath stuff. And in fairness, a 1-vs-1 deep shot for a touchdown is a pretty reasonable shot to take when you identify the matchup ... WHEN IT'S NOT FOURTH DOWN AND ONE. Awareness. That's what it comes down to.

Seriously. Tommy will fix this when he is forced to. And Nebraska will replace him at the first opportunity when they are able to, if he can't. But for all our sake, we have to acknowledge that Tommy fixing it is the best scenario. Players improve. Root for that outcome.

Awareness is right. Two wide open first down receivers right there. WIDE OPEN! And Tommy is already locked onto the guy in tight coverage in the endzone. How could he not see that?

I'm hoping Tommy improves. You'd think that he would be spending a lot of time in the film room and with Langsdorf so that he'd get better at seeing stuff like this on the field. But I have my doubts that this will happen.

People keep saying these guys were wide open, but there were defenders just off the screen, the coverage was rolled over there and if the QBs eyes are there, the DBs are jumping those routes. It's not clear to me that the DE or a DB couldn't have made a play on those supposedly wide open options.

Armstrong made the correct read in a WCO play. Go to the single, press covered WR. That's the correct read.

You can argue that he made the wrong decision in that situation, but read it correctly.

That sums up why the WCO is so difficult on college QBs.

My issue is that the coaches called a play where Armstrong could make the right read but that correct read would still dictate a wrong decision.

He most definitely did not make the right read. If you look at that picture, there isn't a defender within at least five yards of either of the receivers. That's a pass a high school QB could make. I am not blaming it all on Armstrong because I believe they should have ran the ball up the middle, but still come-on. Look at those wide open receivers.....

What people are saying is that might have been a pre-snap read, he's not reading progressions after he has the ball. He sees one on one coverage while they're at the line of scrimmage and predetermines that is where he is going with the ball....when he gets the snap. Once he saw the one on one coverage those receivers on the other side might as well have been cheerleaders for as much inmpact as they were going to have. Just a possibility.

 

[zoogs]

Right. And where Tommy has to get to is realize that it's 4th and 1 and that is going to be a low percentage ball even if, on non 4th and 1s, you might go for that as a read. And that's just being aware. There are a million situations and a million different things to factor into your decision making. It's complicated.

Not taking a deep shot on 4th & 1 without even considering another option is *not* that complicated, though.

 

[3rd and long]

Right. And where Tommy has to get to is realize that it's 4th and 1 and that is going to be a low percentage ball even if, on non 4th and 1s, you might go for that as a read. And that's just being aware. There are a million situations and a million different things to factor into your decision making. It's complicated.

Not taking a deep shot on 4th & 1 without even considering another option is *not* that complicated, though.

I agree. But at some point the coaches have to realize how their QB makes his decisions. It's kind of like that last call at Illinoise, you don't have a play called that gives him those kind of options, because he seems to have the personality that always tries for that big play over what would appear to be the "smart" one. He seems to get pretty amped up in game situations and maybe overestimates what he can do? Knowing that, you would think at the very least the coaches would send in very explicit instructions. But I'm sure that's difficult (if not impossible) to do if the play is being called from the sideline instead of a player running it in. It really boils down to TA's decision making.

 

[cm husker]

Right. And where Tommy has to get to is realize that it's 4th and 1 and that is going to be a low percentage ball even if, on non 4th and 1s, you might go for that as a read. And that's just being aware. There are a million situations and a million different things to factor into your decision making. It's complicated.

Not taking a deep shot on 4th & 1 without even considering another option is *not* that complicated, though.

The exact same play was run earlier in the game (except the WR ran the hitch option and got a catch). What you're describing isn't realistically possible. A QB doesn't have time to work through three progressions and then back to what was dictated by the pre-snap read of press man 0 coverage.

They actually ran the exact same play earlier, except that the WR ran the hitch option for the first down catch. Against the same look (except not in press coverage), Iowa was in perfect position to make the play on the triangle. Each received, including CC was blanketed.

If TA goes from presnap/first read to second read (probably westy) to third read of CC, he's either sacked or the Iowa CB that has Cethan tracks back when he sees TA's eyes go there. You'll see in the replay if you watch that the DB was back there in a zone look... or he blew the call (a little hard to tell).

To me, the only really awful pick was the first one.

The screen pass was a combination of a missed assignment and a slightly underthrown ball. The deep one was a bad read on the coverage (he didn't expect the CB to drop that deep and he though he had an open pass down the middle). The one to the LB was a bad read. TA missed the coverage. That was a bad interception, but not in the same league as the first one.

This was TA's first 4 interception game. And personally, I think he got left out to dry in much of the play calling.

 

[Enhance]

I don't have a huge problem with them going for it on 4th and 1, but, it's kind of hard for me to talk about it without considering the play call. Obviously, several factors weigh into a 4th down conversion attempt, and those include field position, distance and what kind of play you want to run. I think, collectively, from coaches down to players, that conversion attempt was an utter failure. If you don't want to try and earn the yard on the ground, fine, but you better draw up a play that gives TA really no confusion about where he should go with the ball.

His primary decision should never have been a 50/50 ball at the pylon, nor should he have been given that option, IMHO.

 

[VA Husker Fan]

Late to this thread, but was just having that discussion.

It seems strange to me that on the drive we go for it on 4th and 1 we are down what, 17-28? Say we get the TD and PAT, we are down 24-28.

ON THE VERY NEXT DRIVE we are down there again. The score remains 17-28. This time, we opt for the easy 3 points. Score is now 20-28.

So, now we have to stop them, get the ball back, score a TD, score a 2pt conversion just to tie the game at 28.

Why didn't we just go for it that second time down there knowing full well we needed as many points as possible? Or why didn't we kick the FG on the 4th and 1 on the previous drive? Just seems completely backwards to me. We did the same thing against NW basically. We kicked a PAT instead of going for 2 with momentum and down by 2 I think. Then later on we scored and needed 2 and came up short.

For one thing, had we gotten the first down and then scored the first time, we would've/should've gone for 2 to cut the lead to 3 if we could. Hopefully we would've been down 25-28, not 24-28. 23-28 wouldn't have been much worse than 24-28 so it's a no-brainer to go for 2.

Regarding the second time, surely you realize the difference between 4th and 1 and 4th and 10, right? The play we called on 4th and 1 wasn't good, but it's even lower percentage on 4th and 10 when Iowa is expecting pass.

Also, with 1:17 to go, the only chance is to score quickly one way or another, recover an onside kick, and score again. So it makes sense to take the FG, and hope to get the ball and go for the end zone in the final minute. On the first drive, there's still 6:37 to go. If we get a TD, even if Iowa gets a FG the next time, we can still win with a TD. There wasn't quite the urgency to put a score on the board immediately.

No two situations in a game are the same. These weren't at all close, so it makes no sense to demand the same decision.