Saunders
Heisman Trophy Winner
Nebraska is going to be a cutting edge, option running football team again!
The Mike Riley hire at Nebraska made a certain degree of sense. The common perception is that the Cornhuskes oversteered away from the brash Bo Pelini and hired the nicest man in coaching. My take at the time was that Riley actually brought a skill set to the job that fit the needs of present day Nebraska, but that he was facing an uphill climb in transforming the design of the offense and fixing the defense.
While there were many calls for Nebraska to hire Ken Niumatalolo and double down on their option roots under Tom Osborne, that would likely have been an abject surrender of ever assuming a place of national contention again. If you look at the defensive S&P+ rankings of the flexbone/triple-option teams of today you’ll find that they virtually never rank amongst the nation’s best in defense. Niumatalolo’s Navy is regularly involved in shootouts in which opponents are befuddled by their option but feast on the Midshipmen defenders.
A move to that brand of triple-option would also have made it very difficult for Nebraska to credibly present itself as a destination for pro-caliber players around the country, which in turn would have damaged their ability to become a title-contending team.
https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2017/12/15/16780916/nebraska-cornhuskers-and-the-scott-frost-option-osborne
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