I had similar thoughts about Watson's offense until I heard Tom Osborne on the radio a few nights ago. TO said early in the game the Huskers would run different formations to see how the defense reacted. From those reads, the offense would adjust and TO called plays to take advantage of what the defense was doing. He specifically mentioned creating short yardage on 3rd down to keep the defense from "pinning their ears back on third and long, and just coming after you."
That said, I still can't shake the feeling that Watson just continues to pull plays out of a hat. We ran out of the "pistol" on the first play from scrimmage against Mizzou and picked up good yardage, but we haven't seen it since. Burkhead almost broke a touchdown running an iso play with a fullback lead blocking, but we haven't seen that since either. It's like we don't run the plays the work, we just keep digging deeper into that thick playbook.