The Dude
Heisman Trophy Winner
Last edited by a moderator:
Martinez and the NFL
- Thread starter MichiganDad3
- Start date
True2tRA
Banned
Factual assertion? Is that even possible? An assertion is something that is stated without the basis of fact or proof? So a factual assertion would simply be a stated fact. Or, you seem to know it all, so maybe you can correct me.
Also corret me if I'm wrong, but I think the comment was made that Tommie Frazier, Scott Frost, and Eric Crouch averaged about ten passes a game. So your statement about Tom Osborne teams also isn't really making much sense since Eric Crouch was not coached by Tom Osborne. So you seem off on that statement as well.
I looked it up real quick since you were having such a chuckle or good times as you called it and it doesn't look like a ridiculous claim at all. Forgive me, I'm not nearly as smart as you but Eric Crouch had 606 passing attempts over four years. That's an average of roughly 150 attempts a season. So in a 13 game season, such as 2001, that's an average of 11.5 attempts per game isn't it?
So 10 attempts a game doesn't seeem like a crazy claim at all. Pretty close to accurate really. Let me look up Frazier's and Frost's careers and I'll add them here.
Frazier had 425 attempts over his career. it would be 469 but I took out the year he was hurt and only had 44 attempts. So 425 attempts over three years is still 141 a season. 141 attempts in the span of 12 games is something like 11.8 attempts a game. So 10 attempts a game seems like a fair claim for someone to make unless we really want to be sticklers about that extra 1.8 attempts? LOL
Frost would be the only one of the bunch that broke the mold. Two years at Nebraska and he actually reached the 200 pass attempts mark in 1996. Back to 159 in 1997. That 200 brought the average up though and made his average about 13.8 attempts a game.
Obviously Nebraska was committed to the run game. Anybody who watched those teams with those QB's would know that.
Of course, this is the thread where someone said "We passed enough to keep the defense honest" in those days, which of course is silly in itself. Nebraska didn't pass to keep the defense honest. No defenses backed off our run game in those days. They knew exactly what was coming, problem was, they couldn't stop it. Nebraska passed because the forward pass is a legal play in college football and opposing defenses were stunned when we did it. They then resumed collapsing on our run game.
Good times though.......
Last edited by a moderator:
zoogs
Assistant Coach
Crouch's 1998 season averaged 12.7 pass attempts per game played, but as I recall he had a lot of injury issues that year, which could be skewing the results.
From 1991-2001, he averaged 14.4 att/gm.
Frazier -- I don't know how he was used as a freshman and his 1994 season was certainly affected by injury. So let's take the 22 games from 1993 and 1995, in which he averaged 14.8 att/gm.
Frost had two years in Nebraska and averaged 15.0 att/gm.
Lord: 14.1
Gill: 14.0 1982-1983
Ferragamo: 16.5
Ganz: 32.3 in 2008
Zac Taylor: 31.6
Zac Lee: 23.2 (this should include at least two partial games)
Taylor Martinez: 21.9 (this also includes at least two partial games)
Tommy Armstrong Jr: 26.5 in 2014; 24.5 prior to 51-attempt bowl game without Bo.
From 1991-2001, he averaged 14.4 att/gm.
Frazier -- I don't know how he was used as a freshman and his 1994 season was certainly affected by injury. So let's take the 22 games from 1993 and 1995, in which he averaged 14.8 att/gm.
Frost had two years in Nebraska and averaged 15.0 att/gm.
Lord: 14.1
Gill: 14.0 1982-1983
Ferragamo: 16.5
Ganz: 32.3 in 2008
Zac Taylor: 31.6
Zac Lee: 23.2 (this should include at least two partial games)
Taylor Martinez: 21.9 (this also includes at least two partial games)
Tommy Armstrong Jr: 26.5 in 2014; 24.5 prior to 51-attempt bowl game without Bo.
Last edited by a moderator:
cg_8
Special Teams Player
I would have never guessed that Zac Lee's was up that high. 2009 was such an odd year for our offense...
zoogs
Assistant Coach
Yeah, it was. We start to see the influence Bo has on the Nebraska offense; with Lee's nagging elbow injury sustained early that season and the disaster at Iowa State, he shut it down until the bowl game. Otherwise, Lee probably would have thrown more and closer to Ganz's 30+ per game mark.
20 attempts is really a pretty low number to average these days, and it definitely has felt like that from 2009 to 2012. We were a very run heavy team and maybe that eased up slightly in 13-14, though given Tommy's accuracy issues it's hard to fathom why. Then again, USC was the best he looked all year.
Last edited by a moderator:
Saunders
Heisman Trophy Winner
Well actually.... Frazier did split reps, even in his non injured years. We averaged 17.45 passes per game while he was on campus.
But I don't even know what friggin strawmen you guys are trying to kill, so whatever.
No worries. I starting being a fan in the early 70's. Was young then. I remember vividly the heart breaking losses, the 8 bowl game losing streak (IIRC) and thinking TO can never win the big ones, why can't we beat OU and when will ever get a break. All this while never being out of the top 20 for 300+ games. Just didn't remember the margin of some of those losses being so large. Although the majority of our losses came to better than average teams or "rivalry" games. TO was and is one of the greatest to have coached the game. Saban and Urban continue and they might be mentioned as being the "great ones" as well.
Guy Chamberlin
Heisman Trophy Winner
Don't know what to say, chief. This is a pretty desperate stab at logic. Nebraska did indeed pass enough to keep defenses honest. Sometimes we passed even more against better rushing defenses, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
Averages don't tell the whole story. Context is king. I'll do you a favor and stack it to your advantage. Tom Osborne started his career with Dave Humm and Vince Ferragamo. They passed the ball quite a bit. So let's skip ahead to the years Tom had committed to an option attack, with dual threat quarterbacks, absolute beasts at running back, and offensive lines who always got the push. These were the most "impose their will" offenses in Nebraska history:
1983: Turner Gill with Mike Rozier
Pass attempts per game:
17
16
15
10
17
19
19
19
9
15
25
14
16
30 (Orange Bowl loss to Miami)
1995 Tommie Frazier (with some Berringer & Turman) with Lawrence Phillips/Ahman Green
Pass attempts per game
20
14
20
36 (University of Paciifc, WTH?)
20
15
17
23
21
15
27 (Oklahoma)
15 (Florida Fiesta Bowl)
1997 Scott Frost with Ahman Green
Pass attempts per game
19
15
15
14
17
12
10
12
24 (had to come back against Mizzou)
12
14
18
12
So in that 39 game sample of Nebraska option football at its finest, we had 11 passing attempts or less only 3 times.
We had 15 passing attempts or more in 29 games. We had 20 passing attempts or more in 10 games.
If a defense was "stunned" that Nebraska threw the ball, they should have fired their defensive coordinator. Even Tom Osborne wouldn't argue against passing the ball to keep defense honest.
Honestly? I was a bit surprised myself how much those rushing juggernaut teams passed.
It's all kind of stupid, actually, except for the part where people still consider passes to be some kind of trick play. Those dominant Nebraska teams passed more often than some folks tend to recall.
True2tRA
Banned
Boy, we've really straye from the original point with all these numbers. Did you just tell me that the average really doesn't matte, context does, then pull up 39 games where we had to throw the ball more than usual? Just curious on that. I won't take the time to look it up but it appears thats what you did. I used the eaverage becaue it's the quickest and simplest way, but it also is the average, so it takes out the hgihs and lows and maes them equal , ya know?
Again, nobody argues that the passin game is used to keep the defense honest. All teams do it.
The point was, Nebraska rarely needed to do it. The option was their brilliant unstoppable force.
If throwing the ball 10-15 times a game and running it 50-60 times a game is a commitment to balance, or keeping the defense honest, then holy sh#t, I've got nothing more I cn say to you.
Beck had Martinez throw 30 times a game at times. Martinez attempted as many passes in one season as Frazier attempted in his career almost. Beck seemed to go to the passing ame to keep this "balance" in some imaginary world where people gave a sh#t about percentages of run/pass. Martinez coul've ran the ball all kinds of ways. We strayed for no reason, and in the end, we weren't even abe to be effective enought in ou rpassing game to actually keep defenses honest, even though we threw it 30 times.
True2tRA
Banned
Boy, we've really straye from the original point with all these numbers. Did you just tell me that the average really doesn't matte, context does, then pull up 39 games where we had to throw the ball more than usual? Just curious on that. I won't take the time to look it up but it appears thats what you did. I used the eaverage becaue it's the quickest and simplest way, but it also is the average, so it takes out the hgihs and lows and maes them equal , ya know?
Again, nobody argues that the passin game is used to keep the defense honest. All teams do it.
The point was, Nebraska rarely needed to do it. The option was their brilliant unstoppable force.
If throwing the ball 10-15 times a game and running it 50-60 times a game is a commitment to balance, or keeping the defense honest, then holy sh#t, I've got nothing more I cn say to you.
Beck had Martinez throw 30 times a game at times. Martinez attempted as many passes in one season as Frazier attempted in his career almost. Beck seemed to go to the passing ame to keep this "balance" in some imaginary world where people gave a sh#t about percentages of run/pass. Martinez coul've ran the ball all kinds of ways. We strayed for no reason, and in the end, we weren't even abe to be effective enought in ou rpassing game to actually keep defenses honest, even though we threw it 30 times.
True2tRA
Banned
Boy, we've really straye from the original point with all these numbers. Did you just tell me that the average really doesn't matte, context does, then pull up 39 games where we had to throw the ball more than usual? Just curious on that. I won't take the time to look it up but it appears thats what you did. I used the eaverage becaue it's the quickest and simplest way, but it also is the average, so it takes out the hgihs and lows and maes them equal , ya know?
Again, nobody argues that the passin game is used to keep the defense honest. All teams do it.
The point was, Nebraska rarely needed to do it. The option was their brilliant unstoppable force.
If throwing the ball 10-15 times a game and running it 50-60 times a game is a commitment to balance, or keeping the defense honest, then holy sh#t, I've got nothing more I cn say to you.
Beck had Martinez throw 30 times a game at times. Martinez attempted as many passes in one season as Frazier attempted in his career almost. Beck seemed to go to the passing ame to keep this "balance" in some imaginary world where people gave a sh#t about percentages of run/pass. Martinez coul've ran the ball all kinds of ways. We strayed for no reason, and in the end, we weren't even abe to be effective enought in ou rpassing game to actually keep defenses honest, even though we threw it 30 times.
One doesnt have to be at a certain percentage of passing plays to be "balanced" or keep a defense honest
Osborne used the passing game as a constraint to make his offense more productive
Roll your coverage to get another DB playing aggressive on the run and have your backside LB play aggressive on the run? Expect to see the backside Tight End on a big play off the Option Play Action Pass.
If a defense failed to honor his constraints- he would make them pay. He would force teams to play him the way he wanted them to play by alignment and assignment and sometimes even personnel
.
Even with passers that only hit 47% of their passes were effective using this approach because there was a perceived legitimate threat that a long ball had a reasonable chance of being caught for a big gain. The payoff wasnt worth the risk, just ask Minnesota- who tried to do it for 3 quarters and NU scored 84 points against them- after going 3 and out the first possession.
I havent looked at the numbers but Im guessing even our worst % passers had a pretty good yards per attempt average- which is what really matters when using constraint theory to gain lots of yards in football. A low completion % for long yards per completion can be just as constraining as one of those 65% dink and dunk teams that average 6-7 yards an attempt
No need to pass a certain # of times. Pass when the constraint is no longer honored or when the matchup is significantly in your favor or when down, distance, field position and game situation allow for a "throw away" play. At the end of the day, Osborne passed when he wanted to on his terms, when he did that his teams passed well. When playing the best teams you also have to be competent at throwing when the defense is sitting on pass. TO was much better at that than many give him credit for- being able to pass when forced to do so. His double slant call against Mizzou in the 97 game is a good example or the comeback against Miami etc
As to passing 36 times against Pacific:
Many coaches, myself included will take a specific game we feel very confident about the end result. In that game the game plan will be all about getting better at things we need to get better at. It may also be about seeing how younger or less utilized players respond to working with the top unit, then end goal being to figure out where we are at, see what other players can do and develop the team- in low risk situation.
Osborne used the passing game as a constraint to make his offense more productive
Roll your coverage to get another DB playing aggressive on the run and have your backside LB play aggressive on the run? Expect to see the backside Tight End on a big play off the Option Play Action Pass.
If a defense failed to honor his constraints- he would make them pay. He would force teams to play him the way he wanted them to play by alignment and assignment and sometimes even personnel
.
Even with passers that only hit 47% of their passes were effective using this approach because there was a perceived legitimate threat that a long ball had a reasonable chance of being caught for a big gain. The payoff wasnt worth the risk, just ask Minnesota- who tried to do it for 3 quarters and NU scored 84 points against them- after going 3 and out the first possession.
I havent looked at the numbers but Im guessing even our worst % passers had a pretty good yards per attempt average- which is what really matters when using constraint theory to gain lots of yards in football. A low completion % for long yards per completion can be just as constraining as one of those 65% dink and dunk teams that average 6-7 yards an attempt
No need to pass a certain # of times. Pass when the constraint is no longer honored or when the matchup is significantly in your favor or when down, distance, field position and game situation allow for a "throw away" play. At the end of the day, Osborne passed when he wanted to on his terms, when he did that his teams passed well. When playing the best teams you also have to be competent at throwing when the defense is sitting on pass. TO was much better at that than many give him credit for- being able to pass when forced to do so. His double slant call against Mizzou in the 97 game is a good example or the comeback against Miami etc
As to passing 36 times against Pacific:
Many coaches, myself included will take a specific game we feel very confident about the end result. In that game the game plan will be all about getting better at things we need to get better at. It may also be about seeing how younger or less utilized players respond to working with the top unit, then end goal being to figure out where we are at, see what other players can do and develop the team- in low risk situation.
Last edited by a moderator:
