Offensive Play

Since the "boom or bust" nature of the offense has been a big issue early in the season, I thought I would follow-up with the 3 and out stats for the NU offense against Illinois.

There were three 3 and outs among the 16 possessions by NU (not counting the final kneel down possession) against Illinois.  The turnovers early in offensive possessions didn't help things though.  But, after going 3 and out in the first possession of the 2nd half the offense went:

7 plays for 75 yards and a TD

2 plays for 27 yards and fumble (Spielman fumble after a big pass play)

2 plays for 0 yards and fumble (Martinez fumble as he was attempting to pass, I thought it was the right call)

9 plays for 75 yards and a TD

6 plays for 64 yards and a TD

11 plays for 75 yards and a TD

10 plays for 70 yards and missed FG

That's 5 productive drives (I am counting the last possession as productive as it flipped the field position, took time off the clock, and should have resulted in points) in very high pressure situations.

 
Rewatching the fourth quarter of the Illinois game. That was probably what you could describe as "smashmouth football." 

At one point, we ran it on three straight 3rd downs for a total of 43 yards on those plays. Wearing out a defense in the fourth quarter = priceless for a Husker fan.      :w00t

 
Really want to see more of the I formation, with Mills as the lead blocker, and r.johnson or Washington set as the RB.  Think of getting them on the field with Spielman, M. Williams, Wandale or a TE would be dynamic.

 
I thought Mills had a fine game tonight.  He ran hard and saw some holes instead of just plowing forward.  And obviously held onto the ball.  Much better performance out of him

 
SECHusker said:
Really want to see more of the I formation, with Mills as the lead blocker, and r.johnson or Washington set as the RB.  Think of getting them on the field with Spielman, M. Williams, Wandale or a TE would be dynamic.
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Anything as long as its under center. 

 
I remember when the narrative was the spread system would take away the need for a great offensive line because it was all about getting playmakers the ball in space and all that.

What a lie that turned out to be.

 
Thought this was the best place for this. In examining the bad snaps from Jurgens, here's where I'm at. 

I'm going to bet that in the weight room, Jurgens probably out-lifts Will Farniok. I don't know this as a fact, this is speculation. And I'm going to bet that he gets more push in run blocking situations in practice, also.

So it's a weird situation. You know that ruining roughly 15%-ish of your plays with bad snaps is going to make it almost impossible to beat a team like Wisconsin. But, what if sticking with him helps him get it figured out so that next year he's good to go? Doesn't that set us up to be the best possible team we can be next season, and isn't that a huge deal?

I don't know, man.

 
Our offensive line isn't only bad, it's nearly worst in the nation bad. Based on Football Outsiders stats through week 5 (Northwestern not factored in, but it'll get worse), our OL ranks 111th in the country in sack rate (filters out garbage time). On standard downs we're 55th and on passing downs the sack rate is 123rd. That's behind South Alabama. 

Beyond that our run game struggles are feeding directly into our passing struggles in my opinion. We're 105th in overall rushing, 88th on standard downs and 120th on passing downs. 

The only offensive line stat where we aren't ranked in the bottom half of the country is power success rate which is gaining first downs with less than 2 yards to go on 3rd or 4th down. That's helped significantly by AM's running ability. 

While Adrian has certainly missed some reads and looked hesitant at times running and I think wide receivers have struggled to get open, our offense struggles stem in large part from not only poor OL play, but some of the worst in the nation OL play. 

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaaol/2019

 
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Besides the chop block penalty that wasn't exactly blatant imo I thought Brando stepped in and did a good job.  I hope we see him instead of Hixson going forward.


 
Here are several honest questions:

 This season, what exactly is our offensive scheme?

What scheme are we trying to replicate?

What are our bread and butter go to plays?

What is our offensive identity?

Will we recruit bigger more physical WR's?

What happened to the TE pre-season hype?

If our OL is basically dead last and non-existent, why not throw the young guys to the wolves.  Get them experience now so next year it's not the same excuse?

We are not the only team that has a bad OL.  Why has Frost not done anything to try and mitigate the poor play through play calling? ie traps, counters, roll the pocket, jumbo package, I formation etc....

Will Frost realize that we will need to change for the B1G on both sides of the ball?

 
This guy spells out our offensive identity.


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The last one - my whole section has yelled RUN!!!! at least a dozen times this year. Spot on.

 
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