Our Identity

hskrfan4life

hskrfan4life

Heisman Trophy Winner
So in the Big Red Today blog there was an article on Nebraska's Identity, and an interesting comment from Andy Staples:

The brand: It’s probably going to change under Mike Riley, but under Bo Pelini it was nine or 10 wins and four losses a year and few surprises—pleasant or otherwise.

What it should be: I’ve written this before and I stand by it. Nebraska needs to go back to a pure option offense. A school in such an isolated location will have the toughest time recruiting elite quarterbacks and NFL-prototype linemen, so why not run an offense that eliminates the need for such players? There are plenty of great athletes at those positions who don’t quite fit the profile of the better Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC teams in their home states. They’d love to play before sellout crowds in Lincoln. Florida and Florida State wanted Tommie Frazier to play defense, so he went to Nebraska to play quarterback. In the current environment, the next Tommie Frazier will play for Georgia Tech. Nebraska could become a brutally tough out by embracing its roots, but the administration doesn’t seem interested in that. It will be interesting to see how Riley handles his stewardship of the brand. His decision to not play mind games with the Blackshirts seems like a good start.
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I agree with him but also don't believe that it is something we can achieve again. Would it have to be the same style or would we need some fancy schemes in the option offense.

I think it would be fun to see that offense again, but I am not sure how much success it would bring.

What say you, Husker fans?

Link to Big Red Today

Link to Andy Staples Branding of each team

 
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That was something I said several times in the Solich/Callahan transition. Going from an option offense - from which we could have basically our pick of the top option QBs in the country - to a West Coast offense - where we'd have to compete will most of the rest of the top teams in the country - would make it a lot harder to recruit a top QB. For all the recruiting credit that Callahan gets, he didn't ever land a top flight QB.

With the advent of the Spread, QBs are fairly well split half-and-half. But a lot of the top tier teams - Alabama, Florida State, USC - have still been considered pro-style offenses. It's only really been in the last year or two that the Spread teams have started to dominate the top of the rankings - Oregon, Baylor, TCU, Ohio State, etc.

Thus, I'm not sure it's as big of a deal anymore. There really aren't very many true option teams in high school anymore. It's mostly Spread so that would seem to give us the most to choose from. Still a lot of Pro-Style as well.

 
The option we saw in the 90's? No.

The flexbone may damn well be a very very GOOD option to try. Look at what Georgia Tech did to UGA, took FSU to the ropes, and demolished Miss State, who's only big flaw on defense was in the secondary.

We don't have the slew of backs like we did a few years ago. I thought the perfect time to do it would have been with Burkhead as the "FB" and Heard and Abdullah as the "wings"

I guess now it would be Cross as FB, and Newby/Taylor/Wilbon as the wings. That's a decent group too I guess. Plus option plays into TA's hands much more.

 
I dunno. A true option would have the same benefit it did before - teams just don't have time to prepare. Plus, with so many defenses set up to defend the spread, a true power team running the option could slice up an opponent. And there is still some justification to the argument that you can recruit kids that may not fit a pro-style or spread offense but would work in a true option, particularly for offensive linemen.

 
I disagree we have been pulling in decent ranked qbs. Also stuff has changed a lot, other schools didn't really care about fast qbs. Now it's all the rage and the statue types get overlooked

 
TO's offense was morphing to Spread Option with a more QB centric running game before he retired- lots more 1 back sets

I think I remember reading somewhere that he said he would be a spread option team if he were coaching today

That is a bit different than the 100s of ways Johnson runs his option and orbit sweep game he runs at GT

They aren't just a triple option team, they run midline and you even see some veer concepts at times, the guy is a genius

While Tenopir was running zone schemes in his latter years- some of the better O-linemen are going to look at an option offense as something they probably want to stay away from if they want to play in the NFL

That may be an offense that can get you to 8-3 or maybe even 9-2 with a class ranked a lot lower than other teams in the top 15, but you may not get the kids you need to be a top 5, top 10 team.

When you are one of many trying to get the very same type of player to come to your University and are just above average with blah uniforms, good academic support and not much scenery- that isn't a great value proposition for most HS kids. So there definitely is value in considering being different.

While defending spread teams was something that was different and kind of a hassle to do 15 years ago, much easier today, because we all see so much of it. Everyone runs smash, everyone runs 4 verts, everyone runs shallow, everyone runs bubble, everyone runs mesh the Mike Leachs of the world are having a much tougher time dinking and dunking people to death. Yes he is an air raid guy and I know that is a Hal Mumme spread subset that isn't used by many- but many teams including NU have taken those concepts and added them to their offenses.

The approach of being different certainly makes sense to look at

Understand true option teams at the High SChool level has dropped off dramatically. If you go to places like Florida, Georgia, Texas most of what you see is Spread to Pass teams.

Pro style throwing QBs aren't being overlooked at all

Tough decision

 
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Nebraska needs to go back to a pure option offense.
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As I said in the other thread, tough to go back to a "pure option offense" when we were not a pure option offense. I would say we were a power running team with the option mixed in. Did Frazier or Frost ever run a triple option? I know we ran triple in the 80s, but by the mid-90s run I don't remember seeing too much of it. The FB runs seemed to be called plays (see 95 Orange vs Miami).

 
Tough and aggressive D. Innovative on O. Even more innovative in training. Not sure that's what it has been recently but historically I would say you could apply it.

 
Clean, sound, aggressive, mistake free football with a respect for the game and win the right way. That is what our identity needs to be. Schemes change. We have won NCs with a power run/option attack in the 90s and we have won them with a more prostyle passing attack in the 70s. TO was heavily involved with both offenses. That alone shows that football changes and the team that is toward the top of the heap changes with those times and becomes innovative in how they train and prepare for the season and each game so that the become what I described in my first sentence.

 
I think the biggest misconception about those mid-90's teams is that the whole offense was option left and option right. Yes, NU ran plenty of option with Frazier and Frost at the helm, but I remember the offense as more of a power-running game with counters, pitches, QB and FB traps.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
I think the biggest misconception about those mid-90's teams is that the whole offense was option left and option right. Yes, NU ran plenty of option with Frazier and Frost at the helm, but I remember the offense as more of a power-running game with counters, pitches, QB and FB traps.
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I did a study one time when fans were going off about thinking Crouch was such a ball hog an claiming Solich destroyed Husker football because all he ran was QB runs. I think I took Frost's senior season (97) and Crouch's senior season (01). With QB rushing attempts and passing plays, there wasn't much difference at all in the stats as far as number of plays each had control of the ball. TO had already started morphing his offense to move towards what Solich was running. No, I'm not saying Solich was as good or better OC than TO. I'm saying TO was moving towards that type of offense before he retired.

 
Red Five said:
Nebraska needs to go back to a pure option offense.
Click to expand...
As I said in the other thread, tough to go back to a "pure option offense" when we were not a pure option offense. I would say we were a power running team with the option mixed in. Did Frazier or Frost ever run a triple option? I know we ran triple in the 80s, but by the mid-90s run I don't remember seeing too much of it. The FB runs seemed to be called plays (see 95 Orange vs Miami).
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NU in Osbornes day NEVER ran the true triple option, ever

Everything was a double option per TO in his books

He didnt feel he had the practice time to teach a true triple

It may have looked like triple to some- but the play called had just 2 options- sometimes it was optimized for just 1

 
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jmfb said:
TO's offense was morphing to Spread Option with a more QB centric running game before he retired- lots more 1 back sets

I think I remember reading somewhere that he said he would be a spread option team if he were coaching today

That is a bit different than the 100s of ways Johnson runs his option and orbit sweep game he runs at GT

They aren't just a triple option team, they run midline and you even see some veer concepts at times, the guy is a genius

While Tenopir was running zone schemes in his latter years- some of the better O-linemen are going to look at an option offense as something they probably want to stay away from if they want to play in the NFL

That may be an offense that can get you to 8-3 or maybe even 9-2 with a class ranked a lot lower than other teams in the top 15, but you may not get the kids you need to be a top 5, top 10 team.

When you are one of many trying to get the very same type of player to come to your University and are just above average with blah uniforms, good academic support and not much scenery- that isn't a great value proposition for most HS kids. So there definitely is value in considering being different.

While defending spread teams was something that was different and kind of a hassle to do 15 years ago, much easier today, because we all see so much of it. Everyone runs smash, everyone runs 4 verts, everyone runs shallow, everyone runs bubble, everyone runs mesh the Mike Leachs of the world are having a much tougher time dinking and dunking people to death. Yes he is an air raid guy and I know that is a Hal Mumme spread subset that isn't used by many- but many teams including NU have taken those concepts and added them to their offenses.

The approach of being different certainly makes sense to look at

Understand true option teams at the High SChool level has dropped off dramatically. If you go to places like Florida, Georgia, Texas most of what you see is Spread to Pass teams.

Pro style throwing QBs aren't being overlooked at all

Tough decision
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I remember hearing that from TO as well. Can you imagine Frazier, Frost, Crouch in today's zone read offenses?! That would be something to see!

Red Five said:
Nebraska needs to go back to a pure option offense.
Click to expand...
As I said in the other thread, tough to go back to a "pure option offense" when we were not a pure option offense. I would say we were a power running team with the option mixed in. Did Frazier or Frost ever run a triple option? I know we ran triple in the 80s, but by the mid-90s run I don't remember seeing too much of it. The FB runs seemed to be called plays (see 95 Orange vs Miami).
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True, we never ran the triple option, FB hand offs were 'cake' reads in other words called before hand and not really 'read'. Now the qb/rb pitch...that's a different story.

I always felt that the beginning of the end of the old option was when Osborne unveiled what looked like an option but was really a QB draw against Washington "It quacks like an option..." is what I remember the announcer saying. Sort of a watershed thing where after that the QB became the main weapon instead of the QB/IB being on equal footing. By the time Crouch came around and started to run the option it felt like no one in the stadium actually thought he was going to pitch it, not fooling anyone, and when he did the IB wasn't expecting it either most of the time.

I'd also like to say that I don't really care about our identity is as long as we have one and are good at it. Every offense is fun to watch when it's working and ugly when it's not. No more 'multiple' do everything, master nothing. Great idea in theory if you can pull it off, be we never quite could. We managed to put up a lot of points at times but also seemed to get in our own way a lot.

Another aspect is it comes down to what your coaches know, believe in and can teach. If you want to run the triple option you'd have to go out and get Johnson or one of the service academy guys. I'm pleased to hear that Riley and co. are willing to adapt their scheme to what is already in place but their is a limit to everything.

Just my two cents.

 
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If navy had any kind of Defense this year the beat the Champs OSU. They gashed OSU for 370 on the ground and only 20 yards in the air. They just ran out of gas and couldn't stop OSU. I am pretty sure we would get the better athletes the Navy.

How many of the top 10 rushing teams are teams that don't get the athletes we can get. We could do it but alot of people don't want us to do it.

 
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