Pelini not worried about Husker's rushing game

Call me crazy, but WMU's 8 in the box is about equivalent to 4-6 in the box for OU. Do you really think we'll have a great passing game once we play one of the big boys? The most concerning thing to me about the running game wasn't that actual plays or players. It was the ease at which the coaches went away from it that I find concerning. In the 1994 NC game, the running game wasn't going very well in the first half. You have to continue to pound the rock if you want to wear down the opposing D. How did the time of possession come out? It they had the ball within 2 minutes of us then we are in big trouble. The best thing for a young inexperienced D is for the offense to be able to stay on the field while the staff has time to iron out the wrinkles for the D on the sideline.

 
honestly, i think we should be nervous, until the running game is embraced and shows to be effective. true, we have only played one game, but even San Jose State will present a test for us. there is much to be done here, on both sides of the ball.

 
junior4949 said:
Call me crazy, but WMU's 8 in the box is about equivalent to 4-6 in the box for OU. Do you really think we'll have a great passing game once we play one of the big boys? The most concerning thing to me about the running game wasn't that actual plays or players. It was the ease at which the coaches went away from it that I find concerning. In the 1994 NC game, the running game wasn't going very well in the first half. You have to continue to pound the rock if you want to wear down the opposing D. How did the time of possession come out? It they had the ball within 2 minutes of us then we are in big trouble. The best thing for a young inexperienced D is for the offense to be able to stay on the field while the staff has time to iron out the wrinkles for the D on the sideline.
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Amen. If we allow the spreads of teams like MU or Tech to be on the field for 30-40 mins. we'll be looking at a real long afternoon. But, having said that, one game is way to early to press the panic button. Sure, the O line looked a little out of sync, even confused at times, but so did the secondary. For now I'm willing to chalk it up to first game jitters, and give the staff a chance to coach out some of the mistakes we saw.

 
SkullandBones said:
junior4949 said:
Call me crazy, but WMU's 8 in the box is about equivalent to 4-6 in the box for OU. Do you really think we'll have a great passing game once we play one of the big boys? The most concerning thing to me about the running game wasn't that actual plays or players. It was the ease at which the coaches went away from it that I find concerning. In the 1994 NC game, the running game wasn't going very well in the first half. You have to continue to pound the rock if you want to wear down the opposing D. How did the time of possession come out? It they had the ball within 2 minutes of us then we are in big trouble. The best thing for a young inexperienced D is for the offense to be able to stay on the field while the staff has time to iron out the wrinkles for the D on the sideline.
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Amen. If we allow the spreads of teams like MU or Tech to be on the field for 30-40 mins. we'll be looking at a real long afternoon. But, having said that, one game is way to early to press the panic button. Sure, the O line looked a little out of sync, even confused at times, but so did the secondary. For now I'm willing to chalk it up to first game jitters, and give the staff a chance to coach out some of the mistakes we saw.
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Yeah, if we can't get it going, this may be a long year.

 
Hunter94 said:
NEHUSKERS311 said:
Well think about Nebraska football of old, they didnt care how many guys you put in the box they still ran over them and the other team knew we were going to run the ball an still couldnt stop it.. Now I understand times have changed, but the o-line needs to improve so if we need to control the clock we can.. To me the O-line was some what getting pushed around instead of pancakeing there butts..
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you are exactly correct. we don't have the athletes on the offensive line to dominate like we used to do, but we still need to work harder on scheme blocking and the run game. thankfully Ganz can throw a little, otherwise this season would be horrific. this is not going to be easy moving forward, this game should have opened a lot of eyes and should bring the kool-aid drinkers back down to earth! <_<
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Offensive linemen are developed as run blockers or pass blockers, usually from junior high. We are now stocked with pass blockers to fit Callahan's West Coast Offense. Run blocking is an attitude and many techniques to be learned. We can't expect miracles.

 
pctopeka said:
Hunter94 said:
NEHUSKERS311 said:
Well think about Nebraska football of old, they didnt care how many guys you put in the box they still ran over them and the other team knew we were going to run the ball an still couldnt stop it.. Now I understand times have changed, but the o-line needs to improve so if we need to control the clock we can.. To me the O-line was some what getting pushed around instead of pancakeing there butts..
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you are exactly correct. we don't have the athletes on the offensive line to dominate like we used to do, but we still need to work harder on scheme blocking and the run game. thankfully Ganz can throw a little, otherwise this season would be horrific. this is not going to be easy moving forward, this game should have opened a lot of eyes and should bring the kool-aid drinkers back down to earth! <_<
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Offensive linemen are developed as run blockers or pass blockers, usually from junior high. We are now stocked with pass blockers to fit Callahan's West Coast Offense. Run blocking is an attitude and many techniques to be learned. We can't expect miracles.
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true, but it has got to start somewhere along the way...you don't hear USC whining about having just pass blockers or just run blockers.......good OL can do it all.....we don't have the talent and what talent we have has not been developed to support the run as much as we would like......Lucky is not likely to live up to the hype this year either, it is early, but his first game was far from impressive...against a MAC team too.

 
Lucky got just 12 carries and split time. Most backs get better & tougher over a course of a game. His 1st QTR TD run was flat out ridiculous. So was his TD catch in stride. He may not be Heisman which is fine. But he still is a real good back all things considering.

The O-line is deep and experienced. That doesnt automatically translate to being "the best part of the team". I think they did great pass blocking. There may have been a little too much preseason hype, but heck it's still too early to be concerned. It's still a one-game-at-a-time approach. I'm not so worried right now. I trust things will improve with all units. That's the goal for everyone - break it down, correct the mistakes, work harder, improve & get better.

 
NEHUSKERS311 said:
Well think about Nebraska football of old, they didnt care how many guys you put in the box they still ran over them and the other team knew we were going to run the ball an still couldnt stop it.. Now I understand times have changed, but the o-line needs to improve so if we need to control the clock we can.. To me the O-line was some what getting pushed around instead of pancakeing there butts..
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WORD! They still ran the ball. We will see.

 
Addison Mode said:
Lucky got just 12 carries and split time. Most backs get better & tougher over a course of a game. His 1st QTR TD run was flat out ridiculous. So was his TD catch in stride. He may not be Heisman which is fine. But he still is a real good back all things considering.

The O-line is deep and experienced. That doesnt automatically translate to being "the best part of the team". I think they did great pass blocking. There may have been a little too much preseason hype, but heck it's still too early to be concerned. It's still a one-game-at-a-time approach. I'm not so worried right now. I trust things will improve with all units. That's the goal for everyone - break it down, correct the mistakes, work harder, improve & get better.
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Here's why Lucky won't win post season awards. It has nothing to do with what he's doing on the field. It has everything to do with what he's not doing on the field. He's going to be sharing too much time with two other guys to have a lights out season. This might benefit him down the road as most NFL teams look at how many hits a RB takes in college. They figure each RB only has a certain amount of hits in him before he's done.

The thing I take from the first game is that hopefully everything gets better. Anyone watch the UCLA Tennessee game? Chow who is one of if not the best OC in college football had a QB throwing 4 picks in the first half. He adjusted, and his QB played lights out in the 2nd half. Watson has seen what we're capable of doing and not capable of doing. He'll call plays accordingly as the season progresses. Hopefully, we get some running plays in there and concentrate on clock management better as we go through the season. We have the horses there to run the ball. We open up a few more holes, and the running game should get much better.

 
If teams continue to load the box with 8-9 players constantly, I promise you we will be passing a ton this season. We'd be stupid not to. However, they're not going to do that because we've shown (and will continue to show) we're capable of passing on them almost at will. As we face more balanced defenses, and our O-line run blocking picks up a bit, we'll see more running.

 
Maybe Pelini thought that based on it's performance last year, the D needed more actual game time to work out the kinks and asked Watson to have to offense score quickly so they could get the extra in-game reps. :lol:

 
I can't find the link, but I'm pretty sure I read in one of the numerous post-game articles that Watson told Pelini at halftime that they'd run the ball more in the second half and Pelini's response was to just play football. Without reading too much into it, it sounds like Pelini wasn't too concerned with protecting the defense - he just wanted the offense to score points.

If Western Michigan was giving up open looks downfield by bringing the safeties up so they were even with the linebackers - then why run into an 9 man front when you can just throw over them.

I agree that in the heydays of the 90's we ran against 9 and 10 man fronts and had success - but the team has changed and the offensive philosophy has changed. I think we would all agree Joe Ganz is a good enough passer and decision maker to complete a pass when he needs to. In my humble opinion - I agree with Pelini and Watson - why pound the ball for 3 yards when you can just as easily throw it for 10? That's the beauty of the offensive system we're using now.

 
so i guess the philosophy of pounding a defensive line with our big backs may not be such a viable alternative? you know, wear them down, 3 yards at a whack and pursue a relentless running attack, along with ball control? hmmmmm...got my hopes up there for awhile.. <_<

 
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