Playmakers

B

Born N Bled Red

All-Conference
This post won't be another one rehashing our playmakers or lack thereof. Instead, rehashing a comment I heard Frost make earlier in the year. He said, and I'm too lazy to find a direct quote but, something along the lines of, "for each game he designs 7 or 8 plays to get the ball into our playmakers hands," I assume that means a couple of plays for each of the playmakers- Martinez, Washington, Spielman, Wandale, Mills, etc. Another quote he said was something like, "right now we are trying too hard to find the perfect play, or out scheme, or whatever, due to offensive ineptitude, rather than  just playing." 

I think everyone has noticed how off the offense is this year and how uncharacteristic it is from a normal Frost offense. I'm starting to think that Frost is coaching outside his system to try to make up for areas of team weakness, which is why everything looks so disjointed. I think though, that he'd be much better off running his system and getting guys experience in that rather than throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks. I may be wrong, maybe this is standard for his offense, but this is my best theory as to why the offense isn't clicking and playcalling has been off. It isn't his system. 

 
Yeah, I think that's painting with a pretty broad brush. There have been strange calls on every down and distance, including 1st and goal within the 5. 

 
If he isn't running his system what is he running? I mean it's not like we are running completely different plays out of completely different formations

 
I don't think the problem is fitting the system for individual players. I think the problem is we lost our leading rusher and receiver last year and no one has stepped up to properly fill their void. 

 
Frost did mention that they were trying to hard to get the perfect play.....

I agree play calling has been questionable at times.  This year and last.  The lack of any type of play calling to try and help the OL (covered in another thread) has been crazy IMHO.  Almost like watching the past 15 years, Wats, Beck, Langs.....We get something that works and we stop ourselves by going away from whats working.  AND PLEASE NEVER EVER, AND I MEAN EVER, THROW A SCREEN PASS AGAIN.  We just suck at them.  Please!

I think it is a perfect storm of youth (Jurgens) and inexperience.  Throw in guys not playing at their natural position (Farniok), high snaps (getting much better), dinged up playmakers, Mills learning to read the blocks AND play calling has really stymied the O.  

Get a quality control analytics guy.  Look at our plays that scored, got the most yards, the most YAC, least penalties, TFL, sacks etc and run those until we can do them in our sleep.  Take a cue form TO and get a "limited" number of plays we can run from multiple formations with same to similar players.  Force DC's to scheme formations and not plays....

 
lo country said:
Frost did mention that they were trying to hard to get the perfect play.....

I agree play calling has been questionable at times.  This year and last.  The lack of any type of play calling to try and help the OL (covered in another thread) has been crazy IMHO.  Almost like watching the past 15 years, Wats, Beck, Langs.....We get something that works and we stop ourselves by going away from whats working.  AND PLEASE NEVER EVER, AND I MEAN EVER, THROW A SCREEN PASS AGAIN.  We just suck at them.  Please!

I think it is a perfect storm of youth (Jurgens) and inexperience.  Throw in guys not playing at their natural position (Farniok), high snaps (getting much better), dinged up playmakers, Mills learning to read the blocks AND play calling has really stymied the O.  

Get a quality control analytics guy.  Look at our plays that scored, got the most yards, the most YAC, least penalties, TFL, sacks etc and run those until we can do them in our sleep.  Take a cue form TO and get a "limited" number of plays we can run from multiple formations with same to similar players.  Force DC's to scheme formations and not plays....
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I guarantee we have several guys doing this. It's also not quite that simple - maybe our best run plays against Illinois aren't our best against Northwestern. Also funny you mention never running a screen again - plenty of fans are screaming that we need more screens because defenses are being super aggressive. I think your point is why we haven't run more, we've sucked at them. One last week looked decent though.

I agree we need a few plays we can rely on, and the coaches have mentioned that as well. I think we as fans tend to oversimplify the changes that need to happen, and assume the coaches aren't working on it. There are absolutely playcalls I question, but without as many drops and penalties I think we wouldn't have many issues with it.

 
It looks like we dont run anything that is designed to play into another call or play off a previous call...but in all fairness it probably looks that way because we are not generally not executing any play 

 
Mills lack of vision kills me. How many plays does he run straight into our line and hope that he breaks free?

and then we have Mo who dances to get away like he is playing tag that can't break free, but when he does... he's electric.

I would like to see some Rahmir and Ronald Thompkins (if healthy)

 
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lowkeyhusker said:
Mills lack of vision kills me. How many plays does he run straight into our line and hope that he breaks free?

and then we have Mo who dances to get away like he is playing tag that can't break free, but when he does... he's electric.

I would like to see some Rahmir and Ronald Thompkins (if healthy)
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Haven't found the source in my initial digging, but I'm pretty sure we shut him down for the year. Which is a shame because the plan was to have him ready late in the year. And I think Mills' vision has improved, but definitely still not a strength. Totally agree on Rahmir though, he's played like 12 offensive snaps, it's crazy.

 
lowkeyhusker said:
Mills lack of vision kills me. How many plays does he run straight into our line and hope that he breaks free?

and then we have Mo who dances to get away like he is playing tag that can't break free, but when he does... he's electric.

I would like to see some Rahmir and Ronald Thompkins (if healthy)
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I think maybe in his first 1 or 2 games i might agree with Mills lack of vision but if you really go back and watch he has had good vision and made the first man miss but because of no blocking there is a 2nd and 3rd man right there.  Honestly I'm not on the mo Washington train and that has nothing to do with his behavior off the field.  He has less vision than Mills. He just tries to outrun everyone and he gets zero yards after contact.  He had made some nice plays but he's not tough and can't be counted on 

 
MyBloodIsRed16 said:
I think maybe in his first 1 or 2 games i might agree with Mills lack of vision but if you really go back and watch he has had good vision and made the first man miss but because of no blocking there is a 2nd and 3rd man right there.  Honestly I'm not on the mo Washington train and that has nothing to do with his behavior off the field.  He has less vision than Mills. He just tries to outrun everyone and he gets zero yards after contact.  He had made some nice plays but he's not tough and can't be counted on 
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He has less vision than Mills. He just tries to outrun everyone and he gets zero yards after contact.  He had made some nice plays but he's not tough and can't be counted on 

A couple thoughts on this statement.

1.  Mill's vision has improved, but most of the time he has very little room to run.  s#!tTY BLOCKING

2.  Washington has great vision and moves, but is getting hit in the backfield on about 75% of his touches.  s#!tTY BLOCKING

3.  Both Mills and Washington's play calling the last two games has been odd.  It like we are flip flopping what plays we should be running for these two.  I think we are trying to trick our opponents, but of course you really cant when - s#!tTY BLOCKING

4.  Not being able to move the db's from creeping up to the line, because we cant stretch the field hurts the running game. and of course s#!tTY BLOCKING

 
CAHusker said:
He has less vision than Mills. He just tries to outrun everyone and he gets zero yards after contact.  He had made some nice plays but he's not tough and can't be counted on 

A couple thoughts on this statement.

1.  Mill's vision has improved, but most of the time he has very little room to run.  s#!tTY BLOCKING

2.  Washington has great vision and moves, but is getting hit in the backfield on about 75% of his touches.  s#!tTY BLOCKING

3.  Both Mills and Washington's play calling the last two games has been odd.  It like we are flip flopping what plays we should be running for these two.  I think we are trying to trick our opponents, but of course you really cant when - s#!tTY BLOCKING

4.  Not being able to move the db's from creeping up to the line, because we cant stretch the field hurts the running game. and of course s#!tTY BLOCKING
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Posted earlier, but our running plays are stopped 27% of the time at the LOS or TFL.  We can't have much offense when approx 25% of runs are no gain.  Really sucks when Frost has stated he wants the big play O.  Hard when we are not really a run threat.  We've become like Beck's O.  Big or bust...

 
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