Power Football

Undone said:
When you look at the play selection of the first half against Illinois, it seems to me that Frost & Lubick came into this season wanting to be pretty run-heavy this season. But our line didn’t block for s***.
 

Then I think they just lost confidence to run it in that 55% - 60% zone - and the stats support this.

But it’s weird because our yards per carry stats by our backs went UP in the two most critical games of the second half of the season (Minnesota & Purdue), in yet Frost/Lubick called fewer run plays.

We just really failed to get our backs to a place where they were carrying us. Greg Austin as “Run Game Coordinator” was a complete failure, IMO.
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We ran the ball 58% of the time. 
 

832 plays. 
490 rushes. 

 
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Hopefully I’m not putting words in anybody’s mouth in this thread, but I also hear the same thing in person so I don’t think it’s misrepresentative. I’m surprised that somebody could closely watch our games this year and actually think the biggest problem on offense is scheme.

Where I’d like to see better “power football” is inside the red zone. But Frost’s scheme has been pretty good at moving the chains, and the data supports it.

 
BigRedBuster said:
We ran the ball 58% of the time. 
 

832 plays. 
490 rushes. 
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For the season. But I was referring specifically to the Minnesota & Purdue games where the run pass ratio trended down despite higher YPC averages from our backs.

The Minnesota & Purdue game run/pass ratios were 52/48 & 50/50, respectively.

Punchline: Frost or Lubick or whoever called the plays in those two games just didn’t want to run it as much for whatever reason, and it cost us because Martinez was off in those games.

 
Undone said:
For the season. But I was referring specifically to the Minnesota & Purdue games where the run pass ratio trended down despite higher YPC averages from our backs.

The Minnesota & Purdue game run/pass ratios were 52/48 & 50/50, respectively.

Punchline: Frost or Lubick or whoever called the plays in those two games just didn’t want to run it as much for whatever reason, and it cost us because Martinez was off in those games.
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Not sure about Purdue, but at Minnesota, they game planned around  2AM being hurt. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
We passed more and ran less in that game because 2AM was hurt. Basically he didn’t run. 
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A couple of things:

1) I agree that because Adrian was playing hurt against Minny and Purdue, he was running the ball less, and throwing the ball more. 

2) Against Purdue, NU was losing by 2 scores with less than 10 minutes in the game, so NU was "forced" into passing more. NU was also down by 2 scores in a last minute drive against Minny where NU couldn't rally call runs.

I also get annoyed when people look purely at run-pass ratio and compare it to other teams. Winning teams are generally going to have a higher run percentage, because they are usually running out the clock in the 4th quarter. Deeper analytics into run-pass "play calls" when the score is close is a better measure of whether a team is a "running team" or a "passing team". Also, continuing to run the ball when only averaging 2-3 yards per carry is dumb, and is basically just ramming one's head into the wall. 

 
Undone said:
For the season. But I was referring specifically to the Minnesota & Purdue games where the run pass ratio trended down despite higher YPC averages from our backs.

The Minnesota & Purdue game run/pass ratios were 52/48 & 50/50, respectively.

Punchline: Frost or Lubick or whoever called the plays in those two games just didn’t want to run it as much for whatever reason, and it cost us because Martinez was off in those games.
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I still contend that Chinander's D strategy cost NU the Minnesota game this year. I have no idea why he was so conservative and allowed Tanner Morgan to play catch with his receivers for 6-8 yard gains, and allowed Minnesota to grind the clock drive after drive. 

 
Toe said:
News flash: we don't have the line to run the freaking ball, either.
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That’s where I’ve been headed with this thread the whole time also. When your first down running production is bad, it will almost always make your run pass ratio higher, because then you are in much more third and mediums and third and longs.

The statement “we should just run more” is complicated when your line more or less sucks.

 
BigRedBuster said:
No, it was his ankle.  
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Thanks - hadn’t remembered what Frost had said in that next Monday’s presser.

I hate to say this but games like that show how dangerous it can be when we put the game all on Adrian’s pocket passing ability. He was off in that game.

But I also wound up not understanding why we didn’t at least TRY to hand it off to our RBs more once it was evident his accuracy was off in that first half.

 
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