This offense

[MCAT800]

Question: When most teams improve as the season progresses , how come we get worse?

Watson must have found Solichs playbook somewhere in the coaches offices. Crouch right, Crouch left, Crouch up the middle, punt.

 

[PaulCrewe]

My biggest glaring issue was NU's offensive line straight got it's a$$ whooped the majority of the game. Constantly there were two or three Aggies in the backfield, and they also destroyed the pocket of passing plays when they only brought three or four. Inability to pick up and designate blitzes(part of this goes on the QB), stupid penalties, and missed blocks continue to plague this unit.

A key example, the play where Taylor gets hurt. Caputo is just blown up off the snap and put on his backside three yards deep in the back field right onto Taylor.(Sidenote the Aggie that did this was Eddie Brown, former Husker commit, how nice would it have been to have him bringing depth to the interior DLine)

Many of Rex and Roy's better runs on the night involved them making an Aggie miss at or near the line.

Maybe a lot of this has to fo with teams being able to easily prep for the three or four running plays Wats calls every week, but some has to do with the OLine still not being as good as we were all led to believe they were.

 

[zoogs]

Thats the problem with Shawn's offense. He always says we "take what you can get" on offense, take what the defense is giving us. Ok, so if the defense isn't giving us anything, we don't take anything.

Defenses always give you something.

That's pretty much how you play the game, and it's how you play the game on defense too. You diagnose weaknesses and tendencies on offense, and exploit them. If you think the offense is going to do one thing, you design your stunts or blitzes or coverages to stop it. If you think the defense has a tendency to play a certain way, you exploit it.

You're getting too caught up in a few terms and overlooking that football is a giant strategic chess match, and there's a lot of back and forth, and each side has to counter the other.

Watson must have found Solichs playbook somewhere in the coaches offices. Crouch right, Crouch left, Crouch up the middle, punt.

Rushes by the QB: 14

Passes by the QB: 28

 

[huskerswnc]

Thats the problem with Shawn's offense. He always says we "take what you can get" on offense, take what the defense is giving us. Ok, so if the defense isn't giving us anything, we don't take anything.

Defenses always give you something.

That's pretty much how you play the game, and it's how you play the game on defense too. You diagnose weaknesses and tendencies on offense, and exploit them. If you think the offense is going to do one thing, you design your stunts or blitzes or coverages to stop it. If you think the defense has a tendency to play a certain way, you exploit it.

You're getting too caught up in a few terms and overlooking that football is a giant strategic chess match, and there's a lot of back and forth, and each side has to counter the other.

Did you continue reading my post or did you stop there?

 

[TheCheshireCat]

I couldn't agree more with the OP. Forget the lack of sustained drives, the fact that our backup QBs belong in high school, forget all that sh#t. Look at the penalties. Look at the discipline. Look at the dropped balls, the amount of fumbles we've had, the sh**ty O-line play again and again and again. People say that's not Watson's fault or not Cotton's fault or whatever - well guess what, it is someone's fault. You don't have this problem for two years running as a coincidence. Something has got to change.

 

[zoogs]

Are you upset that I didn't respond to every point?

There is nothing that says you can't be a physical team and still take what you are given. Taking what you are given means exploiting the weaknesses, and you still have to play hard and dominate the LOS to succeed. We aren't talking about a style of play on offense, we are talking about how ANY playcalling works.

To be physical, you dictate whatever you want to do. Do something so well that they can't stop us.

Sounds nice and all, but it's delusional, I'm sorry. Good for a motivational speech maybe, but you're not trying to hype up the players at halftime, you're using that as a reason not to gameplan.

A fan watches a game and all he sees is run and pass. You named 'drop pass as a play like that was how it was called'. For goodness sake, we saw on film that we could exploit the man coverages with quick slants, and we had them bad on two of them, at least. Yes, the passes were incomplete, but that's not on the playcaller. Not every play works, but that was drawn up beautifully. We saw screen passes and shovel passes that got us a lot of good utility yards. There was a quick screen to Kinnie, I think, that put us from 2nd and 10 to 3rd and 6, which is the kind of auto play that puts us in a position to convert on third down, rather than the 3rd and longs we often get screwed on. There were the two (at least) deep shots we took downfield where we had our man, but the pass fell incomplete.

How many times do you really think we ran the zone read, anyway? Taylor was pretty hobbled, and while htere were several reads, I don't think it was a staple like it has been in some other games, and I don't think that was the gameplan either. You hope the defense respects his ability to run but when they don't and start loading up on the RB, there's not too much to do. You hope you can do more of that with Green, but when he makes bad reads and bad plays...what can you do, but send a limping QB back out there who can barely jog.

He claims to be a QB coach, are you impressed? Is Cody Green not talented enough that two years in a system and he hasn't improved almost at all?

Oh yes, I am impressed. Cody is evidently just a guy who doesn't have "it" right now. I don't know if you realize, but Cody was just an athlete and extremely raw as a passer coming in, and needed a redshirt year in the worst way. It couldn't be helped because of the depth last year, but he was a project that needed time to develop he never had.

What impresses me is his work with Taylor, who was much MORE of a raw passer than even Cody coming out of high school, but has progressed extraordinarily. Watson's work with this kid who has no business really being a QB, but is doing a damn good job of it, has been really impressive. I believe there are people on the staff holding the offense back, and I believe those people are position coaches BC and TG.

There, I think that covers all of it.

 

[huskerswnc]

Thats the problem with Shawn's offense. He always says we "take what you can get" on offense, take what the defense is giving us. Ok, so if the defense isn't giving us anything, we don't take anything.

You're getting too caught up in a few terms and overlooking that football is a giant strategic chess match, and there's a lot of back and forth, and each side has to counter the other.

Also, to defend against our take what we can get offense, the defense just has to mix up looks to make us think we have an advantage somewhere but actually be assigned to stop the play.

Obviously there are scheme advantages in running certain plays against other ones but seriously, zone read, zone read, dropped pass, zone read won't always work so SWITCH IT UP wats.

Did you only watch last nights game or games last season with Zac, Cody, and games this season with all 3. When T-mart was healthy against SDSU. What about Cody Green impresses you that was implemented by Watson? Take an outsiders perspective and look in. Would you say our offensive play is good? It doesn't matter if we are scheming good, preparing good, whatever good. What matters is when were on the field, we better put up points good because thats all that matters at the end of the day. When that doesn't happen over, over, and over again, then what? Changes need to be made one way or another, we can't just keep doing what we are doing and it starts by realizing it first.

 

[Enhance]

I have a problem with everything except the play-calling. For the most part, I think Watson calls a good game.

The problem lies with the fact that a couple of players (or entire units) are extremely inconsistent. If you want to win a championship, you simply cannot play like this. It is as simple as that. Why do these players, after literally having ALL the motivation in the world to succeed this season, still find a way to trip themselves up?

To me, it just comes down to developing players and coaching them. I don't know if this offensive staff is up to the challenge of putting a consistent threat out on the football field. The offensive line got owned by a unit it shouldn't have, receivers were out of place/dropping passes, and running backs were having a lot of trouble making reads and cutting up field (which is a problem with blocking more than anything else).

We can't continue to dominate OOC opponents and then play hit or miss against all manners of competition week in and week out. This is just far too inconsistent.

The defense has played extremely well all season, as a collective unit. They've had a few slip ups, but many of the games where we gave up a lot of points was because of turnovers by the offense or mistakes on special teams that led to opposing offenses having a short field.

If the defense can perform well enough to win every game, why can't the offense?

 

[SnowBigRed]

I have a problem with everything except the play-calling. For the most part, I think Watson calls a good game.

The problem lies with the fact that a couple of players (or entire units) are extremely inconsistent. If you want to win a championship, you simply cannot play like this. It is as simple as that. Why do these players, after literally having ALL the motivation in the world to succeed this season, still find a way to trip themselves up?

To me, it just comes down to developing players and coaching them. I don't know if this offensive staff is up to the challenge of putting a consistent threat out on the football field. The offensive line got owned by a unit it shouldn't have, receivers were out of place/dropping passes, and running backs were having a lot of trouble making reads and cutting up field (which is a problem with blocking more than anything else).

We can't continue to dominate OOC opponents and then play hit or miss against all manners of competition week in and week out. This is just far too inconsistent.

The defense has played extremely well all season, as a collective unit. They've had a few slip ups, but many of the games where we gave up a lot of points was because of turnovers by the offense or mistakes on special teams that led to opposing offenses having a short field.

If the defense can perform well enough to win every game, why can't the offense?

This post is mostly on the money. The only qualm I have is the playcalling. I truly thought last nights play calling was pretty poor. What was the run/pass ratio on 3rd down? Seemed like pass heavy to me. Hard slants versus man coverage are also a very hard pass play to convert, especially with the personnel we have. Wats should be able to recognize this and figure up something different. The route combos are downright simple, like he just uses a 1-9 passing tree. No double moves, no combo routes, nothing to confuse the secondary. Maybe this is because there is no protection, which sure could be the case. It just seems all to predictable. Last offensive play of the game (4th and 5?) and a corner route into triple coverage is the primary read? Come on. I'm no offensive genius, but maybe that's why it concerns me that I notice this kind of stuff. And don't get me started on Barney. He's the most overrated O-line coach in football. I want to believe that everything will end up alright and that the ship will be righted, but I'm not so sure anymore. Here's praying for another break out game next week and in the future.

We can p*ss and moan all we want about the refs last night, but one (ONE!) touchdown wins that game. That, my friends, is unacceptable.

 

[Eric the Red]

yeah but thats just it, without a blazingly fast and full of moxie qb this offense reverts to what it was last year, which was one of the worst offenses in football

Isn't this true of every team?

Not so much the specific speed, but if your starting QB goes down that team is in trouble

 

[TheCheshireCat]

yeah but thats just it, without a blazingly fast and full of moxie qb this offense reverts to what it was last year, which was one of the worst offenses in football

Isn't this true of every team?

Not so much the specific speed, but if your starting QB goes down that team is in trouble

To an extent, but I think the problem is that the coaches have known that Martinez is not up to full health and they continue to play him like he is. They show no ability to adapt. He should have been handing off or dropping back and passing. Why even do the zone read if he can't run?

 

[shyndy]

yeah but thats just it, without a blazingly fast and full of moxie qb this offense reverts to what it was last year, which was one of the worst offenses in football

Isn't this true of every team?

Not so much the specific speed, but if your starting QB goes down that team is in trouble

yeah but when we lose a starting qb we have NOTHING. We can't scrounge up sh#t, only thing we can do is hand off and hope to crack a run or two. Its not just that we struggle in these situations, its that we look like the single worst offense you could imagine

 

[fig96]

Serious question: is it possible that A&M's D is better than it's being given credit for? I keep seeing references to things like "average but played lights out" and there were several pregame comments about A&M's defense being exposed, being overrated, etc.

In the game, penalties aside (and there weren't a lot when NU was on offense other than the personal fouls) I'd say the Aggie defense looked pretty solid. Martinez wasn't 100% by any stretch and that definitely didn't help your ground game, but A&M got lots of pressure in the backfield and did rather well all night.

Not meaning to flame or troll, sorry if it's taken that way.

 

[bshirt]

yeah but thats just it, without a blazingly fast and full of moxie qb this offense reverts to what it was last year, which was one of the worst offenses in football

Isn't this true of every team?

Not so much the specific speed, but if your starting QB goes down that team is in trouble

Yeah, but good teams usually don't offensively fall off a cliff. Even if they do, it doesn't last months or years.

 

[mmmtodd]

Serious question: is it possible that A&M's D is better than it's being given credit for? I keep seeing references to things like "average but played lights out" and there were several pregame comments about A&M's defense being exposed, being overrated, etc.

In the game, penalties aside (and there weren't a lot when NU was on offense other than the personal fouls) I'd say the Aggie defense looked pretty solid. Martinez wasn't 100% by any stretch and that definitely didn't help your ground game, but A&M got lots of pressure in the backfield and did rather well all night.

Not meaning to flame or troll, sorry if it's taken that way.

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