From: http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=38&u_sid=2028127
Published Wednesday
September 28, 2005
Tom Shatel: First downs, second guesses
BY TOM SHATEL
WORLD-HERALD COLUMNIST
First downs and second guesses while wondering if Bill Callahan saw the Urban Meyer interview on Monday night:
The Florida coach was the halftime guest during ESPN's LSU-Tennessee game. Meyer is the flavor of the day in college football. The latest young offensive genius. His baby is the "spread option." Nobody seems to have an answer.
The talking heads asked Meyer how his system was going to fare in the Southeastern Conference, intimating it would either get exposed or validated.
"We don't have an offense (system)," Meyer said. "Our offense is what our players do best. Last year at Utah we didn't throw downfield. Now we do because we have Chris Leak."
Now that's genius.
Here's the point: It hasn't appeared to this observer - and many others - that Callahan's strength is playing to his strengths. Through 14 games, he seems to be forcing his system, and the future, and not the talent level of the present.
What strengths would that Nebraska offense have? Good question.
We can tell you what they are not. Pass-blocking. Pass-catching. Route-running. Progression-reading. In short, the passing game.
So why not run the ball more?
This is not a new topic. Some folks think Callahan hasn't been criticized until this season, but some of us harped on his cramming the square peg into the round hole all of last season. By the way, Joe Dailey gets no apology here; none necessary. Callahan got the tab for last season and the way he used Dailey.
Case in point: last year's Iowa State game. Now there was a team loss, on both sides. But we'll always wonder if NU could have won had it tried to pound away at a Cyclone defensive front that looked bendable and breakable.
Still does. If Army can run on ISU, well . . .
Yes, NU's line has its issues. But led by Cory Ross, and introducing Jerome Bettis-like Cody Glenn, why not put the game on the backs of the scorched earth committee? Even in the ineptitude of the Pitt game, Nebraska's 48-rush attack looked like something the coach could hang his hat on.
The Huskers may not have any strengths on offense. But until the pieces to the passing game show up, a punt (especially with Sam Koch) beats an interception. I would rather run clock and keep Todd Blythe and Mad Mike Leach's system on the sidelines than throw three incompletes and give them more chances.
Callahan has a computer for an offensive mind. But he too often looks like he's outsmarting himself. The Mike Stuntz play vs. Pitt? Tierre Green on the pitch? Husker fans would be more impressed with a functional win between the tackles.
I see the Callahan Era in two stages. One, the coach takes the hand he was dealt and molds his system around it, coaching up players he and Tom Lemming would not necessarily have recruited.
Two, the four-star cavalry arrives and Callahan shows he can coach great players to great things.
Callahan still must show he can master phase one. This week is another chance.
• Charlie Weis is my new favorite coach. What he did for that 10-year-old boy is the stuff out of a movie. And the play worked!
• Maybe Callahan should consider taking requests from Husker fans.
• UNO fans should be proud to have Pat Behrns as their football coach. Even after an embarrassing loss at South Dakota, Behrns stepped up and put it all on himself. A guy with his record doesn't have to do that.
• When will the Chiefs learn how to defend Denver's quarterback bootleg?
• About the same time I learn not to pick them to win in Denver.
• This is the first of two big weeks for Nebraska defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove. Yes, everyone remembers the 70-10 loss to Texas Tech, which comes to Lincoln next week.
But Husker fans were none too pleased to see Iowa State offensive coordinator Barney Cotton's offense run roughshod over the Blackshirts - one year after Cotton was fired from NU. The only thing worse than that was hearing Cotton afterward tell his Cyclones they were "the real Big Red."
Cosgrove can't let Cotton have the same fun in Lincoln.
• I'm anxious to see the speed and skill level of the American Hockey League when the Knights drop the puck in Omaha on Thursday night.
• UNO hockey was picked fifth in the CCHA news media poll. The Mavs have the offense to finish in the top four. They'll go as far as their new goaltenders.
• More on the former Husker Russ Hochstein, the New England Patriot offensive lineman who is in the Tom Brady Visa commercial (Hochstein is the creepy guy who says "Hi there" to Brady's date):
Gregg Moeller, a teacher at Wisner-Pilger High School, writes that he was Hochstein's play director while at Hartington Cedar Catholic. Moeller says Hochstein won the school's best actor honors as a junior and senior and was best overall actor at a Mid-State Conference contest his senior year.
"I always like to boast that I coached a starter in the Super Bowl - I just leave out the fact that it wasn't in football!" Moeller writes. "I haven't directed an Emmy winner like my fellow director and friend Mariann vonRein at North Bend - Marg Helgenberger was her star back in the 1970s - but this comes pretty close."
Published Wednesday
September 28, 2005
Tom Shatel: First downs, second guesses
BY TOM SHATEL
WORLD-HERALD COLUMNIST
First downs and second guesses while wondering if Bill Callahan saw the Urban Meyer interview on Monday night:
The Florida coach was the halftime guest during ESPN's LSU-Tennessee game. Meyer is the flavor of the day in college football. The latest young offensive genius. His baby is the "spread option." Nobody seems to have an answer.
The talking heads asked Meyer how his system was going to fare in the Southeastern Conference, intimating it would either get exposed or validated.
"We don't have an offense (system)," Meyer said. "Our offense is what our players do best. Last year at Utah we didn't throw downfield. Now we do because we have Chris Leak."
Now that's genius.
Here's the point: It hasn't appeared to this observer - and many others - that Callahan's strength is playing to his strengths. Through 14 games, he seems to be forcing his system, and the future, and not the talent level of the present.
What strengths would that Nebraska offense have? Good question.
We can tell you what they are not. Pass-blocking. Pass-catching. Route-running. Progression-reading. In short, the passing game.
So why not run the ball more?
This is not a new topic. Some folks think Callahan hasn't been criticized until this season, but some of us harped on his cramming the square peg into the round hole all of last season. By the way, Joe Dailey gets no apology here; none necessary. Callahan got the tab for last season and the way he used Dailey.
Case in point: last year's Iowa State game. Now there was a team loss, on both sides. But we'll always wonder if NU could have won had it tried to pound away at a Cyclone defensive front that looked bendable and breakable.
Still does. If Army can run on ISU, well . . .
Yes, NU's line has its issues. But led by Cory Ross, and introducing Jerome Bettis-like Cody Glenn, why not put the game on the backs of the scorched earth committee? Even in the ineptitude of the Pitt game, Nebraska's 48-rush attack looked like something the coach could hang his hat on.
The Huskers may not have any strengths on offense. But until the pieces to the passing game show up, a punt (especially with Sam Koch) beats an interception. I would rather run clock and keep Todd Blythe and Mad Mike Leach's system on the sidelines than throw three incompletes and give them more chances.
Callahan has a computer for an offensive mind. But he too often looks like he's outsmarting himself. The Mike Stuntz play vs. Pitt? Tierre Green on the pitch? Husker fans would be more impressed with a functional win between the tackles.
I see the Callahan Era in two stages. One, the coach takes the hand he was dealt and molds his system around it, coaching up players he and Tom Lemming would not necessarily have recruited.
Two, the four-star cavalry arrives and Callahan shows he can coach great players to great things.
Callahan still must show he can master phase one. This week is another chance.
• Charlie Weis is my new favorite coach. What he did for that 10-year-old boy is the stuff out of a movie. And the play worked!
• Maybe Callahan should consider taking requests from Husker fans.
• UNO fans should be proud to have Pat Behrns as their football coach. Even after an embarrassing loss at South Dakota, Behrns stepped up and put it all on himself. A guy with his record doesn't have to do that.
• When will the Chiefs learn how to defend Denver's quarterback bootleg?
• About the same time I learn not to pick them to win in Denver.
• This is the first of two big weeks for Nebraska defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove. Yes, everyone remembers the 70-10 loss to Texas Tech, which comes to Lincoln next week.
But Husker fans were none too pleased to see Iowa State offensive coordinator Barney Cotton's offense run roughshod over the Blackshirts - one year after Cotton was fired from NU. The only thing worse than that was hearing Cotton afterward tell his Cyclones they were "the real Big Red."
Cosgrove can't let Cotton have the same fun in Lincoln.
• I'm anxious to see the speed and skill level of the American Hockey League when the Knights drop the puck in Omaha on Thursday night.
• UNO hockey was picked fifth in the CCHA news media poll. The Mavs have the offense to finish in the top four. They'll go as far as their new goaltenders.
• More on the former Husker Russ Hochstein, the New England Patriot offensive lineman who is in the Tom Brady Visa commercial (Hochstein is the creepy guy who says "Hi there" to Brady's date):
Gregg Moeller, a teacher at Wisner-Pilger High School, writes that he was Hochstein's play director while at Hartington Cedar Catholic. Moeller says Hochstein won the school's best actor honors as a junior and senior and was best overall actor at a Mid-State Conference contest his senior year.
"I always like to boast that I coached a starter in the Super Bowl - I just leave out the fact that it wasn't in football!" Moeller writes. "I haven't directed an Emmy winner like my fellow director and friend Mariann vonRein at North Bend - Marg Helgenberger was her star back in the 1970s - but this comes pretty close."