Watson...what's your opinion now?

HuskerBob4 said:
Without trying to turn this into a pissing match, I'd like to discuss my major issues with Wats.

First off, the OC's job is to put together an offense that the HC wants to implement. It was obvious that Bo gave Wats plenty of opportunities to do "his thing". When Wats proved that he couldn't manage that, Bo tightened the reins, hence the change to overwhelming high amount of run plays. It wasn't his willingness to change, it was his fear of unemployment that caused the changes. All coaches have huge egos and don't want to sink running someone else's idea of an offense.

Secondly, as the OC, you are the CEO, if you will, of the offense. You oversee everything that goes on in the organization. I know injuries can really derail a season, but to compare our injuries to that of OU's is ridiculous. Hell, Va Tech lost a Freshman All-American and replaced him with another. My point is, Wats has control over who we recruit and who we bring in and also has the responsibility of getting said players ready for the games. If he can not handle that, he needs to find a new profession. And it's not like the players lost were All-Americans or even All-Big XII caliber.

Third, if the injury to Lee was a hinderance, than why not use CG or Helu or any other number of guys to play Burkhead's role in the "Wildcat" formation. Don't feed me lines about a hurt QB and then hope I don't remember us taking shots downfield on a regular occassion to deflect my doubts about your ability to coach. There is no excuse for being creative and finding ways to get the best athletes on the field.

Lastly, I will not go into details on play-calling and what not, but I would like to point out that stats do a better job of telling the truth than human perception. And 102 nationally is PATHETIC....

With that said, if he is retained, I hope he uses 95% of his upcoming 100 hour work weeks to perfect "his" offense and quit living off "his" stats under Callahan....
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Exactly.

Let's hope that things will get straightened out for next season so we can kick some Texas backside, win the Big 12, and go to a BCS bowl. Even though many of us haven't been fond of Watson, any sane fan is going to want him to be successful, because none of us want the Huskers to lose just to try to make a point.

 
Don't be surprised if NU has a BCS banner year next season that Wats gets approached by other schools during the coaching carousel.

 
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My two cents:

Like someone else earlier mentioned, the red zone seems to be his bugaboo. My only problem with the offense was the series where Lee had just run it to the 4 yard line for second and goal. We then run 2 pass plays that were poorly executed, well defended, or both, and we settle for another FG. Clearly the running game has been the better part of our valor this season (o-line probs or not), and it was during this game also. I think we easily score a TD if the ball is kept on the ground.

Ultimately, I'd prefer we find an identity and stick with it. Being multiple is great when you have the coaching and talent combo to pull it off. I dont want to be average at multiple things. Lets be great at running the ball, contolling the line, and I'd live with only throwing when needed or as a novelty to catch the opposing D napping.

 
We were obviously trying to get Suh the ball on that one.

Being multiple IS an identity.

By "stick" with it, do you mean over multiple seasons? That doesn't make sense. You adapt to personnel, shift philosophy over time as needed.

 
I don't know that you can give Watson a pass for 2009's struggles, but given Lee's injury I think he gets an Incomplete. More thoughts over at Better Off Red -- click here

 
zoogies said:
We were obviously trying to get Suh the ball on that one.

Being multiple IS an identity.

By "stick" with it, do you mean over multiple seasons? That doesn't make sense. You adapt to personnel, shift philosophy over time as needed.
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That was hardly obvious to me. They could have just as well handed him the ball. I can buy being mulitple as an identity when the team can pull it off. Clearly this team couldn't. When they decided they were just going to run the ball, and all else be damned, they did okay (see ISU, OU, most of VT, and the 4th qrtr of KU, KSU, Mizzou) When they tried to get cute with some of the passing and sets, they couldn't put drives together or they stalled out in the redzone (see Texas and VT). I don't believe this new revelation of Lee injury excuses much of the play calling/execution.

 
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Yeah, and it can go both ways...maybe we pound it in and score, or maybe we try pounding it in and they expect it and stuff us. That last play where Suh came in though, and he ran a pass pattern, I felt like that was kinda something they wanted to work into the game, a chance to send #93 off with a touchdown, like the KU game last year.

I agree: clearly this team couldn't have being multiple as an identity, and you saw Watson phase the team away from that.

I disagree with the order of your games as examples completely though. The Iowa State game was HARDLY a game where we were going to run the ball, all else be damned. We passed 37 times for 248 yards, ran 28 for 126. Yeah, we were 'cute' and finessy and still ran all over that D. Too bad we dropped the ball to the turf after we finished running like five times.

Similarly, we ran the ball 35 times against Texas, to 20 passes.

A summary of playcalling this year: we ran our multiple offense to begin the year. We scrapped that idea mid-season and started seeing the changes post-Baylor. This team couldn't run that multiple offense and we lost the Iowa State game trying to. We switched philosophy to ugly grind-it-away style and won the Oklahoma game doing so. We continued to just pound the ball and let the defense take care of things because that gave us the best shot at winning.

It was never meant to be pretty. It was meant to enable us to win games. And we went 5-1 down the stretch before dominating Arizona in the bowl game, with that one loss being a game we had won against the potential national champions but for a kickoff gone astray.

With an offense this bad? Pretty smart play-calling. We could have continued slinging it, and we would have some pretty lopsided losses against OU and Texas and maybe more.

The 'D' was a consistent 'good' all year. What made this team a 4-3 starter and a 7-1 finisher was changing what the O was trying to do.

 
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Watson is and will be an awesome OC if he calls plays that get Burkhead the ball. Burkhead is probably the best offensive threat we have. Wildcat QB, slot reciever, and a RB. He is insane for just being a true freshman, well i guess sophomore now.

 
zoogies said:
Yeah, and it can go both ways...maybe we pound it in and score, or maybe we try pounding it in and they expect it and stuff us. That last play where Suh came in though, and he ran a pass pattern, I felt like that was kinda something they wanted to work into the game, a chance to send #93 off with a touchdown, like the KU game last year.

I agree: clearly this team couldn't have being multiple as an identity, and you saw Watson phase the team away from that.

I disagree with the order of your games as examples completely though. The Iowa State game was HARDLY a game where we were going to run the ball, all else be damned. We passed 37 times for 248 yards, ran 28 for 126. Yeah, we were 'cute' and finessy and still ran all over that D. Too bad we dropped the ball to the turf after we finished running like five times.

Similarly, we ran the ball 35 times against Texas, to 20 passes.

A summary of playcalling this year: we ran our multiple offense to begin the year. We scrapped that idea mid-season and started seeing the changes post-Baylor. This team couldn't run that multiple offense and we lost the Iowa State game trying to. We switched philosophy to ugly grind-it-away style and won the Oklahoma game doing so. We continued to just pound the ball and let the defense take care of things because that gave us the best shot at winning.

It was never meant to be pretty. It was meant to enable us to win games. And we went 5-1 down the stretch before dominating Arizona in the bowl game, with that one loss being a game we had won against the potential national champions but for a kickoff gone astray.

With an offense this bad? Pretty smart play-calling. We could have continued slinging it, and we would have some pretty lopsided losses against OU and Texas and maybe more.

The 'D' was a consistent 'good' all year. What made this team a 4-3 starter and a 7-1 finisher was changing what the O was trying to do.
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honestly, i suspect Pelini had a lot to do with the changes in offensive strategy. i suspect he told Wats, enough, we need to win games, just win ugly and renew the O strategy next season......he is a common sense type of guy, i can just imagine him telling Wats, "enough, for now".

 
Could very well be true, but I think that's a little speculative. Almost a bit of just where you want to hand the credit to, or where you want to keep it away from. Pelini can do no wrong right now so that's an easy option.

I spend a lot of time defending Watson from what I feel is unwarranted criticism, so I have a tendency to want hand all the credit to Watson. Equal speculation on my part, I s'pose ;)

But in any case, it worked and it seems like the staff and program are all on one page, so...hand me some kool-aid. :koolaid2:

 
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junior4949 said:
The better question would be: should Barney stay or go? Most of the offensive problems this year were caused by poor OL play. Watson's play calling was suspect at times, but I believe it was because he was trying to do something or create something despite the poor OL play.
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Again, I think he gets 2010 to get his line up to snuff.Quales, Sirles, Ash, plus the Juco coming in, Barney needs to come up with a better line.

 
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