I loved Tommie Frazier as our quarterback. But to me, it has to be Eric Crouch as my favorite. A few things to mention:
While I loved Frazier, he was behind a stacked offensive line, a stacked backfield, and very good downfield blocking receivers. He threw the ball good enough to be a dual threat quarterback, and had INSANE ability to lead an offense, to put fear into the defense, and the BIGGEST BIG GAME quarterback of all time, with his record and THREE National Championship MVP awards.
But, I think Crouch is the greatest ever to run the option, and to play at Nebraska under center. Yes, he gets the reputation of being a "prima donna" and a "ball hog" but lets face it. Crouch WAS Nebraska from 1998-2001 seasons. Who else was the go to guy? Dan Alexander? David Horne? Thunder Collins? DeAntae Grixby? Dahrran Diedrick? It was Crouch, he was the offense, the offense was built for him and around him to have success. And he threw the ball "pretty well" for a Nebraska quarterback as he ended with over 3,000 rushing yards and 4,000 PASSING yards under that offense.
If you look at old tapes, we even ran a little "Spread Option" with him that some teams kind of run to this day. Not too bad for an "outdated offense" I have never seen someone so quick to get up to top notch speed, and then to juke defenders out while at top speed. (Chris Johnson from the Tennessee Titans is the best at this (Go Titans!), but we are talking about a quarterback from Nebraska, not a running back)
Everytime we ran the option, and I loved it, Crouch was always going vertical. Trying to get up-field, to cut it inside, or break it to the outside with his speed or a pitch. He was one of those you "hold your breath every time he has the ball because something magical could happen". Frazier, while a very good dual threat quarterback, didn't have the acceleration nor the top notch speed/agility that Crouch had.
Now a days you see guys run the option sideline to sideline. I know we don't run it as our base offense anymore, but when Zac Lee or Cody Green run the option from the Ace Formation, they just go to the sidelines, no speed, not trying to get upfield, not trying to get a defender to commit one way or another. And it's not their fault, they don't practice that type of option nor put in the time to work on it or pitch the ball, which is why when we run it (as of now) I cringe because we don't practice it enough to be a weapon, and they don't try to get up-field or make a defender commit one way or another.
Once the defender locked onto the running back, Crouch made his move up field inside. Once the defender made a lock onto Crouch, usually Crouch could still beat him with one juke, a late pitch down field, or even a FAKE PITCH (yes, caps, it's that deceiving and dramatic). If you want to run the option, you watch how he ran it, as he was always going vertical, going up-field, get as many yards as quickly as possible. Yes, it helped he was an amazing athlete and speedster, but that's the carbon copy of how to run it. Even when I watch Fraizer run the option now, he doesn't nearly go as vertical as Crouch, he goes more sidelines, but we had great offensive lines during his time too.
Could you imagine Crouch with the 93,94,95,96,97 offense? Wow, our rushing attack would be two times better with him under center with that backfield and the line that Frazier had up-front. It's too bad he didn't win a National Championship while he was here and it ended on somewhat of a sour note, but he still had an amazing career, and showed how to really run an option based offense.
No disrespect to Frazier, I loved him as our quarterback as well and am glad he brought us two national championships (almost three) and was a heck of a leader, but Crouch took it to another level when he was out there if we are talking about playing style.
