What Kind Of Offense Do You Want for the Nebraska Cornhuskers?

by Jon Johnston on Dec 13, 2007 8:51 AM CST in Nebraska Husker Football

We know that Shawn Watson will remain as a Nebraska offensive coach, most likely the offensive coordinator. As Bo Pelini said a short while ago:

Speaking during an interview on Jim Rome's radio program, Pelini said that Nebraska won't be making a lot of changes offensively.

"We're tweaking a little bit here and there and Coach Watson will put his flavor on it, but they have moved the football and that's a real positive, and we have a lot of guys returning on offense," Pelini told Rome. "We have some building to do on defense, but I believe that I can get that done. I'm looking forward to that challenge."

All indications are that the Cornhuskers will continue to run a form of the West Coast Offense. There's been some talk about switching to the spread, the offense du jour. What that really means adding the zone read play to the Nebraska offense, the idea being that the quarterback is an active participant in the running game.

I told you he'd stick around because he has great hair. You don't listen to me?

Is the West Coast Offense the one you want for Nebraska? People tend to remember only the last few games of the season with Ganz at quarterback, and us doing a decent job of scoring and moving the ball. Few are commenting on the fact that we couldn't run the ball, and the offense wasn't that great earlier in the season when we really needed them, i.e., against Mizzou. Maybe it's easier to blame Sam Keller for the offensive problems and move on. Maybe a little too easy.

I didn't hate Bill Callahan's offense, but it seems that it's biggest problem was the complexity, that it took at least a year to learn. It placed an inherent limit on the contributions provided by young players, especially quarterbacks and wide receivers. Perhaps part of Watson's "tweaking" is to remove the complexity. As evidence we saw very few shifts last year compared to the previous years, but that may have had to do with clock rule changes as much as a dumbing down of the offense.

I don't have a problem with the spread offense. It forces defenses to cover all 11 men on the offense, something that isn't required as much when you're facing a pocket passer. The long term question with the spread is - with a whole gob of teams running the spread, is Nebraska going to be able to beat out everyone else for kind of quarterback we need to run the spread offense? Is the next Vince Young going to want to play at Nebraska? (If you're wearing your red glasses, I'm sure your answer is "Tom Osborne is here, people will flock to the program!")

Or would Nebraska be better off long-term sticking with something similar to USC's West Coast Offense where a pocket passer and a great set of receivers could flourish????

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12 men on offense???

by 96operator on Dec 13, 2007 9:45 AM CST reply actions

good lord

I'm losing it, aren't I?

Well, shit, yes, we get 12 men on offense this next year to coincide with 12 games.

I'll edit that. What a boob.

Thanks

Go Big Red!

by Jon Johnston on Dec 13, 2007 12:48 PM CST up reply actions

One other thing...

you still dont have to cover all 11 men on offense no matter what you run. The center, guards, and tackles cant catch a pass so you dont really have to cover them. You have to cover the same amount of guys no matter what offense is being run.

by taflorom on Dec 13, 2007 5:42 PM CST reply actions

you have to

account for them. Bad terminology on my part, right?

Egad. let's chalk this one up to me being a little under the weather this week and rather burned out.

And the holiday haven't even started yet.

Go Big Red!

by Jon Johnston on Dec 13, 2007 5:48 PM CST up reply actions

"spread" can mean a lot of different things

Texas Tech runs the spread and their qb's couldn't run if they had to. What we ran against KSU and Colorado were basically spread packages of this type. It stretches the defense horizontally and vertically and exploits the mistakes and mismatches this produces.

The spread-option like Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriguez run depends on the quarterback running and throwing equally well. It's strength is that it forces the defense to account for the run on every play. The qb can perform play-action from an empty backfield (Tebow does this several times a game).

I'd like to see something in the middle - something akin to what Oregon ran with Dixon and LSU runs with Perilloux in the game. This offense combines elements of the spread-option and WCO attacks. Designed runs make the qb a running threat, but serve primarily to open up the short-passing game. Gus Malzahn runs a highly entertaining up-tempo version of this offense as OC at Tulsa. Long-term, this is the kind of offense I think Nebraska should develop.

This last style of offense seems to work well with the kind of qb's we have on the roster now - guys who can make plays with their feet but aren't big enough to take the beating of running the ball with any consistency. The qb in this system must be an athlete, but doesn't need Pat White's speed or Tim Tebow's linebacker toughness.

If the Bill Callahan era proved anything, it demonstrated that Nebraska can go after the best prospects in the country. It also proved that the best prospects still require good coaching to become the best players. We shouldn't need a gimmick offense (a la Mizzou or TTech) to become competitive despite inferior talent. We need a system that exploits our personnel advantages. For the short term, that's the WCO.

Can you hear this, Denver, or shall I turn it up for you?

by Ignignokt on Dec 13, 2007 9:13 PM CST reply actions