Moving the Pocket & Rolling Out

The Red & White Knight

The Red & White Knight

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One thing I've been baffled by, especially during UCLA and even now, is why there aren't more rollouts and blatant run-pass options. To see an actual "option-pass" today was nice, I guess, but, with Taylors athleticism I don't understand why there isn't more of it.

I'd almost wonder if using it more often would help the defense get used to mobile QBs, too, but that's another story.

Now I haven't seen every play of every game, and maybe there are things I'm missing - please enlighten me.

But, especially in high pressure situations, or to change the pace, why not move the pocket or do more roll outs, etc? I'm very, very happy with Taylor becoming a more sound drop back passing threat. Seeing him take courageous stands in the pocket is pretty cool and respectful to see. But to me there are situations where the lack of 'changeup' is a problem.

This may be more something that came up during last week, but, I didn't see it happen at all this week, nor in the first game. Is this simply something not emphazied by the offense?

 
Beck likes to run similar plays over and over again until a defense stops them - you might remember seeing this a few times.

In fact, myself and a few others were talking to Ron Brown Thursday, and he told us something interesting - one thing Nebraska's offense utilizes is a set of three plays. Basically, anytime the coaches say a key word or use a certain hand signal, the players know that they're going to run a set of three plays they've been preparing and practicing all week. Regardless of how the first play goes, the'll move onto the next, unless they get a signal from the sideline to knock it off. This is more common during the actual high-tempo, but I thought it was still interesting.

As far as the rollout stuff, I don't know. Maybe they don't like how our team executes them, maybe they feel we don't need to use them. Probably the latter.

 
Beck seems to have a lot of aces in his pocket, and only pulls them out at really opportune times. I don't fault him for this, although I understand the "why don't we do that more!" mentality. I think the reason we have so much success with these things (diamond formation, double option, option passes, etc.) is exactly because we do not run them often.

 
It could be a number of things.

Martinez may not be as reliable rolling out right now. Perhaps he has a tendancy to revert when he rolls out, so they try to keep him more comfortable in the pocket. Maybe they feel like the O-line is good enough to maintain a decent pocket and passing lanes.

More than likely, it's probably just something they haven't felt the need to implement much of yet. I think we've really only seen 2 actual looks at the offense, and neither were against very good defenses. Rollouts weren't really needed. UCLA was something of a mind fart from Beck, and I'm hoping that's not how our offense is typically going to operate.

 
EbylHusker said:
It could be a number of things.

Martinez may not be as reliable rolling out right now. Perhaps he has a tendancy to revert when he rolls out, so they try to keep him more comfortable in the pocket. Maybe they feel like the O-line is good enough to maintain a decent pocket and passing lanes.

More than likely, it's probably just something they haven't felt the need to implement much of yet. I think we've really only seen 2 actual looks at the offense, and neither were against very good defenses. Rollouts weren't really needed. UCLA was something of a mind fart from Beck, and I'm hoping that's not how our offense is typically going to operate.
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Yeah, I generally agree with all of that.

I'm not feeling overly critical of playcalling, I just was wondering why that 'tool' wasn't being used. We'll have to see how things unfold in the FUTURE.

 
Ah "rolling out". It's a great misdirection option if the defense is biting hard, but you really have to play with what the defense gives you. We've seen it a couple times from our offense. Jake Long scored a TD on one.

 
EbylHusker said:
It could be a number of things.

Martinez may not be as reliable rolling out right now. Perhaps he has a tendancy to revert when he rolls out, so they try to keep him more comfortable in the pocket. Maybe they feel like the O-line is good enough to maintain a decent pocket and passing lanes.

More than likely, it's probably just something they haven't felt the need to implement much of yet. I think we've really only seen 2 actual looks at the offense, and neither were against very good defenses. Rollouts weren't really needed. UCLA was something of a mind fart from Beck, and I'm hoping that's not how our offense is typically going to operate.
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I have to agree with the part in bold. He's revamped his throwing style/mechanics. Lets not get him into a situation he's not comfortable with. If he's going to roll out, I'd rather see him run it.

 
Probably because we want to keep things as simple as possible for Taylor given how much work he is putting into committing new things to muscle memory. I'm OK with some plays where we move the pocket, but I'm not sure about the kinds of plays you are talking about where we introduce a variety of extra options and decisions to be made.

 
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