Carl Pelini & Shawn Watson

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10. Shawn Watson CURRENT JOB: Nebraska offensive coordinator

THE BUZZ: He had a failed run as coach of Southern Illinois in the mid-1990s, but Watson has rehabbed his image and emerged as an innovative play-caller. Bo Pelini thought so much of Watson that he kept him when he replaced Bill Callahan.
18. Carl Pelini CURRENT JOB: Nebraska defensive coordinator

THE BUZZ: As with brother Bo, Carl Pelini knows defense. He's excellent at finding mismatches and exploiting them. And Pelini also is a top-notch motivator who knows how to connect with players.
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No surprise that Watson has a lot of professional respect but little from the fanbase. A lot of good OCs are vilified by their fanbases when the offense has a bad game. I think OU and Texas both have some top tier OCs but last year after the NU game, guys were calling for the OU guy's head, and Texas this entire year, well. He had a charmed week the week of the Nebraska game, but. For some reason OC is just a cursed job, even more so than DC. Every play is expected to work well. If it doesn't, one of another hundred or so plays clearly should have been called.

 
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innovative playcaller? not.

he just runs the flavor of the month. innovative is doing something different within your scheme that makes the other team, no matter how well prepared, left scratching their heads a little.

watson is neither inventive or innovative

 
i'm not a hater. i just don't like mediocre, predictable, flat, and inconsistent offense.

look up the all-time B12 stats since watson has been an OC starting at CU. his offenses have sucked. save, a couple seasons. ESPECIALLY against top 25 teams

 
Stats don't really tell a whole lot. You can't refute the claim of him being innovative or anything by going that route.

If you wanna go with that, though. He was OC at CU for 5 years, and they had a winning record 3 of those seasons. In 2001, maybe you'll recall them whipping Nebraska 62-36. You can also point at all the offensive records that have been set while being our OC. Bringing up stats in something like this is pointless, since you can make them mean whatever you want them to mean

I think Watson does some dumb sh#t sometimes, but some of the offensive woes need to be attributed to either players not executing, or having key members injured with Bo keeping a leash on what the O does. On the other hand, he HAS drawn up some pretty good stuff, and it's been talked about more than once this season so far, but it largely goes unnoticed because it's not something that's immediately obvious to most fans.

 
Funny how early in the season people were pleased with the offense and Watson but now all of a sudden people want him burned at the stake. <_<

Actually, the timeline goes a little something like this: 2008, Watson is God. I sure hope some program doesn't hire him away as their head coach. 2009, Watson is the worst *bleeping* coach in the history of football and I hope some school is dumb enough to come hire him away. 2010, it's all Watson's fault, I'm sure he was shining a mirror into the sun bouncing if off Paul's eyes as he dropped all those passes.

 
innovative playcaller? not.

he just runs the flavor of the month. innovative is doing something different within your scheme that makes the other team, no matter how well prepared, left scratching their heads a little.

watson is neither inventive or innovative
Er - see Texas game for a prime example of head scratching? New routes, new formations, all within our scheme, but new looks that Texas was unprepared for. They were a good team then and had not mailed in their season at all, yet.

Now we have to decide whether we want our OC to be doing this sort of thing - exploiting various weaknesses, such as the power game on Missouri, the passing attack on OSU, the zone read on KSU - or if we should just do the same thing, over and over, and have an "identity" that happens to be so good nobody can stop it anyway.

 
No surprise that Watson has a lot of professional respect but little from the fanbase. A lot of good OCs are vilified by their fanbases when the offense has a bad game. I think OU and Texas both have some top tier OCs but last year after the NU game, guys were calling for the OU guy's head, and Texas this entire year, well. He had a charmed week the week of the Nebraska game, but. For some reason OC is just a cursed job, even more so than DC. Every play is expected to work well. If it doesn't, one of another hundred or so plays clearly should have been called.
There is some truth to this, but not always. As a USC follower, I loved Norm Chow and Lane Kiffin, but did not like Sarkisian or Bates. I thought Kiffin was a great OC and the dreadful 13-9 loss to UCLA in 2006 did not change my opinion of him. The offense struggled under Sarkisian and was downright anemic under Bates. Now that Kiffin is back in charge, the Trojan offense is gaining steam again. When the Trojans fail to score points now, I rarely think the play calling was off . . . it is mostly obvious that the players did not execute.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Watson has exactly one half of quality play against a top-25 defense (first two quarters against Mizzou this year). I don't care how much OCs are vilified, that is not acceptable.

 
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innovative playcaller? not.

he just runs the flavor of the month. innovative is doing something different within your scheme that makes the other team, no matter how well prepared, left scratching their heads a little.

watson is neither inventive or innovative
Er - see Texas game for a prime example of head scratching? New routes, new formations, all within our scheme, but new looks that Texas was unprepared for. They were a good team then and had not mailed in their season at all, yet.

Now we have to decide whether we want our OC to be doing this sort of thing - exploiting various weaknesses, such as the power game on Missouri, the passing attack on OSU, the zone read on KSU - or if we should just do the same thing, over and over, and have an "identity" that happens to be so good nobody can stop it anyway.
I couldn't disagree more. The passes seemed more like desperation reactions to the fact that our zone-read wasn't working than the product of a pre-mediated game plan. I guess we'll never know for sure, but let me put this thought into your head: We tend to blame Burkhead, Kinnie, and Paul for all those dropped balls and claim that it was a lack of execution---not play calling---that doomed us. But which is more likely? That our players all miraculously failed to execute pass plays they'd been drilling all week? Or that the players failed to execute pass plays with which they were largely unfamiliar, having not run them regularly in practice leading up to the game?

I think it's clear that Watson figured we'd run all over Texas, and then hastily inserted some pass plays when he found that his run game was getting stuffed. If Watson comes in prepared to run and pass out of jumbo sets and the I-formation, we win that game.

 
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