Do we lack a home run threat?

ColoradoHusk said:
Mavric said:
4skers89 said:
I was trying to find a stat on how many plays we have over 20 or 30 yards and how that compares nationally. I found this surprising stat instead: http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/703 . Our red zone offense is 9 of 9 attempts with 4 rushing TDs, 4 passing TDs and 1 FG? That doesn't seem right.
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Here you go:

1st in 10+ yard plays

T-52 in 20+ yard plays

T-98 in 30+ yard plays

T-110 in 40+ yard plays (we don't have any)
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This tells me 2 things

1) The offense has some very good design elements to it, but there lacks a few stud play-makers that can get more of the play than what is initially designed.

2) By pure math, if a team isn't getting 20, 30, 40+ yard plays, that team will have to get more 10+ yard plays to move the ball down the field. Mathematically, a 40 yard play would result in 3 fewer 10+ plays [(40-10]/10] = 3
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So far, our receivers are getting fairly open on these shorter routes, Tommy is making the throws, the receivers are catching the ball and we are moving the chains. Hard to complain about not having longer plays until teams start stopping it. You know, that whole don't stop doing something if it is working. I guess as an OC if I had the choice between trying a long pass for the sake of reducing the number of downs vs. continuing to do what is working I'd choose the latter. It could be that Langsdorf is seeing too low of a completion percentage with the longer passes in practice but we'll see more when that improves. I like seeing us run the shorter routes too since Tommy needed to improve and has improved in that area. We know he can throw the ball a long distance but I didn't think he was quite accurate enough. I jokingly stated that it's going to take a while to un-beck Tommy but I do think there is something to that.

 
I don't go back and re-watch the games, so this is going off some memory. The very first play from scrimmage when NU was on offense, Langsdorf called a play action pass with a guy going deep. The TV didn't show if the WR was covered or not. On TBL yesterday, Severe commented that he thought Tommy could have thrown a couple "deep passes" to open guys, but chose not to. I have heard that Riley's pass scheme has the QB make reads from deep to short, so maybe Tommy is choosing to be more conservative.

I'm not trying to knock the results of the offense so far, but the offense will need to start stretching the field vertically and it will be great if the RB's can turn the 10-15 yard gains into 25-30+ yard gains.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
I don't go back and re-watch the games, so this is going off some memory. The very first play from scrimmage when NU was on offense, Langsdorf called a play action pass with a guy going deep. The TV didn't show if the WR was covered or not. On TBL yesterday, Severe commented that he thought Tommy could have thrown a couple "deep passes" to open guys, but chose not to. I have heard that Riley's pass scheme has the QB make reads from deep to short, so maybe Tommy is choosing to be more conservative.

I'm not trying to knock the results of the offense so far, but the offense will need to start stretching the field vertically and it will be great if the RB's can turn the 10-15 yard gains into 25-30+ yard gains.
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I think we could see a lot of these stats completely change by even the midway point of the season, and not just with Nebraska, but other teams across the country. Right now, a lot of the good teams nationwide are playing cupcakes and padding their stats, hitting deep throws and rolling up huge offensive numbers against weak opponents. Similarly, I'd be surprised if Nebraska is able to approach the 50 point mark again once conference play starts and we see better defenses. In fact, I doubt we will. I also doubt we'll be in the Top 10 of teams with plays of 10+ yards by the time the season ends.

The only thing I know is that I prefer we excel at sustaining drives and burning clock over making big plays and extending the length of the game. 60-35 victories, like the one's Baylor loves to put up, don't do as much for me as a nice 28-10 win or something like that. Those high-powered, speedy, big play offenses often poop their big boy pants once they get up against top-ranked defenses.

Case in point - why Oregon can never win a championship.

 
T Newby is a homerun threat, if you give him a crease, or on the edge. He has track speed, more or less. Stanley Morgan has potential, I s'pose.

 
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