Husker Offense Looking for "Plus Twos"

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Stoll has some work to do as a vertical threat in the passing game and his footwork needs some tweaking. But as a blocker, the Huskers know what they are getting.

"Right now Jack's the guy," NU tight ends coach Sean Beckton said. "He's the one guy in this room that we know that's gonna strike and drive people two yards on a given play."

Ask around the offense, and "plus-twos" are as important as any conventional statistic coaches and players track. Moving a defender two yards can demonstrate a strength advantage and extra effort on an individual level. In a broader sense, it furthers a culture of competition and indicates the potential success of a play. It can even be predictive of future contributors.

Players earned a point every time they collected a plus-two last fall. Stoll won going away among tight ends. Stanley Morgan paced the receivers, followed by JD Spielman, Kade Warner and Mike Williams. At running back, Devine Ozigbo was the big leader.

As for the offensive line? Junior left tackle Brenden Jaimes said it was either him or right tackle Matt Farniok. O-line coach Greg Austin declined to list the leaderboard from a year when those in the trenches were learning a new system and making strength gains.
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OWH

 
Good information.  No surprise IMHO that NU is looking for that.  Getting a 2+ yard block means you are dominating and man handling your guy.  That starts to happen consistently and we start seeing NU taking control of the conference.  

 
OK, educate me.

Back in the day, we were coaching our linemen to blast off the ball and knock people down.  We measured success in pancakes.  It was awesome.  This was done more with a lot of communication along the line pre snap and each guy knew who he was supposed to block.  Fire off and go get him.

Then, we went to this zone blocking and I remember a point in maybe Callahan's era where it came out that our OC didn't really want our linemen knocking people down.  Seriously, I remember the discussions amongst fans.  The argument was that defenders on the ground got in the way.  They wanted the linemen to move the defender in the direction he starts and just move him farther than he wants to go so that it opens up a hole.  They were supposed to move the defender more down the line in one direction or the other instead of back.

So....now we have +2.  I'm liking what I'm hearing.  This seems to be moving back more towards old thought processes.  We want to reestablish the line of scrimmage with the defenders moving back.

So, am I correct in that we are going back more to what we knew and loved in the 80s and 90s where we want or guys firing off forward and attacking the guy on the other side?

I am far from an expert in blocking schemes.  All I know is I loved how we used to block and I hated zone blocking when it was brought to Nebraska.  

Teach me.

Thanks.

 
BigRedBuster said:
OK, educate me.

Back in the day, we were coaching our linemen to blast off the ball and knock people down.  We measured success in pancakes.  It was awesome.  This was done more with a lot of communication along the line pre snap and each guy knew who he was supposed to block.  Fire off and go get him.

Then, we went to this zone blocking and I remember a point in maybe Callahan's era where it came out that our OC didn't really want our linemen knocking people down.  Seriously, I remember the discussions amongst fans.  The argument was that defenders on the ground got in the way.  They wanted the linemen to move the defender in the direction he starts and just move him farther than he wants to go so that it opens up a hole.  They were supposed to move the defender more down the line in one direction or the other instead of back.

So....now we have +2.  I'm liking what I'm hearing.  This seems to be moving back more towards old thought processes.  We want to reestablish the line of scrimmage with the defenders moving back.

So, am I correct in that we are going back more to what we knew and loved in the 80s and 90s where we want or guys firing off forward and attacking the guy on the other side?

I am far from an expert in blocking schemes.  All I know is I loved how we used to block and I hated zone blocking when it was brought to Nebraska.  

Teach me.

Thanks.
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This was my question as well.  The emphasis of power blocking was 'put downs' - pancakes.  I hope this new philosophy moves us from finesse football to power football once again.

Pancake or knocking someone back 2 feet tells me the OL has control and not the Dline.     I like the emphasis.

 
The biggest reason pancakes seem deemphasized is the increase in overall strength and conditioning at all levels of football since the 90s.

Best example are freshman offensive lineman. In the 90s, no one played a true freshman. Now, despite the position needing more weight is relatively common for even premier programs to start a true freshman.

What this means, schematically, is its a lot harder to blow guys up. So instead teams look to win in space. Blocking is still important, but your win condition changes. It's more about using angles to redirect than it is launching a bunch of big guys against a bunch of other big guys.

Think of Iowa's offense, which still uses a lot of 22 personnel. They average about 4 yards a rush, but many years below that. Nebraska last year averaged 5.4 in year 1.

 
brophog said:
Think of Iowa's offense, which still uses a lot of 22 personnel. They average about 4 yards a rush, but many years below that. Nebraska last year averaged 5.4 in year 1.
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You're not wrong, but I'm going to nitpick slightly and add some context to your paragraph there.

Because of scheme (and probably speed at the I-Back position), we averaged more yards per carry. But on 3rd & 1, which team's offensive line you going with last season? I am unashamedly going with Iowa's. And that's one of the reasons we didn't score a proportional amount of points to the yards we racked up.

This is why "getting push" is unarguably really important, and especially in Big 10 play. If we had good push, we could have iced the Northwestern game. And we would have scored more points - at a minimum more field goals - by not having drives get stalled when we got into the opponent's half of the field but then failed on simple 3rd & short plays that got stuffed.

 
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brophog said:
What this means, schematically, is its a lot harder to blow guys up. So instead teams look to win in space. Blocking is still important, but your win condition changes. It's more about using angles to redirect than it is launching a bunch of big guys against a bunch of other big guys.
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I somewhat agree with this.  It's obviously not nearly as easy to get pancakes now compared to back in the 80s when we were one of only a few teams who actually lifted and had nutrition.  So, expecting your O line to knock people down every play is a little unfair.

But, I see a difference in the zone blocking mentality that you mention where you're redirecting guys.....and expecting them to be pushed two yards back.

 
BigRedBuster said:
I somewhat agree with this.  It's obviously not nearly as easy to get pancakes now compared to back in the 80s when we were one of only a few teams who actually lifted and had nutrition.  So, expecting your O line to knock people down every play is a little unfair.
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And as far as this next season is concerned, I'm much less concerned with whether we're knocking guys on their a$$ as I am with whether or not the other team can work off of our block to tackle the runner/get to Martinez.

Discussing Frost's perceived level of importance that he places on pancake blocks is a fun tie-in to 90s nostalgia but in reality as long as the defender isn't working off of his block it doesn't actually matter that much to the play. Someone will of course chime in and disagree and also talk about how this plays in to wearing a team out by the fourth quarter and every other host of Osborne-isms, and that's great...but, baby steps.

 
Undone said:
And as far as this next season is concerned, I'm much less concerned with whether we're knocking guys on their a$$ as I am with whether or not the other team can work off of our block to tackle the runner/get to Martinez.

Discussing Frost's perceived level of importance that he places on pancake blocks is a fun tie-in to 90s nostalgia but in reality as long as the defender isn't working off of his block it doesn't actually matter that much to the play. Someone will of course chime in and disagree and also talk about how this plays in to wearing a team out by the fourth quarter and every other host of Osborne-isms, and that's great...but, baby steps.
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My comments were not waxing nostalgia about the 90s. It was about comparing blocking scheme/theory. 

 
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