McKewon: Are We Overestimating Our Ability to Run the Ball

We will be fine. This offense is going to be a good one. The last thing I expected to hear from anyone, a week before kickoff, is how our run game may not be all we think it is. Gimme a break.

The offensive line is better. The Quarterback is better. Abduallah, Cross and Newby will be better. Hopefully Tim Beck is better.

We will do fine.

 
OL is deeper, but I'm not sure how much better it is. We'll see.

A lot of new faces and nobody was good enough to unseat Mark Pelini at center. I think Pelini is a fine backup, but doesn't have the physical tools you'd like to see in a starter at a place like Nebraska.

 
Coach Power'T said:
Thats good stuff, that is objective, stat driven information. I expect us to be a lot better on the oLine. I'm also curious to see who jumps to the "YOU CAN SPIN ANY STAT TO FIT YOUR AGENDA" garbage.
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Well not exactly that, but it's not hard to realize that statistics may be objective, but interpretation of them isn't.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Junior said:
I think one of the biggest issues with our offense is lack of identity. What is the one thing you do well? You need 5 yards, what is the play that almost always gets it? We haven't really had that under Beck. You just keep hearing that we want to be multiple. Multiple. Jack of all trades, master of none.
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See I think McKewon's excellent analysis suggests the exact opposite. The dominant teams, which presumably have this offensive "identity" we crave, are efficient at both running and passing the ball. When it's 3rd and 5 they don't have one play that almost always gets it. They have a few to choose from, because every defense has film of every game. Their offensive success isn't from creating an identity, unless that identity is good athletes who are mentally prepared and able to execute a diverse play selection. The Top 10 is full of teams who are master of all trades. That's where excellence comes from.

I think we have a promising offense and should have a solid running game. McKewon's point seems to be that memories of Nebraska's impressive running attack are pretty selective, and dreams of just ramming Abdullah down the opponent's throat might be misguided.
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I think 'efficient' is the key word people are not using enough.

Nebraska's passing attack is clearly the aspect to improve on. You don't abandon one to build the other though. Nebraska will have to throw the ball this year. I don't think anyone has the impression that we won't. It's just the when and how we do it that I am interested in.

I have no concerns about Tommy running this offense. None whatsoever.

 
When McKewon makes an argument, I pay attention. He is not one to jump to conclusions. I would say for the past several years our ability to run the ball has hinged on special playmakers and clever scheming. Beck DOES call plays thinking ahead, though it may not seem so.

On our own, we are still a decent run team, but not a special one. We've seen the ground game show no efficacy at times, too. We will continue to need to rely on the option game and different looks to get "awesome" rather than "good" out of our backs, who, indivually, are very impressive.

 
There was a lot going on last year so it's tough to know what all to attribute the lack of offense to but it's a good point. We lost a QB who could score on any play, replaced him with a redshirt freshmen and tried to simplify the playbook all while attempting to patch together a MASH unit of an offensive line.

This year we only are missing one skill player who played in the second half of the season (Enunwa) and have a healthy offensive line (so far) who don't have a huge number of starts but have all played a decent amount. Plus everyone has had another year of practice and strength training and perhaps have tweaked the playbook to better fit our skill set.

I guess we'll see shortly.

 
Sam built an article around the wrong point. The point he needed to analyze was this:

But we can't kid ourselves: When Taylor Martinez got hurt and Nebraska's offensive line started to get hobbled with its own injuries, Nebraska was, by and large, average at running the ball. There were not huge holes. Abdullah worked hard for most of his yards.
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A failure to cite the injuries our line faced and an analysis of the game-by-game offensive line starters, not to mention where they finished the game, as often we had guys going from position to position in game due to injuries, makes this a half-effort by Sam. That's not something I'd expect from him, but not everyone hits a home run every time at the plate.

Sam isn't counting Illinois, and that's fine. But that was the last game Spencer Long played last year, and Sam doesn't even mention him by name. Martinez was injured in the first game, and Sam actually does mention Taylor, thrice, but only to say that without the team's best runner our stats got worse.

Ya think?

Ya think maybe Ohio State will do worse running without Braxton Miller this year? Kinda everyone on the planet does, too. That's not a brilliant insight.

Sam looks at the seven teams with winning records we faced. We played none of those teams with a healthy Martinez. We played six of those teams without Long, five of them without Martinez. You cannot write a story about how Nebraska's rush offense underperformed in those games without making those injuries a huge portion of your explanation. Unless you're just trying to get clicks, I guess.

 
Am I wrong that every person who thinks Nebraska doesn't have an identity thinks we should be running the ball more?

That maybe it's not so much about identity as it is about running the football more?

I get the Georgia Tech example, but like Nebraska in the '90s and Oklahoma in the '70s and '80s, those option/wishbone offenses are pretty complicated. Although they're mostly about running, they're not about doing "one thing well." Lots of different looks and sets, and very demanding of the offensive line. A much smaller percentage of QBs can pull it off, and you have to recruit specifically for an offense the NFL doesn't use. Nebraska '94 & '95 were near perfection, but they were 12 years in the making. In lesser hands those option offenses are turnover machines. There's a reason why every team doesn't go all in on a rushing offense.

And if you want to see unexpected formations and trick plays, Tom Osborne was the master.

Personally, I don't want to see offensive balance be accused of being "multiple." I also hope we have some fun.

Simplicity isn't necessarily the same as efficiency, but it might be a good place to start. I'd like to see what we do well, too, but a little experimentation is always in order.

 
knapplc said:
Sam looks at the seven teams with winning records we faced. We played none of those teams with a healthy Martinez. We played six of those teams without Long, five of them without Martinez. You cannot write a story about how Nebraska's rush offense underperformed in those games without making those injuries a huge portion of your explanation. Unless you're just trying to get clicks, I guess.
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I thought he was coming at that from a different angle . . . namely that we shouldn't base our hopes for this season's rushing attack on the (arguably) too fondly remembered 2013 offense.
We're going to play every game this year without Long and Martinez. If the relative success or failure of our run game hinges on those two players we should temper those hopes.

 
Saw a response to Sam on Twitter, was in the car and didn't have a chance to save it. Anyway, they pointed out that if you counted sacks as pass attempts (which they do in NFL but for some reason college has always counted them as runs), we were actually a few yards better per carry over the season and about 1 for the 8 games he specifically targeted.

 
kchusker_chris said:
SouthAfricanHusker said:
I think he is discounting the line we had to play with last year. Also a hurt Armstrong or non running threat of Kellogg gave the D an advantage.

If we stay healthy we will be fine. Lewis Cotton on the left will give us an advantage we haven't had in years.
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you mean the last 4-5 years? we've been "rebuilding" the pipeline for years now.
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I don't remember losing 3-4 starters from the line in the past 4-5 years. When Cally left there was a HUGE hole in depth on the lines. Bo has gradually filled that but it takes time.

Last year we would have been pretty respectable up front without injuries. This year we are actually in a position that not counting Lewis, we can have injuries to other positions and not drop off significantly. We haven't been able to do that in a long time.

 
carlfense said:
knapplc said:
Sam looks at the seven teams with winning records we faced. We played none of those teams with a healthy Martinez. We played six of those teams without Long, five of them without Martinez. You cannot write a story about how Nebraska's rush offense underperformed in those games without making those injuries a huge portion of your explanation. Unless you're just trying to get clicks, I guess.
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I thought he was coming at that from a different angle . . . namely that we shouldn't base our hopes for this season's rushing attack on the (arguably) too fondly remembered 2013 offense.
We're going to play every game this year without Long and Martinez. If the relative success or failure of our run game hinges on those two players we should temper those hopes.
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It doesn't, though. When we needed a drive to beat Michigan we went run/pass and were effective with both.

We rushed 8 times for 26 yards, including Ameer's five-yard run off an Option (ruled a pass, but that's a technicality). 3.5 yards per carry on that drive.

We passed six times for 54 yards, including a 26-yard completion on 4th & 2, a play our quarterback (not named Taylor Martinez) audibled into.

We rushed for 182 yards against Sparty, more than any Sparty opponent with the exception of Ohio State. We ran for 144 yards against Georgia (almost exactly their season average) on a sloppy field. We did that without Martinez & Long, and with several other nicked-up players across the O Line.

That Northwestern win came through the air, so it's not a bolstering point for the running game, but look at what we had at that point: No Martinez, no Spencer Long, no Jake Cotton, no Kenny Bell. On that final play, only five guys who started the opening snap of the season were on the field: Ameer, Enunwa, Sirles, A-Rod & Pensick. That's a hell of a lot of attrition, and we had 1/3 of the season to go.

Those injuries are going to affect your offense. Sam told half a story.

 
SouthAfricanHusker said:
Saw a response to Sam on Twitter, was in the car and didn't have a chance to save it. Anyway, they pointed out that if you counted sacks as pass attempts (which they do in NFL but for some reason college has always counted them as runs), we were actually a few yards better per carry over the season and about 1 for the 8 games he specifically targeted.
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This one?

Retweeted by Samuel McKewon

Brandon Vogel @brandonlvogel · 5h
@swmckewonowh Count sacks as pass plays, which they are, & NU's YPC was 3.7% better than average for all of 2013.
 
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