Mckewon: Monday Rewind, UCLA ed.

[zoogs]

Mckewon: Monday Rewind, UCLA ed.

This win — and how Nebraska won — couldn’t have come at a better time for recruiting. If Husker coaches play it right, whipping the Bruins is a gift that can last through signing day. At least in recruiting circles, UCLA is a name program, and this game will turn some heads. The Bruins are talent darlings and the game fell on the Saturday night right after Christmas. It was a football night.

I still can hardly believe what happened! And I still need to check out highlights/a replay.

This is a 6-7 team that lost 5 of those 7 games in close, soul-crushing fashion, with all but the injury-and-suspension-wracked Purdue debacle being one score contests. They beat a team that might yet end up winning the National Championship this year. It was a struggle, but there's a lot of light shining through the cracks of the rubble. On to 2016!

 

[TonyStalloni]

Hopefully this is the bump this program needs to off of high center. Finish out this class with 6 or 7 solid players and start winter conditioning. I'm encouraged that MR spoke about how he wants to build a strong dominate run game.

 

[kchusker_chris]

Hopefully this is the bump this program needs to off of high center. Finish out this class with 6 or 7 solid players and start winter conditioning. I'm encouraged that MR spoke about how he wants to build a strong dominate run game.

He's been saying that sh!t all year. I'm encouraged he actually backed it up on the field for once...

Same game plan against Purdue/Iowa and we've got 2 more wins.

 

[SouthLincoln Husker]

Hopefully this is the bump this program needs to off of high center. Finish out this class with 6 or 7 solid players and start winter conditioning. I'm encouraged that MR spoke about how he wants to build a strong dominate run game.

He's been saying that sh!t all year. I'm encouraged he actually backed it up on the field for once...

Same game plan against Purdue/Iowa and we've got 2 more wins.

Purdue was lost by our def. and turnovers lost us the Iowa game. Remember UCLA's def. line averaged 260. We still need to develop a line like old, which starts in the weight room. Philips has only had 1 year to transform our dough boys into men.

 

[Saunders]

Hopefully this is the bump this program needs to off of high center. Finish out this class with 6 or 7 solid players and start winter conditioning. I'm encouraged that MR spoke about how he wants to build a strong dominate run game.

He's been saying that sh!t all year. I'm encouraged he actually backed it up on the field for once...

Same game plan against Purdue/Iowa and we've got 2 more wins.

Purdue was lost by our def. and turnovers lost us the Iowa game. Remember UCLA's def. line averaged 260. We still need to develop a line like old, which starts in the weight room. Philips has only had 1 year to transform our dough boys into men.

Purdue scored 5 touchdowns on 62 yards of offense because of short field turnovers, all attributed to the Quarterback position.

 

[SouthLincoln Husker]

Hopefully this is the bump this program needs to off of high center. Finish out this class with 6 or 7 solid players and start winter conditioning. I'm encouraged that MR spoke about how he wants to build a strong dominate run game.

He's been saying that sh!t all year. I'm encouraged he actually backed it up on the field for once...

Same game plan against Purdue/Iowa and we've got 2 more wins.

Purdue was lost by our def. and turnovers lost us the Iowa game. Remember UCLA's def. line averaged 260. We still need to develop a line like old, which starts in the weight room. Philips has only had 1 year to transform our dough boys into men.

Purdue scored 5 touchdowns on 62 yards of offense because of short field turnovers, all attributed to the Quarterback position.

Thats right! everyone's favorite to replace Tommy this season looked like a NAIA player! Whats his name?

 

[roadrat]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

 

[HuskerExpat]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

Rushing we had 29 carries for 77 yards, a wonderful 2.7 ypc average. And we were playing from behind most of the game, which necessitated the passing. So I'm not sure we had the option to run the ball and win in a 14 to 10 type of game.

Fyfe threw 4 interceptions and fumbled it away one time, for 5 Fyfe turnovers. I think that's pretty much the story of that game.

 

[Saunders]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

Rushing we had 29 carries for 77 yards, a wonderful 2.7 ypc average. And we were playing from behind most of the game, which necessitated the passing. So I'm not sure we had the option to run the ball and win in a 14 to 10 type of game.

Fyfe threw 4 interceptions and fumbled it away one time, for 5 Fyfe turnovers. I think that's pretty much the story of that game.

Backup QB and horrendously vanilla run game was the story. It was a bad gameplan from the onset.

 

[teachercd]

NU was down 21-7 vs a very potent UCLA offense and kept running

 

[Hunter94]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

Rushing we had 29 carries for 77 yards, a wonderful 2.7 ypc average. And we were playing from behind most of the game, which necessitated the passing. So I'm not sure we had the option to run the ball and win in a 14 to 10 type of game.

Fyfe threw 4 interceptions and fumbled it away one time, for 5 Fyfe turnovers. I think that's pretty much the story of that game.

Backup QB and horrendously vanilla run game was the story. It was a bad gameplan from the onset.

shows how thin we are at QB.......that should change soon.

 

[Mavric]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

Rushing we had 29 carries for 77 yards, a wonderful 2.7 ypc average. And we were playing from behind most of the game, which necessitated the passing. So I'm not sure we had the option to run the ball and win in a 14 to 10 type of game.

Fyfe threw 4 interceptions and fumbled it away one time, for 5 Fyfe turnovers. I think that's pretty much the story of that game.

Look at the stats for the running backs and take out the fumbled snap on a called pass play and see if the stats look different.

I'll wait.

 

[HuskerExpat]

There would have been no crime running the ball at Purdue and winning 14-10.

Rushing we had 29 carries for 77 yards, a wonderful 2.7 ypc average. And we were playing from behind most of the game, which necessitated the passing. So I'm not sure we had the option to run the ball and win in a 14 to 10 type of game.

Fyfe threw 4 interceptions and fumbled it away one time, for 5 Fyfe turnovers. I think that's pretty much the story of that game.

Look at the stats for the running backs and take out the fumbled snap on a called pass play and see if the stats look different.

I'll wait.

Ok, that's a valid point. By the same token, take out Newby's 22 yard run and Reilly's 20 yard run and we couldn't get much done on the ground on a play by play basis.

But if you want to make a valid argument, tell me where in our failed drives (before we were down significantly and desperate) we should have ran more. Our first two drives were run heavy and we were down 14-3 by the time our third drive started. Our 3rd drive was a touchdown, so no complaints there no matter how it got done. Fourth drive I believe was the a fumbled snap on first down making it 2 and 18 necessitating the passes on 2nd and 3rd down, both of which went incomplete. The 5th drive we ran once and then threw an interception, setting up an easy Purdue TD to make it 21-9.

The 6th drive Cross had a one yard loss running, Fyfe ran for 8 yards and then threw an incomplete pass. I can definitely see the argument that this is one of those times that the 3rd down call should have been a run play, so that one could be on the coaches, but then again you can't always run the same play on third and short.

In the second half, it started to go downhill on our second drive of the half, midway through the third quarter, down 28-16, when Fyfe threw three consecutive passes after throwing for a first down. Should we have ran on first down, perhaps, but again, you can't always run on 1st down or it become pretty easy for the opposing defensive coordinator. Purdue gets the ball back and scores with under a minute left in the 3rd quarter to go up 35 to 16. I don't think anyone is going to argue we're compelled to start passing after that, and in fact we scored 29 points in the quarter, but our defense also let them score another 13 points in the 4th quarter which allowed them to secure the win.

So yeah, we could run somewhat against them, but definitely not in a consistent fashion like we did against UCLA. Look at the drives in the first three quarters where we didn't score (i.e. our failed drives) and I don't think you can make a legitimate argument that we should have ran more in those drives with the possible exception of the two plays I listed above. Now I'll wait.

Assuming you don't come up with another play, surely you agree that you have to mix it up at least occasionally on certain down and distances, so maybe you have a complaint that one of those two plays should have been a run. So that's not exactly a strong argument for the lack of commitment the running game causing the loss.