Playcalling or execution?

[Nebfanatic]

Ok but also: how many of those underclassmen listed there are top 4 or 5 stars coming out of high school? 

I think maybe for Nebraska only Farniok was a 4 star? And maybe Jurgens too but that was as a TE. Really what I'm trying to say is that there's underclassmen and UNDERCLASSMEN and Nebraska is the former whilst that list is (most likely) chock full of the latter. To me it makes sense for us to go with the Wisconsin/Iowa oline model rather than try to out recruit those teams which imho is never really gonna happen.

That is a great point. Not a fair comparison when those programs are getting top 5 players at their position. Only a few players a year are ready to contribute on the O line right away.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

It's some of both  and mostly it's not the playcalling that is the biggest issue, but you can only watch a team run a QB draw on 3rd and 11 against a 9 man front so many times without going wtf?

I didn’t have an issue with the play calling at all against Northwestern. If NU gets too aggressive and gets a turnover, the fans would have rioted. To me, the game plan was obvious. Make Northwestern go long fields, Nebraska pick its spots when getting aggressive and finding chunk plays and scoring points. Shoot, NU did it decently in the first half and scored 10 points. A 3rd quarter drive could have had a TD if Wandale catches a screen pass with blockers in front of him, and then the kicker missed a short FG. After Martinez got injured it’s tough to do anything else but play it safe with Vedral. 

 

[teachercd]

I didn’t have an issue with the play calling at all against Northwestern. If NU gets too aggressive and gets a turnover, the fans would have rioted. To me, the game plan was obvious. Make Northwestern go long fields, Nebraska pick its spots when getting aggressive and finding chunk plays and scoring points. Shoot, NU did it decently in the first half and scored 10 points. A 3rd quarter drive could have had a TD if Wandale catches a screen pass with blockers in front of him, and then the kicker missed a short FG. After Martinez got injured it’s tough to do anything else but play it safe with Vedral. 

I hate agreeing with you about anything...but this is all correct.

 

[Mavric]

I didn’t have an issue with the play calling at all against Northwestern. If NU gets too aggressive and gets a turnover, the fans would have rioted. To me, the game plan was obvious. Make Northwestern go long fields, Nebraska pick its spots when getting aggressive and finding chunk plays and scoring points. Shoot, NU did it decently in the first half and scored 10 points. A 3rd quarter drive could have had a TD if Wandale catches a screen pass with blockers in front of him, and then the kicker missed a short FG. After Martinez got injured it’s tough to do anything else but play it safe with Vedral. 

There's no arguing Martinez isn't playing as well as he could.  And not all of his passes were great passes.

But PFF credited our receivers with five drops yesterday.  Not sure exactly which ones those were and at least a couple of them would have been tougher catches (not Wan'Dale's). 

But it would have been nice if our receivers could have bailed us out on even a couple of them and kept the chains moving.

Our QBs were 15/25 yesterday.  There were 2-3 throw-aways.  So 15/22(ish) on actual attempts.  Add five drops and we're 20/22 (or there-abouts).  That's pretty good.

 

[Blackshirt316]

I didn’t have an issue with the play calling at all against Northwestern. If NU gets too aggressive and gets a turnover, the fans would have rioted. To me, the game plan was obvious. Make Northwestern go long fields, Nebraska pick its spots when getting aggressive and finding chunk plays and scoring points. Shoot, NU did it decently in the first half and scored 10 points. A 3rd quarter drive could have had a TD if Wandale catches a screen pass with blockers in front of him, and then the kicker missed a short FG. After Martinez got injured it’s tough to do anything else but play it safe with Vedral. 

I didn't mind it with Vedral in this game, But they've done it multiple times with Martinez this year against a stacked box and I don't know why. He has yet to get more than 3 yards when that is called as a designed run. 

In this game the QB draw was replaced by  Mo Washington's 5 carries all being inside runs in a phone booth where he ended up with 1 rushing yard and a .2 ypc average and that 3rd and 12 draw for Mazour that had no hope of doing a thing

 

[ActualCornHusker]

Just got to this thread. 

Execution. 

When the plays that are called work well, fans applaud the play calling. When the plays aren't executed properly, many fans (many of them who know very little about the game) complain about the play calling. I suppose as a coach it's part of the job. 

 

[Danimal]

There's no arguing Martinez isn't playing as well as he could.  And not all of his passes were great passes.

But PFF credited our receivers with five drops yesterday.  Not sure exactly which ones those were and at least a couple of them would have been tougher catches (not Wan'Dale's). 

But it would have been nice if our receivers could have bailed us out on even a couple of them and kept the chains moving.

Our QBs were 15/25 yesterday.  There were 2-3 throw-aways.  So 15/22(ish) on actual attempts.  Add five drops and we're 20/22 (or there-abouts).  That's pretty good.

AM's reads and indecisiveness in the running game continued to frustrate me yesterday but to his credit he was turnover-free and threw the ball better than he has all year.  As you said nearly all the passes that were actually thrown to somebody were on target, for both qb's actually. He played well enough for us to win that game comfortably. 

It was other errors that nearly killed us. Five drops is unacceptable,  those are  drive-killers. Cam's bad  snapping completely killed one drive and hampered others. Credit to AM for a bad snap not derailing Wandale's td run. We also had some inopportune penalties. Too often there was a "playing not to lose" mentality to our calls. Our line is what it is, and that does hold us back, but there is so much that should be fixable that holds the O back just as much. 

 

[ColoradoHusk]

McKewon does a good breakdown of the offensive game plan and execution for NW in his Monday rewind for today.  I know it’s behind a paywall, but if you have access, you should check it out.  Sometimes the opponent doesn’t allow for the offense to game plan for big plays and moving the ball up and down the field with ease.

I also thought NU did a good job of not trying to force the offense to look for big plays, which could have resulted in sacks, turnovers, and short fields for a bad NW offense. Remember, last year NW beat NU with the help of a strip sack for a TD and 2 Martinez INT’s. NW also came back against Riley in 2017 with the help of NU turnovers. NW relies on mistakes by the opponent to get wins. NU didn’t give them any turnovers, and NU won.