Shatel: (For what it's/he's worth)
"A few years ago, I had asked Tom Osborne which teams he liked to watch. Nebraska's winningest coach said, “Utah. I really enjoy their offense. It reminds me of some things we did. And there's a couple things where I said, ‘I wish I'd thought of that.'”
Osborne was referring to Meyer's zone-read, where the quarterback is in the shotgun, takes the snap, reads the defensive end and decides whether to hand off or run through an open gap."
Osborne likes the spread and zone read. In the defense-dominated 90's (and prior) common football thought was that the harsh weather in late October and after would negate any real success in a pass-happy offense. Since Osborne's day, though, things have changed. Linemen are blocking downfield far earlier in screen plays, PI has had a lot more focus (granted, offensive PI as well), and what exactly constitutes holding has changed drastically over the last decade. Add all this together, and we have TT, MU, KU, OU, UT, aTm, OSU, and even Baylor taking advantage, cold weather or not.
Now, I'm not saying that Osborne is directing Watson or the offense in any way. However, it is public knowledge that Watson did go to him last year, and Osborne simply gave them some film from the option glory days. I will say that if I was in Watson's position, I'd put 2 and 2 together - what is working, and what kind of athletes do I have that can make it work.
The Holiday Bowl and the Spring Game are exhibits A and B for me as to what we will be seeing. We saw true triple option out of the gun, zone read, QB Iso, Midline, and the Wildcat. It looks like that though we want to spread the field (even wider lineman splits), we want to be a run first team, and play action out of it, good old Osborne staples.