WHAT DID WE LEARN- The 2024 Season Edition

[Toe]

A lot of our deep ball problems were on the WR not getting a clean release and throwing off the timing. Hoping these transfers can change that. 

Other than special teams, I think the WRs were easily the biggest disappointment this year, after a lot of preseason hype that we'd upgraded big time over last year's group. Half-assed route running with little separation, inability to block, inability to catch... Was there anything that they as a unit could say they did well this year?

 

[TGHusker]

Agree with most of your assessment.  Special teams literally could not be any worse.  I think we have a bit of revisionist history against UCLA tho, I dont recall us ever being in control of that game, much less leading at any point.  Felt like we got punched in the mouth from the get go and the score made the game feel much closer than it actually was.

Order of priority and significance:

1. Improve the offense- yes special teams was way worse this year, but our offense was borderline embarassing.  Dana will help, an actual WR coach will help.  An added year of DR in college will help.  Need all of this to come together and it should

2. Improve special teams- Foley seems like a nice guy, at the same time, foley is clearly an inept coach that needs to be given the boot.  We ranked near dead last across all major ST statistical categories.  Embarassment is an understatement

3.  Defense:  Fill Ty and Nash void and more importantly, need to improve significantly in 3rd down defense.  

Our schedule sets up very nice next year.  We simply cannot afford to d!(k around from October first to mid november like we have the past 2 seasons

I agree with the UCLA comments.  I just think we were the better team but didn't show up for some reason.    And the bold is all so true. If we play more consistently, there is no reason for us to not make the jump next year.   If we don't it is on HCMR.

 

[presidentjlh]

On paper, next season has to be 9 wins or more. Anything else and it feels like there has been little advancement.

 

[krc1995]

Ya, there are like 3 plays I remember where there was separation. DR did miss badly on 2 of those but in general the WR were not getting much separation. But hopefully better playcalling can help with that too. 

And I think separation is overrated. All of the playoff teams have WR that can make catches with one or two guys draped all over them.  It’s amazing. But then the passes are like threading the needle. 
 

also I’m not bullish on DR at this point. I love what he does for the university and the fire he brings, but his lack of mobility, slow decision making, and weird choices

(example sliding way before the sticks). 
 

maybe a much improved O-line, a featured RB, and WR that can catch in traffic will improve the optics more. But then, what college QB wouldn’t be successful with those pieces? 

 

[Enhance]

also I’m not bullish on DR at this point. I love what he does for the university and the fire he brings, but his lack of mobility, slow decision making, and weird choices

(example sliding way before the sticks). 
 

maybe a much improved O-line, a featured RB, and WR that can catch in traffic will improve the optics more. But then, what college QB wouldn’t be successful with those pieces? 

I'm still pretty high on DR. I think your last couple of sentences there highlight the "he's just 1 of 11" challenge that football inherently brings. It seems most experts/analysts are still very bullish on DR for his capabilities as an 18-year-old with one season of experience and the relative lack of elite talent around him. Freshman errors are compounded when the other guys you're relying on aren't stepping up and DR was always going to need a lot of help this season. He'll get better with time, but he also needs some NFL talent around him at the skill positions.

That's not to say he's been perfect, but if you look at most of the remaining CFP teams this year and their offenses, what do they have? Veteran QB with roughly 30+ starts under their belts (Will Howard, Dillon Gabriel, Quinn Ewers), NFL wide receiving talent (Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith, Isaiah Bond), and elite O-lines. DR has none of that, and the lack of those resources lead to situations where he finds himself trying to rush for a first down and doing something a bit bone-headed like sliding early.

 

[Mavric]

I'm still pretty high on DR. I think your last couple of sentences there highlight the "he's just 1 of 11" challenge that football inherently brings. It seems most experts/analysts are still very bullish on DR for his capabilities as an 18-year-old with one season of experience and the relative lack of elite talent around him. Freshman errors are compounded when the other guys you're relying on aren't stepping up and DR was always going to need a lot of help this season. He'll get better with time, but he also needs some NFL talent around him at the skill positions.

That's not to say he's been perfect, but if you look at most of the remaining CFP teams this year and their offenses, what do they have? Veteran QB with roughly 30+ starts under their belts (Will Howard, Dillon Gabriel, Quinn Ewers), NFL wide receiving talent (Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith, Isaiah Bond), and elite O-lines. DR has none of that, and the lack of those resources lead to situations where he finds himself trying to rush for a first down and doing something a bit bone-headed like sliding early.

For whatever reason, he seemed to make the hard things look easy but the easy things look hard.  He can throw from a lot of different arm angles.  He is great at throwing the deep crossing routes, especially fitting the ball in over the linebackers and in front of the safeties.  And he's pretty good at working through his reads (perhaps too fast at times).

However he missed WIDE OPEN guys down the sidelines over and over again.  And he wouldn't take the easy throws - he seemed to always want to make a bigger play.

The good news is the things he needs to work on seem to be pretty fixable.  

 

[Hilltop]

On paper, next season has to be 9 wins or more. Anything else and it feels like there has been little advancement.

In my opinion, the days of predicting how easy or hard a schedule will be are gone.  2 of the teams that made the playoff this year were projected at or near the bottom of their leagues.  Virtually all of their opponents chalked them up as a W preseason.  

The above said, I do feel like we are in a good position to win more games next year.  DR should make the expected jump in performance that most 2nd year QBs do and, on paper at least, our receivers look like they will be much better.  

 

[Husker in WI]

For whatever reason, he seemed to make the hard things look easy but the easy things look hard.  He can throw from a lot of different arm angles.  He is great at throwing the deep crossing routes, especially fitting the ball in over the linebackers and in front of the safeties.  And he's pretty good at working through his reads (perhaps too fast at times).

However he missed WIDE OPEN guys down the sidelines over and over again.  And he wouldn't take the easy throws - he seemed to always want to make a bigger play.

The good news is the things he needs to work on seem to be pretty fixable.  

Not to mention they started improving under Holgorsen. Maybe not the deep ball accuracy, but the decision making and taking the easy things. In Big Ten play under Satt, he completed 61% of his passes and had a 5/7 TD/INT ratio. 6.5 YPA. In the 3 Big Ten + 1 ACC game under Holgorsen, he completed 72% with a (still not great) 3/3 TD/INT ratio and the same 6.5 YPA. There are probably some situations like this I'm overlooking pre-Holgorsen, but that TD/INT ratio could very easily be at least 4/2 if Neyor could catch and the refs at USC knew what PI was. Connect on one or two of the deep balls (or Neyor's easy dropped catch and run) and the YPA ticks up significantly.

More importantly, there were only 1-2 throws under Holgorsen that were just completely questionable - the first INT at USC is the only one that comes to mind to be honest. We were seeing a lot more of those in the middle of the season. We've seen a sophomore slump at QB before, but I think the skill talent around Raiola is much better than it was for 2019 Adrian Martinez. And Raiola has had to work through the hype his whole career - I don't think Martinez completely coasted but I do think the Heisman hype got to him a bit.

 

[krc1995]

I'm still pretty high on DR. I think your last couple of sentences there highlight the "he's just 1 of 11" challenge that football inherently brings. It seems most experts/analysts are still very bullish on DR for his capabilities as an 18-year-old with one season of experience and the relative lack of elite talent around him. Freshman errors are compounded when the other guys you're relying on aren't stepping up and DR was always going to need a lot of help this season. He'll get better with time, but he also needs some NFL talent around him at the skill positions.

That's not to say he's been perfect, but if you look at most of the remaining CFP teams this year and their offenses, what do they have? Veteran QB with roughly 30+ starts under their belts (Will Howard, Dillon Gabriel, Quinn Ewers), NFL wide receiving talent (Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith, Isaiah Bond), and elite O-lines. DR has none of that, and the lack of those resources lead to situations where he finds himself trying to rush for a first down and doing something a bit bone-headed like sliding early.

This is all true.  Maybe my expectations were too high. We have had freshman come and dazzle before. I think for me is his lack of mobility. How many QB in the playoffs lack mobility?  
 

I hope hype and lofty and unreasonable expectations aren’t in head.  I think being perceived as the savior is attractive to him. But I hope he styles mentally flexible with his development. 

 

[lo country]

And I think separation is overrated. All of the playoff teams have WR that can make catches with one or two guys draped all over them.  It’s amazing. But then the passes are like threading the needle. 
 

also I’m not bullish on DR at this point. I love what he does for the university and the fire he brings, but his lack of mobility, slow decision making, and weird choices

(example sliding way before the sticks). 
 

maybe a much improved O-line, a featured RB, and WR that can catch in traffic will improve the optics more. But then, what college QB wouldn’t be successful with those pieces? 

This.  I think better route running allows the receiver to make the "break" with separation that naturally occurs.  BUT a QB has to throw the ball with some zip and urgency or the DB can recover and the separation goes away.  That's my knock on DR at this point, no zip on the ball or "laser" throws.  His long balls still look like YOLO's vs a more designed throw.  

People can argue "but those are playoff teams" so they should have better players.  True, but I see a lot of teams that have a dude(s) on each side of the ball.  We haven't have that receiver since Palmer.  I'd honestly go back further, but trying not to be the revisionist guy.  Same with RB.  JoJo maybe last eraser on D.  Just sucks I see other "lesser" teams with "better" athletes than we do.  

I am hoping that a full year of tape on DR at the college level will help Dana and Co get an identity that DR will be successful in.  Wondering if Dana will consult with Christensen to have him work on things with DR.  Unsure of college coaches coordinate with private coaches..... 

 

[Mierin]

This is all true.  Maybe my expectations were too high. We have had freshman come and dazzle before. I think for me is his lack of mobility. How many QB in the playoffs lack mobility?  
 

I hope hype and lofty and unreasonable expectations aren’t in head.  I think being perceived as the savior is attractive to him. But I hope he styles mentally flexible with his development. 

Just a thought here. I feel the mobile QB running is not really learnable. You have it or you don’t. So it’s not super surprising that we’d have mobile QB come in and be good at running as freshmen. And they are sometimes compensating for what they lack in traditional QB skills. DR is a different type of QB and more of the skills he has/needs are learnable and can improve with time. We’ve seen multiple times where our freshman phenom running QBs were great their 1st year then got injured and were never as good. Hopefully DR has the opposite trajectory. 

 

[Enhance]

For whatever reason, he seemed to make the hard things look easy but the easy things look hard.  He can throw from a lot of different arm angles.  He is great at throwing the deep crossing routes, especially fitting the ball in over the linebackers and in front of the safeties.  And he's pretty good at working through his reads (perhaps too fast at times).

However he missed WIDE OPEN guys down the sidelines over and over again.  And he wouldn't take the easy throws - he seemed to always want to make a bigger play.

The good news is the things he needs to work on seem to be pretty fixable.  

All fair points. I think "making the hard things look easy, easy things looks hard" is largely the inexperience and lack of supporting cast factors. If we're still having these conversations regularly with third year starter Dylan Raiola, then something clearly isn't at the place it should be... either he hasn't progressed and/or his supporting cast hasn't either. But, his youth, the lack of real elite talent around him, and having to experience an OC switch 75% of the way through the season... my leniency is pretty high. And at the end of the day he was still a 67% completionist which IMO is pretty darn good.

I think those situations with DR where he missed open guys, didn't check down, wouldn't make easy throws... so many factors could be at play. Was it the right route? Did the WR run it correctly? Did DR get through his progression and make the right read? Did he have adequate protection? Did the WR catch the ball? I'm not trying to make excuses for him but I don't understand or know the X's and O's like they do and I think play outcomes don't necessarily tell complete stories.

But I agree with your last sentence because again I think what we're critical about for him are largely fixable things that will come down to age, experience, and hopefully better offensive coaching/strategizing.

 

[YetiJR]

For whatever reason, he seemed to make the hard things look easy but the easy things look hard.  He can throw from a lot of different arm angles.  He is great at throwing the deep crossing routes, especially fitting the ball in over the linebackers and in front of the safeties.  And he's pretty good at working through his reads (perhaps too fast at times).

However he missed WIDE OPEN guys down the sidelines over and over again.  And he wouldn't take the easy throws - he seemed to always want to make a bigger play.

The good news is the things he needs to work on seem to be pretty fixable.  

I agree with all of these. I also thought he was really good at making the throws that led to defensive pass interference.

Ultimately, the question we ask ourselves is does he make the leap the Martinez’s never made in their 2nd and 3rd years and actually develop.
 

The lack of mobility hurt him as a freshman cause he doesn’t have the legs to bail out the team, but I do think he can work on his passing mechanics and improve.

I do think his check down reads improved under Holgo got better with EJ.

 

[Enhance]

This is all true.  Maybe my expectations were too high. We have had freshman come and dazzle before. I think for me is his lack of mobility. How many QB in the playoffs lack mobility?  

I think it might depend on how you're defining mobility - pocket mobility or his ability to run the football? I wouldn't describe Ewers, Howard, or Gabriel as particularly mobile quarterbacks, although they can get some yards on the ground when they need to. They've got good arms and vision, and are surrounded by great weapons and coaching. We've had more mobile young quarterbacks in the past, and their dazzle often made up for deficiencies elsewhere in the offense... and they got hurt a lot.

Expectations are a tough thing because it's kind of up to the individual to determine if they're realistic or not. Personally, DR met my expectations for the season. I didn't expect this year's offense to hum or for him to play overly well... I had concerns about Satterfield, a true freshman quarterback, a lot of unproven WR talent, questionable run game... I thought a bowl game and a winning season would be great. They accomplished that and he had a 67% completion rating which is honestly better than I expected.

 

[lo country]

Just a thought here. I feel the mobile QB running is not really learnable. You have it or you don’t. So it’s not super surprising that we’d have mobile QB come in and be good at running as freshmen. And they are sometimes compensating for what they lack in traditional QB skills. DR is a different type of QB and more of the skills he has/needs are learnable and can improve with time. We’ve seen multiple times where our freshman phenom running QBs were great their 1st year then got injured and were never as good. Hopefully DR has the opposite trajectory. 

Great point on the injury front.  This is the 1st year I can remember in a very long time when we had the same QB all season w/out missing a game.  I know he got dinged up at UCLA and missed some time then, but was right back the next game.