Where I'm at after 2 years... (TL;DR)

[stargazer]

Look at it this way... the season was no worse than what Bo would have delivered, except without the embarrassing sideline demeanor. I'm actually excited to see what a QB can do, who hopefully can see more than one receiver on the field... although I feel a little bad, that they won't have the same stable of experienced talent to work with in their first year. It may be optimistic to expect the same 9-3 record next year with all the new faces/change-up in offense.

 

[Hayseed]

lo country,I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book.

But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year.

Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working.

By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy.

I don't know if this is true, but I got the feeling they thought Tommy throwing it short was likely to result in a bunch of Ohio State interceptions and that he could heave the long ones where only our guy could get it. None of our QB's have been great in traffic , the tipped and misfired passes could be pick sixes. Also, if you're gonna zero in on your intended receiver every time, better that he's going long and can't be jumped. Who knows?

 

[Hayseed]

Look at it this way... the season was no worse than what Bo would have delivered, except without the embarrassing sideline demeanor. I'm actually excited to see what a QB can do, who hopefully can see more than one receiver on the field... although I feel a little bad, that they won't have the same stable of experienced talent to work with in their first year. It may be optimistic to expect the same 9-3 record next year with all the new faces/change-up in offense.

Certainly no worse than watching hobbled T-Magic in the pocket.

 

[Mavric]

Look at it this way... the season was no worse than what Bo would have delivered, except without the embarrassing sideline demeanor. I'm actually excited to see what a QB can do, who hopefully can see more than one receiver on the field... although I feel a little bad, that they won't have the same stable of experienced talent to work with in their first year. It may be optimistic to expect the same 9-3 record next year with all the new faces/change-up in offense.

It's kind of telling the most of the best excuses for lack of performance are some variation of "hey ... it's about what the guy we fired would have done."

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

lo country,I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book.
But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year.

Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working.

By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy.

A lot of times you have to have that deep route. You run a corner out of the picture and put pressure on the safety. Without it you get in situations where one defender can in essence guard two receivers because they are in the same area. I had the same problem while coaching a HS qb. I literally had to tell him that it's a decoy route to open up the shorter easier throw. The problem is a lot of this offense are plays that set up other plays. TAs inability to connect on the routes that will open up the long ball is the real issue. I would almost guarantee Langsdorf isn't telling him to try to hit the 40 yard fade everytime on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 8. That's on TA because that's what he does. Even the announcers pointed out that he is choosing who to throw to before the play. You can see it in times when he throws a ball and there was nobody in the area and they say it was a communication error. I'ld buy that if he doesn't throw a bomb and the guy did a 5 yard curl.. what was he looking at? He just thinks there was supposed to be a go or fade route and he launches it without reading. I think we will see a dramatic change in how the offense looks next year. A lot of the short throws that TA missed this year would be the 40+ gainers everyone wants to see.

 

[Mavric]

lo country,I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book.
But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year.

Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working.

By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy.

A lot of times you have to have that deep route. You run a corner out of the picture and put pressure on the safety. Without it you get in situations where one defender can in essence guard two receivers because they are in the same area. I had the same problem while coaching a HS qb. I literally had to tell him that it's a decoy route to open up the shorter easier throw. The problem is a lot of this offense are plays that set up other plays. TAs inability to connect on the routes that will open up the long ball is the real issue. I would almost guarantee Langsdorf isn't telling him to try to hit the 40 yard fade everytime on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 8. That's on TA because that's what he does. Even the announcers pointed out that he is choosing who to throw to before the play. You can see it in times when he throws a ball and there was nobody in the area and they say it was a communication error. I'ld buy that if he doesn't throw a bomb and the guy did a 5 yard curl.. what was he looking at? He just thinks there was supposed to be a go or fade route and he launches it without reading. I think we will see a dramatic change in how the offense looks next year. A lot of the short throws that TA missed this year would be the 40+ gainers everyone wants to see.

If you watch the games where we had high completion percentages - Northwestern, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland - a lot of the time everyone was running short routes. Even the outside guys.

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

lo country,I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

I'm no TA fan. He gets plenty of blame in my book.
But how long does it take to figure out that if you give the guy the option he's going to throw the deep ball? So if you don't want him to throw the deep ball, don't call a play where that is an option - which Langs has done very well in several games this year.

Same story at Ohio State. The coaches said after the game that the game plan going in was they thought they could beat Ohio State deep. And we kept trying to do it all game even when it wasn't working.

By the way, Michigan didn't throw a single pass over 20 yards downfield today, so it's interesting to see the difference in strategy.

A lot of times you have to have that deep route. You run a corner out of the picture and put pressure on the safety. Without it you get in situations where one defender can in essence guard two receivers because they are in the same area. I had the same problem while coaching a HS qb. I literally had to tell him that it's a decoy route to open up the shorter easier throw. The problem is a lot of this offense are plays that set up other plays. TAs inability to connect on the routes that will open up the long ball is the real issue. I would almost guarantee Langsdorf isn't telling him to try to hit the 40 yard fade everytime on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 8. That's on TA because that's what he does. Even the announcers pointed out that he is choosing who to throw to before the play. You can see it in times when he throws a ball and there was nobody in the area and they say it was a communication error. I'ld buy that if he doesn't throw a bomb and the guy did a 5 yard curl.. what was he looking at? He just thinks there was supposed to be a go or fade route and he launches it without reading. I think we will see a dramatic change in how the offense looks next year. A lot of the short throws that TA missed this year would be the 40+ gainers everyone wants to see.

If you watch the games where we had high completion percentages - Northwestern, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland - a lot of the time everyone was running short routes. Even the outside guys.

If you go back to the first few games of last year when offense was putting up points I think you will notice more short completions as well. It wasn't until later that TA started going deep all the time. Most of this year seems to be that way. Run the ball a few times and throw the long ball. Obviously there were some exceptions

 

[cornstar]

lo country,

I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.

Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.

I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

Conversely, how do you know that's not the right play, or the right read on that play?

If Tommy is consistently doing things that Langsdorf isn't calling or teaching, then it's on the coaches to put him on the bench.

 

[MyBloodIsRed16]

lo country,

I know it's not the right read when you have guys at the sticks wide open jumping up and down waving their hands and TA throws it deep. Reading is reading.. now if Langsdorf comes out and says he told him to throw those ball then I would apologize

I have no idea, that is why I am asking. How do you or anyone else know they were 40 yard pass plays. How do you know that Tommy did not decide to just go for the goal posts. It seems to me over the last 4 years is that is what Tommy does. Pays little attention to the under routes, the open receivers. He wants the glory of the big TD and places that in front of winning the game with shorter routes.

Not trying to be a smart a$$, I just can not imagine that a OC who has done this for years, looks at Tommy and his past and says, yea we need to throw the deep ball a lot.

I know he has won some games for us doing that, but I wonder how many of those were truly called for that purpose and the purpose only. Ignoring check downs and going for the endzone. He seems to do it lot to me.

Conversely, how do you know that's not the right play, or the right read on that play?
If Tommy is consistently doing things that Langsdorf isn't calling or teaching, then it's on the coaches to put him on the bench.

 

[skersfan]

That is the problem, they could not put him on the bench. the guy that supposedly could do the job was redshirted and decided early in the season it was not coming off. I think he should have played the whole year, learning the ropes so to speak.

Tommy controlled the emotions of the team (not intentionally) because he was all they had and what they grew to depend on. They needed confidence in other players to carry the load.

We had several linemen that might have helped to, but again the reshirt is the answer. Yes it may make Nebraska better next year or the following, but we were in the hunt for a division title, that by not having the best roster we could have had (possibly), the staff took the season away from the kids playing now.

We are dealing with poor roster management from the past staff, and I think we suffered from it some this year. IMO.