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Running Backs

YUENGLING

YUENGLING

Travel Squad
10 Year Member
Husker offense doesn’t resemble anything Nebraska fans have come to love. I believe it’s simply a lack of experienced talent. Frost recruited two excellent running backs ( both seemed to be head cases) and they ran well even with a less than stellar line left by Riley. Both would still be playing today if things had worked out.
Ozigbo ran extremely well as a senior but there was no depth after him. Right now Mills is hurt and the depth is a redshirt freshman and a true freshman. The running game leader is now a 165 pound sophomore who was recruited to play a different position in this offense.

Here’s a list of the yards at running back per game from true ( recruited for the position) running back.

Ohio State 47
Northwestern 62
Penn State 24
Illinois 36
Iowa 36

Scott and Johnson have the bulk of those carries because there’s no Junior or Senior back up to Mills. Obviously there’s talent but very little experience at that position. I worry that #1 is going to suffer a serious injury running between the tackles.
Nebraska really misses Mills.
 




We don't TRY to run the backs. Not from under center and with run blocking. We do the occasional designated run but its delayed out of the shotgun. Easy fix.
 
Beareye said:
Must be the worst RB rushing yardage/game in the country, and probably by far.
Click to expand...
We are ranked 46th in the nation. However if our QB runs were subtracted we'd be towards the worst in college football. Everyone knows our rushing attack primarily consists having our QB's run when all else fails or even if it doesn't fail. Run the QB that's really our only consistent weapon on offense now.
 
Hurts to have Mills and Thompkins out . . . but how much of the issues are the RBs themselves vs "everything else"? Scott seems to be a bull when he has the chance, but when the OC/HC is calling inside runs over and over from the gun and the O-line can't block those runs to save their lives, the RB isn't going to get very far. Robinson squeaks through some pretty small cracks here and there with his size and speed and looks like he could break one, but he's not the guy you want to pound inside.

Seems like Frost, Austin and Lubick really need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they can really do with the run game . . . rather than what they prefer to do. The few times we had success inside seemed to be when the offense really started to try to mix things up to get outside and spread the field and then the defense couldn't just sit on the inside run anymore.

I get that you might want to be a "run the ball inside" team . . . but maybe you just can't the way your dudes block (or can't) and the way you're trying to go about it? I don't know the answers, but sure seems like most DCs do.
 




YUENGLING said:
Husker offense doesn’t resemble anything Nebraska fans have come to love. I believe it’s simply a lack of experienced talent. Frost recruited two excellent running backs ( both seemed to be head cases) and they ran well even with a less than stellar line left by Riley. Both would still be playing today if things had worked out.
Ozigbo ran extremely well as a senior but there was no depth after him. Right now Mills is hurt and the depth is a redshirt freshman and a true freshman. The running game leader is now a 165 pound sophomore who was recruited to play a different position in this offense.

Here’s a list of the yards at running back per game from true ( recruited for the position) running back.

Ohio State 47
Northwestern 62
Penn State 24
Illinois 36
Iowa 36

Scott and Johnson have the bulk of those carries because there’s no Junior or Senior back up to Mills. Obviously there’s talent but very little experience at that position. I worry that #1 is going to suffer a serious injury running between the tackles.
Nebraska really misses Mills.
Click to expand...

Our running backs are hurt/young, yes, but these are stupidly misleading stats. You have to add Wandale, who is currently our #1 starting running back. Add his yards:

Penn State: 84
Illinois: 96
Iowa: 78

Wandale is averaging 5.6 yards per carry. I'd like for him to get about 12 carries a game. He's our best running back. He's also 185lbs, which isn't big obviously, but there's no way a 165lb back is breaking arm tackles.

Frost criticism is fair... but it's not fair if the information is incorrect. Wandale was recruited as the #1 all-purpose back in the country. That's exactly what he's doing now--a RB/WR hybrid. His carries should 100% count as running back carries.
 
Running Warner on jet sweep motion isn't widening out any defence in the conference. And the lack of a downfield passing threat is allowing safeties to creep up on the line of scrimmage. Throw in the missed blocks from the OL and we are suffering a lot of negative yardage runs.
 
I remember reading this article a few years ago and beaming that this product would be coming to Lincoln. Read the article and look at the posted videos and ask yourself if any of that looks like what you've seen over the past 3 years. Outside of 2018, there really haven't been glimpses of it since the start...

www.sbnation.com

Explaining Scott Frost’s offense, with help from Scott Frost

Let’s talk to the former Nebraska QB and Chip Kelly assistant about steamrolling defenses.
www.sbnation.com www.sbnation.com
 
Last edited:



YUENGLING said:
Husker offense doesn’t resemble anything Nebraska fans have come to love. I believe it’s simply a lack of experienced talent. Frost recruited two excellent running backs ( both seemed to be head cases) and they ran well even with a less than stellar line left by Riley. Both would still be playing today if things had worked out.
Ozigbo ran extremely well as a senior but there was no depth after him. Right now Mills is hurt and the depth is a redshirt freshman and a true freshman. The running game leader is now a 165 pound sophomore who was recruited to play a different position in this offense.

Here’s a list of the yards at running back per game from true ( recruited for the position) running back.

Ohio State 47
Northwestern 62
Penn State 24
Illinois 36
Iowa 36

Scott and Johnson have the bulk of those carries because there’s no Junior or Senior back up to Mills. Obviously there’s talent but very little experience at that position. I worry that #1 is going to suffer a serious injury running between the tackles.
Nebraska really misses Mills.
Click to expand...
These numbers would be significantly better if the Offensive line could learn to sustain their blocking assignments. A mediocre back can gain 100 yards if the line can block.
 
A little downfield passing would sure help to get the "box" opened up for the inside running game. It seems to me the only truly effective inside running has been QB designed runs off of pass drop-backs. This tells me we are having trouble getting the "box" unclogged for RB designed inside runs.
 

ThrowFar60 said:
I remember reading this article a few years ago and beaming that this product would be coming to Lincoln. Read the article and look at the posted videos and ask yourself if any of that looks like what you've seen over the past 3 years. Outside of 2018, there really haven't been glimpses of it since the start...

www.sbnation.com

Explaining Scott Frost’s offense, with help from Scott Frost

Let’s talk to the former Nebraska QB and Chip Kelly assistant about steamrolling defenses.
www.sbnation.com www.sbnation.com
Click to expand...
I agree! I haven’t seen any of that. Really makes you wonder why. Did the coaches forget about those plays/concepts? I think we have the talent to pull it off. Head scratcher for sure.
 
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