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Back to the Core & the Contrarian Principle

bilsker said:
we do not need to be exceptionally unique offensively.

now....if you want the ceiling to be 9 wins....10 in an amazing year...then sure, lets throw some money at paul johnson. but if you want to chase titles that garbage ain't gonna get it done.
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I'd settle for just being good at one thing offensively. Just one.
 

Greatest Fan of All said:
I think some folks have been misinformed about Husker history and are thinking a return to the misconception is where we should head. You can't return to what never was. We never had a pipeline of Samoans, we had 2 decent ones in 50 years. We never ran a very unique offense, TO copied the I formations we used and then later adapted Oklahoma's option principles to his new option attack. Lots of teams were run stuff similar to both back when this was done. Other teams realized the speed of the defenses could negate our lol, "unique" option attack, before we did. That's because TO had us stocked with so much talent at I-back and QB that we were nearly unstoppable no matter the speed of the defense, teams with less talent than us, couldn't keep running option. We found ourselves in their boat when FS couldn't recruit QB's or RB's. So all this talk of being contrarian is just silly...you need talent on both sides of the ball to compete at highest levels. You need coaches that recruit mean, tough and yet disciplined players who prioritize football every day. You get that back here and it won't matter what offense or defense we run or where we get our players.

If there was a big advantage to running a contrarian offense...the best coaches (Saaban. Meyer, Sweeney) would do it, they don't. Instead, there is an advantage to running an attack that can hurt teams on the ground or in the air and having the best players you can get.
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Nobody said we've had a "pipeline of Samoans" over the past 50 years. The point was being able to recruit Samoans to Nebraska would help our run game (and help stop the run on the defensive line).
A consistent, well run, mistake free, run game to me defines Nebraska football and not the pro-style, air raid, west coast, pistol, Spread zone read offenses.

We ran a triple option that teams had one week to prepare for. If run well, game planning and teaching assignment based defense can be very tough.

Recruiting Samoans who go on mission trips and come back to play at age 23 along with a well developed walk on program that matures local Nebraska kids who are hungry to play IMO would be a good thing. If we do what everyone else is doing we will be another Iowa. We should focus on winning the BIG west and to do that we have to beat Wisconsin.

Saban, Meyer, and Sweeney don't need to be contrarian, they get the top echelon athletes available in the Southeast year after year and have these type players 3 deep on their rosters. Their scout teams are made up of 4 and 5 star athletes. So why try and beat them at their own game? It's likely they will win the match-ups if we're in a Spread offense.

Not suggesting go flexbone 100% of the time. Make it the base offense and mix in other formations. But we need to have an identity. It won't work unless the defense is one of the best in the nation year in and year out and I think we can get there again but it will take commitment to bring in the top D coordinators available. Not sure if the one we have fits that category.

My 2 cents. Going back to lurking for awhile. I'm not so good at the posting thing I keep hitting the wrong buttons LOL. Good dialogue & Go Big Red!
 



The issue here isn't the scheme, it's the depth.

Osborne's third string guys could still beat then-Power 5 teams (see: Matt Turman) and keep us in the title hunt.

You can run whatever scheme you want if your depth means your bench can still push defending teams on their ass.
 
DuckTownHusker said:
The issue here isn't the scheme, it's the depth.

Osborne's third string guys could still beat then-Power 5 teams (see: Matt Turman) and keep us in the title hunt.

You can run whatever scheme you want if your depth means your bench can still push defending teams on their ass.
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As much as i love me some Turmanator, he didn't beat anyone. He survived for a half with the most vanilla game plan ever, and then Berringer played the second half. The legend outpaces reality on that one. We won in spite of him playing a half, not because of it.
 




bilsker said:
i won't. i won't settle for some paul johnson nonsense just to say we finished in the top 10 in rushing. texas that noise
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If they are good at it, I'm fine with it. Just like I would be fine with the Air Raid, spread power, etc. I just don't want to be "multiple" anymore. 13 years of being multiple has shown me all I need to know
 
So it's no secret that Wisconsin took the NU formula and ran with it (pun intended). And, I keep hearing we don't want to be Wisconsin. Seems to me that reinstalling that formula (big O line, run heavy) with small innovations would be a proven way to go that fits NU. In other words, doesn't the adage "if you can't beat em join em" apply here?
 
HuskerFed said:
No problem with your thinking but I only know of two coaches that still run the ball predominately with the option. You still need speed and that rarely comes from home. Without it we cannot get to the outside and on defense they run by us (see OSU). Do your thoughts mean we don't waste our time recruiting Nebraska kids with NFL aspirations? And what do we do when we get behind with little time left? Takes time for three yards and a cloud of dust to go 80 yds with no mistakes. I am not against your thoughts but they create other issues. Nebr has a lot of passing qb in its storied past. We won a lot with a few running qb who were rare talents. Frazier, Crouch, Frost. What do we do when that one is injured or we do not get the stud to play the position. Not gloom and doom but just thinking what that limited philosophy would cost us.
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You'd think Nebraska fans would stop making these kinds of silly arguments, yet it still persists.
 
bilsker said:
we do not need to be exceptionally unique offensively.

now....if you want the ceiling to be 9 wins....10 in an amazing year...then sure, lets throw some money at paul johnson. but if you want to chase titles that garbage ain't gonna get it done.
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Your religious-like aversion to any type of option oriented attack is as baseless as some folks' aversion to a pro-style offense. But at least we've actually seen successwith one of those types...
 



goodnterribles said:
My thing is just focus on some offensive identity and be really good at it.
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You really do have to start somewhere. It's not about one particular play, or a special formation, or anything like that. It's about being able to teach your system one step at a time. No matter what offense you run, you have to be an effective teacher. That doesn't mean you're the smartest guy in all of football. I know plenty of people that are brilliant minds in various fields, but they aren't automatically good teachers.
 

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