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Offensive tempo

Husker Country Doc said:
I’m not entirely OK with up tempo offense.

There are times to go regular speed, and times to go as fast as possible (after a controversial play that goes in your favor, favorable first down spot, etc)

I just didn’t see where the tempo gave us any discernible advantage.
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Does no advantage equate to disadvantage? You seem to feel it does, otherwise why broach the issue? It seems we really were not up tempo, or were we trying but actually failed and cost ourselves (too little clock burning with a lead and too little rest for the Defense?).
 

I seem to remember us leading the world in various types of penalties early, so perhaps upping tempo wasn't going to be the best idea the first year in. I did enjoy one of the announcers of our games pointing out how Frost was moving players around the field to see what the defense was going to do to react. I'm sure that's also for Martinez to read, and another year of fully understanding the offense will likely mean those reads come faster and more naturally. At least that's my guess.
 
One Hit Wonder said:
As it relates to tempo, the issues can be equated to a number of factors.

QB
We all know Martinez was a true FR but getting hurt didn't help. Clawing back some of the playbook was necessary to protect him and the depth chart.

RB
It wasn't until about the 4th or 5th game when we saw the depth chart shake itself out and a reliable rotation started to appear. But the drop-off from Ozigbo & Washington was big.

WR
Nebraska had a couple of very solid options (Morgan and Spielman) but their hands were tied with lack of depth. That was frustrating given the numbers they had on the depth chart.

TE
The Tight Ends were sparsely targeted the first half of the season and then down the stretch we saw what they were capable of doing and it was exciting to see. Great depth on the roster but they were all young and implementing the TE position is a big X-factor to this offense and relies on a number of other factors.

OL
Farmer replaced Conrad in about the 5th or 6th game and the O-line started to take off. Of course the O-line in general didn't start performing well enough to until about the 6th game which takes a lot into consideration such as thoroughly understanding the plays, assignments and blocking technique.
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I'm not sure how these depth issues relate entirely to tempo. If the offense is to play fast then the entire offense should be playing fast ... in practice, in scrimmages and in games.

The drop off in depth at RB, WR, OL has nothing to do relatively speaking with the ability to play with tempo. For example I suspect Kade Warner and Reimers is capable of rushing to the LOS and running the next called play regardless of their ability. Ozigbo and Washington were the two primary RBs ... how does a drop off in talent prevent them from rushing to the line and running the next called play?

Having an inexperienced QB ... yes. Sometimes AM needs to tell the huddle we are going to play fast - cue to me. Snap the ball early, get offside penalties, substitution penalties ... as AM et al get more comfortable, I suspect SF and company will give them wider berth.
 



KleinTxHusker said:
Does no advantage equate to disadvantage? You seem to feel it does, otherwise why broach the issue? It seems we really were not up tempo, or were we trying but actually failed and cost ourselves (too little clock burning with a lead and too little rest for the Defense?).
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I'm not sure. To my eye, going up-tempo means snapping the ball so fast that the defense is confused or is misaligned, or caught with 12 men on the field. I never saw that. Matchup issues do not catch my eye, so that may have favored us.
 
I heard this complaint from my FIL every game. He hates the looking to the side lines for the play call "look". I'd tried to explain that we may limit the Ds ability to substitute thereby taking advantage of mismatch. This look isn't necessarily up tempo.
As many pointed - new coach, new QB, lack of depth. Great point too about the early penalties. SO, we move up to the line stopping them from substituting, but the true hurry up may be down the road...
 
One more question for the board: my untrained guess would be regarding the TEs. I would think they could give a team the biggest mismatches. Is this correct? Or what's is the mismatch we are looking for?
 
This year looked a lot like Frost first year at UCF. Not really run fast other than hurry to the line. Frost second year at UCF was much better but this year you could see the foundation of what Frost build to UCF being used. There were drives were I was only seeing 7 or 8 seconds coming off the game clock. They moved quickly to the line and had the play going before the defense was ready. A couple of times the defense was caught on the field with the wrong d which led to a quick score and I saw a few times the d get flagged for illegal substitution and to many players on the field.

I think next year we are still going to be settling into how it runs but running with better speed, by 2020 we should be up to speed and be able to use tempo as a real weapon.

Once we get this going I think we are going to be very happy with it.
 




CP Red said:
I heard this complaint from my FIL every game. He hates the looking to the side lines for the play call "look". I'd tried to explain that we may limit the Ds ability to substitute thereby taking advantage of mismatch. This look isn't necessarily up tempo.
As many pointed - new coach, new QB, lack of depth. Great point too about the early penalties. SO, we move up to the line stopping them from substituting, but the true hurry up may be down the road...
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Sounds about like my FIL, except he’s started to complain even about hard tackles, and good hits now. I won’t ever watch any game at their house that is important to me.

And I agree about the hurry up. It’s a change from what folks are used to. When they see the true power of varied pace, most will come around.
 
wcbsas said:
I'm not sure how these depth issues relate entirely to tempo. If the offense is to play fast then the entire offense should be playing fast ... in practice, in scrimmages and in games.

The drop off in depth at RB, WR, OL has nothing to do relatively speaking with the ability to play with tempo. For example I suspect Kade Warner and Reimers is capable of rushing to the LOS and running the next called play regardless of their ability. Ozigbo and Washington were the two primary RBs ... how does a drop off in talent prevent them from rushing to the line and running the next called play?

Having an inexperienced QB ... yes. Sometimes AM needs to tell the huddle we are going to play fast - cue to me. Snap the ball early, get offside penalties, substitution penalties ... as AM et al get more comfortable, I suspect SF and company will give them wider berth.
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Well, a team kind of loses any advantage it has if less talented players are forced to simply "run the next play". Having quality depth (2 WR caught TD passes for example) will allow more tempo in the future. More familiarity with the offense from all positions will allow for more tempo. I believe each year, as the foundation gets stronger and deeper, SF will be able to push the tempo faster, IF he wants to do it against that team, at that moment.
 



Bleed Red said:
Well, a team kind of loses any advantage it has if less talented players are forced to simply "run the next play". Having quality depth (2 WR caught TD passes for example) will allow more tempo in the future. More familiarity with the offense from all positions will allow for more tempo. I believe each year, as the foundation gets stronger and deeper, SF will be able to push the tempo faster, IF he wants to do it against that team, at that moment.
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The reason to run up-tempo is:

1) Because your team is in better shape than the opposing team
2) To get more offensive snaps
3) To take advantage of mismatches on the field - i.e. defense has more or less DBs in the game than is ideal
4) To take advantage of the defenses inability to keep pace with the offense
5) To wear down an opposing defense

Almost all of those things do NOT require more depth. Certainly having high quality depth enables you to be more EFFECTIVE at running up tempo ... but when you're running up tempo you are not substituting at all during that offensive series so having quality depth on the sidelines becomes a luxury for the next series maybe.

Up tempo is more about offensive philosophy than it is about mano-y-mano my guys are better than your guys. I suspect the philosophy is very QB dependent and SF is more likely to run it with AM on the field than say Masker or Bunch but I also suspect all 3 or 4 team players are practicing it.

We will likely see more of it next year as AM becomes more comfortable with the offense!
 

wcbsas said:
The reason to run up-tempo is:

1) Because your team is in better shape than the opposing team
2) To get more offensive snaps
3) To take advantage of mismatches on the field - i.e. defense has more or less DBs in the game than is ideal
4) To take advantage of the defenses inability to keep pace with the offense
5) To wear down an opposing defense

Almost all of those things do NOT require more depth. Certainly having high quality depth enables you to be more EFFECTIVE at running up tempo ... but when you're running up tempo you are not substituting at all during that offensive series so having quality depth on the sidelines becomes a luxury for the next series maybe.

Up tempo is more about offensive philosophy than it is about mano-y-mano my guys are better than your guys. I suspect the philosophy is very QB dependent and SF is more likely to run it with AM on the field than say Masker or Bunch but I also suspect all 3 or 4 team players are practicing it.

We will likely see more of it next year as AM becomes more comfortable with the offense!
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I don't think we disagree, but using AM vs the other QBs as an example just proves my point as well. Do you really want Masker running 95 plays in a game or do you want to be a little more conservative and maybe protect him a little so the mistakes are limited. Also, having more snaps from better athletes (depth) is much preferred to just simply having more snaps period. Hopefully pace can give a top athlete numerous chances to make a big play but it would also possibly give a lesser athlete (where you no longer own an advantage over the defensive talent) more chances to make mistakes.

Also, don't underestimate depth for the next series. Again, if you have enough athletes that all 95 plays are dangerous, it is much preferred than running the only good player you have out there 95 times a game until he is no longer effective.
 
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