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Husker_Jorgy

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In a way, the NIU game raised more questions for me than it answered. Here's a few that stand out in my mind.

Offensively, why does Adrian Martinez have the yips? He clearly has the skill set and Frost/ Verduzco clearly have a track record at Oregon /UCF of coaching elite quarterbacks/ offenses, so where is the breakdown? NIU was a much better game for him, but he still showed hesitation and indecisiveness on multiple plays, something that he rarely did last year. I wonder if knowing the system/ schemes better this year is causing him to be more patient with routes/ concepts looking for the big play (and sometimes taking a sack) whereas last year he would've scrambled quicker (and gained yards).

Is Frost's offense reliant on home runs to create base hits? In other words, it seems like his big plays do more to open up the 3,5,8 yard gains than vice versa. While our rushing stats look gaudy in the box score, a lot of the yardage came on 4-5 big runs. This could come back to hurt us once we get into Big Ten play and the defenses won't give up as many long plays initially, making it harder to achieve sustained drives later in the game.
I'm not sure that this was as big of a breakout game for Dedrick Mills as everyone is saying. Most of his rushing yards came on a couple big plays, when in reality, we need him to be the between the tackles grinder that he was at Georgia Tech. Frost doesn't seem committed to running a guy like him 15-20 times a game, which is what it might take for him to get hot. Maybe he will use him more like this in Big Ten play.​

Frost's up tempo offense doesn't seem to be overly committed to wearing opponents down, instead focusing on scoring points quickly. This is understandable given the caliber/ type of athletes we have, and works OK if your defense is serviceable and you don't have stagnant drives on offense. We have seen flashes of both ends of the spectrum for offense and defense. When the offense is scoring quickly and the defense is able to get a stop or two, it results in big leads piling up quickly. However, when the offense stagnates and the defense is left on the field for 60%-75% of the game, the other team has all the time in the world to start gaining momentum against our gassed defense. It seems to devalue the momentum your team gains from scoring big TDs if 3 out of the next 4 offensive drives after scoring on a big play are 3 and outs. Scoring points quickly is only good if you are putting them in a hole they can't dig out of.
We currently rank 117th in the country in Time of Posession, while our Scoring per Game is 24th in the country. If that doesn't scream trouble going into Big Ten Play, especially considering our 3 opponents (one of whom just lost to Air Force this week) I don't know what does. On the other hand, when playing teams like Iowa that traditionally cannot score quickly, being able to get out to a big lead early might be enough to see them buckle. Its hard to beat them in a dogfight. It also keeps us in games where we are down big longer, so first half deficits mean less.
This offense seems to try and wear out teams mentally more than physically. NIU gave up sooner in the game, and it showed in the final score.​

Big picture I feel great about the progress under Frost, and am interested to see how these things are resolved the rest of the year.​

Looking forward, is it better to beat Illinois handily and go into Ohio State game confident (maybe overconfident), or to play a gritty game with them and gain confidence in being able to win a physical game? (which Ohio State inevitably will be). I lean towards the latter.


College Football Stats - College FB Team Average Time of Possession (Excluding OT) | TeamRankings.com

College Football average time of possession (excluding ot), by team.
www.teamrankings.com www.teamrankings.com

College Football Stats - College FB Team Points per Game on TeamRankings.com

College Football points per game, by team.
www.teamrankings.com www.teamrankings.com
​
 

Husker_Jorgy said:
In a way, the NIU game raised more questions for me than it answered. Here's a few that stand out in my mind.

Offensively, why does Adrian Martinez have the yips? He clearly has the skill set and Frost/ Verduzco clearly have a track record at Oregon /UCF of coaching elite quarterbacks/ offenses, so where is the breakdown? NIU was a much better game for him, but he still showed hesitation and indecisiveness on multiple plays, something that he rarely did last year. I wonder if knowing the system/ schemes better this year is causing him to be more patient with routes/ concepts looking for the big play (and sometimes taking a sack) whereas last year he would've scrambled quicker (and gained yards).

Is Frost's offense reliant on home runs to create base hits? In other words, it seems like his big plays do more to open up the 3,5,8 yard gains than vice versa. While our rushing stats look gaudy in the box score, a lot of the yardage came on 4-5 big runs. This could come back to hurt us once we get into Big Ten play and the defenses won't give up as many long plays initially, making it harder to achieve sustained drives later in the game.
I'm not sure that this was as big of a breakout game for Dedrick Mills as everyone is saying. Most of his rushing yards came on a couple big plays, when in reality, we need him to be the between the tackles grinder that he was at Georgia Tech. Frost doesn't seem committed to running a guy like him 15-20 times a game, which is what it might take for him to get hot. Maybe he will use him more like this in Big Ten play.

Frost's up tempo offense doesn't seem to be overly committed to wearing opponents down, instead focusing on scoring points quickly. This is understandable given the caliber/ type of athletes we have, and works OK if your defense is serviceable and you don't have stagnant drives on offense. We have seen flashes of both ends of the spectrum for offense and defense. When the offense is scoring quickly and the defense is able to get a stop or two, it results in big leads piling up quickly. However, when the offense stagnates and the defense is left on the field for 60%-75% of the game, the other team has all the time in the world to start gaining momentum against our gassed defense. It seems to devalue the momentum your team gains from scoring big TDs if 3 out of the next 4 offensive drives after scoring on a big play are 3 and outs. Scoring points quickly is only good if you are putting them in a hole they can't dig out of.
We currently rank 117th in the country in Time of Posession, while our Scoring per Game is 24th in the country. If that doesn't scream trouble going into Big Ten Play, especially considering our 3 opponents (one of whom just lost to Air Force this week) I don't know what does. On the other hand, when playing teams like Iowa that traditionally cannot score quickly, being able to get out to a big lead early might be enough to see them buckle. Its hard to beat them in a dogfight. It also keeps us in games where we are down big longer, so first half deficits mean less.
This offense seems to try and wear out teams mentally more than physically. NIU gave up sooner in the game, and it showed in the final score.


Big picture I feel great about the progress under Frost, and am interested to see how these things are resolved the rest of the year.

Looking forward, is it better to beat Illinois handily and go into Ohio State game confident (maybe overconfident), or to play a gritty game with them and gain confidence in being able to win a physical game? (which Ohio State inevitably will be). I lean towards the latter.


College Football Stats - College FB Team Average Time of Possession (Excluding OT) | TeamRankings.com

College Football average time of possession (excluding ot), by team.
www.teamrankings.com www.teamrankings.com

College Football Stats - College FB Team Points per Game on TeamRankings.com

College Football points per game, by team.
www.teamrankings.com www.teamrankings.com
Click to expand...

Time of possession is an overrated stat. Still a lot of work to be done on both sides of the ball, but if the offense had taken care of the ball, this team would be 3-0 easily.
 



optimist-the-glass-is-half-full-pessimist-the-glass-is-half-empty-mom-who-put-the-glass-here-Imcpu.jpg
 







My glass is both. This program has been snakebitten for quite some time now. Better coaches, better schemes, better recruits, etc. matter, but the only way to jump-start this program is on the actual field. More than anything, this program needs a signature win. Maybe that’s Ohio State or maybe it’s Wisconsin. Frost may have flipped the culture, but there is still a culture of finding ways to lose as we found out in Boulder.

How many of these kids HATE to lose? No kid likes to lose but how many of the HATE losing? How many of those kids were so pissed off that they couldn’t sleep after that game? I don’t think we have enough of those kids on our roster.
 

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