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Monday scrimmage thoughts


ShortSideOption said:
Just going to go into a spring preview for each position group based on my text conversations and the open practice. Have had zero ability to see actually anything that other public hasn’t... so whatever. But talking football is much needed.

Quarterback:
Adrian Martinez show, we all know that. I'm a little worried about our #2, we definitely are not as solid as we were in 2019 or 2020 there, but in reality, does it matter? Typically if a team gets down to their backup QB for an extended period of time, it's not going to be great anyway. If we can find a way to keep Martinez healthy, it will give us time to get Haarberg, Masker, and Smothers up and running to find a viable backup and potential starter for when Martinez leaves. I think people on Saturday got a taste of what I’ve been stating on here for the past year, Smothers is wildly athletic, but his throws need consistency. Whoever is more accurate between those 3 is going to eventually get the nod. I would lean Smothers right now, but he is a less polished McCaffrey. Very fast, but needs to work on his arm and accuracy. That’s to be expected… he really didn’t get much time in this offense in 2020. Haarberg has a much better arm, but isn't quite as athletic. Masker is a mix of both. I wouldn't read too much into who is #2 this fall, that will be a back and forth every day until Martinez is gone IMO.

Runningback:
This room continues to just confuse the heck out of me. Held is a guy I have a ton of respect for, but if not for bringing in Stepp from USC, our entire RB room would be full of scholarship players that are labeled as freshmen. Now... a guy like Johnson is going into his third year, but the fact remains we are very young there. My friend at USC told me we were getting a very good RB in Stepp when he transferred here... he got to watch him everyday and said he has an "it" factor. With that said, he cautioned me because "even though he transferred due to not really fitting what we do, he also struggled to get many touches because he just wasn't on the field much whether that was injuries for games or sitting out practice. Hopefully you guys don't see that with him." He’s unfortunately out the rest of the spring. We have some great options behind him too, with Ervin, Morrison, Scott, and Thompkins, but even some of those guys have been sitting out more than you like to see. I've brought this up before, and @N2FL has reiterated it, but the easiest spot to make your mark early in Power5 football is at RB and WR. You don't have to get stronger to play there, you can come in and just be fast and do just fine. You also have guys like Belt and Jewitt who may have something to say here, and Yant as a walk-on is at least getting pub. The spring is just such a difficult time to gauge what will actually happen in the fall.

Wide Receiver:
So here is an interesting spot. If I had to call it right now, it would be Falck, Martin, and Toure as your starters. But let's be honest, if Betts or Manning can do what they are capable of, they are going to insert themselves to the conversation for starting. The issue is, they were both this talented last year when we needed them. Until I see Manning play a couple games in the fall I can't get there with him. I do have a lot of confidence in Betts right now though. A guy like Alante Brown is so special, but he's still learning the position and is probably why he is behind ST (along with an injury). Guys like Nixon and Nance also are going to try and make a move this year. It will be really tough for guys like Neville, Grimes, and Hardy to crack the lineup. We are really deep here, but as people have said every year since 2018.... this is the deepest the WR room has been since the staff got here. While we said that in 2019, 2020, and now 2021... that gives me a little pause. For whatever reason we just couldn't get these new guys up and going, but at some point it will click.

Tightend:
One of the deepest positions on the team. Allen will be your starter with Vokolek getting a ton of reps with him. Scouts drool over AA, and Vokolek has a ton of athleticism. In comes Thomas Fidone which has a guy like Kurt Rafdal transfer out (he was pretty much already on his way out). Those are the transfers you hope for in your program. Rooms so deep that veteran guys see the writing on the wall and find a place they have a better shot at playing. I also really like James Carnie, but with us having those guys as our top 3 (and sprinkle in Hickman for the H-back stuff), I think it will be tough to see him early. With that said, I will be curious to see if a guy like Fidone or Carnie start replacing Hickman on some of those motion packages we did with Hickman and have CH slide outside permanently. Not a ton to say here, a ton of veteran leadership with some quality young guys learning the ropes for the future.

Offensive Line:
This is where it gets interesting. I would say only 2 people have a starting spot locked up, and that's Benhart and Jurgens. I would also say Corcoran has a starting spot locked up, but i'm not sure if that's at LT or guard. He is going to get every shot to be our LT, and I think we should keep him there as we have a ton of depth on the inside, but if a guy like Banks is better suited to play tackle giving us our best 5, Corcoran affords us some flexibility. I have stated many times that if Piper wasn't a 2-3 year starter for us something went horribly wrong. He was ahead of schedule and as a redshirt freshman unseated Wilson making him transfer. Him and Bando have a dog fight on their hands for one of the guard spots. Jurgens will be your center, and you can bet that his backup will be one of the starting guards if he goes down. On the other side, you have Hixson, Sichterman, and Nourilli (sp?). The thing with this is there will be a lot of shuffling to make sure we have our best 5 and then our best 8-10. It wouldn't surprise me to see Banks back up a tackle instead of guard spot, etc. There’s just so much up in the air. What people see at the open practice Saturday could be different than what the line does the following practice or the one before.

Offensive Summary:
We go as far as Adrian Martinez takes us. I don’t really care that we have basically zero experience behind him because again, if you get to that point things aren’t great anyway. I only have two pauses when it comes to our offense… first, is we are hearing how this is the greatest skill rooms Frost has had since he’s been here. It’s familiar for a reason:



247sports had Nebraska ranked 5th in the country in that regard back in 2019. For whatever reason, we struggle to get younger guys on the field. The second pause I have is the notion of the possible “changing of identity”. You had these quotes from our OC:



It’s basically the inverse of why our offense put stress on the defense when Frost got here. We put guys like Spielman and Robinson out there, are you going to keep a linebacker out there so they can help on the run? If so we will throw them the ball. Are you going to put a DB out there so you can cover them? If so we will run it. Now we are just doing the inverse, getting rid of Robinson and trading him out for Toure. What concerns me is except for Toure, we had every single one of these WRs we are expecting to play here last year. But Frost was brought here as an offensive genius. I still believe that from him. More on this in the overall summary.

Defensive Line:
We are really good here in 5 of our 6 spots (1st and 2nd string). And I have confidence they can find that backup NG. Last year we had the same situation, and I don't think Chinander gets enough credit for what he did changing our nickel package to 2 DEs and 2 OLBs along the line. It allowed you to get Daniels off the field and rest him, and less snaps overall for your NGs when you weren't that deep there. You obviously have Ty Robinson that can slide down if need be, Jordon Riley who can play, and hopefully Nash Hutmacher is a little closer to ready this year. As I was telling most people last year, NH just wasn't going to be ready as a true freshman even though I really liked his wrestling background. He just wasn't there yet. A full year learning about more leverage and how the offense blocks you could go a long way. At DE we are completely stacked... one of our main starters is out this spring with Stille, but you had Thomas and Robinson as your starters on Saturday. That's a really good combo with a guy like Casey Rogers waiting and having something to say about it too. I will be curious who steps up after those guys. Is Newsom ready? Has Graham put on enough weight? Can one of our 2021 guys step up? Either way, we are just fine here.

Inside Linebackers:
This is where there's a lot up in the air. Honas getting some work done in the offseason so they are being careful with him, he will start opposite of Reimer. The FCS transfer Kolarevic gives us great depth there. Oh and by the way... the leading tackler the last two games for Nebraska was Nick Henrich from the ILB spot with 21 tackles the final two contests. That's four solid guys. And quite honestly, I take a look at Henrich at OLB since you also have Snodgrass sitting and waiting along with some talent like Kpai, Gbayor, and Malcom coming in. The long and short of it is, we have a ton of GREAT options here. Which is a little bit opposite of my next position group.

Outside Linebackers:
Much like ILB, we have a ton of options, but there really only is one guy that is an every down OLB and that's Domann who is out this spring. Opposite of him, you have Tannor, Nelson, and Payne. Payne was such a pleasant surprise last year and goes into a little of what I harp on for S/C. He gets hurt, then gets sick, loses a ton of weight, and all of a sudden is one of our better OLBs when the plan was for him to be a DE when he got here (they were going to look at him both places but original plan was DE with a shift to OLB depending on depth). I'll be interested to see how he does being much healthier. I was impressed with Tannors pash rushing last year in our nickel, and Nelson has found a nice niche against the run. Can Ho'Ohulli insert himself as a true freshman? Do we shift Henrich there to get more consistency? This is really the only spot i'm worried about on defense next year (besides backup NG).

Safeties:
This is pretty easy... you have Dismuke and Williams back for your starters. Isaac Gifford is your flex guy a bit, taking some Domann type snaps but also able to play true safety. Pola-Gates and Farmer for your backups, but we watched how much of a ball hawk Farmer was in that Northwestern game. Our offense doesn't score a TD if not for that guy. While he's a year or two away (which is fine because we have some great older safeties), we got the better of the Westside P5 commits in Koby Bretz. Watching him and Gifford develop will be fun the next few years.

Corner:
This is where it's interesting. CTB obviously getting one of the spots. Fisher then has to find out if Clark is fully healthy, Newsome is fully healthy, Joseph is grasping being a P5 player, or if Lynum is the most ready. There's also a couple true freshman that looked good, but for lack of a better term you don't "need" them yet with what we have as long as the injuries are behind the guys. I still am so impressed with how Fisher has transformed the DB room since he got here. When Frost and company got to Lincoln, WR and DB were the two rooms they identified that needed to get deeper and better. Fisher has no doubt done that.

Defensive Summary:
Last year our defense was by far our best unit. I had to defend Chinander a bit the first few years, and he held up his end of the bargain in 2020. We don't beat Penn State if not for his guys. We don't score a TD against Northwestern if not for his guys. They had some clunkers, but that's going to happen. Our team is built around our offense, and they need to be able to handle it if we have games like Illinois defensively. I've said many times on here since Scott arrived that if defense is our best unit we are in serious trouble, I can pull the quotes if we need to. But Chinanders crew was the best of the 3 in 2020 and we went 3-6. We were ranked 64th last year in scoring defense, and I think with another year under Chinander and all of our major pieces besides Bootle coming back, we can get into the 50s maybe even the 40s. I really like what our defense has become. My only pause that i've brought up before is the fact that typically when things start out in practices or seasons, the defense has the upperhand because it takes time to develop chemistry on offense. Did Covid-19 help our defense look a little better than they are? I don't quite think so, but it wouldn't shock me if we had the same rankings in 2021 here as we did in 2020 just because offenses will be more in sync.

Overall Summary:
At the risk of getting yelled at for leaving them out, i'll start with special teams and just admit I was completely wrong last year when I said Rutledge couldn't have made a better move coming here because there is no way to be worse than we were in 2019. That couldn't have been more false. But in my defense I did say it was pretty idiotic to not have a full-time guy with some skin in the game. This year Dawson is taking the reigns, and we have Cerni back for punting. While I think it was more of a coverage thing anyway (feel free to go back and look at my Iowa special teams analysis), Culp is a returning all-conference kicker and we should be plenty deep with the additional covid year. Special teams will help both our offense and defense be better in 2021.

We go as far as our offense takes us. I've brought up before that in 2019 we held out most of our heavy-hitters in the spring. We were coming off a tail end of 2018 that had people seeing what we were capable of, and had hit the S/C really hard leading to these comments:



Spielman and Robinson were nursing some injuries, Mills wasn't on campus yet, and if you go watch the spring game take a look at our leading rushers and receivers were from that 2019 red/white scrimmage. We sputtered a little bit offensively in 2019, but it wasn't terrible. You then have 2020 that no one can predict, and we don't get spring, summer, or really a fall camp. So it made it tough, especially with a new OC. The things that are going to get us where we want to be in 2021 are getting 1 or 2 RBs up to speed and Martinez developing chemistry with a few WRs so we feel comfortable. Weight room and everything else is pretty irrelevant at this point for us save someone like Corcoran or Reimer who are still young. We went from the most tenured team in the B1G with the most experience returning in 2020 (which is why I thought we would be ahead of everyone), to having probably the lowest amount of starts and production returning in 2021. But we have the biggest indicator back, and that's a returning QB. If our offense was humming but our defense was struggling which was creating 3-6, i'd be much more worried. Because that would probably mean that we needed to make a change at DC, create some uncertainty and yet another shift in philosophy. The combination of IMO Frost being great at what he does offensively, our defense being a foundation we an lean on, our punter being back, and a full-time coach getting Special Teams Coordinator duties with the help of Busch will go a really long way.

The one things that does concern me is our second half trajectory from when the staff got here to what we've seen in 2020. I took a look at our game records and scores in the second half and it was really surprising:

2018 Second Half vs P5:
Nebraska lost 152,163 (11 points in 10 games) and had a second half record of 4-5-1

2019 Second Half vs P5:
Nebraska lost 127-147 (20 points in 10 games) and had a second half record of 3-6-1

2020 Second Half vs P5
Nebraska lost 60-113 (53 points in 8 games) and had a second half record of 1-6-1

That's an interesting trend from year 1 to year 3, we’ve gotten worse each year since the staff got here, but why? I’m not entirely sure the reason. Are we getting worn down? Are we getting out-adjusted by the other coaches at halftime? The truth is, probably a combination of things. But that's definitely something we need to get corrected for 2021. Again, since we have Frost i'm not too concerned. And Chinander has shown really good adjustments at halftime IMO against teams like Iowa forcing four straight 3 and outs that one year.

Long story short, let's see how Martinez starts to gel with his RBs and WRs. We have enough talent there to be good. I love our TEs, love our OL, love our DL, love 3 out of our 4 LB spots, love our DBs, love our punter and kicker. Now we just gotta get better at football.
Click to expand...

Nice and thorough summary. To me, the scariest thing in there is that our #2 QB may be a "less-polished McCaffrey". If that is the case, we are in BIG trouble if/when AM goes down.
 
Any thoughts regarding whether we will be able to rush the passer this year? Even if our defensive line and outside backers are otherwise solid, I don't see a standout pass rusher in the bunch. That's my biggest concern on defense.
 



Beareye said:
Nice and thorough summary. To me, the scariest thing in there is that our #2 QB may be a "less-polished McCaffrey". If that is the case, we are in BIG trouble if/when AM goes down.
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To be fair, he hasn't had near the reps McCaffrey had. This is basically year 1 for him in our offense. He had plenty of playbook study but just didn't get to run much of it between the lines.
 




Red Reign said:
We're you able to watch the new punter from Australia?

Have not heard a lot about him

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I really didn't watch much of him. Early reports are that he is struggling a bit with putting it where they want it but he's coming off a lower leg injury from last year so there's probably some rust he needs to knock off.
 
Flat Water said:
Any thoughts regarding whether we will be able to rush the passer this year? Even if our defensive line and outside backers are otherwise solid, I don't see a standout pass rusher in the bunch. That's my biggest concern on defense.
Click to expand...
I think that's part of the "what OLB steps up opposite Domann." Payne started doing a good job of it, and Tannor was good in our nickel package as one of the DEs IMO. But we got most of our pressure up the middle last year with ILBs and we obviously need more of an edge presence.

Still trying to sort that out I think.
 
ShortSideOption said:
I really didn't watch much of him. Early reports are that he is struggling a bit with putting it where they want it but he's coming off a lower leg injury from last year so there's probably some rust he needs to knock off.
Click to expand...
His second punt had great hang time and looked to be where he wanted. His other punts were better than Detlefsen, but not Przystup. Przystup had about four punts that had hang time better than Cerni and were caught between the 5 and 20 yard line. I don't know if that is where they wanted it, but the hang time was such that if the opponent caught it, a couple of guys would be ready to flatten him. Of course, today, it would be targeting, I'm sure.
 
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All 'N' 011808 said:
His second punt had great hang time and looked to be where he wanted. His other punts were better than Detlefsen, but not Przystup. Przystup had about for punts that had hang time better than Cerni and were caught between the 5 and 20 yard line. I don't know if that is where they wanted it, but the hang time was such that if the opponent caught it, a couple of guys would be ready to flatten him. Of course, today, it would be targeting, I'm sure.
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Przystup was supposed to be a better-than-average punter when he showed up, but they turned him into the kick-off guy where he didn't get the necessary power. Maybe concentrating on just punting is getting him back into that groove?
 



ShortSideOption said:
It can go so much easier with better special teams play for our offense. Our defense actually struggled due to special teams as well, Hail Varsity did a good article on it:

hailvarsity.com

Nebraska Cornhuskers Football: Latest News & Video Content | Hail Varsity

Hail Varsity has you covered with the latest Husker Football news and content! Find stories beyond the scoreboard from your favorite local experts!
hailvarsity.com hailvarsity.com

Here was my write-up when I finally had enough after watching Iowa own us on special teams:

Nebraska lost Jovan Dewitt after the 2019 season who was its Special Teams Coordinator for the team. To replace him, we had Sean Snyder from Kansas State locked and loaded to come up and be our analyst, but it turns out USCs Clay Helton called his dad Bill and begged him to come out to Los Angeles because they knew they needed him. Long and short of it, Coach Helton offered Coach Snyder a full-time special teams coordinator job on staff for more money than Nebraska was giving him, and he takes them from 95th in 2019 to the #1 special teams unit in the country for 2020. Quite the turnaround, and Nebraska is left scrambling. We land on Johnny Rutledge to take the same role we were going to give Coach Snyder.

We all know how this story ends. Nebraska looks awful on special teams, we are the only team in the entire B1G conference that doesn’t have a full-time coach labeled as their Special Teams Coordinator, and we finish second to last and 106th in the country for our special teams ranking. It really hit home for me while watching us play Iowa that we were struggling here. Now keep in mind that it was a sunny day and windy, but Iowa was dealing with it too. Also while you’re reading this keep in mind we only lost by 6 points.

Nebraska Kickoff Breakdown vs Iowa:

-Culp kick to the 17, returned 15 to the 32 yard line (we obviously decide we aren’t doing that anymore)
-Culp pooch to the 30 in the sun, Iowa guy bobbles but gets it at the 30
-Culp pooch to the 30 in the sun, fair catch at the 30
-Culp pooch to the 31 in the sun, fair catch at the 31 (can’t keep giving them the ball at the 30 or better)
-Culp kicks to the 11, returned 23 yards to the 34

Iowa Kickoff Breakdown vs Nebraska:

-Touchback
-Touchback
-Touchback
-Brown fields at the 2, returns 19 yards to the 21
-Touchback
-Brown fields at the 2, returns 19 yards to the 21

Kickoff analysis:

So Iowa did not have a ball less than their own 30 when we kicked off, conversely our best starting field position was the 25 when they just kicked it through the endzone. Wouldn’t that have been nice for us to do? Further, there was over a 10 yard difference when Iowa got a return compared to Nebraska. These little things add up. But it wasn’t as bad as punting believe it or not…

Nebraska Punting Breakdown vs Iowa:

-Przystup punts 39 yards to the 36, Iowa returns it 8 yards to the 44
-Przystup punts 42 yards to the 23, returned 31 yards to the 46 (we decide not to kick to them anymore)
-Przystup coffin corner punts it 35 yards out of bounds to the 40
-Przystup coffin corner punts it 32 yards out of bounds to the 13
-Przystup coffin corner punts it 37 yards out of bounds to the 35

Iowa Punting Breakdown vs Nebraska:

-35 yards and downed at the 2
-46 yards to the 35, CTB fumbles and Iowa recovers

Punting analysis:

So we can’t cover them at all so we just start kicking it out of bounds and not even giving them a chance to fumble like CTB all the while not kicking it further than 37 yards doing the “coffin corner” (I use that term because I’m somewhat mocking the situation). Further, the two Iowa punts resulted in a pin at the 2 yard line and a turnover.

Special Teams Summary:

So I bring the Iowa game up as that was absolutely garbage what happened on special teams. I was watching it and sick to my stomach. We have a dozen kids in Nebraska every year that can kick the ball through the endzone and one of them would walk-on. Kick the freaking ball through the endzone. Our punting gets a bit of a pass because we lost our top punter, but our decisions on what to do really bothered me. Again, keep in mind we only lost by 6, but these field position discrepancies from special teams really tell a story. We can win these games in the future if we put more attention to detail on this area in my opinion.

The one thing I do want to say though is I’m not sure Snyder would have gotten much better results. You have to have a full-time analyst on staff, and you have to care about it. Even when Dewitt was here, we weren’t really that good. But why at UCF could Frost take the team from 61st in special teams to 6th in the country? The bottom line is we need to focus more on it, and it starts with having a full-time assistant that is responsible there. This isn’t some big mystery. We keep quoting one score losses and Iowa is a great example. Win field position, pay more attention to detail, and we are .500 at least in 2019 or 2020.

The good news is for any of you following me, I put out there a couple weeks ago we will be going the full-time special teams coordinator route. The fact we even tried getting away with just an analyst is crazy to me, but glad we are fixing it. Frost said he doesn’t expect staff changes, I still think we could see one, but we will have a full-time guy take a stronger hold of special teams.
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If Frost can find somebody/anybody who can kick the ball into the end zone consistency it would solve a ton of problems. Bring in some ex soccer players from the student body and if they can kick the football into the end zone 90 of 100 times give him or her a scholarship.
 
ShortSideOption said:
I kind of get their thought process. They have a freshman all-american in Martinez, so go get a McCaffrey, not a bad backup. Then you get a Smothers and you see what Verduzco can do with them and their throwing while you have your "sure" guy starting for you in Martinez. With hindsight that didn't work out, but I understand what they were doing.

But to the point you are making, I think they are finding out that the difference between a guy like Martinez and a guy like Milton/Mariota is the turnovers (interceptions or fumbles). Martinez actually has a better career completion percentage than Milton. Even Milton's 2017 undefeated season, Martinez was 72% last year and Milton was 67%. The difference is not giving the ball to the other team.
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Another huge difference was Milton's ability to pass the ball down field imo. In 2017 he had 37 tds and only 9 ints. I believe he was also a true soph in 2017. :thumbsup:

A side note watch the film of Milton in the FSU spring game. Doesn't look like he's lost much of anything throwing the ball.........
 
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