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Pluses and minuses of the Spring Game

YUENGLING

YUENGLING

Travel Squad
10 Year Member
Was able to watch the Spring game on tape as I couldn’t get it live on Saturday. Just a few pluses and minuses I have about the game.
First it seems to be that although this is a VERY young team especially on offense their seems to be a good deal of depth on both sides of the ball. The running back position is again young but really seems deep.
AM looks quicker running the ball and more decisive throwing it and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of receivers( again young) but talented. I thought there’d be more balls to the TE than there were.
Defensively the depth in the secondary and the linebacker position is better than I have seen in a long time. Both defensive units showed a lot of speed.
My only downer of the day was red zone play calling and the continued use of the sideline pass especially on first down. Not sure I have ever seen that play really work. It’s obvious that this is a more talented team than any of the first three Frost has brought to Nebraska. I continue to have faith in his ability as a coach and am hoping this team gets off to a GREAT start against Illinois.
 

I agree 100% with every thing you said. Some of the guys we have been waiting to see seem primed and ready. Manning, Polar Bear etc. Some of the guys we have heard were having a good Spring also showed up. Haarberg, Yantz etc. I also think that Frost and Lubick chose not to highlight some of our best. The TEs specifically. So yeah good depth and hard work shown off yesterday.
 
It's difficult to really assess RZ play because I feel the coaches did not want to pound the ball inside for fear of injuries. First half with FLAG FOOTBALL rules it's impossible to decide what players are really physical on either side of the ball.
 
YUENGLING said:
Was able to watch the Spring game on tape as I couldn’t get it live on Saturday. Just a few pluses and minuses I have about the game.
First it seems to be that although this is a VERY young team especially on offense their seems to be a good deal of depth on both sides of the ball. The running back position is again young but really seems deep.
AM looks quicker running the ball and more decisive throwing it and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of receivers( again young) but talented. I thought there’d be more balls to the TE than there were.
Defensively the depth in the secondary and the linebacker position is better than I have seen in a long time. Both defensive units showed a lot of speed.
My only downer of the day was red zone play calling and the continued use of the sideline pass especially on first down. Not sure I have ever seen that play really work. It’s obvious that this is a more talented team than any of the first three Frost has brought to Nebraska. I continue to have faith in his ability as a coach and am hoping this team gets off to a GREAT start against Illinois.
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Yeah I wasn't overly impressed with play calling and didn't see a commitment to power run game like we have heard. Run plays seem to involve motion and fakes and not much straight ahead power.
 



Let's be honest, the defense has had the offense's number all spring. And it isn't even close based on what I'm hearing and reading. So for anyone to say we saw massive improvement (offensively) while our starters played against 2nd and 3rd stringers, well, I'll agree to disagree. I was more impressed with some of the kids on the white team (Bullock, Nash, Nixon) who flashed a bit and gives me hope for some depth at certain positions.

Scott intentionally set this game up to have all his 1s on the same side of the ball for optics and optics only. The fan base would have been beside itself if it saw what many have seen all spring. I'll give him credit, based on the glowing reviews of the offense, he was successful in painting the right picture for the fan base.
 
36Blast said:
Let's be honest, the defense has had the offense's number all spring. And it isn't even close based on what I'm hearing and reading. So for anyone to say we saw massive improvement (offensively) while our starters played against 2nd and 3rd stringers, well, I'll agree to disagree. I was more impressed with some of the kids on the white team (Bullock, Nash, Nixon) who flashed a bit and gives me hope for some depth at certain positions.

Scott intentionally set this game up to have all his 1s on the same side of the ball for optics and optics only. The fan base would have been beside itself if it saw what many have seen all spring. I'll give him credit, based on the glowing reviews of the offense, he was successful in painting the right picture for the fan base.
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Martinez looks slimmer and faster. When he had his feet set he was throwing a good ball with good velocity and being decisive with his decisions. Noticed in the second quarter he seemed to be just "chuckin" the ball and not having his feet set. This is not going to work in the season against first string defenses as some of those passes are going to be picked. Again, realize it is spring.

Think Frost set the teams like he normally has but there were quite a few defensive starters out mainly thinking, this was their sixth year of spring ball in some instances.

The offensive line from an appearance standpoint looks like it is a line that is the tallest, strongest, and fittest the team has had in quite awhile.

The depth that is being established will be great for special teams.

At least it wasn't like the Kansas spring game where the score was 72-24 and 42 to 4 at one point......and the scoring system was set up where those 72 points were on the defensive side.
 
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36Blast said:
Let's be honest, the defense has had the offense's number all spring. And it isn't even close based on what I'm hearing and reading. So for anyone to say we saw massive improvement (offensively) while our starters played against 2nd and 3rd stringers, well, I'll agree to disagree. I was more impressed with some of the kids on the white team (Bullock, Nash, Nixon) who flashed a bit and gives me hope for some depth at certain positions.

Scott intentionally set this game up to have all his 1s on the same side of the ball for optics and optics only. The fan base would have been beside itself if it saw what many have seen all spring. I'll give him credit, based on the glowing reviews of the offense, he was successful in painting the right picture for the fan base.
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I appreciate your optimism.
 
djlhuskerfan said:
Yeah I wasn't overly impressed with play calling and didn't see a commitment to power run game like we have heard. Run plays seem to involve motion and fakes and not much straight ahead power.
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WEll, I don't think we saw the playbook. We saw some players. That is what spring ball is about I believe. Let the Illini guess which offense they'll see.
 




The sideline, out in the flat pass was a dud. Nixon was the only one I saw that juked his way for yardage. That pass has the potential for disaster in the way of an interception for a TD!

Edit: I re-watched the game last night and there were a few more sideline catches for gains than I remembered.
 
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SemperHusker said:
I think that's the one. Whatever it's called it seems to rarely work. Really rarely.
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I still wonder if we're talking about two different plays. The wr bubble screen works a lot when blocked right. Liewer scored against Purdue last year with it.
 
goodnterribles said:
I still wonder if we're talking about two different plays. The wr bubble screen works a lot when blocked right. Liewer scored against Purdue last year with it.
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I think just about every college and pro team use it. Execution, like on any play is paramount. Pretty sure OU will be running it against the Red this season.
 

A Bubble Screen is a quick pass to a WR or TE with other WRs/TE blocking downfield for them. A Swing Pass is thrown to a RB running horizontal to the Line of Scrimmage after starting in the backfield, but it's only truly a Swing Pass if he has started to turn upfield. A screen pass to a RB could look like a combination of both the Bubble Screen and the Swing Pass, but he must catch it behind the LoS, and most screen passes also have OL getting out front and downfield to block.

Based on what I've read on HM, ALL of the above used to be called "Swing Passes," but now that seems to be evolving.

Fwiw, I don't remember any Bubble Screens in Saturday's Red-White game, though I do remember a couple of swing passes to the RB, and a sort of odd delayed screen pass to the RB after the QB rolled out in the opposite direction. This was the play where AM (with assistance from the wind) threw a backwards pass for a 9-yard loss.

As far as the dangerous passes mentioned above, I think that the most dangerous Out-patterns that I saw on Saturday were some simple sideline Out-patterns where the WR sat down in the cushion of zone coverage, or the Smash concepts that Nixon & Co. ran where they started inside then crossed underneath at least one outside WR who was slanting in. Both are relatively generic offensive plays that are a part of every offensive scheme that I know of from Osborne's era through now and into the foreseeable future. Jeff Smith was running a variant of the Smash concept when we failed to convert the 2-point conversion against Miami in the '84 Orange Bowl. About half of the passes that Ricky Simmons caught in the early 80s were variants of the mid-level Out-pattern against deep zone coverage.
 
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