ShortSideOption
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And here we are on the verge of another spring game. Where’s my copy and paste button? “Guys have been working harder than ever”, “they like the new scheme, it lets us fly around more”. Did I get that right? We are all victims of it, whether you have a 4-8 year and you are anxious to start the new season so you can quit hearing about it, or you had a great year and want to continue on it, the spring game gives you a glimpse of what is to come and if all the offseason fluff is just that, or legitimate hype.
I’ve never been a big fan of when people say “the Nebraska way”, it seems a bit arrogant and I really never knew what it meant. The past few years and this hire have really put that in perspective for me. It certainly doesn’t mean run the ball, must use a fullback, or really anything on the field (well hopefully not since it won’t look anything like the 90s while Frost is here on the field with scheme). To me, it’s a bunch of things that are really tough to understand unless you’ve been around it and lived it, played for it, or coached it. Coach Frost numerous times has stated how “Nebraska got away from a lot of the things that made it special and that worked here”. The first thing that comes to mind is off the field and all sections pulling in the same direction. We saw with Pelini how things go when the administration and the head coach don’t get along. We saw with Riley how things work/look when the levers are being pulled from guys that have nothing to do with decisions on Saturdays in between the lines. We were paying tackling coaches to come in so we could show we were taking every precaution necessary and to avoid getting sued at any point. We were having guys make personnel decisions that weren’t coaches. We were telling the head coach to fire long time coordinators and bring in another guy that ran a completely different defense who the coach had no rapport with. It used to be that all the people involved from the truck driver that transports the equipment, janitors, secretaries, ADs, everything, they were all on board with the common goal. There was a level of trust and accountability. That was the Nebraska way. And this is trickling to every facet of our organization now. It resonates from all coaches, Chinander will speak to knowing the defense needs to “get the ball back so the nation’s best offense can go score.” Moos knows we need to increase roster size so we can get practices like Frost wants. It is extremely refreshing to hear people all talk with a unified message about why they coach things the way they do, and administration just letting a coach coach.
But it goes deeper than that. Do you know how hard it is for a coach with a multi-million dollar contract to put faith in the local kids of Nebraska that they can get it done? I don’t mean that as a blast to our local high school players, but again it’s something you had to live to understand. Frost has made mention about his 1997 team having 10 of the 11 starters on offense from the state of Nebraska. Say that to a coach now-a-days at another FBS school and unless they know our history, they won’t believe you. To further Frost’s point, do you know that the only conference championship game we played in in our current conference, we started 3 walk-on offensive linemen from Nebraska? We literally manned the entire inside of our line with a kid from Norris, Lincoln Lutheran, and Elkhorn High that we didn’t recruit to come here. They wanted to be here. We absolutely need those kids from out of state, but don’t be scared to get our best high school guys here either even if they don’t have the high rankings. Noah Fant, Harrison Phillips, Drew Ott, Nate Bazata, Noah Keller, Casey Sayles, they are all guys we missed on with the magical gift of hindsight. There will still be misses, but we will offer far more guys from Nebraska than in the past, and we will have an increased presence with our walk-on program. While Riley kept up the walk-on program, we were getting a lot of kids from out of state recruited to walk-on here. Not a lot wrong with that, Stewart Bradley did that and started. But the core is the kids that live and die Husker red. They set your tone. The story of Lawrence Phillips watching Matt Turman clean more than him in the weight room is still strong on my mind. Watching Noah Vedral at practice and seeing the energy we could have from our core is exciting to think about. More on that later.
Lastly, the “Nebraska way” lets you know what you are getting into. Someone on the former staff has spoken with me recently, and the impression I got was he just was not ready for what all came along with being a football coach at Nebraska. “Everywhere I went people wanted a picture with me or to talk to me about the team. It was crazy.” I got the sense he wasn’t ready for that, and liked it a little better not being in the spotlight. Jay Foreman once said that the Nebraska coaching job can be the best in the world, or the worst. If you bunker down like Bo and don’t give people anything, think the fans and media are against you (even though you may be right in some instances), it won’t make things better. Frost brings up being booed by Nebraska fans, and also talks about never being as good or as bad as you are portrayed by fans and the media, and to get better the next day than you were before. That’s about the best way you can handle it. And again, just remember that everyone wants what you want.
I will say that even tho this gets thrown around a lot, it does feel different down there. The kids are hungry to be better, a staff came in that has proven they are successful, and everything from practices to weight room is structured much differently. This staff will have a much easier time telling these kids how they want things done, why they make them practice the way they do, why they do things off the field the way they do. Taking a step back, is it really hard to acknowledge why Riley and their staff had trouble getting buy in? We fired a 9 win coach, brought in a guy that went 2-7 in his own conference, and then that staff had to tell the kids “you need to do things differently, here is what we did.” It just wasn’t going to work psychologically for 18-22 year old kids. Now, Nebraska is coming off a 4-8 season and brought in the National Coach of the Year that took a team from 0-12 to 13-0 in 2 years, capping that off beating a team in the Peach Bowl that beat the tar out of Alabama and Georgia. If the kid doesn’t want to listen to why he should do things differently, GTFO. We are getting more kids reps than ever, most of the time, 44 kids are getting reps at the same time to develop depth. There’s not a lot of stopping and coaching during these, they coach in the film room. Our coaches talk about “we’ve seen it and repped it dozens of times by the time it happens on Saturday.” I’ve had the pleasure at being to 2 or 3 practices and I’ll give my run down. I’ll try to remain more positive than negative here, and keep the glass is half-full mentality.
OFFENSE INTRODUCTION:
We will start with the flash and what UCF/Frost were known for. Careful here, as the first year down in Orlando, the defense is what carried the team. Watching Noah Vedral at practice is something that gets you excited, and not just when plays are going. He sprints from station to station and rarely looks tired, at one point in a practice I saw him 10 yards ahead of the offense, look back and start back pedaling encouraging everyone to get there. What’s going to happen when it’s a team full of guys like that that know what’s expected of them? The offense is built on a successive play theory. Where we may see things ran a couple times with no success, we are setting up a play later down the line. Here’s an example of that that UCF doesn’t hit against Auburn. They ran the short route a bunch, then faked the short route and tried to get their guy deep:
The offense is designed to create one on one matchups where our skill guys can beat people with speed like the video above. The spring game will look much different than you have seen and it will be fast. It’s going to be exciting. Let’s dive into the positions.
RUNNINGBACK:
Let’s start with the one I’m most excited about. We will have an embarrassment of riches here, and this offense makes it so I can’t tell who is good and who isn’t. What I mean is, Frost stresses the defense so much that Ozigbo (who has slimmed down some) is ripping off 30/40 yard runs in practice. Bradley would be my pick on who looks the best while playing 11 v 11, he is elusive and quick. Wilbon has had some solid days as well (he’s packed on a ton of good weight too). Bell if you watch 7 v 7 or individual drills is the guy you say “woah, who is that”, but for me he hasn’t shown what he’s capable of yet in practice when the bullets are flying in scrimmages. Could be adjusting to college, could be adjusting to a new offense, could be his line isn’t performing as well as the other guys’. But I would give him the benefit of the doubt as well. And what gets scary is our RB room doesn’t get any worse this summer. In will come Washington, Jones, Woodyard, it’s going to get real dangerous in a hurry. This position won’t be an issue, and we will have multiple long touchdown runs that will be exciting for the people in the stands who say “just think when we get our guys in here.” The only downside here is Tre Bryant and his injury, I just am not very optimistic.
QUARTERBACK:
This is one of the positions that gives me some pause for thinking we can get to 9/10 wins this year. We are choosing between a kid that wouldn’t have got offered if Frost was the coach, a true freshman, or a walk-on JUCO to man the offense for 2018. Throw on top a new offense that goes as fast as possible, and it’s a challenge. It is amazing to see how much different our offense looks with Vedral at the helm, he makes others better with his knowledge of the offense and knowing what defensive player we are trying to put in conflict. If Vedral gets his waiver, I’ll feel better about things, but until then, we are probably rolling with Gebbia. Gebbia is much faster than people give him credit for, and he will be good in this offense. It’s just new and besides learning a new offense, he will be starting Division 1 football for the first time. That’s a lot to ask. Martinez is my dark horse who IN MY OPINION is sitting 3rd string right now. He has the highest ceiling but you can tell he’s not 100% healthy yet. Bunch is a guy that will show some real good things as well, so he’s at least an option for us. There’s just a lot to learn with this offense, you go fast to get the defense out of whack and make mistakes. The issue is, our signal caller can have that happen to them just as easily. Frost will get us in situations to win, our quarterback has to make the right decisions. We will get there, and this position will get better week to week. But you can tell we just aren’t there yet. The good news is, it was practice 2 and 10 (or whatever it was) that I saw, so who expects them to be where they need to? There will be some growing pains tho. What’s interesting is that all of those “awkward” throws that we watched Milton make for UCF, our QB coach teaches some of that stuff. There’s a ton of things that are for the most part frowned upon in the coaching/football community that we are teaching. It’s pretty cool actually to watch, because a guy like Vedral who has been working it so long looks great at it. We rep throwing late across the middle. Crazy times that I’m all for if it reverses our lack of conference title trend.
WIDE RECEIVER:
Should be pretty good here too, just like runningback… Spielman, Lindsey, they will be studs in this offense. The jet sweep they will run is really going to stress things laterally for the defense, so that if they don’t cheat to catch up to them on the edge, they aren’t going to get there. Once that starts happening, we will hit them up the middle with a zone read. Morgan and McQuitty are going to be reliable catching the football for us, Morgan is poised for a big year when Gebbia reverts to his comfort zone. And McGriff who enrolled this spring is a massive wide receiver, crazy to think how much trouble our last staff had recruiting big body WRs. We still went and got a little jitter bug WR in Williams who is “swimming in it” a little but working his tail off and made a few plays while I was there. And the unit gets deeper in a hurry with Dominick Watt (four star), Andre Hunt (USC decommit), and obviously some of the RBs that will split out. The key will be getting on the same page and perimeter blocking. I don’t have a ton here because we do have a ton of miscommunication early on, but I promise our staff is excited about what we have. There’s just a bit of depth issue. There’s a few times where Vedral would launch a fade and our receiver would break it off, or vice versa. Is it a read route we aren’t on the same page with? Is it miscommunication with the signals? That’s all stuff that will look drastically different after the summer, so I don’t read too much into that.
TIGHTEND:
This is the other position on offense besides QB that we need to find someone. We have a bunch of serviceable dudes, but no one that’s going to wow in 2018 (currently). Rafdal got better from the first practice I went to to the next. Stoll looks to be getting better. Jurgens should be an immediate player if they are having trouble getting Snyder or Engelhaupt going. I’m actually surprised we didn’t move Miles here, because he doesn’t really have a spot in the backfield and he could probably help here. Watch that situation I suppose. But TE is a big weapon for Frost when he has his guys. Who steps up to make that happen? I see people at other positions that make me say “he can help”, I struggle at TE. But that could be due to not knowing who or what I’m looking for. This offense I have yet to see in Husker Red, so maybe we do have who Frost wants there.
OFFENSIVE LINE:
So here’s the thing, we are better than what they had at UCF, but we aren’t as good as we want right now. Jaimes and Farniok will be good, but will they be good soon enough in 2018? Foster looks to be what his offers indicate, and he is poised to be the best of the group for 2018 in my opinion. We need that from him. But we have to find our healthy center, and unfortunately I still think Farmer either gets communication wrong a lot, or gets confused easily. Boe Wilson is certainly someone to watch. Little Farniok is a bit small but in this offense may not be the worst thing. Barnett has redistributed his weight and looks better, but is he ready? Gaylord doing better but is he getting more looks because of lack of tackle depth? Hunter Miller getting every opportunity while Michael Decker is out. I think we will take our lumps here, but with our ability to get to the outside with our faster backs and WRs, it may not be as paramount. I would say this position is still an issue, but our offensive philosophy could cover up some of our deficiencies. Our numbers at this position made it so we really couldn’t recruit to it this year. We will try to bring in some more athletic guys this year, but the ones we brought in like Jaimes, Sichterman, Farniok, etc., they are athletic for this offense. The good thing is we went heavy on tackles for the 2017 class which tends to be more athletic guys. Austin will do a nice job here.
I’ve never been a big fan of when people say “the Nebraska way”, it seems a bit arrogant and I really never knew what it meant. The past few years and this hire have really put that in perspective for me. It certainly doesn’t mean run the ball, must use a fullback, or really anything on the field (well hopefully not since it won’t look anything like the 90s while Frost is here on the field with scheme). To me, it’s a bunch of things that are really tough to understand unless you’ve been around it and lived it, played for it, or coached it. Coach Frost numerous times has stated how “Nebraska got away from a lot of the things that made it special and that worked here”. The first thing that comes to mind is off the field and all sections pulling in the same direction. We saw with Pelini how things go when the administration and the head coach don’t get along. We saw with Riley how things work/look when the levers are being pulled from guys that have nothing to do with decisions on Saturdays in between the lines. We were paying tackling coaches to come in so we could show we were taking every precaution necessary and to avoid getting sued at any point. We were having guys make personnel decisions that weren’t coaches. We were telling the head coach to fire long time coordinators and bring in another guy that ran a completely different defense who the coach had no rapport with. It used to be that all the people involved from the truck driver that transports the equipment, janitors, secretaries, ADs, everything, they were all on board with the common goal. There was a level of trust and accountability. That was the Nebraska way. And this is trickling to every facet of our organization now. It resonates from all coaches, Chinander will speak to knowing the defense needs to “get the ball back so the nation’s best offense can go score.” Moos knows we need to increase roster size so we can get practices like Frost wants. It is extremely refreshing to hear people all talk with a unified message about why they coach things the way they do, and administration just letting a coach coach.
But it goes deeper than that. Do you know how hard it is for a coach with a multi-million dollar contract to put faith in the local kids of Nebraska that they can get it done? I don’t mean that as a blast to our local high school players, but again it’s something you had to live to understand. Frost has made mention about his 1997 team having 10 of the 11 starters on offense from the state of Nebraska. Say that to a coach now-a-days at another FBS school and unless they know our history, they won’t believe you. To further Frost’s point, do you know that the only conference championship game we played in in our current conference, we started 3 walk-on offensive linemen from Nebraska? We literally manned the entire inside of our line with a kid from Norris, Lincoln Lutheran, and Elkhorn High that we didn’t recruit to come here. They wanted to be here. We absolutely need those kids from out of state, but don’t be scared to get our best high school guys here either even if they don’t have the high rankings. Noah Fant, Harrison Phillips, Drew Ott, Nate Bazata, Noah Keller, Casey Sayles, they are all guys we missed on with the magical gift of hindsight. There will still be misses, but we will offer far more guys from Nebraska than in the past, and we will have an increased presence with our walk-on program. While Riley kept up the walk-on program, we were getting a lot of kids from out of state recruited to walk-on here. Not a lot wrong with that, Stewart Bradley did that and started. But the core is the kids that live and die Husker red. They set your tone. The story of Lawrence Phillips watching Matt Turman clean more than him in the weight room is still strong on my mind. Watching Noah Vedral at practice and seeing the energy we could have from our core is exciting to think about. More on that later.
Lastly, the “Nebraska way” lets you know what you are getting into. Someone on the former staff has spoken with me recently, and the impression I got was he just was not ready for what all came along with being a football coach at Nebraska. “Everywhere I went people wanted a picture with me or to talk to me about the team. It was crazy.” I got the sense he wasn’t ready for that, and liked it a little better not being in the spotlight. Jay Foreman once said that the Nebraska coaching job can be the best in the world, or the worst. If you bunker down like Bo and don’t give people anything, think the fans and media are against you (even though you may be right in some instances), it won’t make things better. Frost brings up being booed by Nebraska fans, and also talks about never being as good or as bad as you are portrayed by fans and the media, and to get better the next day than you were before. That’s about the best way you can handle it. And again, just remember that everyone wants what you want.
I will say that even tho this gets thrown around a lot, it does feel different down there. The kids are hungry to be better, a staff came in that has proven they are successful, and everything from practices to weight room is structured much differently. This staff will have a much easier time telling these kids how they want things done, why they make them practice the way they do, why they do things off the field the way they do. Taking a step back, is it really hard to acknowledge why Riley and their staff had trouble getting buy in? We fired a 9 win coach, brought in a guy that went 2-7 in his own conference, and then that staff had to tell the kids “you need to do things differently, here is what we did.” It just wasn’t going to work psychologically for 18-22 year old kids. Now, Nebraska is coming off a 4-8 season and brought in the National Coach of the Year that took a team from 0-12 to 13-0 in 2 years, capping that off beating a team in the Peach Bowl that beat the tar out of Alabama and Georgia. If the kid doesn’t want to listen to why he should do things differently, GTFO. We are getting more kids reps than ever, most of the time, 44 kids are getting reps at the same time to develop depth. There’s not a lot of stopping and coaching during these, they coach in the film room. Our coaches talk about “we’ve seen it and repped it dozens of times by the time it happens on Saturday.” I’ve had the pleasure at being to 2 or 3 practices and I’ll give my run down. I’ll try to remain more positive than negative here, and keep the glass is half-full mentality.
OFFENSE INTRODUCTION:
We will start with the flash and what UCF/Frost were known for. Careful here, as the first year down in Orlando, the defense is what carried the team. Watching Noah Vedral at practice is something that gets you excited, and not just when plays are going. He sprints from station to station and rarely looks tired, at one point in a practice I saw him 10 yards ahead of the offense, look back and start back pedaling encouraging everyone to get there. What’s going to happen when it’s a team full of guys like that that know what’s expected of them? The offense is built on a successive play theory. Where we may see things ran a couple times with no success, we are setting up a play later down the line. Here’s an example of that that UCF doesn’t hit against Auburn. They ran the short route a bunch, then faked the short route and tried to get their guy deep:
The offense is designed to create one on one matchups where our skill guys can beat people with speed like the video above. The spring game will look much different than you have seen and it will be fast. It’s going to be exciting. Let’s dive into the positions.
RUNNINGBACK:
Let’s start with the one I’m most excited about. We will have an embarrassment of riches here, and this offense makes it so I can’t tell who is good and who isn’t. What I mean is, Frost stresses the defense so much that Ozigbo (who has slimmed down some) is ripping off 30/40 yard runs in practice. Bradley would be my pick on who looks the best while playing 11 v 11, he is elusive and quick. Wilbon has had some solid days as well (he’s packed on a ton of good weight too). Bell if you watch 7 v 7 or individual drills is the guy you say “woah, who is that”, but for me he hasn’t shown what he’s capable of yet in practice when the bullets are flying in scrimmages. Could be adjusting to college, could be adjusting to a new offense, could be his line isn’t performing as well as the other guys’. But I would give him the benefit of the doubt as well. And what gets scary is our RB room doesn’t get any worse this summer. In will come Washington, Jones, Woodyard, it’s going to get real dangerous in a hurry. This position won’t be an issue, and we will have multiple long touchdown runs that will be exciting for the people in the stands who say “just think when we get our guys in here.” The only downside here is Tre Bryant and his injury, I just am not very optimistic.
QUARTERBACK:
This is one of the positions that gives me some pause for thinking we can get to 9/10 wins this year. We are choosing between a kid that wouldn’t have got offered if Frost was the coach, a true freshman, or a walk-on JUCO to man the offense for 2018. Throw on top a new offense that goes as fast as possible, and it’s a challenge. It is amazing to see how much different our offense looks with Vedral at the helm, he makes others better with his knowledge of the offense and knowing what defensive player we are trying to put in conflict. If Vedral gets his waiver, I’ll feel better about things, but until then, we are probably rolling with Gebbia. Gebbia is much faster than people give him credit for, and he will be good in this offense. It’s just new and besides learning a new offense, he will be starting Division 1 football for the first time. That’s a lot to ask. Martinez is my dark horse who IN MY OPINION is sitting 3rd string right now. He has the highest ceiling but you can tell he’s not 100% healthy yet. Bunch is a guy that will show some real good things as well, so he’s at least an option for us. There’s just a lot to learn with this offense, you go fast to get the defense out of whack and make mistakes. The issue is, our signal caller can have that happen to them just as easily. Frost will get us in situations to win, our quarterback has to make the right decisions. We will get there, and this position will get better week to week. But you can tell we just aren’t there yet. The good news is, it was practice 2 and 10 (or whatever it was) that I saw, so who expects them to be where they need to? There will be some growing pains tho. What’s interesting is that all of those “awkward” throws that we watched Milton make for UCF, our QB coach teaches some of that stuff. There’s a ton of things that are for the most part frowned upon in the coaching/football community that we are teaching. It’s pretty cool actually to watch, because a guy like Vedral who has been working it so long looks great at it. We rep throwing late across the middle. Crazy times that I’m all for if it reverses our lack of conference title trend.
WIDE RECEIVER:
Should be pretty good here too, just like runningback… Spielman, Lindsey, they will be studs in this offense. The jet sweep they will run is really going to stress things laterally for the defense, so that if they don’t cheat to catch up to them on the edge, they aren’t going to get there. Once that starts happening, we will hit them up the middle with a zone read. Morgan and McQuitty are going to be reliable catching the football for us, Morgan is poised for a big year when Gebbia reverts to his comfort zone. And McGriff who enrolled this spring is a massive wide receiver, crazy to think how much trouble our last staff had recruiting big body WRs. We still went and got a little jitter bug WR in Williams who is “swimming in it” a little but working his tail off and made a few plays while I was there. And the unit gets deeper in a hurry with Dominick Watt (four star), Andre Hunt (USC decommit), and obviously some of the RBs that will split out. The key will be getting on the same page and perimeter blocking. I don’t have a ton here because we do have a ton of miscommunication early on, but I promise our staff is excited about what we have. There’s just a bit of depth issue. There’s a few times where Vedral would launch a fade and our receiver would break it off, or vice versa. Is it a read route we aren’t on the same page with? Is it miscommunication with the signals? That’s all stuff that will look drastically different after the summer, so I don’t read too much into that.
TIGHTEND:
This is the other position on offense besides QB that we need to find someone. We have a bunch of serviceable dudes, but no one that’s going to wow in 2018 (currently). Rafdal got better from the first practice I went to to the next. Stoll looks to be getting better. Jurgens should be an immediate player if they are having trouble getting Snyder or Engelhaupt going. I’m actually surprised we didn’t move Miles here, because he doesn’t really have a spot in the backfield and he could probably help here. Watch that situation I suppose. But TE is a big weapon for Frost when he has his guys. Who steps up to make that happen? I see people at other positions that make me say “he can help”, I struggle at TE. But that could be due to not knowing who or what I’m looking for. This offense I have yet to see in Husker Red, so maybe we do have who Frost wants there.
OFFENSIVE LINE:
So here’s the thing, we are better than what they had at UCF, but we aren’t as good as we want right now. Jaimes and Farniok will be good, but will they be good soon enough in 2018? Foster looks to be what his offers indicate, and he is poised to be the best of the group for 2018 in my opinion. We need that from him. But we have to find our healthy center, and unfortunately I still think Farmer either gets communication wrong a lot, or gets confused easily. Boe Wilson is certainly someone to watch. Little Farniok is a bit small but in this offense may not be the worst thing. Barnett has redistributed his weight and looks better, but is he ready? Gaylord doing better but is he getting more looks because of lack of tackle depth? Hunter Miller getting every opportunity while Michael Decker is out. I think we will take our lumps here, but with our ability to get to the outside with our faster backs and WRs, it may not be as paramount. I would say this position is still an issue, but our offensive philosophy could cover up some of our deficiencies. Our numbers at this position made it so we really couldn’t recruit to it this year. We will try to bring in some more athletic guys this year, but the ones we brought in like Jaimes, Sichterman, Farniok, etc., they are athletic for this offense. The good thing is we went heavy on tackles for the 2017 class which tends to be more athletic guys. Austin will do a nice job here.
