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Huskerthom

Huskerthom

All Big 10
10 Year Member
What would Tom Osborne Do in today's game. Many people believe that TO ran a very bland offense. The fact is that he actually was always tweaking and changing it. Towards the end you could start to see the beginnings of a spread like offense. He was still running an option but had multiple wide-outs etc. So my question is this. What do you think TOs offense would have looked like in the mid 2000s and early 2010s if he did not retire? I think it might have been more like what SF runs now than what he ran back then. I do not believe the percentage of passes would be as high as it is today. It would be higher than what it was back then.

Discuss...
 

When Osborne ran Tommy Frazier's empty backfield QB Draw, it looked a heck of a lot like Scott Frost using Adrian Martinez in an empty backfield QB draw, except that Martinez was in shotgun. The Art Briles/Kendall Briles offense (Veer & Shoot) relies heavily on a veer option look out of a shotgun formation; I can't imagine that Osborne wouldn't have run something similar when/if he used more shotgun formations. He (and later Solich) were already running some inverted option out of shotgun with a forward shuffle pass to the RB instead of a backwards pitch.

The nebulus of almost all of the things that have happened in football offense since Osborne retired can be found somewhere in the Osborne repertoire during at least some period of his coaching career. I forgot how many quick out passes Turner Gill and Steve Taylor threw until I started watching old games on YouTube. Osborne needed a QB who was smart, athletic, tough, and who could throw that pass: how is that any different from what Verduzco and Frost want in a QB today?
 



I think he would do what he's always done. He would consider things like: the weather in Lincoln/midwest during football season...being complicated while using the same basic plays...out-conditioning everyone else...making the right adjustments during the game. Where "he" changed most was getting more speed on defense.

Thanks for having me.
 
ColombianHusker said:
TO would have ran the damn ball. Not kidding. He was revolutionary. Legend.....wait for it....dary

Seriously he was ahead of all of these so called innovative coaches.
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Don't forget that he was a passing guru first. NFL coaches were showing up for spring ball to study his early 70s offenses.

Huskerthom said:
Actually many of them give him credit. I recall an interview with Urb where he gave TO credit for a lot of what he did running the ball. Concept wise.
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The key play in the OSU win over Oregon in the 2014-15 CFP Championship game was a spread version of Osborne's Counter Trey. As I was watching it live, I felt so conflicted: it was a beautiful adaptation of an Osborne classic ... but it was being run by Urban Meyer and OSU.

Norm Chow also credited Osborne for the same play when USC ran it under Pete Carroll. Joe Gibbs and the Redskins did the same. Although Husker fans usually think of the option or an Iso or a Fullback Trap as quintessential Osborne, most OCs would think of the Counter Trey.
 
Wisker said:
I think he would do what he's always done. He would consider things like: the weather in Lincoln/midwest during football season...being complicated while using the same basic plays...out-conditioning everyone else...making the right adjustments during the game. Where "he" changed most was getting more speed on defense.

Thanks for having me.
Click to expand...
Welcome to HMax!
 
Tom and his staff have forgotten more about building a team through the O and D lines, than most coaches will even guess at. If Tom would have stayed in football, as a coach, my guess is that football would look different than it does today.
 




Middle-aged_Ball_Coach said:
Don't forget that he was a passing guru first. NFL coaches were showing up for spring ball to study his early 70s offenses.


The key play in the OSU win over Oregon in the 2014-15 CFP Championship game was a spread version of Osborne's Counter Trey. As I was watching it live, I felt so conflicted: it was a beautiful adaptation of an Osborne classic ... but it was being run by Urban Meyer and OSU.

Norm Chow also credited Osborne for the same play when USC ran it under Pete Carroll. Joe Gibbs and the Redskins did the same. Although Husker fans usually think of the option or an Iso or a Fullback Trap as quintessential Osborne, most OCs would think of the Counter Trey.
Click to expand...
I still remember when Gibbs revealed he had copied the play from TO. It was either right before or after one of his SuperBowl wins. Someone asked him how he came up with the Counter Trey. His answer was something like, "I didn't come up with anything. You need to talk to Tom Osborne." He so matter of factually ensured that TO got the credit. At the time Gibbs was the biggest name in the NFL.
 
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